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Top Song(s)
• Ed Sheeran - Bad Habits
• Olivia Rodrigo - Drivers License
• Lil NAS X - Montero (Call Me By Your Name)
• Olivia Rodrigo - Good 4 U
• Dua Lipa - Levitating
Top Film(s)
• Spider-Man: No Way Home
• Dune
• The Suicide Squad
• Licorice Pizza
• CODA
Best Selling Book(s)
• Project Hail Mary - Andy Weir
• The Four Winds - Kristin Hannah
• Malibu Rising - Taylor Jenkins Reid
• A ?Court of Silver Flames - Sarah J. Maas
• The Love Hypothesis - Ali Hazelwood
Famous Deaths
• February 7 - Robert J. Lagomarsino, American lawyer and politician (US Representative from California, 1974-93)
• March 28 - Didier Ratsiraka, President of Madagascar (1975-93)
• April 4 - Frank Mdlalose, South African politician (Premier of KwaZulu, 1994-97)
• May 2 - Carlos Romero Barcelo, Puerto Rican politician (5th Governor of Puerto Rico, 1993-2001)
• June 14 - Enrique Bolaños, President of Nicaragua (2002-07)
• July 7 - Jovenel Moise, Haitian politician, President of Haiti (2017-21)
• August 28 - Dimitri Kitsikis, Greek academic, Turkologist, Sinologist, and poet
• September 16 - Clive Sinclair, British consumer electronics inventor (Executive pocket calculator; ZX Spectrum computer)
• October 18 - Colin Powell, American General and 1st Black US Secretary of State (2001-05)
• November 11 - F. W. de Klerk, South African President (1989-94)
Medical/Science/Technology
• Engineers worldwide discuss a negative leap second and other possible measures as Earth spun faster in 2020.
• Scientists report the successful use of gene editing in mice with progeria, a premature aging disease.
• Chinese researchers report that they have built the world's largest integrated quantum communication network.
• A potential mRNA vaccine for multiple sclerosis is presented by a collaboration including BioNTech.
• WASP-62b is confirmed to be the first hot Jupiter exoplanet without clouds or haze in its observable atmosphere.
• In Lyon, France, the first transplant of both arms and shoulders is performed on an Icelandic patient.
• LauncherOne becomes the first successful all-liquid-fueled air-launched rocket to reach orbit.
• A new microscopy technique using a hyperbolic metamaterial is shown to boost imaging resolutions.
• A study finds that the severity of heatwave and drought impacts on crop production roughly tripled over the last 50 years in Europe.
• Tokamak Energy announces "first plasma" with its newly-upgraded prototype fusion reactor, the ST40.
Political
• January 1 - The U.S. Senate votes 81–13 for the National Defense Authorization Act 2021.
• January 5 - Two runoff elections are held in Georgia to decide U.S. Senate seats.
• January 6 - President Trump formally concedes to an orderly transition of power to Joe Biden.
• January 25 - President Biden repeals the Trump administration's ban on transgender personnel in the military.
• February 4 - The United States House of Representatives votes 230–199 to remove Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene from her assignments.
• February 9 - The second impeachment trial of Donald Trump begins and he is acquitted four days later.
• March 6 – The Senate passes the American Rescue Plan Act, President Biden's $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief package.
• April 9 - President Biden requests Congress to authorize a $1.5 trillion federal spending plan in 2022.
• May 14 - Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee signs public school "bathroom bill", HB1233, into law.
• June 3 – The FBI announces that it has opened an investigation into Postmaster General Louis DeJoy over campaign fundraising.
National
• January 4 – COVID-19 pandemic: Michigan surpasses 500,000 confirmed COVID-19 cases.
• January 7 - Facebook indefinitely bans President Donald Trump from all of its platforms, citing his role in the January 6 Capitol riot.
• February 11 - President Biden terminates the national emergency declaration on the US-Mexico border.
• March 2 - A major car crash in Imperial County, California kills 13 people and injures 13 others.
• April 6 - The state of Arkansas becomes the first state to ban surgery, hormones and puberty blockers for transgender youths.
• May 1 – Lubbock, Texas votes to become the largest city in U.S. to ban abortion with the "sanctuary city for the unborn".
• June 1 - A firefighter is killed and another injured in a shooting at a Los Angeles County Fire Department station in Santa Clarita.
• July 8 – Attorney Michael Avenatti is sentenced to 2.5 years in prison for attempting to extort Nike.
• August 14 = President Biden authorizes 5,000 U.S. troops to be deployed in Afghanistan.
• September 1 - Texas residents are allowed to carry handguns without a license or training.
Worldwide
• January 27 - A near-total ban on abortion comes into effect in Poland.
• February 20 – 7 people test positive for H5N8 bird flu at a poultry farm in southern Russia.
• March 19 - Samia Suluhu Hassan is sworn in as president of Tanzania following the death of her predecessor, John Magufuli.
• April 2 – Russia warns NATO against sending any troops to aid Ukraine.
• May 3 - 26 people were killed and 98 people were injured when a Mexico City Metro train bridge collapsed when a train passed it.
• June 7 - In Pakistan, a 2 trains collided in Daharki, in the Ghotki District of Sindh. Killing 65 people and injuring 150 people.
• July 25 – Tunisian president Kais Saied formally takes power in the country, suspending the parliament and sacking the prime minister.
• August 3 - The oil tanker Asphalt Princess is hijacked off the coast of the United Arab Emirates.
• September 14 - North Korea demonstrates two short-range ballistic missiles that land just outside Japan's territorial waters.
• October 25 – The Sudanese military launches a coup against the government.