2026

Events in 2026 147

• 6500 BC – 2026 The Maya Four thousand years, and still here Four thousand years of Maya history, from the first maize farmers of the lowlands to the seven million Maya people alive today. Covers the great Preclassic cities, the Classic dynasties and their wars, the collapse that emptied the southern lowlands, the Spanish conquest and book burnings, the decipherment of the script, and the modern struggles in Guatemala and Chiapas. The Maya did not vanish.
• 1825 – 2026 First Railways of the World The year the railway arrived, country by country The first public railway opened in each country, from the Stockton and Darlington in 1825 to lines that did not arrive until the 21st century. Horse-drawn lines are included where they came first. Plotted together, the dates trace the spread of industrialisation and empire across the world.
• 1853 – 2026 Melbourne Cricket Ground Melbourne, Australia The oldest and largest stadium in the southern hemisphere. It has hosted the first Test match, the first one-day international, an Olympic Games and a Cricket World Cup final.
• 1853 – 2026 Stadiums of the World Every ground built for 50,000 or more A global timeline of the world's largest stadiums — every ground built to hold 50,000 people or more, plotted by the year it opened. From the Victorian football fields of Britain to the mega-arenas of the 21st century, including the giants that no longer stand.
• 1853 – 2026 Top 10 Stadiums in the World The ten grounds that matter most The ten most significant stadiums on earth, shown side by side across their working lives. Between them they have hosted four World Cup finals, three Olympic Games, the largest crowd ever recorded at a football match and the largest at a cricket match. The oldest opened in 1853, the newest in 2020.
• 1910 – 2026 Old Trafford Manchester, England Manchester United's ground since 1910 and the largest club stadium in England. Bombed flat in the Second World War, rebuilt over a decade, and expanded four times since.
• 1923 – 2026 Wembley Stadium London, England The most famous stadium in England. Built in 300 days for the British Empire Exhibition, demolished after 77 years, and rebuilt on the same ground with an arch in place of the twin towers.
• 1925 – 2026 Roy Medvedev (1925-2026) Died 13 February 2026, aged 100 Russian historian and Soviet-era dissident, among his country's foremost historiographers of the late twentieth century.
• 1926 – 2026 Betye Saar (1926-2026) Died 26 July 2026, aged 99 American artist whose assemblages skewered racist imagery and whose installations drew on mystical themes.
• 1926 – 2026 San Siro Milan, Italy Officially the Stadio Giuseppe Meazza, and the only major ground in the world shared by two clubs of this size. Its 1990 rebuild added eleven concrete helix towers and a red girder roof.
• 1926 – 2026 Alan Greenspan Alan Greenspan (born 6 March 1926, New York City) served as Chairman of the Federal Reserve of the United States from 1987 to 2006 — the second-longest tenure in the Fed's history. During his 18 years at the Fed, Greenspan navigated the 1987 Black Monday crash, the savings and loan crisis, the dot-com bubble, the 9/11 attacks and the longest peacetime economic expansion in American history. His monetary philosophy — keeping interest rates low, trusting financial markets to self-regulate, and using the Fed's bully pulpit to guide market expectations — was influential beyond measure. The 2008 financial crisis, which struck two years after his retirement, forced a devastating reassessment of those beliefs. Greenspan famously admitted to Congress in 2008 that he had found 'a flaw' in his ideology.
• 1927 – 2026 Michigan Stadium Ann Arbor, Michigan The Big House, the largest stadium in the United States and the third largest in the world. Its foundations were designed from the outset to allow expansion beyond 100,000 seats.
• 1928 – 2026 Zhu Rongji Premier of China (1998-2003) Chinese politician and economic reformer who served as Premier of China from 1998 to 2003. Sharp-tongued and impatient, he earned the nickname 'Madman Zhu' for his demanding style and willingness to confront corruption and inefficiency. He overhauled China's state-owned enterprises at the cost of tens of millions of jobs, tamed double-digit inflation, steered the economy through the Asian financial crisis, and masterminded China's entry into the World Trade Organization in 2001 — a decision that helped transform China into the world's second-largest economy.
• 1929 – 2026 Len Deighton (1929-2026) Died 15 March 2026, aged 97 English novelist who reshaped the spy story with The Ipcress File and a long run of cool, sceptical thrillers.
• 1929 – 2026 Yayoi Kusama Japanese Artist Japanese contemporary artist whose immersive polka-dot installations, infinity mirror rooms and vibrant pumpkin sculptures made her one of the most celebrated and commercially successful artists in the world. Born into a seed-merchant family in Matsumoto, she began experiencing vivid hallucinations as a child — flashes of light, auras and dense fields of dots — and channelled these visions into an extraordinary body of work spanning painting, sculpture, installation, performance, fiction and fashion. She lived voluntarily in a psychiatric institution in Tokyo from 1977, walking to her nearby studio each morning to create. By the time of her death at 97, she was the world's top-selling living artist.
• 1929 – 2026 Edouard Balladur (1929-2026) Died 31 August 2026, aged 97 French neo-Gaullist politician who served as prime minister from 1993 to 1995.
