2020s – Wikipedia

Current decade of the Gregorian calendar (2020–2029)

The 2020s (pronounced “twenty-twenties” shortened to “the ’20s” and referred to as the twenties)^[1][2] is the current decade, which began on January 1, 2020, and will end on December 31, 2029.

The 2020s began with the COVID-19 pandemic — the first reports of the virus were published on December 31, 2019, though the first cases are said to have appeared nearly a month earlier^[3] — which caused a global economic recession as well as continuing financial inflation concerns and a global supply chain crisis.

Several anti-government demonstrations and revolts occurred in the late 2010s and early 2020s which world leaders have called it an “angry decade”, including a continuation of those in Hong Kong against extradition legislation; protests against certain local, state and national responses to the COVID-19 pandemic; others around the world, particularly in the United States against racism and police brutality; one in India against agriculture and farming acts; one in Israel against judicial reforms; another in Indonesia against the omnibus law on jobs; ongoing protests and strikes in France against pension reform; an ongoing political crisis in Peru, Armenia, and Thailand; and many in Belarus, Eswatini, Myanmar, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Iran, China, and Russia against various forms of governmental jurisdiction, corruption and authoritarianism; along with citizen riots in the United States and Brazil in an attempt to overturn election results.

Ongoing military conflicts include the Myanmar civil war, the Ethiopian civil conflict, the Kivu conflict, the Mali war, the Yemeni civil war, the Somali civil war, the Syrian civil war, and the Russo-Ukrainian War. The latter concluded with the Russian invasion of Ukraine, making it the largest conventional military offensive in Europe since World War II, and resulting in a refugee crisis, disruptions to global trade, and an exacerbation of economic inflation. Smaller conflicts include the insurgency in the Maghreb, the Iraq insurgency, the Philippine drug war, and the Mexican drug war. The year 2021 saw the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan and the fall of Kabul to the Taliban, ending twenty years of war in that country, and leading to the republican loyalist uprising against the new emirate government.

With many extreme weather events worsening in the early 2020s, several world leaders have called it the “decisive decade” for climate action as ecological crises continue to escalate.^[4][5] In February 2023, a series of powerful earthquakes killed at least 57,000 people in Turkey and Syria; this event fell within the top ten deadliest earthquakes of the 21st century.

Technological advances and changes on technology from the past decades have been made and used, benefitting many, such as the use of teleconferencing, online learning, streaming services, e-commerce and food delivery services to compensate for lockdown orders. 5G networks have launched around the globe at the start of the decade as well, and became prevalent in smartphones. Significant improvements in the complexity of artificial intelligence have occurred with artificial intelligence art and chatbots becoming more accessible and mainstream. The private space race also greatly accelerated in the 2020s, as did government-funded space projects such as the James Webb Space Telescope and Ingenuity helicopter.

During this decade, on November 15th, 2022, the world population grew to over 8 billion people.^[6]

Politics and wars[edit]

Major conflicts[edit]

The prominent wars of the decade include:

International wars[edit]

Name	Start date	End date	Description
Israeli–Palestinian conflict	14 May 1948	Ongoing	The conflict between Jewish and Arab communities in Israel and the West Bank has been ongoing since 1948.[7] After Israel took control of the West Bank, it began making settlements there, which led to heightened clashes to this day.[8]
Kurdish-Turkish conflict	27 November 1978	Ongoing	Numerous Kurdish groups, including the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (the PKK) have fought for an independent Kurdistan incorporating parts of Turkey. In 2016, Turkey occupied parts of Northern Syria and in 2019, invaded Kurdish-held areas of Northern Syria. In 2020, Turkey launched an insurgency in Iraqi Kurdistan.
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict	February 1988 27 September 2020 12 May 2021	Ongoing	The region of Karabakh has been disputed over the Republic of Artsakh, which is supported by the Armenian government. A ceasefire was held in 1994. In July 2020, a series of border skirmishes left at least 15 dead. From 27 September until 10 November 2020, a second war broke out in the region.
War on terror	11 September 2001 7 October 2001 20 March 2003	Ongoing	Motivated by the September 11 attacks, the United States and other governments started a large scale effort to eliminate terrorism.[9] With support from NATO, the United States invaded Taliban-controlled Afghanistan and overthrew the government, however remained in the country to stabilise the situation.[10] Two years later, on the pretext that the government of Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction,[11] the United States and a coalition of partners invaded Iraq and overthrew Hussein’s regime,[12] after which the U.S. occupied the country, officially leaving in 2011.[13] However, insurgencies remained active in both countries, long after the invasions.[14]
Kivu conflict	2 June 2004	Ongoing	The Kivu conflict began in 2004 in the eastern Congo as an armed conflict between the military of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (FARDC) and the Hutu Power group Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It has broadly consisted of three phases, the third of which is an ongoing conflict.
Russo-Ukrainian War	20 February 2014	Ongoing	Hostilities between the Ukrainian government and Russia-backed separatist forces in Eastern Ukraine have been ongoing since the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014. In 2021 and early 2022, tensions escalated between the two countries due to a build up of Russian troops on the Ukrainian border. Russia launched a full invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
War against the Islamic State	13 June 2014	Ongoing	In late-2013, a terrorist organisation called the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant began making rapid advances and territorial gains in Iraq and Syria. It captured Mosul in June[15] and made Raqqa its capital.[16] Various international coalitions were formed to help fight the militants.[17][18] By December 2017, ISIL had lost much of its former territory.
Saudi Arabian–led intervention in Yemen	26 March 2015	Ongoing	During the Yemeni civil war, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and other countries part of a coalition invaded parts of Yemen in order to depose the Houthi-controlled government.
Turkish occupation of northern Syria	24 August 2016	Ongoing	During the Syrian civil war, Turkey invaded parts of northern Syria in order to combat the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, Syrian Democratic Forces, and the PKK.

Civil wars[edit]

Name	Start date	End date	Description
Internal conflict in Myanmar	2 April 1948	Ongoing	Myanmar’s long-running insurgencies escalated significantly into a major civil war in 2021 following the 2021 military coup and the subsequent brutal crackdown on the anti-coup protests.
War in Darfur	26 February 2003	31 August 2020	A peace agreement was signed on 31 August 2020 between the Sudanese authorities and several rebel factions to end armed hostilities.
Mexican drug war	11 December 2006	Ongoing	Following a rise in criminal violence as a result of drug trafficking in the country, Mexican President Felipe Calderón declared a war on drugs in December 2006.[19] Since the start of the war, the death toll from drug violence had sharply increased.[20] Arrests of key cartel leaders led to increasing violence as cartels fought for control of trafficking routes into the United States.[21][22][23]
War in Somalia	31 January 2009	Ongoing	In 2009, Al-Shabaab, an Islamist militant group, began waging an insurgency against the newly formed Transitional Federal Government. In 2011, the federal government captured Mogadishu[24] and subsequently retook several towns across the country.[25] Since then, the government has attempted to clean out the remaining Al-Shabaab strongholds with help from AMISOM soldiers.[26]
Mali War	16 January 2012	Ongoing	In January 2012, a rebellion by Tuaregs in Northern Mali began. After Malian president Amadou Toumani Touré was ousted in a coup d’état, Tuaregs captured Northern Mali,[27] and declared it to be the independent state of Azawad.[28] However, shortly afterward, various Islamist groups took over Northern Mali from the Tuaregs and imposed sharia law on the region.[29]
South Sudanese Civil War	15 December 2013	22 February 2020	On 22 February 2020, rivals Kiir and Machar struck a unity deal and formed a coalition government, after an estimated 400,000 deaths and more than 4 million people displaced by the war.
Second Libyan Civil War	16 May 2014	23 October 2020	Following the factional violence that engulfed Libya after the fall of Muammar al-Gaddafi, a second civil war broke out among rival factions seeking control of the territory and oil of Libya. The conflict at the beginning was mostly between the House of Representatives (HoR) government that was controversially elected in 2014, also known as the “Tobruk government”; and the rival General National Congress (GNC) government, also called the “National Salvation Government”, based in the capital Tripoli, established after Operation Odyssey Dawn and the failed military coup.
Yemeni civil war	16 September 2014	Ongoing	Preceded by a decade-long Houthi insurgency,[30] the Yemeni Civil War began between two factions: the then-incumbent Yemeni government, led by Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi, and the Houthi militia, along with their supporters and allies. Both claim to constitute the Yemeni government.[31]
Philippine drug war	30 June 2016	Ongoing	Following a rise in political and criminal violence as a result of drug trafficking in the country, the Philippines has been engaged in a drug war and escalating terrorism since Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte was inaugurated on 30 June 2016. It had caused more than 5,000 deaths and over 150,000 arrests by the beginning of the decade.[32][33]
Iraqi insurgency	9 December 2017	Ongoing	A part of the larger Iraqi conflict that has been waged since 2003, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant has been engaged in an insurgency against the Iraqi government and CJTF-OIR since the loss of territorial control in the Iraqi Civil War in 2017.
Ethiopian civil conflict	2 April 2018	Ongoing	After years of increased tensions between the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) and the Ethiopian and Eritrean governments, a full-scale war broke out in November 2020, that has killed an estimated 300,000-500,000 people as of March 2022.[34] On November 2, both the Ethiopian government and TPLF formally agreed to a cessation of hostilities and systematic, verifiable disarmament[35] though Tigrayan authorities allege that Ethiopia continued to launch attacks after the peace deal was signed[36][37]

