JANUARY

Jan 11: MALI: France sends French forces to Mali to support that country's army and rout Islamists who are pushing south towards the capital Bamako.

Jan 16: ALGERIA: Islamists take hundreds of Algerian and foreign workers hostage at a gas site in Algeria's remote southeastern desert. On the 19th, Algerian special forces storm the gas complex. Thirty-seven foreign hostages die in the siege and rescue operation.

MARCH

March 13: VATICAN - Jorge Mario Bergoglio, an Argentinian Jesuit, becomes the first pope from Latin America, choosing the name of Francis. His election follows the resignation of pope Benedict XVI, the first papal resignation in modern times.

March 14: Chinese lawmakers name Xi Jinping as president four months after he takes charge of the Communist Party.

APRIL

April 15: UNITED STATES: Two blasts near the finish line of the Boston Marathon kill three people and wound more than 100. They are believed to have been the work of two brothers of Chechen origin, Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev. Tamerlan dies later in a shootout with police, Dzhokhar is arrested. JUNE

June 15: IRAN - With 50.68 percent of the vote, moderate cleric Hassan Rohani is elected president of Iran.

June 23: RUSSIA - Rogue US intelligence technician Edward Snowden, who leaked information on spying by the United States, arrives in Moscow from Hong Kong. JULY

July 3: EGYPT - The army ousts Islamist president Mohamed Morsi amid a wave of mass protests. A political crisis ensues, marked on August 14 by an assault on Morsi supporters in which several hundred are killed.

July 22: BRITAIN - Prince William's wife Kate gives birth to a baby boy, providing the world's most famous royal family with a future king, George.

July 24: SPAIN - An eight-carriage high-speed train flies off the tracks near the northwestern city of Santiago de Compostela, killing 79 people.

AUGUST

August 21: SYRIA - 30 months into a civil war which has killed 120,000 people, Syrian troops are accused of chemical weapons strikes around the capital. On September 14 the United States and Russia agree on a plan to eliminate Syria's chemical weapons, averting the threat of a US military strike.

SEPTEMBER

September 21: KENYA - A four-day siege of the Nairobi Westgate shopping mall by Somalian Al-Qaeda-linked militants leaves at least 67 people dead and around 20 missing.

OCTOBER

October 1: UNITED STATES - The US government shuts down for the first time in 17 years and 800,000 federal workers stay home amid a budget impasse in the US Congress. The shut-down lasts 16 days.

October 3: ITALY - 366 African asylum seekers die off the Italian island of Lampedusa in a migrant boat disaster as they seek to reach Europe.

NOVEMBER

Nov 12: PHILIPPINES - Super Typhoon Haiyan - one of the strongest storms on record - sweeps through the Philippines' central islands, leaving more than 5,200 dead, and 1,600 missing.

Nov 24: SWITZERLAND - World powers reach what is hailed as an historic agreement with Iran to limit its controversial nuclear programme. Nov 27: ITALY - Former Italian premier Silvio Berlusconi is stripped of his mandate as senator after being sentenced to a one-year prison term for tax fraud.

DECEMBER

DEC 05: SOUTH AFRICA -Nelson Mandela, icon of the antiapartheid struggle in South Africa and a towering political figure of the 20th century, dies in Johannesburg at the age of 95.

DEC 09: THAILAND: Premier Yingluck Shinawatra calls a snap election to try to defuse the kingdom's political crisis, but protesters vow to keep up their "people's revolution" which started in late October after a bill was drafted to allow his Shinawatra's brother Thaksin to return from exile.

DEC: 28: Arvind Kejriwal takes charge in New Delhi state of India defeating Congress and BJP, just months after forming his AAm Admi Party to fight against rampant corruption.