| January 4 | Ehud Olmert becomes Prime Minister of Israel after Ariel Sharon suffers a stroke |
| January 11 | Alaska's Augustine volcano erupts |
| January 15 | Stardust space mission returns dust from a comet to earth |
| January 23 | Stephen Harper, wins the election in Canada and is the first conservative Prime Minister in 12 years |
| January 31 | Samuel Alito sworn in as Associate Justice of the Supreme Court |
| February 1 | United Airlines emerges from bankruptcy |
| February 5 | Super Bowl XL: Steelers defeat the Seahawks 21-10 |
| February 7 | Egyptian ferry, Al Salam Boccaccio, sinks killing over 1200 people in the Red Sea |
| February 10 | 2006 Winter Olympics opening ceremony in Turin, Italy |
| February 11 | Dick Cheney accidentally shoots friend in a hunting accident |
| February 22 | Al-Askari Mosque is bombed, setting off protests and violence across Iraq |
| February 22 | Apple's iTunes store sells it's 1 billionth song |
| March 10 | Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter enters Mars orbit |
| March 11 | Slobodan Milosevic found dead in cell in the Hague |
| March 22 | ETA terrorist group declares ceasefire against Spain |
| March 26 | Smoking is banned in restaurants and bars in Scotland |
| April 19 | Han Myung-sook elected Prime Minister of South Korea |
| May 27 | Java, Indonesia suffers a 6.3 magnitue earthquake, killing more than 6,000 |
| June 3 | 17 Islamic men are arrested in a plot to bomb targets in Toronto |
| June 6 | Union of Islamic Courts takes over Mogadishu, Somalia |
| June 7 | Terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is killed by U.S. forces in Iraq |
| June 25 | Warren Buffett donates $30 billion to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation |
| July 9 | Italy wins the World Cup 5-3 vs. France |
| July 12 | Israel invades Lebanon in response to Hezbollah's kidnapping of Israeli soldiers |
| August 14 | U.N. cease fire takes effect in Lebanon |
| August 24 | Pluto is demoted to a 'dwarf planet' |
| September 3 | Andre Agassi retires after winning 60 career titles |
| September 12 | Pope Benedict XVI quotes a criticism of the Islamic faith leading to mass protests |
| September 26 | Japan elects Shinzo Abe as new Prime Minister of Japan |
| October 4 | Dow closes above 11,800 for the first time |
| October 9 | North Korea conducts first atomic weapons test |
| October 10 | Google buys YouTube.com for $1.6 billion |
| October 13 | Ban Ki-moon is elected to be U.N. Secretary-General |
| October 17 | United States population reaches 300 million people |
| October 19 | Dow closes above 12,000 for the first time |
| October 31 | Bob Barker, from The Price is Right, retires after 35 years as host |
| November 5 | Saddam Hussein sentenced to death by hanging by an Iraqi court |
| November 8 | Donald Rumsfeld resigns as U.S. Secretary of Defense |
| November 15 | Al Jazeera launches Al Jazeera English |
| December 3 | Hugo Chavez, leftist dictator, is re-elected President of Venezuela |
| December 29 | Ethiopian troops eject the Islamic forces from Mogadishu, Somalia |
| December 30 | Saddam Hussein is hanged in Baghdad |
BrainyHistory