Revolutions and major protests[edit]

Successful revolutions and otherwise major protests of the decade include, but are not limited to:

Event	Date	Country	Events	Ref.
Indonesia omnibus law protests	13 January – November 2020		Mass popular protests and riots against the deliberation and passage of the controversial Omnibus Law on Job Creation, which was passed on 5 October 2020. The wider policies of President Joko Widodo were also protested against, and resulted in the formation of the new Labour Party.	[38][39]
2020–2021 Belarusian protests	24 January 2020 – 25 March 2021		Mass popular protests and riots against the Belarusian government and President Alexander Lukashenko. The largest anti-government protests in the history of Belarus, the demonstrations began in the lead-up to and during the 2020 presidential election, in which Lukashenko sought his sixth term in office.	[40][41]
George Floyd protests	26 May 2020 – 26 May 2021		Protests and riots due to the murder of George Floyd spread throughout the United States with international protests in support. The stated goal was to end systemic racism and police brutality. Sporadic protests in response to racism and police brutality continued throughout the following years, while the street where Floyd was killed is still under control by protesters.	[42][43]
2020–2021 Thai protests	July 2020 – November 2021		Mass popular protests and riots against the government of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha, the dissolution of the Future Forward Party, changes to the constitution in 2017, and the country’s political landscape. Resulted in the detention of leading figures.	[44][45]
2020–2021 Indian farmers’ protest	9 August 2020 – 11 December 2021		Protests and riots against three farm acts that were passed by the Parliament of India in September 2020.	[46][47]
Third Kyrgyz Revolution	5 – 15 October 2020		On 5 October, protests began in Kyrgyzstan in response to the annulled parliamentary election, which protesters felt were unfair with allegations of vote-rigging. A day later, the parliamentary elections were annulled. 6 days later, on 12 October, president Sooronbay Jeenbekov announced a state of emergency. On 15 October, Jeenbekov finally resigned, making way for Sadyr Japarov, who was nominated by parliament on 14 October to be acting prime minister, as also acting president. Following the protests, Japarov was elected president on 10 January 2021, on the same day a referendum was held on the Kyrgyz government system, in which the Kyrgyz voted for a reintroduction of the presidential system. The new constitution, passed by the Supreme Council was approved by voters in another referendum on 11 April 2021. Finally, on 28 November 2021, new parliamentary elections took place.	[48][49]
2020–21 United States election protests	4 November 2020 – 11 April 2021		Protests began in multiple cities in the United States following the 2020 United States presidential election between then-President Donald Trump and Democratic challenger Vice President Joe Biden, held on November 3, 2020. On January 6, 2021, following the defeat of U.S. President Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election, a mob of his supporters attacked the United States Capitol Building in Washington, D.C.
2021 Brazilian protests	15 January – December 2021		President Bolsonaro’s government’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic culminated in mass popular protests and riots, with protests occurring in both support and opposition to the government and resulted in a failed impeachment attempt of Bolsonaro.	[50][51][52]
Myanmar protests (2021–present)	2 February 2021 – present		Protests triggered after the 2021 Myanmar coup d’état, during the ongoing internal conflict in Myanmar, and the Myanmar civil war.	[53][54]
2021–2023 Eswatini protests	20 June 2021 – present		A series of protests in Eswatini against the monarchy and for democratization began as a peaceful protest on 20 June, then escalated after 25 June into violence and looting over the weekend as the government took a hardline stance against the demonstrations and prohibited the delivery of petitions.	[55]
2021–2022 Iranian protests	15 July 2021 – present 6 May – June 2022 16 September 2022 – present		In 2021, protests broke out over a water shortage, electricity blackouts, and crackdowns on the Iranian Democracy Movement. The protests escalated in 2022 in response to a GST price hike on food and the death of Mahsa Amini, who was in police custody for not wearing a hijab.	[56][57]
2022 Kazakh unrest	2 – 11 January 2022		Protests erupt in Kazakhstan on 2 January 2022 after a sudden sharp increase in liquefied gas prices following the lifting of a government-enforced price cap on 1 January.	[58]
Canada convoy protest	22 January – 23 February 2022		A series of protests and blockades in Canada against COVID-19 mandates and restrictions, called the Freedom Convoy.	[59]
Protests against the Russian invasion of Ukraine	24 February 2022 – present		A series of protests and anti-war demonstrations held in Russia and worldwide against the Russian invasion of Ukraine and opposition to Vladimir Putin in Russia.	[60]
2022 Sri Lankan protests	15 March – 14 November 2022		Since 2019, Sri Lanka has been facing its worst economic crisis since its independence. The ongoing economic crisis culminated in mass popular protests and riots against the incumbent government and the Rajapaksa family, which eventually forced President Gotabaya Rajapaksa to flee the country and resign in July. Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe succeeded Rajapaksa as the President amidst the protests.	[61][62][63]
2022 Karakalpak protests	1 – 3 July 2022		Spurred by a draft of a new version of the Constitution of Uzbekistan, in which the word “sovereign” was removed from the description of the status of Karakalpakstan, and the mention of the republic’s right to secede from Uzbekistan was also removed. These were later withdrawn.	[64]
2022 Sierra Leone protests	10 – 12 August 2022		Thirty-one people, including 25 civilians and six police officers, died during violent protests and riots in the West African country of Sierra Leone. The protests were sparked by the nation’s cost-of-living crisis.	[65]
2022–23 Brazilian election protests	31 October 2022 – 9 January 2023		The 2022 Brazilian election protests began shortly after the conclusion of the 2022 Brazilian general election’s second round on October 30, in which Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was elected president. Supporters of Jair Bolsonaro, the outgoing incumbent president, started blocking roads and highways in the country. At least 23 Brazilian states, plus the Federal District, recorded roadblocks as of 1 November, adding up to at least 267 roadblocks according to data from Federal Highway Police (PRF). Dozens of Bolsonaro supporters storm the Three Powers Plaza in the capital Brasília, cause enormous damage. President Lula was not there, nor was Bolsonaro or members of Congress.	[66][67][68][69][70][71]
2022 COVID-19 protests in China	2 November – 5 December 2022		A series of protests against COVID-19 lockdowns began in mainland China on 15 November 2022. The protests began in response to measures taken by the Chinese government to prevent the spread of COVID-19 in the country, including implementing a zero-COVID policy. Discontentment towards the policy has grown since the beginning of the pandemic, which confined many people to their homes without work, leaving them unable to purchase daily necessities and subjecting them to harsh restrictions. Protests escalated on 24 November 2022 following a fire in an apartment building in Ürümqi which killed 10 people, with protesters blaming China’s policies for the deaths.	[72][73]
Peruvian protests (2022–present)	7 December 2022 – present		Protests erupted against the government of Dina Boluarte and the Congress of Peru called by supporters of the ousted president of Peru, Pedro Castillo, organized by social organizations and indigenous peoples who felt they experienced political disenfranchisement, specifically on the politically left-wing to far left.	[74][75][76][77]
2023 Israeli judicial reform protests	7 January 2023 – present		Mass protests, strikes and civil disobedience campaigns occurred across the country in response to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right wing government’s plan to overhaul the Israeli Judiciary system, which have been criticized for removing the checks and balances on the government and giving it unrestrained power.	[78][79][80]
2023 French pension reform strikes	19 January 2023 – present		A series of civil unrest incidents occurred in France in response to a pension reform bill proposed by the Borne government, which would increase the retirement age from 62 to 64 years old. Strikes and protests have led to widespread disruption, including garbage piling up in the streets and public transport cancellations. In March, the government used Article 49.3 of the constitution to force the bill through the French Parliament, sparking more protests and two failed no confidence votes.	[81][82]
2023 Georgian protests	6 – 10 March 2023		A series of street demonstrations taking place throughout Georgia over parliamentary backing of a proposed “Law on Transparency of Foreign Influence”, which requires NGOs to register as “agents of foreign influence” if the funds they receive from abroad amount to more than 20% of their total revenue. Police have been reported as using water cannons and tear gas to disperse the protests, especially in the capital Tbilisi. The parliament retracted the bill as a result of protests on 10 March 2023.	[83][84][85][86]

Nuclear proliferation[edit]

Terrorist attacks[edit]

Note: To be included, entries must be notable (have a stand-alone article) and described by a consensus of reliable sources as “terrorism”. They also must have 100 or more fatalities reported.

