MAJOR GLOBAL EVENTS OF 2015
JANUARY
7 - Two masked gunmen storm the offices of French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo and kill 12 people, including the editor, cartoonists and two policemen; five are wounded
FEBRUARY
4 - The wing of a TransAsia jet hits a bridge, causing it to crash into a river in the Taiwan capital, killing 31 and injuring 15
14 - Gunman Omar Abdel Hamid El-Hussein shoots into a cafe in Copenhagen and kills two people, and a day later shoots and kills a man outside a synagogue
27 - Russian opposition leader Boris Nemtsov is assassinated on a Moscow street close to the Kremlin
MARCH
14 - Cyclone Pam hits Vanuatu, killing 11, but forces thousands to seek shelter and destroys 96 per cent of food crops
18 - Two gunmen open fire in the National Bardo Museum in the Tunisian capital, killing 20
23 - Singapore's first prime minister, Lee Kuan Yew, dies at age 91
24 - A Germanwings jet crashes in the French Alps during a flight from Barcelona to Dusseldorf after the co-pilot, 28-year-old German Audreas Lubitz, locks the pilot out of the cockpit and deliberately sends the plane into a steep dive; all 144 passengers and six crew are killed
APRIL
19 - A boat capsizes in the Mediterranean, killing hundreds of illegal migrants making the crossing from Turkey to Greece
25 - A magnitude 7.8 earthquake hits Nepal, killing nearly 4000 people; it also causes an avalanche on Mount Everest, killing 17
MAY
2 - Princess Charlotte, the second child of Prince William and wife Kate, is born
8 - David Cameron and the Tories win a second five-year term with a resounding majority; Labour leader Ed Miliband and Liberal Democrats leader Nick Clegg step down after their parties take a drubbing
12 - A second magnitude 7.8 earthquake hits Nepal in almost the same area, killing 40 and injuring 1000
22 - Catholic-majority Ireland legalises same-sex marriage in a national referendum
JUNE
1 - Chinese cruise ship Oriental Star capsizes in the Yangtze River; only 14 survive out of the 456 people on board
2 - A heatwave in India kills more than 2000 people
2 - US Congress ends the National Security Agency's mass collection of phone records of Americans
4 - About 4 million US federal employees have their details hacked, with Washington saying the breach was traced to China
17 - White supremacist Dylann Roof opens fire in a Charleston, South Carolina, church killing nine
24 - Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is sentenced to death
26 - Gunman Seifeddine Rezgu, 23, fires on holiday-makers at a beach resort in Tunisia, killing 38
29 - Greece misses a key debt repayment deadline to the IMF
JULY
1 - US and Cuba agree to open embassies in each other's country, ending 50 years of detente
5 - A majority of Greeks vote against budget cuts proposed by the country's creditors in a national referendum
14 - Iran and the West reach a historic nuclear deal
14 - NASA's New Horizons spacecraft flies past Pluto, sending home first images of the planet and its big moon
AUGUST
12 - A huge explosion rocks a chemicals warehouse in the port of Tianjin in China, killing 114 people; about 70 remain missing, including 64 firemen
17 - A bomb explodes at Bangkok's Erawan Shrine, killing 20 and injuring 123 others
20 - Greek PM Tsipras resigns with an election planned for September 20
21 - Three Americans and a Briton stop Moroccan national Ayob El Khazzani, 25, from opening fire on passengers with a machine gun on the high-speed Thalys train travelling from Amsterdam to Paris via Brussels
SEPTEMBER
10 - Scientists identify a new member of the human family tree called Homo naledi, based on fossils found in a South African cave
16 - A massive 8.3 magnitude earthquake hits Chile; while only five are killed, a million are forced to evacuate their homes
20 - Tsipras is returned as Greek PM
23 - Hundreds of pilgrims are killed or injured during a stampede near Mecca in Saudi Arabia during the hajj
28 - The Taliban temporarily overruns the city of Kunduz in northern Afghanistan
30 - Russia begins air strikes in Syria in support of President Bashar al-Assad's regime
OCTOBER
1 - Gunman Chris Mercer, 26, opens fire in Umpqua Community College in Oregon, killing nine and wounding seven
2 - A mudslide kills 131 people in Guatemala
3 - A US air strike hits a hospital run by medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres in Kunduz, Afghanistan, killing 12 medical personnel and seven patients
10 - Explosions kill about 100 people in the Turkish capital Ankara during a peace rally
19 - Justin Trudeau and his Liberal Party win Canada's parliamentary election, 47 years after his father held the office of prime minister
26 - A 7.5 magnitude hits Afghanistan and the surrounding countries, killing 364 people, most of them in Pakistan
29 - China ends its one-child policy
31 - A Russian passenger jet is blown out of the sky in Egypt 20 minutes after take-off, with an Islamic State-affiliated group claiming responsibility for killing all 224 people on board
NOVEMBER
8 - Myanmar's opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi and her NLD party win the country's general election in a landslide
8 - Chinese President Xi Jinping and Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou hold the first meeting since the two countries split 66 years ago
13 - Multiple gun attacks and suicide bombings kill 130 people across Paris in an spree claimed by IS
16 - US joins France in air strikes on IS in Syria
20 - Jihadists kill 27 people in the Radisson Blu hotel in Bamako, Mali, after holding 170 people hostage
24 - Turkey shoots down a Russian warplane over Syria, claiming it strayed into its territory, which Russia denies; the pilot and a rescue helicopter pilot are killed, with Russian President Vladimir Putin vowing retribution on Turkey
30 - World leaders gather in Paris for historic climate change talks
DECEMBER
2 - Muslim couple Syed Rizwan Farook and his wife Tashfeen Malik open fire on his work colleagues at a holiday party in San Bernardino, California, killing 14 people and wounding more than 20
12 - A historic climate change agreement is adopted by 195 countries to slow the pace of global warming well below 2C.
