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General Abdel Aziz sworn in as President of Mauritania.
'Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince' movie by J.K. Rowling was released.
Greenland assumes self-rule.
NASA launched the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, the first American lunar mission in ten years.
Two American journalists were sentenced to 12 years of penal labor after illegally entering North Korea.
Air France flight 447 crashes into the Atlantic.
General Motors filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
The Sri Lankan Civil War ends.
Justin Bieber made his first tweet at 8:27 pm, promoting his single 'One Time.'
NASA's Atlantis Space Shuttle launched on the final mission to service the Hubble Space Telescope.
Same-sex marriage was legalized in Sweden.
The Zimbabwean dollar was suspended indefinitely.
The American sitcom 'Parks and Recreation' debuted on NBC.
Texas movie fans were surprised with a special premiere viewing of that year's Star Trek movie.
North Korea performed a controversial intercontinental ballistic missile test.
North Korea launched the infamous Kwangmyŏngsŏng-2 satellite.
The strain of swine flu known as H1N1 had its first case in the US.
NASA's Discovery Space Shuttle launched from the Kennedy Space Center on mission STS-119.
Brazilian soccer athlete Neymar da Silva Santos Jr. started his professional career at just 17 years old.
Paul Harvey, the news commentator and talk-radio pioneer, died in Arizona at the age of 90.
Queen Elizabeth II knighted English fantasy author Terry Pratchett.
At exactly 23:31:30 (UTC), Unix time passed 1,234,567,890.
Two satellites collide in space.
R&B superstar Rihanna was assaulted by Chris Brown, her boyfriend at the time.
173 people died in Victoria, Australia, during the Black Saturday bushfires.
RuPaul's Drag Race season 1 debuted on Logo TV.
Adrian Hidalgo set the world record for spinning a diabolo around his leg 117 times in 1 minute.
The USA's first African-American President, Barack Obama, conducted his first address.
US Airways Flight 1549 landed on the Hudson River, NYC.
The cryptocurrency 'Bitcoin' was created, providing a new digital currency.
Billionaire conman Bernard Madoff arrested.
Former NFL star O.J. Simpson was sentenced to 33 years in prison for kidnapping and armed robbery.
YouTube Live had the largest viewed broadcast ever, with guest artists performing from San Francisco and Tokyo.
NASA declared the conclusion of the Phoenix mission after contact was lost with the Phoenix lander.
Barack Obama became the first African American to win a United States Presidential Election.
Delta Air Lines merged with Northwest.
The James Bond spy movie 'Quantum of Solace' with Daniel Craig premiered in London.
India's first unmanned lunar mission, Chandrayaan-1, was launched.
Google Play was launched.
NASA launched its IBEX satellite from the Stargazer mother ship launch pad above the Marshall Islands.
Iran attempted to create the world's largest sandwich at 1,500 meters long but failed due to a crowd eating it before it was measured.
Swedish music streaming service Spotify was launched by Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon.
SpaceX Launches 1st Private Spacecraft.
Zhai Zhigang became the first person from China to perform a spacewalk while on the Shenzhou 7 mission.
China launches Shenzhou spacecraft with 3 astronauts.
Lehman Brothers file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
CERN Large Hadron Collider is powered up.
Google launched Google Chrome, its own cross-platform web browser.
Danny Boyle and Loveleen Tandan's Slumdog Millionaire premiered at Colorado’s Telluride Film Festival.
American swimmer Michael Phelps became the first person to win eight gold medals at one Olympic Games.