The most prominent terrorist attacks committed against civilian populations during the decade include, but are not limited to:

Political trends[edit]

Electoral trends[edit]

Having suffered decline in the years after the Great Recession, the centre-left politics and the 1990s political model (like progressivism, liberalism, social democracy, and third way policies) experienced a resurgence across Europe and the Anglosphere in the early 2020s, with New Statesman suggesting various causes, including natural shifts in the electoral cycle and conservatives’ unpopularity among university graduates and voters under the age of 40.^[93]

Deaths[edit]

Sitting leaders that died in office:

In 2020: Sheik Sabah al-Sabah, Sultan Qaboos bin Said,^[94] and Pierre Nkurunziza.

In 2021: Idriss Déby, John Magufuli, and Jovenel Moïse.

In 2022: Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan and Elizabeth II

Former world leaders who died:

In 2020: Hosni Mubarak,^[95]Valéry Giscard d’Estaing,^[96]John Turner, Daniel arap Moi, Pranab Mukherjee, Amadou Toumani Touré, Jerry Rawlings, Mamadou Tandja, Tabaré Vázquez, Javier Pérez de Cuéllar, Pierre Buyoya, John Cremona, Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdallahi, Kuniwo Nakamura, Litokwa Tomeing, Moussa Traoré, Pascal Lissouba, Branko Kostić, Lee Teng-hui, Benjamin Mkapa, Miloš Jakeš, Rafael Leonardo Callejas Romero, Abdul Halim Khaddam, Joachim Yhombi-Opango, Manuel Serifo Nhamadjo, Mike Moore, and Janez Stanovnik.

In 2021: Gustavo Noboa, Ali Mahdi Muhammad, Moudud Ahmed, Didier Ratsiraka, Bonfoh Abass, Mamnoon Hussain, Arturo Armando Molina, Hissène Habré, Jorge Sampaio, Abdelkader Bensalah, Kenneth Kaunda, Anerood Jugnauth, Abdelaziz Bouteflika, Enrique Bolaños, Roh Tae-woo, Chun Doo-hwan, Benigno Aquino III, Carlos Menem, F. W. de Klerk, James Fitz-Allen Mitchell, Norodom Ranariddh, Kinza Clodumar, and Karolos Papoulias.

In 2022: Toshiki Kaifu, Ernest Shonekan, Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta, Christos Sartzetakis, Amos Sawyer, Rupiah Banda, Karl Offmann, Shahabuddin Ahmed, Ayaz Mutallibov, Dušan Čkrebić, Mwai Kibaki, Leonid Kravchuk, Stanislav Shushkevich, Romeo Morri, Bujar Nishani, Evaristo Carvalho, Jacob Nena, Shinzo Abe, José Eduardo dos Santos, Luis Echeverría, Francisco Morales Bermúdez, Fidel V. Ramos, Mikhail Gorbachev, Balakh Sher Mazari, Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici, Jiang Zemin, Adolfas Šleževičius, Edgar Savisaar and Pope Benedict XVI.

In 2023: Abdelsalam Majali, Constantine II of Greece, Álvaro Colom, Sherif Ismail, Pervez Musharraf, Lubomír Štrougal, Ivan Silayev, Sergey Tereshchenko, Hans Modrow, Ahmed Qurei, Gérard Latortue, Pōhiva Tuʻiʻonetoa, Pascoal Mocumbi, Sir Rabbie Namaliu and Mudar Badran.

Prominent political events[edit]

Coups[edit]

Africa[edit]

Americas[edit]

Event	Country	Date	Description	References
First impeachment of Donald Trump		24 September 2019 – 5 February 2020	Under Article I, Section 3, Clause 6, of the U.S. Constitution, President Donald Trump was impeached for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress on 18 December 2019 by the United States House of Representatives. The United States Senate trial began on 16 January 2020 and ended on 5 February 2020, concluding with an acquittal on both charges.	[126]
2020 Salvadoran political crisis		9 February 2020	During a political crisis, Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele sent forty soldiers of the Salvadoran Army into the Legislative Assembly building in an effort to coerce politicians to approve a loan request of $109 million from the United States for Bukele’s security plan for the country. The event has been condemned by foreign governments, the political opposition, and human rights organizations and is considered the first major political crisis in the country since the conclusion of the Salvadoran Civil War in 1992 and has been referred to as a coup attempt.	[127]
2020 United States presidential election and subsequent events		3 November 2020 – 13 February 2021	The 59th United States presidential election was held on 3 November 2020. Democrat and former Vice-president Joe Biden defeated Republican and then-incumbent President Donald Trump, with the Electoral College formally declaring Biden the winner on 14 December 2020. Trump refused to concede, and filed lawsuits challenging the results in several states,[128] though most of the legal challenges were either dismissed or dropped, with judges citing lack of evidence to suggest voter fraud occurred. Trump had also unsuccessfully attempted to undo the election results by forcing government officials to stop Pennsylvania, Nevada, Arizona, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Georgia from certifying Biden as the winner, and urging his supporters to “walk” to the United States capitol to demand Trump be declared the winner of the election.[129] This was one of the reasons for the decision of a group of his supporters to gather in Washington, D.C on 6 January 2021 and break into the Capitol building during a Joint session of Congress. The January 6 United States Capitol attack disrupted Congress while certifying the election, forcing both chambers to undergo lockdown lasting for four hours. On the same day, Trump coerced then-incumbent Vice President Mike Pence to overturn the election results to which Pence refused. During the attack, Trump tweeted directly to his supporters falsely claiming Congress was attempting to assist in stealing the election. Twitter responded by suspending Trump’s account permanently following Trump’s tweet. Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and Snapchat all also suspended Trump from using their platforms worrying his posts may incite additional violence to the Capitol attacks. In relation to this, Trump was impeached for the second time by the House of Representatives and became the first U.S. president to be impeached twice. Meanwhile, Joe Biden was sworn in as the United States President on 20 January 2021. The Senate impeachment trial ended on 13 February 2021, one month after its start, resulting in Trump being found not guilty of inciting the attack on the Capitol.	[130][128][131][132][133][134][135] [136][137][138][139][129][140][141] [142][143][144][145][146][147]
8th Congress of the Communist Party		16 – 19 April 2021	At the 8th Congress of the Communist Party, Raúl Castro officially resigned as the First Secretary, the most powerful position in Cuba. Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel is officially named First Secretary of the Communist Party following the resignation of Raúl Castro. He is the first person not of the Castro family to hold the top position since the 1959 Cuban revolution.	[148][149]
2021 Salvadoran political crisis		1 May 2021	The Legislative Assembly of El Salvador voted to remove several judges from the Supreme Court and remove the Attorney General, both of which had been vocal opponents to the presidency of Nayib Bukele.	[150]
2021 Canadian federal election		20 September 2021	Incumbent prime minister Justin Trudeau, leader of the Liberal Party, is re-elected in Canada’s federal election, continuing as a minority government.	[151]
Barbados’s transition to a republic		30 November 2021	Barbados became the newest republic in the world on 30 November 2021, its 55th Independence Day, when the already elected, previous Governor-General of Barbados, Sandra Mason, was sworn into office as the first president of the Caribbean country. This ended Queen Elizabeth II’s 55-year tenure as monarch of an independent Barbados.	[152]
2022 Colombian presidential election		19 June 2022	Former 19th of April Movement guerrilla fighter and incumbent Senator Gustavo Petro defeats businessman and former mayor of Bucaramanga, Rodolfo Hernández Suárez in the second round of the presidential election and becomes the first left-wing President in Colombian history.	[153][154][155]
2022 Brazilian general election		3–30 October 2022	Former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva defeats the incumbent president of Jair Bolsonaro in the second round of the presidential election, he becomes the first elected to three terms and the oldest president in Brazilian history.	[156][157][158][159]

Asia[edit]

