Russo-Georgian War
Five-day war; Russia recognises Abkhazia and South Ossetia
After clashes in South Ossetia, Georgia attacked Tskhinvali on the night of 8 August 2008; Russian troops entered South Ossetia and Georgia proper. The EU's Tagliavini report found Georgia started the war but Russia's response exceeded self-defence. Russia then recognised Abkhazia and South Ossetia; most UN members see them as Georgian.
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Meanwhile around the world (±25 years)
Whole world
- 1997 Kyoto Protocol — 11 years earlier
- 2008 Global financial crisis — same year
Europe
- 1989 Invention of the World Wide Web — 19 years earlier
- 1989 Fall of the Berlin Wall — 19 years earlier
- 2002 Euro notes and coins — 6 years earlier
- 2010 Eurozone debt crisis — 2 years later
- 2012 Discovery of the Higgs boson — 4 years later
Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1985–1991 Perestroika — 23 years earlier
- 1989 Revolutions of 1989 — 19 years earlier
- 1991 Dissolution of the Soviet Union — 17 years earlier
- 1999–2009 Second Chechen War — 9 years earlier
- 2004 Beslan school siege — 4 years earlier
Africa
- 1983–1985 The Ethiopian famine — 25 years earlier
- 1994 End of apartheid in South Africa — 14 years earlier
- 1998–2003 Second Congo War — 10 years earlier
- 2011 Independence of South Sudan — 3 years later
Asia
- 2001–2021 US war in Afghanistan — 7 years earlier
- 2001 China joins the WTO — 7 years earlier
- 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami — 4 years earlier
- 2008 Sichuan earthquake — same year
- 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami — 3 years later
Americas
- 1983 ARPANET adopts TCP/IP — 25 years earlier
- 2001 September 11 attacks — 7 years earlier
- 2003 Human genome sequenced — 5 years earlier
- 2007 Apple unveils the iPhone — 1 year earlier
- 2010 Haiti earthquake — 2 years later
Oceania
- 1992 The Mabo decision — 16 years earlier
Alive at the time
- Nelson Mandela (aged 90)
- Neil Armstrong (aged 78)
- Edmund Hillary (aged 89)
- Jimmy Carter (aged 84)
- Fidel Castro (aged 82)
- Elizabeth II (aged 82)
- Gabriel García Márquez (aged 81)
- Mikhail Gorbachev (aged 77)
- Pelé (aged 68)
- Claude Lévi-Strauss (aged 100)