• 1930 – 2026 Frederick Wiseman (1930-2026) Died 16 February 2026, aged 96 American documentary filmmaker who spent six decades observing American institutions, from Titicut Follies to City Hall.
• 1930 – 2026 Sonny Rollins (1930-2026) Died 25 May 2026, aged 95 American tenor saxophonist, among the greatest improvisers jazz has produced since the mid-1950s.
• 1930 – 2026 Gladys West (1930-2026) Died 17 January 2026, aged 95 American mathematician whose modelling of the Earth's shape underpinned the development of the Global Positioning System.
• 1931 – 2026 Robert Duvall (1931-2026) Died 15 February 2026, aged 95 American actor of extraordinary restraint, indelible in The Godfather, Apocalypse Now, The Great Santini and Tender Mercies, for which he won an Academy Award.
• 1932 – 2026 Duane Michals (1932-2026) Died 9 June 2026, aged 94 American photographer known for sequential images dealing in myth and mystery, and for stretching what the medium could do.
• 1932 – 2026 Edward Hoagland (1932-2026) Died 17 February 2026, aged 93 American essayist, novelist and travel writer celebrated above all for his writing about nature and wildlife.
• 1932 – 2026 Marjan Berk (1932–2026) Marjan Berk, born Marie-Janne van Baaren (Zeist, 11 July 1932 – Amsterdam, 5 July 2026), was one of the Netherlands' most versatile and beloved cultural figures: actress, cabaret performer, television screenwriter, novelist, children's author and columnist for more than 40 years. She spent the first 27 years of her career on stage, in cabaret and on television before reinventing herself at 49 as a writer of more than 50 books. Her TV series Vrouwenvleugel won the Gouden Televizier-Ring in 1994. The magazine Opzij called her "the queen of the light novel." She died on 5 July 2026, six days before her 94th birthday, and was at the time of her death the oldest columnist in the Netherlands.
• 1932 – 2026 Valentino (1932-2026) Died 19 January 2026, aged 93 Italian fashion designer whose jet-set elegance and trademark rosso Valentino red defined haute couture for half a century.
• 1932 – 2026 Clive Davis Clive Davis (born 4 April 1932, Brooklyn, New York) is the most influential record executive in the history of the American music industry. A lawyer with no musical background who stumbled into the record business, Davis discovered and developed more major artists than any other executive of his era: Janis Joplin, Santana, Bruce Springsteen, Billy Joel, Patti Smith, Barry Manilow, Whitney Houston, Alicia Keys, Jennifer Hudson, and dozens more. He ran Columbia Records through its greatest creative period (1967–1973), founded Arista Records (1974) and J Records (2000), and at 91 remains active as Chief Creative Officer of Sony Music Entertainment. His autobiography 'Clive: Inside the Record Business' (1975) is the definitive account of the music industry at its commercial peak.
• 1932 – 2026 Paul R. Ehrlich (1932-2026) Died 13 March 2026, aged 93 American biologist whose warnings about population growth shaped environmental debate for decades. He shared the Crafoord Prize in 1990.
• 1932 – 2026 Nancy Kassebaum (1932-2026) Died 21 August 2026, aged 94 American Republican politician, the first woman to represent Kansas in the US Senate, where she served from 1978 to 1997.
• 1932 – 2026 Francois Englert (1932-2026) Died 18 June 2026, aged 93 Belgian physicist awarded the 2013 Nobel Prize for Physics for proposing the field that gives elementary particles their mass.
• 1932 – 2026 Holmes Rolston III (1932-2026) Died 12 February 2026, aged 92 American philosopher and theologian who founded the fields of environmental ethics and environmental philosophy.
• 1932 – 2026 Bob Pettit St Louis Hawks and LSU, 1932-2026 - the NBA's first MVP Cut from his high school team, then the first Most Valuable Player in NBA history and the first man to 20,000 points.
• 1933 – 2026 Asha Bhosle (1933-2026) Died 12 April 2026, aged 92 Indian playback singer who recorded more than 12,000 songs in twenty languages across eight decades.
• 1933 – 2026 Tony Brown (1933-2026) Died 17 June 2026, aged 93 American producer, writer and filmmaker who hosted Tony Brown's Journal, the longest-running Black news programme in television history.
• 1934 – 2026 Abdullah Ibrahim (1934-2026) Died 15 June 2026, aged 91 South African pianist and composer who fused South African traditional music with jazz and classical forms. His Mannenberg became an anthem of the anti-apartheid movement.
• 1934 – 2026 David Malouf (1934-2026) Died 22 April 2026, aged 92 Australian poet and novelist whose work drew on his Lebanese and English heritage and his Queensland childhood.
• 1934 – 2026 Wendell Berry (1934-2026) Died 31 August 2026, aged 92 American poet, novelist and essayist whose writing on farming and ecological responsibility grew from a lifetime working the land in Kentucky.
• 1936 – 2026 Garfield Sobers (1936-2026) Died 17 July 2026, aged 89 West Indian cricketer regarded by many as the most gifted all-round player the game has produced.