Event	Country	Date	Description	Reference
2019–2021 Persian Gulf crisis		5 May 2019	The Persian Gulf region saw tensions between the United States and the Islamic Republic of Iran escalate in mid-2019. The crisis saw oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz sabotaged and seized, drone shootdowns, and efforts by the U.S. and United Kingdom to pursue military patrols to protect shipping in the gulf, known as the International Maritime Security Construct. On 31 December 2019 tensions reached a breaking point as Iranian-backed Shiite militia stormed into the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, Iraq, leading to the targeted killing of Iranian General Qasem Soleimani in a U.S. drone strike on 3 January 2020.	[160][161][162]
2020–2022 Malaysian political crisis		22 February 2020 – 24 November 2022	Political infighting and party switching within Pakatan Harapan and Perikatan Nasional led to the inability to form a stable majority government. After the collapse of 2 successive governments and a snap general election held, the Anwar Ibrahim cabinet was formed, the first unity government in the history of Malaysia.	[163]
2020–2021 China–India skirmishes		5 May 2020 – 20 January 2021	Since 5 May 2020, Chinese and Indian troops have engaged in aggressive melee, face-offs, and skirmishes at locations along the Sino-Indian border, including near the disputed Pangong Lake in Ladakh and the Tibet Autonomous Region, and near the border between Sikkim and the Tibet Autonomous Region. Additional clashes also took place at locations in eastern Ladakh along the Line of Actual Control (LAC).	[164]
Second Nagorno-Karabakh war		27 September 2020 – 10 November 2020	Starting on 27 September fierce clashes erupted along the line of contact between the armed forces of Azerbaijan and Joint Artsakh and Armenian forces. Both sides neglected ceasefire demands from France, Russia and the US and continued fighting with claims from both sides that they are prepared to fight a long war to grapple control over the long contested Nagorno-Karabakh region. On 9 November a Russian-brokered peace treaty was signed by both sides.[165][166]	[167]
2021 Kyrgyzstan–Tajikistan clashes		28 April – 1 May and 9th July 2021	A 3-day border conflict with clashes occurred in late April 2021 between the two Central Asian countries Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. The reason why the fighting broke out is disputed, but it is due either to an old water dispute or to local people’s dissatisfaction with the installation of surveillance cameras near the border. After 3 days of intense clashes, that left more than 50 people dead and also more than 40,000 displaced civilians, the two countries agreed on a ceasefire. After the ceasefire, however, there was a fatal incident on July 9th. In 2022, fighting between the two countries began again.	[168]
2021 Israel–Palestine crisis		6 – 21 May 2021	Clashes between Israelis and Palestinians in Jerusalem lead to eleven days of fighting between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.	[169]
2021 Taliban offensive		1 May 2021 – 15 August 2021	Beginning on 1 May 2021, the Taliban and allied militant groups made a final offensive against the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan and its allies, coinciding with the withdrawal of most United States and allied troops from Afghanistan. It resulted in the de facto takeover of the country and the reinstatement of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, ending the twenty-year-long War in Afghanistan on 15 August 2021.	[170]
2021–2022 Iraqi political crisis		5 November 2021 – 28 October 2022	The parliamentary election in October 2021 resulted in deadlock as members of the Council of Representatives of Iraq were unable to form a stable government or elect a new president. Ended in the election of Abdul Latif Rashid as president and Mohammed Shia’ Al Sudani as prime minister.	[171]
2022 Kyrgyzstan–Tajikistan clashes		27 January – 20 September 2022	The sporadic fighting between Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, which had started in 2021, began again in late January 2022 and the bloody clashes resulted in dozens of deaths and injuries on 27th January, 10th March, 3rd June and 14th June. In September, the fighting escalated and the 6 days of fighting between 14th and 20th September, which resulted in hundreds of deaths and injuries, finally ended on 20th September when the two countries signed a peace deal.	[172]
2022 Pakistani political crises		3 – 10 April 2022	Resulted in a no-confidence motion against Imran Khan, making him the first Prime Minister of Pakistan to be removed from office by a vote of no confidence.	[173]

Europe[edit]

Event	Country	Date	Description	References
Brexit		31 January 2020	The United Kingdom and Gibraltar formally withdrew from the European Union at 11PM (GMT).	[174]
Eighth NATO enlargement		27 March 2020	North Macedonia became a member state of NATO after the 2018 Prespa Agreement.	[175]
(Prelude) Russian invasion of Ukraine		March 2021 – February 2022 24 February 2022 – ongoing	Russia assembled troops along its border with Ukraine throughout late 2021 to early 2022. It escalated into a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.	[176][177]
2021–2023 Bulgarian political crisis		4 April 2021 – ongoing	A series of unstable governments and a gridlock resulted in five elections occurring over two years.	[178]
Platinum Jubilee of Elizabeth II		6 February 2022	Queen Elizabeth II celebrated her Platinum Jubilee, which marked the 70th anniversary of her accession.	[179]
July 2022 United Kingdom government crisis		5–7 July 2022	Several officials resigned from their positions in Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s second ministry, culminating in Johnson announcing his resignation on 7 July and a leadership election called to decide the next leader of the Conservative Party.	[180]
Death of Mikhail Gorbachev		30 August 2022	A Russian and Soviet politician who served as the last leader of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev died at the age of 91.	[181]
Death and state funeral of Elizabeth II and accession of Charles III		8 September 2022	Elizabeth II, the Queen of the United Kingdom and the other Commonwealth realms, the longest-living and longest-reigning British monarch, ruling from 6 February 1952 to 8 September 2022, died of natural causes at the age of 96. Her son, Charles acceded to the throne as King Charles III immediately after serving as heir apparent for 70 years, the longest in British history	[182]
2022 Italian general election		25 September 2022	The right-wing coalition led by Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy won an absolute majority in both houses. On 22 October, Meloni was appointed Prime Minister, becoming the first woman to hold the office.	[183][184]
Golden Jubilee of Margrethe II		2022	Queen Margrethe II celebrated her Golden Jubilee, which marked the 50th anniversary of her accession.	[185]
October 2022 United Kingdom government crisis		14 – 20 October 2022	Only six weeks into her premiership, conservative MPs in the United Kingdom cited a loss in public confidence in Prime Minister Liz Truss’s ministry following her September mini-budget. This culminated in Truss announcing her resignation on 20 October and a leadership election was called to decide the next leader of the Conservative Party.	[186]
Death and funeral of Pope Benedict XVI		31 December 2022	Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI dies at the Age of 95. The former German Pope resigned in 2013 as the first Pope to do so in more than 600 years.	[187]
2023 Montenegrin presidential election		2 April 2023	Europe Now! candidate Jakov Milatović wins the 2nd round of the presidential election against incumbent president Milo Đukanović of the DPS. Đukanović, who had ruled the country almost continuously since 1991 either as President or Prime Minister, thus lost power for the first time after more than 32 years. Milatović’s victory was also the first time that the DPS lost a presidential election since 1990.	[188]
Ninth NATO enlargement		4 April 2023	Finland applied to NATO in 2022 following the Russian invasion of Ukraine and was formally accepted the following year. This ended the Finnish position as a neutral state that had existed since the Finno-Soviet Treaty of 1948.	[189]

Oceania[edit]

World leaders[edit]

2020 – 2021 – 2022 – 2023

Assassinations and attempts[edit]

Prominent assassinations, targeted killings, and assassination attempts include:

