(Archive begins here and is to be continued from here forward).
ITNs
Days
Continents
Countries
51
28
7/7
Over 50 people are killed and 82 critically injured following an oil spillage ignition in Molo , Kenya .[1]
Kirill of Moscow (pictured) becomes the 16th Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church .[2]
Rafael Nadal (pictured) and Serena Williams win the men's and women's singles respectively at the 2009 Australian Open .[3]
Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir (pictured) becomes Prime Minister of Iceland , the first openly gay head of government of the modern world.[4]
A series of reprisal attacks leaving up to 50 dead occurs in Gaza during a ceasefire in the 2008-2009 Israel-Gaza conflict .[5]
The Pittsburgh Steelers defeat the Arizona Cardinals 27-13 to win Super Bowl XLIII .[6]
Iran launches Omid , its first domestically constructed satellite .[7]
French astronomers discover COROT-Exo-7b , the smallest exoplanet to have its diameter measured.[8]
Fossils of the largest snake currently known, Titanoboa , are discovered in Colombia .[9]
The chairman of a Tokyo bedding supplier is arrested by Japanese police following the exposure of an investment scam reportedly worth US$ 1.4 billion.[10]
The heaviest snowfall for 18 years disrupts air and road traffic and shuts schools across much of Ireland and the United Kingdom (snowfall in London pictured) .[11]
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approves ATryn , the first medicine created using genetically-engineered animals.[12]
In Victoria , Australia , bushfires (satellite image pictured) cause major property damage and kill at least 25 people.[13]
Madagascar police open fire on a protest in Antananarivo , killing at least 50 people and injuring hundreds.[14]
An airplane crashes near Manaus , the capital of Amazonas , Brazil , killing 24 people.[15]
Robert Plant and Alison Krauss win the 2009 Grammy Award for Record and Album of the Year .[16]
President of Bolivia Evo Morales enacts a new constitution which grants more power to the country's indigenous majority and allows for land reform.[17]
Morgan Tsvangirai of the Movement for Democratic Change party becomes Prime Minister of Zimbabwe .[18]
The discovery of a 16th-century mass grave containing at least 49 human skeletons at the Tlatelolco archaeological site in Mexico City is announced.[19]
Iridium 33 (replica pictured) and Kosmos-2251 are destroyed in space, in the first major collision between artificial satellites .[20]
A Continental Airlines airplane crashes into a house in Clarence Center , New York , USA , killing 49 people.[21]
A passenger train derails in the Indian state of Orissa , killing at least 15 people and injuring 150.[22]
The completion of the first draft of the Neanderthal genome (reconstruction of a Neanderthal child pictured) is announced by the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany .[23]
The Andean volcano Galeras (pictured) erupts in Colombia , forcing some 8,000 people to evacuate.[24]
The ongoing general strikes in Guadeloupe and Martinique continue over the high cost of living .[25]
An amendment to the Constitution of Venezuela , lifting term limits on elected offices from the President of the Republic down, is endorsed by 54% of voters in a referendum .[26]
The Royal Navy 's nuclear submarine HMS Vanguard collide with the French Navy 's Le Triomphant in the Atlantic Ocean .[27]
The largest oil spill to affect Great Britain and Ireland in 13 years occurs off County Cork .[28]
U.S. President Barack Obama signs the a US$ 787 billion stimulus package, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 , into law.[29]
UBS AG , Switzerland 's largest bank, agrees to pay US$ 780 million in fines and restitution and disclose account information to the U.S. Government after admitting to helping American clients avoid taxes .[30]
The Danton , a French battleship sunk in 1917 by a German submarine, is discovered with many of its gun turrets still intact on the floor of the Mediterranean Sea .[31]
Ivars Godmanis , the Prime Minister of Latvia , resigns along with the rest of his government amid concerns about handling the economic crisis.[32]
China confirms HIV /AIDS as its leading cause of death by infectious disease in 2008, a fivefold increase over a three year period.[33]
Eleven people are killed and 20 more are injured in a collision between a tourist coach and a train in central Slovakia .[34]
A mine blast in Gujiao in the Shanxi province of China kills at least 73 people and injures at least 113 more.[35]
An outbreak of Hepatitis B in Gujarat , India , kills 49 people and infects 125.[36]
Tamil Tiger launches a kamikaze -style suicide attack on Colombo , Sri Lanka , killing two people and injuring over 50 more.[37]
Slumdog Millionaire wins eight Academy Awards including Best Picture .[38]
A bomb thrown into the crowded Khan el-Khalili square in Cairo , Egypt , kills one person and injures 22 others.[39]
Comet Lulin (pictured) peaks in brightness in the constellation Virgo .[40]
A NASA rocket carrying the Orbiting Carbon Observatory falls into the ocean near Antarctica after a failed launch.[41]
A machine gun and mortar battle in Mogadishu , Somalia kills 15 people and injures at least ninety more in the Somali Civil War .[42]
An international team of scientists announces the completion of its mission to map the Gamburtsev Mountain Range beneath the Antarctic ice.[43]
Turkish Airlines Flight 1951 with 135 passengers on board crashes at Amsterdam 's Schiphol Airport .[44]
Mutinies by a paramilitary force spread across Bangladesh , killing at least 21 people.[45]
The Special Court for Sierra Leone convicts three commanders of the Revolutionary United Front on charges of war crimes , including enlistment of child soldiers and forced marriage .[46]
Milan Milutinović , a former President of Serbia , is acquitted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia on charges of war crimes .[47]
An outbreak of dengue fever kills at least 18 people and infects 31,000 more in Bolivia .[48]
U.S. pharmaceutical company Pfizer settles a multi-billion dollar damages case with 200 alleged victims of a drugs trial in Kano , Nigeria .[49]
Over € 7 billion is stolen from the Bank of Ireland in College Green , Dublin , in the largest bank robbery in Irish history.[50]
90,000 food crop seed samples are delivered to the Svalbard Global Seed Vault in the Arctic Circle .[51]