• 1936 – 2026 J. Michael Bishop (1936-2026) Died 20 March 2026, aged 90 American virologist who shared the 1989 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for clarifying the cellular origins of cancer.
• 1937 – 2026 Harald V of Norway King of Norway (1991-2026) King of Norway for 35 years, an Olympic yachtsman and the last European monarch born before World War II. Born at a time when no prince had been born in Norway for 567 years, he fled to the United States as a child during the Nazi occupation and returned to a country that would become one of the world's wealthiest. He defied convention by insisting on marrying a commoner, Sonja Haraldsen, after a nine-year courtship his father initially opposed. He modernised the Norwegian monarchy and was beloved for his warmth, humour and a landmark 2016 speech celebrating diversity that went viral worldwide.
• 1937 – 2026 David Hockney Painter, photographer, printmaker David Hockney was an English painter, draughtsman, printmaker, stage designer and photographer, one of the most influential British artists of the 20th and 21st centuries. A leading figure in the 1960s pop art movement, he became famous for his sun-drenched depictions of Los Angeles swimming pools before returning to Yorkshire to paint the landscape of his youth, and later embraced digital tools including the iPad as a drawing medium.
• 1937 – 2026 Lionel Jospin (1937-2026) Died 22 March 2026, aged 88 French Socialist politician who served as prime minister from 1997 to 2002 in cohabitation with President Jacques Chirac.
• 1937 – 2026 Peter Max Pop artist, 1937-2026 - the look of the psychedelic sixties German-American artist whose saturated colours and star fields became the visual shorthand for the 1960s counterculture.
• 1938 – 2026 Georg Baselitz (1938-2026) Died 30 April 2026, aged 88 German painter, printmaker and sculptor, a pioneer of Neo-Expressionism known for inverting his subjects.
• 1938 – 2026 Ted Turner (1938-2026) Died 6 May 2026, aged 87 American broadcasting entrepreneur who built a media empire and founded CNN, the first 24-hour television news network.
• 1938 – 2026 Anthony J. Leggett (1938-2026) Died 8 March 2026, aged 87 British physicist who shared the 2003 Nobel Prize for Physics for his foundational work on superfluidity.
• 1939 – 2026 Alfredo Bryce Echenique (1939-2026) Died 10 March 2026, aged 87 Peruvian novelist and essayist whose fiction blends wry humour with intimacy and pathos.
• 1939 – 2026 Neil Sedaka (1939-2026) Died 27 February 2026, aged 86 American singer and songwriter who wrote or co-wrote more than 500 songs, among them Calendar Girl and Breaking Up Is Hard to Do.
• 1939 – 2026 Wally Funk (1939-2026) Died 8 July 2026, aged 87 American aviation pioneer who in 2021 became the oldest woman to reach space, sixty years after being denied a place in the astronaut corps.
• 1939 – 2026 Ali Khamenei (1939-2026) Died 28 February 2026, aged 86 Iranian cleric who was president of Iran from 1981 to 1989 and then its supreme leader from 1989 until his death in a US-Israeli military assault.
• 1939 – 2026 Ada Yonath (1939-2026) Died 31 August 2026, aged 87 Israeli crystallographer who shared the 2009 Nobel Prize for Chemistry for mapping the atomic structure of the ribosome.
• 1939 – 2026 Claudette Colvin (1939-2026) Died 13 January 2026, aged 86 American civil rights figure who at fifteen refused to give up her bus seat to a white woman in Montgomery, Alabama, nine months before Rosa Parks did the same.
• 1939 – 2026 Susumu Tonegawa Japanese Molecular Biologist Japanese molecular biologist who was awarded the 1987 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for discovering V(D)J recombination, the genetic mechanism by which the immune system generates millions of different antibodies from a limited set of genes. Born in Nagoya, he solved one of biology's oldest puzzles while working in Switzerland, then spent over 40 years at MIT, where he reinvented himself as a neuroscientist pioneering the use of optogenetics to identify and manipulate memory cells in the brain.
• 1940 – 2026 Mary Rand (1940-2026) Died 26 March 2026, aged 86 British long jumper who won gold at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, the first British woman to win an Olympic athletics title.
• 1940 – 2026 Barney Frank (1940-2026) Died 19 May 2026, aged 86 American Democratic congressman from 1981 to 2013, one of the first openly gay members of Congress and co-sponsor of the Dodd-Frank Act.
• 1941 – 2026 Aldrich Ames (1941-2026) Died 5 January 2026, aged 84 American CIA officer who became one of the most damaging double agents ever to work for the Soviet Union and Russia. Arrested in 1994, he was sentenced to life in prison.
• 1941 – 2026 Liamine Zeroual (1941-2026) Died 28 March 2026, aged 84 Algerian army officer and politician who served as president of Algeria from 1994 to 1999.