Date	Description
3 January 2020	Qasem Soleimani, Iranian general, and leader in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard, is killed in an airstrike conducted by the United States near Baghdad International Airport.[195]
27 November 2020	Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, a senior official in the nuclear program in Iran, is killed in an ambush against his motorcade in Absard.[196]
22 February 2021	Luca Attanasio, Italian ambassador to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, is killed by gunmen while traveling in North Kivu.[197]
20 April 2021	Idriss Déby, 6th President of Chad, is killed while commanding forces against rebels during the Insurgency in Northern Chad, and is succeeded by transitional president and military general, Mahamat Kaka.[198]
6 May 2021	Mohamed Nasheed, Speaker of the Maldivian People’s Majlis, is wounded in an explosion alleged by Maldivian authorities to have been conducted by religious extremists.[199]
7 July 2021	Jovenel Moïse, 43rd President of Haiti, is killed by gunmen at his private residence. First Lady Martine Moïse is severely wounded.[200]
15 October 2021	David Amess, British Conservative Party MP, is killed by an Islamic terrorist during a constituency surgery.[201]
7 November 2021	Mustafa Al-Kadhimi, Prime Minister of Iraq, survives a drone attack that injures six in his security detail.[202]
3 February 2022	Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurashi, 2nd Caliph of the Islamic State, is killed in Atme during a counter-terrorism raid by U.S. special forces in north-western Syria.[203]
8 June 2022	Brett Kavanaugh, a United States Supreme Court Justice, is the target of an assassination attempt in which the alleged assassin was motivated by a leaked Supreme Court decision that was poised to overrule Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision that guaranteed abortion as a right.[204]
8 July 2022	Shinzo Abe, former Prime Minister of Japan, is killed while giving a campaign speech by a former navy sailor who held a grudge against the South Korean-based Unification Church.[205]
31 July 2022	Ayman al-Zawahiri, the leader of the Salafi-jihadist group al-Qaeda, is killed by a drone strike conducted by the US-based CIA in Kabul, Afghanistan.[206]
12 August 2022	Salman Rushdie, an Indian-born British-American novelist, is stabbed multiple times as he is about to give a public lecture at the Chautauqua Institution in Chautauqua, New York, United States. Rushdie has been the subject of a fatwā written by Supreme Leader of Iran Ruhollah Khomeini calling for his death since 1989.[207][208]
1 September 2022	Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, current Vice President and former President of Argentina, survives an attempt on her life after the assailant’s weapon malfunctions.[209]
15 October 2022	Abu al-Hasan al-Hashimi al-Qurashi, 3rd Caliph of the Islamic State, is killed by wearing and detonating a suicide vest during battle against Free Syrian Army rebels in the city of Jasim in Daraa Governorate, Syria. He is succeeded by Abu al-Hussein al-Husseini al-Qurashi.
28 October 2022	Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, is the target of a failed assassination attempt when a man armed with a hammer breaks into her residence. He instead assaults her husband, causing serious injuries as she was not home at the time of the attempt.[210]
3 November 2022	Imran Khan, former prime minister of Pakistan, is shot in the leg while traveling in a convoy in Wazirabad amid anti-government protests.[211]

Disasters[edit]

Non-natural disasters[edit]

Aviation[edit]

General[edit]

Event	Date	Country	Description
2020 Beirut explosion	4 August 2020		A massive explosion occurred in the port of Beirut. The blast was so loud that it was even reported to be heard in Cyprus, which is approximately 240 km from the location of the explosion.[219] The windows of major buildings in a 6-mile radius were shattered and roads were filled with debris. According to initial findings, it was estimated that a warehouse with 2,750 tonnes of ammonium nitrate exploded, which was confiscated by the Lebanese government from the abandoned ship MV Rhosus and then stored in the port without proper safety measures for six years.[220] 220 deaths were confirmed, more than 110 people were missing and at least 7,000 were reported injured.[221] Beirut governor Marwan Abboud estimated that up to 300,000 people were left homeless by the explosions and there was $10–15 billion USD in property damage.
Surfside condominium collapse	24 June 2021		A 12-story beachfront condominium in the Miami suburb of Surfside, Florida, partially collapsed. As of 22 July 2021, a total of 98 people are confirmed to have died, while 11 were injured.[222] One person was rescued from the rubble, and about 35 people were rescued on 24 June from the uncollapsed portion of the building, which was demolished 11 days later as a safety precaution due to the approach of Hurricane Elsa. On 7 July, authorities announced that the objective of the search was transitioning from rescue to recovery and that the missing victims are presumed dead.
2022 Yerevan explosion	14 August 2022		A large explosion took place in the Surmalu shopping centre in the Armenian capital of Yerevan. It caused widespread destruction and fire, leaving dozens of dead and injured.[223] The explosion killed 16 people and injured 63, with nine missing as of 20 August.[224][225]

Marine[edit]

Event	Date	Country	Description

Natural disasters[edit]

Earthquakes and tsunamis[edit]

Note: This table is a chronological list of earthquakes reported with 7.5M_w  or greater or that have reported at least 100 fatalities.

Event	Date	Country	Description
2020 Caribbean earthquake	28 January 2020		A 7.7Mw  struck in the Caribbean Sea between Jamaica and Cuba at 14:10 local time on 28 January 2020. The earthquake was also felt in the United States, Mexico, Honduras, Dominican Republic, and the Cayman Islands. No damages were reported. A small (12.2 cm) tsunami was reported in the Cayman Islands.[226][227]
2020 Aegean Sea earthquake	30 October 2020		A 7.0 Mw  earthquake occurred about 14 km (8.7 mi) northeast of the Greek island of Samos, causing 119 deaths.[228]
2021 West Sulawesi earthquake	15 January 2021		A 6.2 Mw  earthquake struck the Indonesian province of West Sulawesi, killing a minimum of 105 people.[229]
2021 Haiti earthquake	14 August 2021		A 7.2 Mw  earthquake struck Haiti on 14 August 2021, resulting in at least 2,207 deaths.[230]
June 2022 Afghanistan earthquake	22 June 2022		A 6.2 Mw  earthquake struck southeastern Afghanistan, killing at least 1,163 people, with 1,150 in Afghanistan and 13 in Pakistan. The earthquake was so deadly because it hit a densely populated area with buildings too weak to resist earthquakes.[231]
2022 West Java earthquake	21 November 2022		A 5.6 Mw  earthquake struck Indonesia in West Java, near Cianjur, killing 335-635 people, despite its moderate magnitude.[232]
2023 Turkey–Syria earthquake	6 February 2023		A 7.8 Mw  earthquake struck the Border Region of Turkey and Syria, killing more than 60,000 people and injuring more than 180,000 people.[233][234] It is also one of the strongest earthquakes ever recorded in Turkey since the 1999 İzmit earthquake.[235]

An earthquake-damaged building in Antakya, Turkey in 2023

Tropical cyclones[edit]

Tornadoes[edit]

Event	Date	Country	Description
2021 South Moravia tornado	24 June 2021		A small but significant tornado outbreak swept across the Czech Republic on 24 June, resulting in the strongest ever documented tornado in modern Czech history and the deadliest European tornado since 2001.[240][241]
Tornado outbreak of December 10–11, 2021	10—11 December 2021		Tornado activity swept the southern and midwestern United States in the evening of 10 December through the following morning. Arkansas, Missouri, and Kentucky suffered extensive damage.[242]

Floods, avalanches, and mudslides[edit]

Note: This section reports only floods with 200 or more deaths and avalanches and landslides involving 30 or more deaths.

Event	Date	Country	Description
2020 Van avalanches	4–5 February 2020		Two avalanches in Turkey’s eastern Van Province resulted in 41 deaths and 84 injuries.
2020 East Africa floods	March – May 2020		Severe flooding in 9 African countries caused more than 450 deaths and affected more than 700,000 people, mainly in Kenya and Rwanda.
2020 Nepal floods	June – September 2020		The rainy season and associated flooding, which has killed more than 400 people, has been described by some in Nepal as the deadliest in recent memory.
2021 European floods	12–25 July 2021		Heavy flooding, particularly in river basins of western and central Europe, killed some 243 people and left €10 billion in damage.
2021 Henan floods	17–31 July 2021		Following the highest-ever recorded rainfall in Zhengzhou, Henan Province in China, between 300 and 400 deaths along with over 800,000 people having to evacuate.
2021 Maharashtra floods	22 July 2021 – August 2021		Over 250 deaths were reported in the Indian state of Maharashtra after heavy rainfall in the area.
2022 Petrópolis floods	15 February 2022		Intense rainfall led to mudslides and flooding on February 15, that destroyed parts of the city of Petrópolis in the Brazilian state of Rio de Janeiro and killed more than 230 people.
2022 KwaZulu-Natal floods	8–21 April 2022		Flooding in the province of KwaZuku-Natal in South Africa leads to over 400 deaths.
2022 Afghanistan floods	5 May 2022 – August 2022		Several provinces of Afghanistan were affected by severe flooding beginning in May, which claimed more than 600 lives.
2022 India-Bangladesh floods	23 May 2022 – present		Deadly floods have been hitting northeastern India and Bangladesh since May 2022, killing more than 250 people and affecting 9 million people in both countries.
2022 Pakistan floods	14 June 2022 – October 2022		Floods in Pakistan have killed more than 1,000 people since June.
2022 Nigeria floods	May – October 2022		With more than 600 dead, the 2022 floods were the worst in the country since the floods in 2012.

