The Provisional IRA announces a formal end to armed conflict and orders units to dump all their weapons

Controversial cartoons depicting the prophet Muhammad are published in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten

Fliint tools from more than 800,000 years ago are discovered at Happisburgh in Norfolk, evidence of human habitation in Britain some 300,000 years earlier than previously thought

French surgeon Bernard Devauchelle and his team in Amiens carry out the first human face transplant

David Cameron wins the Tory leadership election, succeeding Michael Howard as the Leader of the Opposition in Britain

Slobodan Milosevic dies of a heart attack in gaol in the Hague, with his trial for war crimes in Yugoslavia still incomplete

The terrorist organization ETA declares what it says will be a permanent ceasefire in its campaign for Basque independence

Romano Prodi becomes Italy's prime minister after narrowly defeating Silvio Berlusconi in a general election

As the result of a referendum, Montegro declares its indpependence from Serbia

A team from the University of Tübingen find a tiny figurine of a mammoth, at that time the earliest known piece of European figurative sculpture

Bulgaria and Romania join the European Union, bringing the number of member states to twenty-seven

Nicolas Sarkozy defeats Ségolène Royal to become President of the French Republic

European leaders sign the Treaty of Lisbon, an attempt to achieve administrative reforms similar to those of the previously rejected Constitution

In a referendum in Ireland voters reject the Treaty of Lisbon, which has the effect of halting ratification throughout the European Union

After 12 years in hiding the Serbian leader Radovan Karadzic, wanted for war crimes, is found in disguse and is arrested in Belgrade

Georgian armed forces enter the breakaway Georgian province of South Ossetia, provoking a powerful armed response from Russia

With troops now stationed in the breakaway Georgian provinces of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, Russia unilaterally recognizes both as independent republics

The Large Hadron Collider, at Cern in Switzerland, begins accelerating protons round a 17-mile circular tunnel

The Hadron Collider at Cern has to be halted when a serious fault develops, leading to a predicted six-month delay in the programme

Archaeologists from Tübingen discover the Hohle Fels Venus, about 38,000 years old and the earliest known figurative sculpture in Europe

The prime minister of Iceland, Geir Haarde, resigns after the collapse of his country's banking system

In the Icelandic crisis Johanna Siguroardottir becomes prime minister and forms a new government

The Treaty of Lisbon, rejected by the Irish people in 2008, is approved in a second referendum

The Czech Republic becomes the final member state of the European Union to approve the Lisbon Treaty, completing the process of ratification

Herman van Rompuy, the prime minister of Belgium, is voted the first full-time president of the European Council