• 1941 – 2026 David Clayton-Thomas David Clayton-Thomas (born David Henry Thomsett, 13 September 1941, Surrey, England — died 25 June 2026, Toronto, Canada) was the Canadian singer and songwriter who fronted Blood, Sweat & Tears at the peak of their fame, lending his husky, soulful tenor to some of the most distinctive recordings of the late 1960s. He wrote 'Spinning Wheel,' one of three BS&T songs to reach No.2 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1969. The band's self-titled 1968 album won the Grammy for Album of the Year — beating the Beatles' Abbey Road. He was inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame. His story — from English-born juvenile delinquent who found a guitar in a jail cell to rock superstar to lifelong working musician — is one of the more remarkable in Canadian music history.
• 1941 – 2026 Umberto Bossi (1941-2026) Died 19 March 2026, aged 84 Italian politician who led the Northern League from 1991 to 2012, campaigning for autonomy for the north of the country.
• 1941 – 2026 Jesse Jackson (1941-2026) Died 17 February 2026, aged 84 American activist and politician, one of the defining leaders of the twentieth-century civil rights movement and a two-time candidate for the presidency.
• 1942 – 2026 Christopher A. Sims (1942-2026) Died 14 March 2026, aged 83 American economist who shared the 2011 Nobel Prize for Economics for his research on how macroeconomic indicators interact with economic shocks.
• 1942 – 2026 Sandro Mazzola Inter Milan and Italy, 1942-2026 - seventeen years at one club Forward of the Grande Inter, European champion with Italy in 1968, and the son of the Torino captain lost at Superga.
• 1943 – 2026 Louis E. Brus (1943-2026) Died 11 January 2026, aged 82 American physical chemist who shared the 2023 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the discovery and production of quantum dots.
• 1944 – 2026 Michael Tilson Thomas (1944-2026) Died 22 April 2026, aged 81 American conductor and composer who founded Miami's New World Symphony and led the San Francisco Symphony, championing contemporary American music.
• 1944 – 2026 Robert Mueller (1944-2026) Died 20 March 2026, aged 81 American law enforcement official who directed the FBI from 2001 to 2013 and served as special counsel investigating Russian interference in the 2016 US election.
• 1945 – 2026 Noël Godin L'Entarteur, 1945-2026 - Belgian anarchist and pie thrower Film critic turned entarteur, who spent 57 years putting custard pies in the faces of people he judged to be taking themselves too seriously.
• 1946 – 2026 Dave Mason (1946-2026) Died 19 April 2026, aged 79 British singer-songwriter who co-founded Traffic, the band that brought long, jazz-like improvisation into rock.
• 1946 – 2026 Nedra Talley (1946-2026) Died 26 April 2026, aged 80 American singer with the Ronettes, whose Be My Baby remains one of the defining records of the girl-group era.
• 1946 – 2026 Dolly Parton Queen of Country American singer-songwriter, actress, businesswoman and philanthropist widely known as the Queen of Country. Born the fourth of twelve children in a one-room cabin in the Great Smoky Mountains of Tennessee, she rose from poverty to become one of the most beloved figures in American life. Over a career spanning six decades, she wrote over 3,000 songs, sold more than 100 million records, won eleven Grammy Awards and was inducted into both the Country Music Hall of Fame and the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Beyond music, she created the Dollywood theme park, founded the Imagination Library — which has provided nearly 308 million free books to children worldwide — and helped fund the development of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine.
• 1946 – 2026 Tim Curry English Actor & Singer English actor, singer and voice actor whose powerful baritone voice, expressive eyes and fearless performances made him one of the most distinctive screen presences of his generation. He originated the role of Dr. Frank-N-Furter in The Rocky Horror Show on stage in 1973 and reprised it in the 1975 film, which became one of the most enduring cult phenomena in cinema history. Over a career spanning five decades, he received three Tony Award nominations, a Daytime Emmy Award, and created an extraordinary gallery of eccentrics and villains including Pennywise the Clown, Darkness, Wadsworth the butler, Long John Silver and Nigel Thornberry.
• 1946 – 2026 Birute Galdikas (1946-2026) Died 24 March 2026, aged 79 Primatologist and conservationist whose study of Bornean orangutans is the longest continuous investigation of any wild mammal by a single researcher.
• 1946 – 2026 J. Craig Venter (1946-2026) Died 29 April 2026, aged 79 American geneticist who pioneered new sequencing techniques and led Celera Genomics in the race to map the human genome.
• 1947 – 2026 Bob Weir (1947-2026) Died 10 January 2026, aged 78 American guitarist and songwriter who co-founded the Grateful Dead, the San Francisco band known for its mix of psychedelic rock and jazz-inflected improvisation.
• 1947 – 2026 Santiago Bernabéu Madrid, Spain Real Madrid's home since 1947, named for the club president who built it. Host of a World Cup final, four European Cup finals, and a 2024 rebuild that wrapped it in steel and gave it a retractable pitch.
• 1947 – 2026 Sliman Mansour (1947-2026) Died 24 August 2026, aged 79 Foundational figure of contemporary Palestinian art and co-founder of the League of Palestinian Artists.
• 1948 – 2026 Bud Cort (1948-2026) Died 11 February 2026, aged 77 American actor remembered for the cult classic Harold and Maude, Hal Ashby's black comedy opposite Ruth Gordon.