Volcanic eruptions[edit]

Droughts, heat waves, and wildfires[edit]

Event	Date	Country	Description
2018–2021 Southern African drought	October 2018 – October 2021		An ongoing period of drought began in the country of South Africa in late October 2018 and continued into early 2021, negatively affecting food security in the region.
2019–20 Australian bushfire season	June 2019 – May 2020		Unusually intense bushfires in Australia continued into 2020, having started in September 2019.[246]
2020 Western U.S. Wildfires	March – December 2020		Record-breaking wildfires began in several Western American states.
2020 Argentine wildfires (Delta del Paraná)	July 2020 – October 2020		Sudden wildfires started in Córdoba and extended into several Northern provinces.
2021 Russian heatwave	May – June 2021		Parts of Russia and eastern Europe were hit by a record-breaking heat wave in May and June 2021, with temperatures in the Arctic Circle above 30 °C and the highest temperatures recorded in Moscow and St. Petersburg.
2021 Western North America heat wave	June – July 2021		Extreme temperatures caused by a prolonged heat dome over western Canada and the western United States kill over 613 people including over 480 people in British Columbia alone. The village of Lytton, British Columbia, which recorded the highest temperatures in Canada, is destroyed by a large wildfire as over 200 other ones devastate wide areas of the province. Wildfires in parts of the western coastal states of the US such as Washington, Oregon and California are also greatly worsened by the heatwave.
2021 Turkey wildfires	July – August 2021		Over a hundred wildfires began in the Mediterranean Region of the forest in Turkey, the worst in the country for at least a decade. The wildfires started in Manavgat, Antalya on 28 July 2021, with the temperature around 37 °C (99 °F).
2020–2023 North American drought	August 2020 – Ongoing		Drought developed in the Western, Midwestern and Northeastern United States in the summer of 2020. Over the course of 2021, conditions improved in the Northeast but worsened in the Western US. As of June 2021, 97% of the region was facing abnormally dry conditions. By August 2021, parts of the upper Midwestern US were experiencing some of the worst drought spells since the 1980s. Drought also affected a wide area of Mexico as of 2021, as well as the prairies of Canada.
2022 European heat waves	June – September 2022		From mid-June through most of the summer, heat waves affected most of Europe, with western and central Europe the worst hit. Temperatures in excess of 40 °C (104 °F) were recorded in places, breaking records. Over 24,000 deaths were attributed to the event, most in France, Spain, Germany, the United Kingdom, and Portugal. The heat waves contributed to wildfires and drought also seen in Europe.[247]
2022 European and Mediterranean wildfires	May – September 2022		Wildfires across Europe, North Africa and the Mediterranean region.[248]
2022 European drought	July – September 2022		Europe’s worst drought year in 500 years.[249] A report from the Global Drought Observatory confirmed this.[250]

Pollution[edit]

Other natural events[edit]

Beginning in 2019 until 2022, a huge swarm of desert locusts threatened to engulf massive portions of the Middle East, Africa and Asia.^{[251][252][253][254][255][256]}

Economics[edit]

Events[edit]

2020[edit]

2021[edit]

2022[edit]

• The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, the largest free trade area in the world, comes into effect for Australia, Brunei, Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, New Zealand, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam on January 1, 2022.^[262]
• Elon Musk completes his $44 billion acquisition of Twitter on October 27, 2022

2023[edit]

Trade[edit]

The World Trade Organization reported that trade growth had stagnated and that trade restrictions were increasing as the decade began. The sectors most affected by import restrictions were mineral and fuel oils (17.7%), machinery and mechanical appliances (13%), electrical machinery and parts (11.7%), and precious metals (6%).^[263]Regional trade agreements were also found to be increasing.^[264]

Stock markets[edit]

Crashes[edit]

Cybersecurity and hacking[edit]

Epidemics/Outbreaks[edit]

Event	Date	Infections and deaths	Description
2022–2023 mpox outbreak	6 May 2022 – present	86,494 confirmed cases and 280 deaths in 109 countries and territories reported by 26 March 2023.[269]

Pandemics[edit]

Event	Date	Infections and deaths	Description
COVID-19 pandemic	2019 – present	678.1 million+ confirmed cases and 6.7 million+ deaths with more than 240 countries and territories reported by 16 February 2023.[270]
HIV/AIDS	1981 – present	37.9 million people living with HIV (end of 2018), 24.5 million people accessing antiretroviral therapy (end of June 2019), 32.0 million deaths from AIDS-related illnesses since the start of the epidemic (end 2018).[271]

Science and technology[edit]

Space[edit]

2020[edit]

2021[edit]

• China sends Nie Haisheng, Liu Boming and Tang Hongbo to assemble and then occupy and work aboard the Tiangong Space Station.
• Following the formal releases of three videos of UFOs (also known as UAPs) in 2020, a report on the subject by the United States Intelligence Community would be published on 25 June 2021 with the report concluding that UFOs existed. This would be the first time a government would officially confirm the existence of UFOs, though no conclusion was made on what these phenomena were, extraterrestrial or otherwise.^[275]
• On 11 July 2021, Virgin Galactic became the first spaceflight company to independently launch a paying civilian into outer space using the 50-mile high definition of outer space, having flown Virgin Galactic founder Sir Richard Branson above the 50 mile mark, enabling him and the rest of the crew to experience approximately 3 minutes of weightlessness above Earth’s atmosphere.
• In July 2021, Blue Origin became the first spaceflight company to launch a fully automated spacecraft with civilian passengers into space, carrying its founder Jeff Bezos and three others. Two of the flight’s crew members, Dutch student Oliver Daemen (age 18) and American aviator Wally Funk (age 82), became both the youngest and oldest people respectively to go to space (Funk’s record was beaten nearly 3 month’s later when actor William Shatner entered space onboard Blue Origin NS-18, at the age of 90).^[276]
• The James Webb Space Telescope was launched on 25 December 2021, 12:20 UTC using an Ariane 5 launch vehicle from Kourou, French Guiana.

2022[edit]

Artificial intelligence[edit]

Communications and electronics[edit]

• 5G became increasingly widespread by 2020.
• By 2020, 3D printing had reached decent quality and affordable pricing which allowed many people to own 3D printers.
• 8K resolution and 4K resolution becomes prevalent in consumer electronics.

Software and electronic platforms[edit]

Technology[edit]

• The BBC reports that for the “first time someone who has had a complete cut to their spinal cord has been able to walk freely… because of an electrical implant that has been surgically attached to his spine”.^[281]
• Sales of electric vehicles have grown significantly and this is expected to continue through the decade.^[282]

Society[edit]

Social effects of the COVID-19 pandemic[edit]

Medical experts advised, and local authorities often mandated stay-at-home orders to prevent gatherings of any size. Such gatherings could be replaced by teleconferencing, or in some cases with unconventional attempts to maintain social distancing with activities such as a balcony sing-along for a concert, or a “birthday parade” for a birthday party. Replacements for gatherings were seen as significant to mental health during the crisis. Social isolation among alcohol users also adopted a trend towards Kalsarikänni or “pantsdrunking”, a Finnish antisocial drinking culture.

Low-income individuals were more likely to contract the coronavirus and to die from it. In both New York City and Barcelona, low-income neighborhoods were disproportionately hit by coronavirus cases. Hypotheses for why this was the case included that poorer families were more likely to live in crowded housing and work in low-skill jobs, such as supermarkets and elder care, which were deemed essential during the crisis. In the United States, millions of low-income people may lack access to health care due to being uninsured or underinsured. Millions of Americans lost their health insurance after losing their jobs. Many low-income workers in service jobs became unemployed.

The coronavirus pandemic was followed by a concern for a potential spike in suicides, exacerbated by social isolation due to quarantine and social-distancing guidelines, fear, and unemployment and financial factors. Many countries reported an increase in domestic violence and intimate partner violence attributed to lockdowns amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Financial insecurity, stress, and uncertainty led to increased aggression at home, with abusers able to control large amounts of their victims’ daily life. Midlife crisis is a major concern in domestic violence, social implications and suicides for middle-aged adults amid the pandemic. UN Secretary-General António Guterres called for a domestic violence and midlife crisis “ceasefire”.

Population[edit]

Race[edit]

The murder of George Floyd led to civil unrest and protests across the United States and internationally in 2020.

Gender[edit]

24.3% of all national parliamentarians were women as of February 2019. 11 women were serving as Head of State and 12 as Head of Government in June 2019. 20.7% of government ministers were women as of January 2019. There are wide regional variations in the average percentages of women parliamentarians. As of February 2019, these were: Nordic countries, 42.5%; Americas, 30.6%; Europe excluding Nordic countries, 27.2; sub-Saharan Africa, 23.9; Asia, 19.8%; Arab States, 19%; and the Pacific, 16.3%. Rwanda has the highest number of women parliamentarians worldwide, 61.3% of seats in the lower house. About 26% of elected local parliamentarians are women.^[286]

Many states swore in their first female leaders during the 2020s including Presidents Katerina Sakellaropoulou (Greece), Samia Suluku Hassan (Tanzania), Sandra Mason (Barbados), Xiomara Castro (Honduras), Katalin Novák (Hungary), Dina Boluarte (Peru) and Prime Ministers Kaja Kallas (Estonia), Fiamē Naomi Mata’afa (Samoa), Robinah Nabbanja (Uganda), Najla Bouden (Tunisia), Magdalena Andersson (Sweden), Giorgia Meloni (Italy).^[287]

Environmentalism[edit]

• Team Seas is an international collaborative fundraiser founded by the YouTuber/Influencers Mark Rober and MrBeast on 29 October 2021, as a follow-up to Team Trees. The fundraiser’s aim was to raise US$30 million to remove 30 million pounds of trash from the ocean by the end of the year. They also partnered with the Ocean Cleanup and the Ocean Conservancy.
• Members of the United Nations agree on a legal framework for the High Seas Treaty on March 4, 2023, which aims to protect 30% of the world’s oceans by 2030.

