2010
- The 2010 FIFA World Cup is held in South Africa and is won by Spain;
- the big social media giant Instagram was launched; an image shows a phone with many social media apps, as social media became more popular over the decade;
- an 8.8 magnitude earthquake in Chile killed 525 and was an 8.8 on the scale, becoming one of the strongest earthquakes ever recorded;
- the 2010 Pakistan floods are one of the deadliest floods in Pakistan, with 2,000 fatalities;
- an earthquake in Yushu killed 2,700;
- an airplane carrying 96 politicians crashes near Smolensk, Russia. The plane was en route to a ceremony commemorating the 70th anniversary of the Katyn massacre, which killed 22,000 in 1940. All 96 individuals, including the president of Poland Lech Kaczyński were killed in the crash
- a 7.0 magnitude earthquake near Port-au-Prince killed as many as 315,000, making it the deadliest natural disaster of the last 40 years; it also led to the collapse of the National Palace of Haiti;
- the Thai political protests were a series of political protests that were organised by the United Front for Democracy Against Dictatorship in Bangkok, Thailand
- the 2010 Kyrgyz revolution, also known as the Second Kyrgyz Revolution or the People's April Revolution, resulted in the ousting of President Kurmanbek Bakiyev.
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2010 (MMX) was a common year starting on Friday of the Gregorian calendar, the 2010th year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 10th year of the 3rd millennium and the 21st century, and the 1st year of the 2010s decade.
The year saw a multitude of natural and environmental disasters such as the 2010 Haiti earthquake, the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, and the 2010 Chile earthquake. The swine flu pandemic which began the previous year dissipated in this year. In addition, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) gained four new members; Chile, Slovenia, Israel, and Estonia. 2010 also saw advancements in technology such as the release of the iPad, the public launch of Instagram, and the first successful trapping of antimatter.
2010 was designated as:
- International Year of Biodiversity
- International Year of Youth
- 2010 European Year for Combating Poverty and Social Exclusion
- International Year for the Rapprochement of Cultures