• 1950 – 2026 Maracanã Rio de Janeiro, Brazil Built for the 1950 World Cup and unfinished when it opened. Its crowds are the largest ever recorded at a football ground, and its most famous match is one Brazil lost.
• 1950 – 2026 Willie Colon (1950-2026) Died 21 February 2026, aged 75 American trombonist, composer and bandleader who helped bring salsa to a mass audience in the 1970s.
• 1951 – 2026 Victor Willis (1951-2026) Died 30 June 2026, aged 74 American singer who fronted the Village People and co-wrote Y.M.C.A. and Macho Man.
• 1952 – 2026 Sheikh Hamad ibn Khalifa Al Thani (1952-2026) Died 12 July 2026, aged 74 Emir of Qatar from 1995 to 2013, whose liberal reforms and gas exports transformed the country into the wealthiest per capita in the Gulf.
• 1954 – 2026 Catherine O'Hara (1954-2026) Died 30 January 2026, aged 71 Canadian comic actor of rare improvisational gifts, known for Home Alone, the mockumentaries Best in Show and A Mighty Wind, and the sitcom Schitt's Creek.
• 1955 – 2026 Lindsey Graham (1955-2026) Died 11 July 2026, aged 71 American Republican senator for South Carolina from 2003 until his death, a leading Senate voice on defence and foreign affairs.
• 1957 – 2026 Afrika Bambaataa (1957-2026) Died 9 April 2026, aged 68 American DJ and producer, one of the godfathers of hip-hop and a leading force in spreading its music and culture.
• 1957 – 2026 Camp Nou Barcelona, Spain The largest stadium in Europe, built when Barcelona outgrew Les Corts. Host of a European Cup final, an Olympic final and a World Cup opening match, and closed for reconstruction from 2023.
• 1957 – 2026 Scott Adams (1957-2026) Died 13 January 2026, aged 68 American cartoonist whose comic strip Dilbert captured the absurdities of the modern office.
• 1958 – 2026 Ali Larijani (1958-2026) Died 17 March 2026, aged 67 Senior Iranian official for several decades who became de facto leader of the country after Ali Khamenei's death, until he too was killed in US-Israeli strikes weeks later.
• 1959 – 2026 Abdul Ahad Mohmand (1959-2026) Died 21 June 2026, aged 67 Afghan pilot and cosmonaut, the first Afghan citizen to travel into space.
• 1960 – 2026 Franco Baresi (1960–2026) Franco Baresi (born Franchino Baresi, 8 May 1960, Travagliato, Brescia – 31 July 2026) was an Italian footballer who spent his entire 20-year professional career at AC Milan, making 719 appearances and captaining the club for 15 seasons. Widely regarded as one of the greatest defenders in the history of the game, he combined extraordinary positional intelligence, anticipation and the ability to read play with the authority of a natural leader. He won six Serie A titles, three European Cups/Champions Leagues and the 1982 FIFA World Cup with Italy. His number 6 shirt was retired by AC Milan upon his retirement in 1997 -- the first player in the clubs history to receive that honour. He died on 31 July 2026, aged 66; AC Milan announced his passing with the words "The entire history of AC Milan is in tears."
• 1960 – 2026 Rod Liddle (1960–2026) Rod Liddle (born 1 April 1960, Sidcup, Kent – 2 August 2026, Middlesbrough) was an English journalist, broadcaster and author who served as editor of BBC Radio 4s Today programme (1998-2002) and spent 24 years as associate editor and columnist at The Spectator. He also wrote weekly columns for The Sunday Times and The Sun and presented a Saturday morning show on Times Radio. A provocateur who delighted and infuriated in equal measure, he was one of the most widely read opinion writers in British journalism -- a sharp, funny, frequently inflammatory voice from the political tradition he described as old Labour: socially conservative, economically interventionist, instinctively suspicious of metropolitan liberalism. He died on 2 August 2026 at the James Cook University Hospital in Middlesbrough, aged 66, following a short illness.
• 1966 – 2026 Estadio Azteca Mexico City, Mexico The only stadium to host two World Cup finals, and the setting for both the Game of the Century and Maradona's two goals against England in the same match.
• 1966 – 2026 Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes (1966-2026) Died 22 February 2026, aged 59 Mexican drug lord known as El Mencho who led the Jalisco New Generation Cartel. One of the world's most wanted traffickers, he was killed by Mexican military forces.
• 1969 – 2026 Marjane Satrapi (1969-2026) Died 4 June 2026, aged 56 Iranian-born artist and director whose graphic novel series Persepolis recounted her Tehran childhood and the gap between Iran and the West.
• 1970 – 2026 Glen Hansard (1970-2026) Died 29 July 2026, aged 56 Irish singer-songwriter and front man of the Frames who appeared in The Commitments and won an Academy Award for Falling Slowly from the film Once.
• 1972 – 2026 Eric Dane (1972-2026) Died 19 February 2026, aged 53 American actor known for Grey's Anatomy and Euphoria. He died some ten months after being diagnosed with ALS.
