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Top Song(s)
• Fergie- Big Girls Don't Cry
• Sean Kingston - Beautiful Girls
• Avril Lavigne - Girlfriend
• Alicia Keys - No One
• Rihanna - Don't Stop the Music
Top Film(s)
• No Country for Old Men
• There Will Be Blood
• Hot Fuzz
• The Bourne Ultimatum
• Superbad
Best Selling Book(s)
• Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - J.K. Rowling
• Eclipse - Stephenie Meyer
• A Thousand Splendid Suns - Khaled Hosseini
• City of Bones - Cassandra Clare
• The Name of the Wind - Patrick Rothfuss
Famous Deaths
• January 15 - James Hillier, Canadian-American inventor (co-created the electron microscope)
• February 15 - Robert Adler, Austrian-American inventor (remote control for television)
• March 6 - Jean Baudrillard, French cultural theorist, philosopher, political commentator and photographer
• April 23 - Boris Yeltsin, Russian politician and 1st President of Russian Federation (1991-99)
• May 5 - Theodore Harold Maiman, American Inventor and engineer (created 1st working laser)
• June 14 - Kurt Waldheim, Austrian 4th Secretary-General of the United Nations and 9th President of Austria
• July 11 - Alfonso López Michelsen, 24th President of Colombia (1974-78)
• August 10 - Henry Cabot Lodge Bohler, American member of Tuskegee Airmen
October 16 - Barbara West, English survivor of the Titanic sinking
November 8 - Chad Varah, English founder of charity The Samaritans
Medical/Science/Technology
• Comet McNaught reaches perihelion and becomes visible from Earth during daylight.
• The New Horizons space probe makes a gravitational slingshot around Jupiter to change its trajectory towards Pluto.
• US researchers simulate half a virtual mouse brain on a supercomputer.
• The Open Handset Alliance launches the Android mobile operating system.
• IBM created its artificial intelligence system Watson.
• An optical technology developed for detecting colon cancer holds promise for detecting pancreatic cancer.
• An international study has shown that some types of bacteria can sense light.
• Thimerosal, a mercury-containing vaccine preservative, showed no signs of causing memory or attention problems in children.
• An experimental vaccine for hepatitis E proved nearly 96 percent protective in a test in Nepalese soldiers.
• A nursing home cat in Rhode Island predicts with uncanny accuracy when residents will die, researchers reported.
Political
• January 4 - Nancy Pelosi becomes the first female Speaker of the United States House of Representatives.
• January 23 – George W. Bush delivers his sixth State of the Union Address.
• February 10 – Senator Barack Obama of Illinois declares his candidacy for President of the United States of America.
• April 25 - Congressman Dennis Kucinich introduces articles to impeach Vice President Dick Cheney.
• April 25 - President George W. Bush announces the U.S. will increase efforts to combat malaria in Africa.
• May 3 – The U.S. House of Representatives passes the Matthew Shepard Act.
• July 21 – VP President Dick Cheney serves as acting president while President George W. Bush undergoes a colonoscopy procedure under sedation.
• July 31 – For the United States Army, the role of AIT Platoon Sergeant is initiated.
• August 27 – United States Attorney General Alberto Gonzales announces his resignation, to be effective September 17.
• October 20 – Georgia's governor Sonny Perdue declares a state of emergency due to drought conditions.
National
• January 30 - A convenience store in Ghent, West Virginia, explodes, killing four people and injuring several others.
• February 2 – A tornado in central Florida kills 21 people.
• March 6 – Mega Millions sets a new world record for the highest lottery jackpot of $370 million.
• May 4 - Tornadoes strike Greensburg, Kansas, killing at least 12 people and destroying about 90% of the town.
• June 2 – Four people are charged with a terror plot to blow up JFK International Airport in New York City.
• July 8 – Boeing launches the new Boeing 787.
• August 6 – The Crandall Canyon Mine in Emery County, Utah collapses, trapping six miners.
• August 21 – STS–118 lands at the Kennedy Space Center, completing Space Shuttle Endeavour's 19th flight.
• September 24 - Oregon State University Mars Rover student-organized project is formed.
• December 4 – The United States Senate approves the Peru Free Trade Agreement.
Worldwide
• January 8 – Russian oil supplies to Poland, Germany, and Ukraine are cut as the Russia–Belarus energy dispute escalates.
• February 3 – A truck bomb explodes in Baghdad, Iraq, killing at least 135 people and injures 339 others.
• March 4 – The First Ivorian Civil War ends with a peace agreement.
• May 5 – Kenya Airways Flight 507, crashes after takeoff, killing all 114 crew and passengers on board.
• May 17 – The Russian Orthodox Church Abroad and the Moscow Patriarchate re-unite after 80 years of schism.
• June 27 – Gordon Brown succeeds Tony Blair and becomes Prime Minister of the United Kingdom after a Leadership Election.
• July 31 – Operation Banner comes to an end, thus ending the longest continuous deployment in British military history.
• August 14 – Multiple suicide bombings kill 572 people in Qahtaniya, northern Iraq.
• September 6 – Israeli Air Force airplanes attack a suspected nuclear reactor in Syria in an airstrike.
• December 1 – At the age of 81 years, 244 days, Queen Elizabeth II becomes the oldest ever reigning British monarch.