LGBT rights[edit]

Global goals and issues[edit]

Development in global goals and issues – including goals or progress related to the largest causes of human death – during the decade, according to reports that systematically track, quantify or review associated progress.

As of 2022

• Progress of the Paris Agreement or global climate change mitigation goals
  • The United in Science 2022 report by the WMO, summarizes latest climate science-related updates and assesses recent climate change mitigation progress as “going in the wrong direction”.^[295][296]
  • A report by the World Resources Institute assesses the state of nationally determined contributions (NDCs), finding they need to be strengthened by about six times for alignment with what may be enough to reach the Paris Agreement’s 1.5 °C goal.^[297][298] The UNFCCC’s NDC synthesis report suggests that based on the latest NDCs the carbon budget for a 50% likelihood of limiting warming to 1.5 °C would be used up by around 2032.^{[299][300][301][302]}
  • A Lancet Countdown report publishes data of indicators that show “countries and companies continue to make choices that threaten the health and survival of people in every part of the world”. It calls for an immediate, health-centred response at a critical juncture of recovery from crises.^[299][303]
  • The WMO reports atmospheric levels of the three main greenhouse gases, carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide, all reached record highs, with methane concentrations showing a record jump in 2021. The WMO Secretary-General concludes that “we are heading in the wrong direction”, with time “running out”.^[304][305]
  • Climate Action Tracker systematically assesses the state of progress of actions of climate goals in an overview, finding that none of the indicators is on track to reach their 2030 targets, with insufficient speed for six indicators, and well below the required pace for 21, five heading in the wrong direction, and data being insufficient to evaluate the remaining eight.^{[306][307][308]}
  • The UNEP’s Emissions Gap Report finds that no credible “pathway” to the 1.5 °C climate goal is in place.^{[309][310][311][312][313]} Similarly, a UNFCCC synthesis about “long-term low-emission development strategies” warns that many net-zero targets “remain uncertain and postpone into the future critical action that needs to take place now”.^[314][315]
• Deforestation mitigation goals
  • An annual report by the World Resources Institute shows that tropical regions lost 9.3 million acres of primary old-growth forest in 2021, a decline of 11% from 2020, and about equal to both 2018 and 2019.^[316][317]
  • The Forest Declaration Assessment finds that a drop of only 6.3% in deforestation in 2021 is “leaving the world off track from its goals of ending forest loss by 2030”.^{[318][319][320][321]}
• Public health goals
  • The UN’s “The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World” report finds that the number of people affected by hunger globally rose by 46 million to 828 million in 2021. 3.1 billion people could not afford a healthy diet in 2020, an increase of 112 million from 2019.^[322][323]
  • A WHO report indicates collective progress toward a 15% relative reduction in population levels of physical inactivity by 2030 is insufficient and that about 500 million people will develop heart disease, obesity, diabetes or other diseases if they don’t increase their physical activity.^[324][325]
• Global budgets and government spending
• General well-being
• Sustainable Development Goals (other than the above or in general)
• GDP-alternative progress or sustainable development indices

Popular culture[edit]

• 

  Decorative face masks to prevent the spread of COVID-19 was common in the early 2020s; vaccination status of individuals also became culturally relevant during the decade. Pictured here is a mask based off the game Animal Crossing: New Horizons, a popular video game during the pandemic.

• 

  The video-sharing site TikTok became a major influence on pop culture and the music industry in the early 2020s.

• 

  AirPods have dominated the wireless headphone market in the early 2020s. Pictured are the base and “Pro” model of AirPods respectively.

• 

  Flashy multi-colored clothing became a trend in the early 2020s, as did baggier clothing such as hoodies, modeled here by musician Billie Eilish. The 2020s revived and built upon Y2K fashion trends.

• 

  In the 2020s, multiple online food delivery services such as Uber Eats, Postmates, DoorDash and Grubhub became popular. Pictured above is an Uber Eats employee delivering a meal.

• 

  The use of cryptocurrency became more mainstream in the 2020s. Crypto such as Bitcoin and others were notable. The Staples Center was even renamed Crypto.com Arena in 2021.

• 

  Technological advancements in AI and VR were rapid and fast-paced in the 2020s. Meta Quest 2 is pictured here, a headset much more powerful than VR headsets from the 2010s.

Fashion[edit]

Fashion trends of the early 2020s have been largely inspired by the 1990s and 2000s. Popular brands in the United Kingdom, United States, and Australia during this era include Adidas, Fila, Nike, New Balance, Globe International, Vans, Hurley, Kappa, Tommy Hilfiger, Asics, Ellesse, Ralph Lauren, Forever 21, Playboy and The North Face.^{[338][339][340]} Wearing a decorative mask to prevent the disease COVID-19 from spreading was a fashion trend in the early 2020s.^[341]

Film[edit]

The COVID-19 pandemic heavily impacted film releases early in the decade, resulting in a drastic drop in box office revenue as well as many films postponing their release or shifting it to a streaming services. Avatar: The Way of Water is the highest-grossing film of the decade, and currently the fourth-highest-grossing film of all time. Other financially successful films at the box office include Top Gun: Maverick, No Time to Die, and Jurassic World Dominion. Superhero films continued to do well financially, with Spider-Man: No Way Home being the second-highest-grossing of the decade. Other successful superhero films include The Batman, as well as much of Marvel Studios’ “Multiverse Saga of the MCU” and DC Studios’ “DC Extended Universe” films.

Critically and financially successful films nominated for awards like Nomadland, CODA, Everything Everywhere All at Once, Marcel the Shell with Shoes On, Licorice Pizza, and The Fabelmans were popular.

Animated films include Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio, Soul, Encanto, The Mitchells vs. the Machines, Demon Slayer: Mugen Train, Jiang Ziya, Puss in Boots: The Last Wish, Sing 2, Minions: The Rise of Gru, and The Bad Guys have also been highly acclaimed and successful in the box office.

Movie reboots also were popular, as many movie reboots released on streaming services. Some of these film remakes and reboots include Zoey 102, Bill & Ted Face the Music, Space Jam: A New Legacy, Borat Subsequent Moviefilm, Ghostbusters: Afterlife, Top Gun: Maverick, He’s All That, Beverly Hills Cop: Axel Foley, A Christmas Story Christmas, Scream, The Little Mermaid, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, Snow White, Coming 2 America, and Sam & Victor’s Day Off.

Television[edit]

The 2020s started off with streaming services like Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Binge,^[343]HBO Max, Showtime, Hulu, and Disney+. Additional streaming services such as Discovery+, Paramount+, and Peacock were released as well. Streaming television such as Pluto TV and YouTube TV also became more popular.

In the 2020s more than any other time period, reboots and reunion episodes of older shows became widespread, including That ’90s Show, How I Met Your Father, Night Court, Animaniacs, Punky Brewster, The Conners, The Wonder Years, Saved by the Bell, Cobra Kai, Friends: The Reunion ‘, Return to Hogwarts, And Just Like That…, Dragging the Classics: The Brady Bunch, Heartbreak High, two new seasons of Phineas and Ferb and Futurama, as well as Fraggle Rock, iCarly, Rugrats, Beavis and Butt-Head, and Frasier. It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia became the longest-running live-action cable comedy in 2021, and Young Sheldon continued (the show seeing talent such as Simon Helberg reprise his role as Howard Wolowitz in 2021).

New and critically acclaimed adult animation shows like Midnight Gospel, Invincible, Star Trek: Lower Deck, Inside Job and Smiling Friends launched in the 2020s. Other shows such as Rick and Morty, Disenchantment, Big Mouth, Final Space, Primal, Love, Death & Robots, and Harley Quinn continued on and came from the 2010s.

