(Archive begins here and is to be continued from here forward).
ITNs
Days
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Sweden becomes the seventh country in the world to recognize same-sex marriages nationwide.[ 1]
At least 12 people are shot to death at the State Oil Academy in Baku , Azerbaijan .[ 2]
Six people are killed after a car interrupts the Koninginnedag celebrations in Apeldoorn , the Netherlands , in the first attack on the Dutch Royal Family in modern times.[ 3]
Police clash with protesters across the world as traditional May Day marches turn violent in Germany , Greece and Turkey .[ 4]
Carol Ann Duffy is named Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom , the first female, the first Scot and the first openly gay occupant of the post.[ 5]
Souleymane Ndéné Ndiaye replaces Cheikh Hadjibou Soumaré as Prime Minister of Senegal .[ 6]
Filipino boxer Manny Pacquiao defeats British Ricky Hatton via a 2nd round technical knockout to win the IBO and The Ring light welterweight championships.[ 7]
The Pacific Islands Forum suspends Fiji 's membership indefinitely due to the "recent deterioration of the political, legal and human rights situation" in the country.[ 8]
Floods and mudslides across Brazil kill at least 14 people and displace over 62,000 more from their homes.[ 9]
Prime Minister of Nepal Prachanda (pictured) resigns, after his move to sack the army chief Rookmangud Katawal was opposed by President Ram Baran Yadav .[ 10]
Ricardo Martinelli of Democratic Change is elected as President of Panama .[ 11]
A Venezuelan Army helicopter crashes near the Colombian border, killing 18 people on board.[ 12]
The Republic of China allows financial investment from mainland China for the first time since 1949.[ 13]
John Higgins (pictured) beats Shaun Murphy in the final of the 2009 World Snooker Championship , becoming the oldest winner of the tournament since 1985 and the sixth to win three or more titles in modern times.[ 14]
Austria 's deadliest avalanche since 2000 kills six hikers on Schalfkogel in Sölden .[ 15]
Georgian troops mutiny after officials uncover a plot to assassinate President Mikhail Saakashvili (pictured) .[ 16]
Egypt commences the extermination of all domestic pigs in the country, as a response to the recent swine flu outbreak .[ 17]
Gunmen kill 44 people at a wedding party using grenades and automatic weapons in Mardin Province , Turkey .[ 18]
The European Parliament endorses a bill banning imports of seal products (seal pictured) , drawing complaints from the Canadian government.[ 19]
The 2009 World Table Tennis Championships conclude, with China 's Wang Hao (pictured) and Zhang Yining winning the men's singles and women's singles titles respectively.[ 20]
The death toll in the Brazilian floods and mudslides reaches 19, with 186,000 people left homeless as President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (pictured) inspects the disaster area.[ 21]
Guinea withdraws ambassadors from 30 countries worldwide, for no apparent reason.[ 22]
The United States private military company Xe, formerly Blackwater Worldwide , ends its operations in Baghdad , Iraq (company helicopter over the Saddam Hussein bust pictured) .[ 23]
The arrest of Mas Selamat bin Kastari , Singapore 's most-wanted fugitive , is announced.[ 24]
Typhoon Chan-hom causes at least 26 deaths in northern Luzon , Philippines , with certain areas placed under the state of calamity .[ 25]
Jacob Zuma (pictured) is sworn in as South Africa 's fourth president since the end of apartheid .[ 26]
The Democratic Party , led by Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (pictured) , wins a majority of seats in Indonesia 's People's Consultative Assembly .[ 27]
The 18,000-year-old Chacaltaya glacier in Bolivia disappears, due to global warming .[ 28]
Participating countries of the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants agree to add nine more substances, including lindane (structure pictured) and PFOS , to its globally banned list of chemicals.[ 29]
Russia wins the world championship in ice hockey after defeating Canada in the 2009 IIHF World Championship final, and Ilya Kovalchuk (pictured) is named Most Valuable Player of the tournament.[ 30]
NASA launches Space Shuttle Atlantis STS-125 , the fifth and final servicing mission to the Hubble Space Telescope .[ 31]
Artillery shelling by the Sri Lanka Army kills at least 378 civilians and injures over 1,000 others in the safe zone in Sri Lanka .[ 32]
The VORTEX2 project , or the "Verification of the Origins of Rotation in Tornadoes Experiment 2", begins with more than 50 scientists worldwide in Tornado alley , United States .[ 33]
Scores of members of the British Parliament , including members of the Cabinet and the Shadow Cabinet , are implicated in the ongoing Parliamentary expenses scandal (Westminster Palace pictured) .[ 34]
The European Commission levies a record € 1.06 billion fine on Intel Corporation , the world's largest semiconductor company, for anti-competitive practices .[ 35]
In EuroMillions , a pan-European lottery , a Spanish woman wins € 126 million, the largest amount ever to have been won by a single person in European history.[ 36]
The discovery of the earliest known work of figurative art , a Venus figurine dating to the beginning of the Upper Paleolithic , in a cave in Baden-Württemberg , Germany , is announced.[ 37]