• 1977 – 2026 James Van Der Beek (1977-2026) Died 11 February 2026, aged 48 American actor best known for the teen drama Dawson's Creek and the film Varsity Blues. He had been diagnosed with colorectal cancer in 2024.
• 1989 – 2026 Hayden Panettiere -- child star, breakout actress, advocate Hayden Lesley Panettiere (21 August 1989 - 16 August 2026) was an American actress who began performing before her first birthday and became one of the most recognisable faces on American television through her roles as cheerleader Claire Bennet in Heroes and country music star Juliette Barnes in Nashville. A two-time Golden Globe nominee, she also appeared in Remember the Titans, the Scream franchise, and the Oscar-winning documentary The Cove. Her later years were marked by candid revelations about addiction, postpartum depression, and the pain of giving up custody of her daughter. She died five days before her 37th birthday in Greenville, South Carolina.
• 1989 – 2026 Lauren Bennett (1989–2026) Lauren Diane Bennett (24 June 1989 – 29 May 2026) was a British singer, dancer and model who rose from talent contests in Kent to become an internationally recognised pop voice. She was a founding member of the girl groups Paradiso Girls and G.R.L., and is best known worldwide as the featured vocalist on LMFAO's 2011 global number-one hit "Party Rock Anthem" -- one of the defining pop songs of the early 2010s, which topped the charts in more than 20 countries and sold over five million digital downloads in the United States alone. Throughout her career she collaborated with LMFAO, CeeLo Green, will.i.am, Pitbull, Robin Antin and the Pussycat Dolls. She died in Kent, England, on 29 May 2026, aged 36. Her death was not publicly announced until 6 July 2026, when her G.R.L. bandmates shared the news on Instagram. An inquest is scheduled for 30 October 2026.
• 1996 – 2026 Johan Cruijff ArenA Amsterdam, Netherlands Ajax's ground and the first stadium in Europe with a retractable roof. Renamed for Johan Cruyff in 2018, three years after his death.
• 2020 – 2026 Narendra Modi Stadium Ahmedabad, India The largest stadium in the world, holding 132,000. Built on the site of the Motera ground it replaced, which was demolished entirely rather than expanded.
• 2026 Seven million Maya Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, Honduras More than thirty Maya languages are spoken today, from Yucatec to K'iche' to Q'eqchi', by around seven million people. The civilisation did not disappear; its cities were abandoned and its books were burned, and the people remained.
• 2026 Zohran Mamdani sworn in as mayor of New York City A democratic socialist takes City Hall Zohran Mamdani was sworn in as mayor of New York City on 1 January 2026, becoming the first self-described democratic socialist to lead the largest city in the United States.
• 2026 United States captures Nicolas Maduro Venezuelan president seized and flown to New York In a large-scale military operation on 3 January 2026, US forces captured Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores. The couple was flown to the United States, where Maduro faced charges including narco-terrorism and cocaine trafficking.
• 2026 Iranian crackdown on nationwide protests The deadliest repression since 1979 Beginning 8 January 2026, Iranian forces launched a crackdown on nationwide protests driven by economic crisis. Death toll estimates ranged from 12,000 to 30,000, making it the deadliest act of state repression since the Islamic Republic was founded in 1979.
• 2026 Indiana wins the College Football Playoff First national title in program history The Indiana Hoosiers defeated the Miami Hurricanes 27-21 on 19 January 2026 to win the College Football Playoff championship, the first national title in the program's history.
• 2026 Justice Department releases the Epstein files More than three million pages made public On 30 January 2026 the US Department of Justice released more than three million pages of documents relating to Jeffrey Epstein, following years of legal and political pressure.
• 2026 Kendrick Lamar becomes the most-decorated hip-hop artist at the Grammys Twenty-seven awards and counting Kendrick Lamar won five Grammy Awards on 1 February 2026, bringing his career total to 27 and making him the most awarded hip-hop artist in the ceremony's history.
• 2026 2026 Winter Olympics XXV Winter Games - Milan-Cortina The 2026 Winter Olympics take place in Milan and Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy, 6–22 February 2026 — Italy's third Winter Games after Cortina 1956 and Turin 2006. Events are spread across venues in northeastern Italy including the Cortina d'Ampezzo ski resort, the Livigno snowpark and arenas in Milan. The first Winter Olympics co-hosted by two cities. Six sports, 16 disciplines and 116 events — the largest Winter Games programme in history.
• 2026 Norway sets a Winter Olympic medal record at Milano-Cortina Klaebo wins six golds at a single Games Norway claimed a record 41 medals at the Milano-Cortina Winter Olympics. Cross-country skier Johannes Hoesflot Klaebo won six gold medals, the most by any athlete at a single Winter Games.
• 2026 Seattle Seahawks win Super Bowl LX Bad Bunny headlines the first primarily Spanish-language halftime show The Seattle Seahawks beat the New England Patriots 29-13 on 8 February 2026 for the franchise's second Super Bowl title. Bad Bunny's halftime performance was the first to be presented primarily in Spanish.
