Wikipedia, the 'Free Encyclopedia', is put online by Jimmy Wales as an empty shell which members of the public are invited to fill with content

The superjumbo Airbus A380 makes its first test flight from Toulouse

Structural work is completed on China's Three Gorges Dam, by far the largest hydroelectric dam in the world

Google pays $1.65 billion for the website YouTube, launched less than two years previously

An explosion destroys BP's Deepwater Horizon oil rig, killing eleven people and starting a massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico

The Solar Impulse, promoted by Bertrand Piccard and piloted by André Borschberg, becomes the first solar-powered aircraft to fly for more than 24 hours

BP announces that a newly fitted cap has finally stopped the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico

US Federal estimates are that more than 200 million gallons of oil have spilled into the sea from the Deepwater Horizon disaster (the Exxon Valdez figure was 11 million)

Thirty-three miners are brought safely to the surface after being trapped deep underground for 69 days in the San José mine in Chile

The Japanese tsunami results in a nuclear crisis and massive evacuation because of meltdowns in three reactors at the Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant

Nearly 20,000 people are killed and more than 125,000 buildings destroyed or severely damaged by the Japanese earthquake and tsunami

North Korea successfully launches a powerful rocket, alarming the world with a new sign of military potential