The European Space Agency 's Herschel Space Observatory and Planck satellite (pictured) are launched from the Guiana Space Centre , using a Ariane 5ECA rocket.[ 38]
An attack by the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda kills more than 90 civilians and government troops in South Kivu , Democratic Republic of Congo .[ 39]
In India 's general election , the Bharatiya Janata Party concedes defeat to the United Progressive Alliance , the ruling coalition led by the Indian National Congress .[ 40]
Norway wins the Eurovision Song Contest 2009 with their song Fairytale performed by Alexander Rybak .[ 41]
Ruth Padel is named the first female Oxford Professor of Poetry , after a controversial race.[ 42]
In Kuwait 's parliamentary election (parliament building pictured) , several women are elected for the first time in the nation's history.[ 43]
President of Sri Lanka Mahinda Rajapaksa declares victory over the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam in the Sri Lankan Civil War .[ 44]
Dalia Grybauskaitė is elected Lithuania 's first female President .[ 45]
Velupillai Prabhakaran , the leader of the rebel Tamil Tigers of Sri Lanka , is reported to have been killed by the Sri Lankan Army as the government declares victory in the Sri Lankan Civil War .[ 46]
Raffaele Amato , a Camorra boss accused of being one of the principal importers of cocaine into Italy , is arrested in Marbella , Spain .[ 47]
United Kingdom politician Michael Martin (pictured) announces to resign in scandal over expenses , becoming the first House of Commons Speaker since 1695 to be forced from office.[ 48]
Manmohan Singh (pictured) is elected by the Indian National Congress to become the first Prime Minister of India since Jawaharlal Nehru to return for a second term after completing a full five-year term.[ 49]
An Indonesian Air Force C-130 Hercules aircraft crashes , killing at least 78 people in Java , Indonesia .[ 50]
Scientists announce that Darwinius masillae (radiographs pictured) , a 47-million-year-old skeleton of a primate species, is humanity 's missing link .[ 51]
Apa , a Nepalese Sherpa mountain climber who holds the world record for summiting Mount Everest more than any other person, breaks his own record.[ 52]
Bingu wa Mutharika is elected to a second term as President of Malawi .[ 53]
The United Kingdom 's House of Lords suspends two of its peers , Lord Truscott and Lord Taylor , for misconduct, the first such action since 1642.[ 54]
Ireland 's Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse concludes that the Roman Catholic Church and government inspectors knew sexual abuse was "endemic" in boys' institutions.[ 55]
Former President of South Korea Roh Moo-hyun (pictured) dies after jumping from a mountain cliff, in an apparent suicide.[ 56]
The German Federal Assembly re-elects Horst Köhler as President of Germany .[ 57]
Madhav Kumar Nepal is elected Prime Minister of Nepal by the Interim legislature .[ 58]
In rugby union , Leinster defeat Leicester Tigers in the 2009 Heineken Cup Final to win their first ever Heineken Cup .[ 59]
At the 2009 Cannes Film Festival , Michael Haneke 's Austrian film The White Ribbon wins Palme d'Or .[ 60]
In auto racing , Jenson Button (pictured) of England wins the 2009 Monaco Grand Prix and Hélio Castroneves of Brazil wins the 2009 Indianapolis 500 .[ 61]
North Korea claims to have successfully detonated a nuclear weapon in an underground facility.[ 62]
Tsakhiagiin Elbegdorj is elected President of Mongolia .[ 63]
At Mawazine , at least 11 people are killed and 40 others are injured after a wire fence collapses at a football stadium in Rabat , Morocco .[ 64]
In cricket , the Deccan Chargers defeat the Bangalore Royal Challengers to win the 2009 Indian Premier League .[ 65]
Cyclone Aila kills at least 33 people and leads affects thousands of others in Bangladesh and India .[ 66]
President Barack Obama nominates Sonia Sotomayor to replace David Souter on the United States Supreme Court .[ 67]
Soyuz TMA-15 is launched at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan , carrying Expedition 20 , the first six-man crew of the International Space Station .[ 68]
In football , FC Barcelona defeats Manchester United to win the 2009 UEFA Champions League Final .[ 69]
President of Niger Tandja Mamadou dissolves the National Assembly after the constitutional court rejects his attempt to remove presidential term limits .[ 70]
At least 16 people die and at least 20 others are injured following a bus accident in Yambol , Bulgaria .[ 71]
The discovery of a 4,000-year-old skeleton showing earliest known evidence of leprosy is reported in Rajasthan , India .[ 72]
In the Second Battle of Swat against the Taliban , the Pakistani military (main battle tank pictured) announces that it has fully regained control of Mingora , the largest town in the Swat Valley .[ 73]
Around 250 people are killed in clashes between the Rizeigat and Messiria nomadic tribes in South Kurdufan , Sudan .[ 74]
A 7.3-Mw earthquake kills six people and destroys dozens of buildings in Honduras , Guatemala and Belize .[ 75]
Soyuz TMA-15 , carrying the crew of Expedition 20 , docks with the International Space Station .[ 76]