• 2026 United States and Israel launch war on Iran Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei killed in the opening weeks On 28 February 2026 the United States and Israel launched a coordinated attack on Iran, which retaliated with its own strikes. The opening weeks left thousands dead, including Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, displaced millions, and upended the world economy.
• 2026 Total Lunar Eclipse — March 3, 2026 A total lunar eclipse visible across the Americas, Europe and Africa on 3 March 2026. The Moon passes fully through Earth's umbral shadow, turning deep red — the so-called "blood moon" effect caused by sunlight refracted through Earth's atmosphere. Totality lasts approximately 58 minutes. One of the more favourably positioned total lunar eclipses of the decade for European and American observers.
• 2026 India wins the Men's T20 World Cup A third title, over New Zealand India defeated New Zealand on 8 March 2026 to win its third Men's T20 World Cup.
• 2026 One Battle After Another wins six Oscars Sinners takes four from a record sixteen nominations At the Academy Awards on 15 March 2026, Paul Thomas Anderson's One Battle After Another won six Oscars including best picture. Sinners, nominated a record sixteen times, won four; Ryan Coogler took best original screenplay and Michael B. Jordan was named best actor.
• 2026 Sarah Mullally becomes the first woman Archbishop of Canterbury A first in the see's 1,400-year history Sarah Mullally was formally installed as Archbishop of Canterbury on 25 March 2026, the first woman to hold the post since the see was founded in 597.
• 2026 Artemis II carries astronauts around the Moon The first crewed lunar flight since 1972 Artemis II launched on 1 April 2026, the first flight of astronauts to the Moon since Apollo 17 in 1972. The crew travelled 252,756 miles (406,771 km) from Earth, a record for human spaceflight, returning on 10 April.
• 2026 Michigan wins the NCAA men's basketball championship UCLA takes the women's title a day earlier Michigan defeated UConn 69-63 on 6 April 2026 to win the NCAA men's basketball championship. The previous day UCLA beat South Carolina 79-51 in the women's final.
• 2026 Rex Heuermann pleads guilty to the Gilgo Beach killings Seven murders admitted, an eighth acknowledged On 8 April 2026 architect Rex Heuermann pleaded guilty to murdering seven women and admitted killing an eighth. The Gilgo Beach serial killings began in the early 1990s and continued to about 2010. He was sentenced to life without parole in June.
• 2026 India holds state elections in four states and a union territory Governments change in three states India held elections between 9 and 29 April 2026. Counting on 4 May produced dramatic results: the BJP unseated Mamata Banerjee's Trinamool Congress in West Bengal, actor Vijay made a blockbuster debut in Tamil Nadu, and Kerala voted out its communist-led coalition.
• 2026 Viktor Orban defeated in Hungary's general election Peter Magyar succeeds him in May Hungarian leader Viktor Orban was defeated in the general election of 12 April 2026 amid corruption allegations and mounting frustration with his right-wing populist government. Peter Magyar succeeded him on 9 May.
• 2026 2026 World Snooker Championship Crucible Theatre Centennial Tournament in progress or recently concluded. Winner: TBD; Runner-up: TBD. Score: TBD.
• 2026 Michael becomes the second highest-grossing music biopic More than $600 million worldwide Michael, a film about the early career of Michael Jackson, was released in the United States on 24 April 2026 and grossed more than $600 million globally.
• 2026 United Arab Emirates withdraws from OPEC A founding-era member leaves the cartel The United Arab Emirates withdrew from OPEC on 1 May 2026, leaving the organisation that coordinates petroleum policy among its members.
• 2026 Golden Tempo wins the Kentucky Derby First Derby winner trained by a woman Golden Tempo won the Kentucky Derby on 2 May 2026, the first time a horse trained by a woman -- Cherie DeVaux -- finished first in the race.
• 2026 WHO declares a public health emergency over Ebola in Central Africa Outbreak spreads in the DRC and Uganda The World Health Organization declared a public health emergency on 17 May 2026 as an Ebola outbreak grew in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Uganda.
• 2026 Felix Rosenqvist wins the closest Indianapolis 500 in history A margin of 0.0233 seconds Sweden's Felix Rosenqvist won the Indianapolis 500 on 24 May 2026, edging David Malukas by 0.0233 seconds -- the closest finish in the race's history.
• 2026 Pope Leo XIV releases Magnifica humanitas A first encyclical warning about artificial intelligence Pope Leo XIV released his first encyclical, Magnifica humanitas, on 25 May 2026. The 42,300-word document warned about the risks of artificial intelligence and its potential to harm humanity, especially workers.
• 2026 Centenary of Marilyn Monroe's birth One hundred years since 1 June 1926 The 100th anniversary of Marilyn Monroe's birth was marked on 1 June 2026.
• 2026 Pope Leo XIV blesses the Sagrada Familia's tower of Jesus Marking a century since Gaudi's death On 10 June 2026 Pope Leo XIV blessed the tower of Jesus at the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona, during festivities that also marked 100 years since the death of its architect, Antoni Gaudi.
