Burj Khalifa opens
828 metres: Dubai builds the tallest structure on Earth
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On 4 January 2010 Dubai opened an 828-metre skyscraper, the tallest structure in the world. Construction took six years; amid a debt crisis Abu Dhabi bailed the emirate out, and the tower, planned as Burj Dubai, was named after UAE President Khalifa bin Zayed. It became the symbol of a fishing town's transformation into a global metropolis.
Wikipedia (Russian) · Wikipedia (English) · 21st century
Meanwhile around the world (±25 years)
Whole world
- 2008 Global financial crisis — 2 years earlier
Europe
- 1989 Invention of the World Wide Web — 21 years earlier
- 1989 Fall of the Berlin Wall — 21 years earlier
- 1992 Maastricht Treaty — 18 years earlier
- 2002 Euro notes and coins — 8 years earlier
- 2012 Discovery of the Higgs boson — 2 years later
Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1985–1991 Perestroika — 25 years earlier
- 1986 Chernobyl disaster — 24 years earlier
- 1989 Revolutions of 1989 — 21 years earlier
- 1991 Dissolution of the Soviet Union — 19 years earlier
Africa
- 1994 End of apartheid in South Africa — 16 years earlier
Asia
- 1989 Tiananmen Square protests — 21 years earlier
- 1991 Eruption of Mount Pinatubo — 19 years earlier
- 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami — 6 years earlier
- 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami — 1 year later
Americas
- 1990 Launch of the Hubble Space Telescope — 20 years earlier
- 2001 September 11 attacks — 9 years earlier
- 2003 Human genome sequenced — 7 years earlier
- 2007 Apple unveils the iPhone — 3 years earlier
Oceania
- 1992 The Mabo decision — 18 years earlier
Alive at the time
- Nelson Mandela (aged 92)
- Neil Armstrong (aged 80)
- Jimmy Carter (aged 86)
- Fidel Castro (aged 84)
- Elizabeth II (aged 84)
- Gabriel García Márquez (aged 83)
- Mikhail Gorbachev (aged 79)
- Pelé (aged 70)
- George H. W. Bush (aged 86)
- Chinua Achebe (aged 80)