2005

Year 2005 (MMV) was a common year starting on Saturday (link displays full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar.

2005 was designated as:

The Year of the Volunteer by the UK government.
The World Year of Physics by the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics.[1]
The International Year of the Eucharist in Catholicism.
The Year of Cork City as European Capital of Culture.
The Year of the Veteran in Canada.
The Year of the Rooster (by the Chinese calendar).
The Year of Discovery.

The year 2005 was the end of the International Decade of the World's Indigenous People (1995-2005).

Events

January 4 - Gunmen assassinate the Governor of Baghdad, Ali Al-Haidri.
January 6 - The Graniteville train disaster kills 9 and injures 250 in Graniteville, South Carolina.
January 9 - The same storm which pounded the U.S. earlier in the month hits England, Scandinavia and the Baltic States, leaving 13 dead with widespread flooding and power cuts.
January 9 - Mahmoud Abbas is elected to succeed Yasser Arafat as Palestinian Authority President.

Iraqi police officers hold up their index fingers marked with purple indelible ink, a security measure to prevent double voting.

January 12 - Deep Impact is launched from Cape Canaveral by a Delta 2 rocket.
January 13 - Armed militants enter Israel from Gaza and open fire near the border, killing 6 and wounding 5. Hamas and Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades claim joint responsibility for the attack.[1]
January 14 - The Huygens probe lands on Titan, the largest moon of Saturn.
January 16 - Adriana Iliescu gives birth at 66, becoming the oldest woman in the world to do so.
January 16 - Armed militants kill 1 and wound 8 in the Gush Katif settlement, Gaza Strip. Hamas claims responsibility.^{Confirmation needed}
January 20 - George W. Bush is inaugurated in Washington, D.C. for his second term as the 43rd President of the United States.
January 20 - Ireland completes metrication.
January 21 - In Belmopan, Belize, unrest over the government's new taxes erupts into riots.
January 25 - A stampede at the Mandher Devi temple in Mandhradevi during a religious pilgrimage in India kills at least 215, mostly women and children.
January 26 - Glendale train crash: Two trains derail, killing 11 and injuring 200, in Glendale, California.
January 30 - The first free Parliamentary elections in Iraq since 1958 take place.
January 30 - A Royal Air Force C-130 Hercules transport plane crashes in Iraq, killing 10 British servicemen. Iraqi insurgents release a video claiming to have shot the aircraft down using a missile.^{Confirmation needed}

The Kyoto Protocol is intended to cut global emissions of greenhouse gases.