• 2026 2026 FIFA World Cup North American Expansion The first tournament to feature 48 teams, hosted across three nations. Winner: TBD.
• 2026 SpaceX IPO raises a record $75 billion Elon Musk becomes the world's first trillionaire SpaceX went public on 12 June 2026, raising a record $75 billion at a valuation of $1.77 trillion. CEO Elon Musk became the world's first trillionaire.
• 2026 New York Knicks win the NBA championship A third title, and the first since 1973 The New York Knicks beat the San Antonio Spurs in five games on 13 June 2026 for the franchise's third NBA championship and first since 1973. Jalen Brunson was named Finals MVP.
• 2026 Carolina Hurricanes win the Stanley Cup Six games over the Vegas Golden Knights The Carolina Hurricanes won the Stanley Cup on 14 June 2026, defeating the Vegas Golden Knights in six games.
• 2026 Obama Presidential Center opens in Chicago A museum to the 44th president The Obama Presidential Center opened to the public in Chicago on 19 June 2026. The complex centres on a museum dedicated to the 44th US president, Barack Obama.
• 2026 Earthquakes devastate northwestern Venezuela Magnitude 7.2 and 7.5 shocks kill more than 1,400 A pair of earthquakes of moment magnitude 7.2 and 7.5 struck northwestern Venezuela on 24 June 2026, toppling more than 100 buildings. Some 1,430 were confirmed dead and thousands more remained missing.
• 2026 Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce marry at Madison Square Garden A thousand guests, thousands more outside Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce married at Madison Square Garden in New York City on 3 July 2026, with about 1,000 guests inside and thousands of fans gathered outside.
• 2026 United States marks its 250th anniversary A time capsule buried in Philadelphia The United States celebrated its semiquincentennial on 4 July 2026, 250 years after the adoption of the Declaration of Independence. A time capsule was buried at Independence National Historic Park in Philadelphia.
• 2026 Australia wins the Women's T20 World Cup A seventh title for Australia Australia defeated England on 5 July 2026 to win the Women's T20 World Cup for the seventh time.
• 2026 Jannik Sinner defends his Wimbledon title Linda Moskova wins her first Grand Slam a day earlier Italy's Jannik Sinner beat Alexander Zverev in four sets on 12 July 2026 to defend his Wimbledon singles title. The previous day Linda Moskova beat fellow Czech Karolina Muchova for her first Grand Slam title.
• 2026 Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey opens in cinemas Homer adapted with Damon, Holland and Zendaya Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey was released in US theatres on 17 July 2026. Based on Homer's epic poem, it starred Matt Damon, Tom Holland, Zendaya, Robert Pattinson and Anne Hathaway.
• 2026 Spain wins the FIFA World Cup final A 1-0 win over Argentina in extra time Spain beat Argentina 1-0 in extra time on 19 July 2026 to win the FIFA World Cup. England had finished third the previous day, beating France 6-4.
• 2026 Andy Burnham becomes prime minister of the United Kingdom Replacing Keir Starmer as Labour leader Andy Burnham became prime minister of the United Kingdom on 20 July 2026, days after being elected leader of the Labour Party, replacing Keir Starmer.
• 2026 Tadej Pogacar wins a record-tying fifth Tour de France Level with Anquetil, Merckx, Hinault and Indurain Tadej Pogacar of Slovenia won the Tour de France on 26 July 2026 for the fifth time, tying the all-time record.
• 2026 Total Solar Eclipse — August 12, 2026 A total solar eclipse sweeps across the North Atlantic, Iceland, Spain and northern Africa on 12 August 2026. The path of totality is approximately 290 km wide and crosses Greenland, Iceland, the Faroe Islands, northern Spain (including Madrid) and coastal Algeria. Maximum totality lasts up to 2 minutes 18 seconds over the Atlantic. The first total solar eclipse visible from Spain since 1900.
• 2026 Glacier collapse triggers flash floods in Nepal and Tibet Hundreds killed across the Himalaya The collapse of a glacier on 26 August 2026 triggered flash flooding in Nepal and Tibet, causing widespread devastation and killing hundreds.
• 2026 Haakon VIII becomes king of Norway Succeeding his father, Harald V Haakon VIII became king of Norway on 28 August 2026 following the death of his father, Harald V. Mette-Marit became queen.
• 2026 Duane Davis convicted of orchestrating the murder of Tupac Shakur Thirty years after the 1996 killing Duane Keffe D Davis was found guilty of first-degree murder on 31 August 2026 for orchestrating the 1996 killing of Tupac Shakur. Davis was the uncle of Orlando Anderson, the longtime suspected shooter, who died in 1998.
• 2026 Brazilian general election Lula seeks a fourth term Brazil's general election is scheduled for 4 October 2026, with incumbent President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva seeking a fourth term.
• 2026 United States midterm elections Control of the Senate and House at stake The US midterm elections are scheduled for 3 November 2026, with control of both the Senate and the House of Representatives at stake.
• 2026 Centenary of Route 66 One hundred years since the highway opened Route 66 marks the 100th anniversary of its opening on 11 November 2026.