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

Jacob Zuma is elected president of the African National Congress in South Africa, in place of Thabo Mbeki

Incumbent president Mwai Kibaki is declared the winner of Kenya's election - a doubtful result rejected by his opponent Raila Odinga

A bomb blast kills Benazir Bhutto and at least 20 others after an election rally in Rawalpindi

South Korea's Ban Ki-moon becomes the UN secretary-general, following the retirement of Kofi Annan

Finland is ranked equal first with four other countries in the United Nations Education Index, causing this small country's school system to be much analyzed and discussed

A lease on Strawberry Hill house is granted to the Strawberry Hill Trust and restoration of the house begins.

Elections to the Northern Ireland Assembly bring the same result as in 2003, with extremist rivals DUP and Sinn Fein the dominant parties

Long-term enemies Ian Paisley (DUP) and Gerry Adams (Sinn Fein) agree to share power in a reconvened Northern Ireland Assembly

James Thomson and Shinya Yamanaka separately discover a method for converting skin cells into cells closely resembling embryonic stem cells

Thirty-two students and teachers are killed by a gunman at Virginia Tech, in the USA's worst ever campus massacre

After major damage by fire, the elegant Grade 2 house of West Hall is restored by the Bissell Thomas family

Apple introduces the iPhone, immediately a success for its large touchscreen making the finger the user's equivalent of a stylus or computer mouse

War Horse, a play with life-size horse puppets by the Handspring Puppet Company,. opens at London's National Theatre and goes on to have an astonishing international success

The Saffron Revolution begins in protest against the Burmese junta, with Buddhist monks soon taking a leading role but resulting after a few weeks in savage persecution

Stock markets plunge around the world as fears grow over the US subprime mortgage crisis

Italian prime minister Romano Prodi resigns after a foreign policy defeat in the Senate

Tribal violence against Kikuyu supporters of Kibaki follows his insistence, against independent evidence, that he has won Kenya's presidential election

Australian prime minister Kevn Rudd formally apologizes to the 'Stolen Generations'

President Musharraf's party is heavily defeated. with Opposition parties winning more than half the seats in Pakistan's general election

After 49 years as president of Cuba, Fidel Castro resigns for reasons of ill health

The National Assembly elects Fidel Castro's brother Raúl to succeed him as president of Cuba

The New York Philharmonic performs in North Korea, in the first significant cultural contact between USA and North Korea since the Korean War

Kibaki and Odinga sign an agreement, brokered by Kofi Annan, to share power in a Kenyan coalition government

John McCain claims the Republican presidential nomination in a victory speech in Dallas