A variety of shows on streaming such as Squid Game, Never Have I Ever, Tulsa King, The White Lotus, Succession, Ginny & Georgia, WandaVision, The Mandalorian, Ted Lasso, The Morning Show, The Boys, Only Murders in the Building, Love, Victor, Wednesday, Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared, Extraordinary Attorney Woo, Tiger King, Old Enough! and others gained popularity.

Music[edit]

By 2020, TikTok, an online video service, had become extremely popular as a music platform on social media.^[344] Users on streaming platforms such as Spotify, YouTube Music, Amazon Music and Apple Music have increased due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Festivals such as Coachella were cancelled because of the virus. The COVID-19 pandemic devastated the touring business.^[345][346]

Pop, hip hop, K-pop, Phonk, R&B, nu disco^[347] and synthpop^[348] all dominated the early part of the decade, with the most popular artists being Ariana Grande, Billie Eilish, Lizzo, Lil Nas X, Megan Thee Stallion, Dua Lipa, Jack Harlow, The Weeknd, Justin Bieber, Taylor Swift, BTS, Doja Cat, Olivia Rodrigo, Blackpink, Harry Styles, Bad Bunny, Ed Sheeran, Cardi B, Beyoncé, the Kid Laroi, Lil Baby and more.^[349]

An alarming trend that increased in the late 2010s and continued into the early 2020s is the gun violence and murder seen within the hip hop community, with 15 high-profile hip hop artists murdered since the start of the decade (as of April 2023), the most notable being Pop Smoke, Houdini, King Von, Einár, Young Dolph, Drakeo the Ruler, JayDaYoungan, PnB Rock, Takeoff, AKA, and others.

Video games[edit]

The ninth generation of consoles began in 2020. The industry remains dominated by Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft with the release of the Xbox Series X/S and the PlayStation 5, while the Nintendo Switch continues to be popular from the previous decade. Technological advancements in consoles included support for real-time ray tracing graphics and output for 4K or even 8K resolution. Physical media continued to be replaced by online distribution of games, with the Xbox Series S and the PlayStation 5 Digital Edition lacking an optical drive.^[4] The Steam Deck was released in 2022 as Valve’s attempt to bring PC-level gaming to a Nintendo Switch-style handheld format.

Critically successful games such as Elden Ring, Ghost of Tsushima, God of War Ragnarök, and The Last of Us Part II were released and won multiple best game of the year awards, signaling a shift towards narrative-driven and single-played focused gaming compared with the end of the 2010s where popularity of multiplayer gaming dominated.^[350] Nonetheless, widely successful multiplayer games includes Fall Guys, Fortnite, Genshin Impact, It Takes Two, Minecraft, Overwatch 2, Valorant, and Warzone. The detective-party game Among Us surged in popularity in 2020 and became a global sensation, largely attributed in to global stay-at-home orders during the COVID-19 pandemic.^[5][7]

Nintendo continued to successfully produce games for the Nintendo Switch, with Animal Crossing: New Horizons selling over 40 million copies, and making it the second-best-selling game on the console. The Nintendo Switch’s sales also remained strong in the 2020s due in part to games such as Nintendo Switch Sports, Paper Mario: The Origami King, Super Mario 3D All-Stars, Bowser’s Fury, Kirby and the Forgotten Land, WarioWare: Get It Together!, Pokémon Legends: Arceus, Splatoon 3, Pokémon Scarlet and Violet, and the long-awaited Pikmin 4.

Video game film and television adaptations became more financially and critically successful compared with previous decades. Film releases include The Super Mario Bros. Movie, Sonic the Hedgehog, and Uncharted; as well as the video game-themed Tetris, Ready Player Two and Free Guy. Television adaptations include Arcane: League of Legends, Carmen Sandiego, Castlevania, Cyberpunk: Edgerunners, Dota: Dragon’s Blood, Dragon Age: Absolution, Sonic Prime, The Last of Us, and The Witcher; in addition with the table-top game adaptation The Legend of Vox Machina.

Architecture[edit]

There is a revival in expressionist architecture. The SoFi Stadium was completed on 8 September 2020 and is a component of Hollywood Park, a master-planned neighborhood in development in Inglewood, California. The stadium serves as a home to the Los Angeles Rams and the Los Angeles Chargers. SoFi Stadium hosted Super Bowl LVI in February 2022.^[351] The stadium is also set to host the opening and closing ceremonies, soccer and archery in the 2028 Summer Olympics, which will be hosted in Los Angeles, California, United States of America.^[352]

The Unity Tower was finally completed on 30 September 2020. The construction of the building originally started in 1975, but stopped permanently in 1981 because of economic constraints and political unrest at the time. Due to the unfinished building’s resemblance to a skeleton, it was nicknamed after Skeletor, the arch-villain in He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, which was popular in Poland at the time construction began.^[353]

Sports[edit]

2020[edit]

• The COVID-19 pandemic leads to the cancellation or rescheduling of numerous sporting events globally:

The 2020 Summer Olympics and Paralympics were postponed to July–August 2021. This was the first Olympic Games to be postponed rather than cancelled in history.^[354]

The 2020 T20 Cricket World Cup, originally scheduled to take place in Australia, was rescheduled to occur in India in 2021. The tournament was ultimately held in the UAE and Oman (primarily the former) in 2021, with Australia winning the final against New Zealand to earn its first T20 World Cup title.

Sporting leagues such as the North American National Hockey League Major League Baseball and National Basketball Association, and the English Premier League adapt their seasons and championship play around COVID-19 by placing players in “bubbles” and televising games played in empty arenas and stadiums.

2021[edit]

• The Tampa Bay Buccaneers defeated the Kansas City Chiefs 31–9 in Super Bowl LV to win their second title in the NFL; Tom Brady won Super Bowl MVP for his performance.
• Due to cross-border restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic, the National Hockey League (NHL) realigns its team divisions, with all seven Canadian teams competing in their own division for the first time. Tampa Bay Lightning win the second of back-to-back Stanley Cup Finals and third championship overall, defeating the Montreal Canadiens.
• The Atlanta Braves won their first World Series since 1995.^[355]
• With the easing of COVID restrictions in the UK, the 2021 Wimbledon Championships are held with full attendances. Novak Djokovic wins the men’s singles title, his 20th Grand Slam win equaling Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal’s record.
• Canada won their 27th ice hockey World title in 2021 IIHF World Championships, after defeating the reigning champion Finland in the final in overtime.
• Hideki Matsuyama wins the Masters, becoming the first-ever Japanese golfer to win a major golfing championship.
• The Milwaukee Bucks won their first NBA championship in 50 years and their second title overall, with Giannis Antetokounmpo named Finals MVP.
• Italy won UEFA Euro 2020 by defeating England 3–2 on penalties.
• Argentina wins the 2021 Copa América by defeating Brazil 1–0.
• The United States wins the 2021 CONCACAF Gold Cup by defeating Mexico 1–0.
• The 2020 Summer Olympics take place in Tokyo, Japan, being the country’s fourth time hosting the games. The United States wins the most gold and overall medals, with China coming in second and host Japan coming in third.
• Max Verstappen wins the 2021 Formula One World Championship over Lewis Hamilton at the Yas Marina Circuit.

2022[edit]

2023[edit]

Food[edit]

Food delivery apps such as DoorDash, Instacart, Menulog, Uber Eats, Grubhub and Just Eat Takeaway flourished due to the COVID-19 pandemic.^[356][357] Indoor dining was also closed in many countries due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and upon re-opening the usage of QR codes and other technologies in the restaurant industry increased compared to the 2010s in order to comply with pandemic restrictions.^[358][359]

Due to the COVID-19 restrictions, online grocery shopping has substantially grown and in the first few months of the pandemic, online grocery shopping increased by 300%.^[360] Before the pandemic occurred, food shopping activity accounted for 9% of the market, now 63 percent of consumers worldwide has purchased more groceries online after the outbreak than they did before they were socially isolated.^[361]

Literature[edit]

Books published throughout the decade include The Vanishing Half, Leave the World Behind, Transcendent Kingdom, The Glass Hotel, Memorial and The City We Became. Recent releases on this decade include How to Prevent the Next Pandemic by Bill Gates, Meet Me by the Fountain: An Inside History of the Mall by Alexandra Lange, Wikipedia @ 20 by Joseph M. Reagle Jr. and Jackie Koerner, and The Candy House.^[362][363]

Over a year after Friends: The Reunion, Matthew Perry released Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing (which had a foreword written by Lisa Kudrow). The book became a New York Times best-seller.

See also[edit]

Timeline[edit]

The following articles contain brief timelines which list the most prominent events of the decade:

References[edit]

External links[edit]

Media related to 2020s at Wikimedia Commons