| January 9 | Mahmoud Abbas is elected as Palestinian Authority President |
| January 12 | Deep Impact spacecraft is launched from Cape Canaveral |
| January 14 | The Huygens probe lands on Saturn's moon Titan |
| January 16 | Adriana Iliescu becomes the oldest woman in the world to give birth at 66 |
| January 16 | George W. Bush is inaugurated for his second term as President of the United States |
| January 30 | Parliamentary elections in Iraq, the first since 1958 |
| February 6 | Super Bowl XXXIX, the New England Patriots win 24-21 over the Philadelphia Eagles |
| February 10 | North Korea announces that it has nuclear weapons |
| February 25 | Radio Canada International celebrates its 60th anniversary |
| March 1 | The Supreme Court rules the death penalty unconstitutional for people who committed crimes before age 18 |
| March 3 | Garry Kasparov retires professionally from chess |
| March 3 | Steve Fossett flys the Virgin Atlantic GlobalFlyer to a world record by completing the first non-stop, non-refueled, solo flight around the world |
| March 20 | Magnitude 7 earthquake strikes west of Kyushu Island, Japan |
| March 28 | Sumatran earthquake with a magnitude of 8.7, the second largest earthquake since 1965 |
| April 4 | NCAA Men's Basketball Championship: North Carolina defeats Illinois 75-70 |
| April 9 | Prince Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles are married |
| April 19 | Pope Benedict XVI, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, becomes the 265th pope |
| April 20 | Fukuoka Prefecture, Japan suffers a 5.8 magnitude earthquake |
| April 26 | Syria withdraws troops from Lebanon, ending its 29 year military occupation |
| April 27 | Airbus A380 makes its first flight from Toulouse, France |
| May 7 | The Huffington Post weblog makes it's debut |
| May 13 | Star Trek: Enterprise broadcasts it's final show in the U.S. |
| May 16 | Sony's PlayStation 3 makes it's debut at the E3 trade show |
| May 19 | Revenge of the Sith (Star Wars III) is released |
| May 29 | French reject a referendum on the E.U. constitution |
| May 31 | Watergate figure Deep Throat is revealed to be W. Mark Felt a former F.B.I agent |
| June 1 | Dutch reject a referendum on the E.U. constitution |
| June 6 | Apple Computer announces they will switch to Intel processors in 2006 |
| June 30 | Spain becomes the 3rd country to permit same-sex marriage |
| July 6 | London is declared the host city for the 2012 Summer Olympics |
| July 7 | London's transit system is bombed by terrorists, 56 deaths, 700 injured |
| July 10 | Luxembourg accepts a referendum on the E.U. constitution |
| July 16 | 6th Harry Potter book by J. K. Rowling is released: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince |
| July 19 | John G. Roberts, Jr. is nominated to the United States Supreme Court |
| July 20 | Canada becomes the 4th country to permit same-sex marriage |
| July 24 | Lance Armstrong retires after winning his 7th straight Tours de France |
| July 26 | Shuttle Discovery STS-114 launches, first flight since Columbia disaster |
| July 28 | IRA issues a statement ordering the end to the armed campaign against the British |
| August 1 | King Fahd of Saudi Arabia dies and is succeeded by Prince Abdullah |
| August 12 | Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter launches |
| August 18 | Dennis Rader, the BTK killer, receives 10 consecutive life sentences |
| August 29 | Hurricane Katrina causes sever damage to the Gulf Coast killing 1836 |
| September 5 | John G. Roberts is nominated for Chief Justice of the Supreme Court |
| September 12 | Hong Kong Disneyland opens |
| September 29 | John G. Roberts is confirmed as the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court |
| October 7 | Mohamed ElBaradei received the Nobel Peace Prize for his work with the IAEA |
| October 8 | Earthquake in Kashmir kills approximately 80,000 people |
| October 15 | Qinghai-Tibet Railway is completed in China |
| October 19 | Saddam Hussein's trial begins in Iraq |
| October 31 | Samuel Alito is nominated for the Supreme Court by George W. Bush |
| November 22 | Ted Koppel's last show as host of Nightline |
| November 22 | XBox 360 video game is released by Microsoft |
| November 30 | First human face transplant is performed in France |
| December 1 | South Africa is the 5th country to recognize same-sex marriages |
| December 18 | Bolivia elects leftist Evo Morales president |
| December 20 | New York City union members shut down subway and bus services for 3 days |
