Timeline of 2007

A chronological overview of notable events from the year 2007.

| Date | Event | Category | |—|—|—| | Jan 4, 2007 | Nancy Pelosi becomes Speaker of the House — As the 110th Congress convened, Nancy Pelosi was elected Speaker on a 233–202 vote, becoming the first woman to hold the office in U.S. history and second in the presidential line of succession. | History & Politics | | Jan 9, 2007 | iPhone launched — Apple CEO Steve Jobs announced the original iPhone at Macworld, describing it as a widescreen iPod, revolutionary phone, and internet communicator in one device. | Science & Technology | | Jan 9, 2007 | Scrutiny of Steve Jobs’s health intensifies — At the Macworld keynote where he unveiled the iPhone, a visibly gaunt Steve Jobs drew intensifying press and investor scrutiny of his health, three years after surgery for a rare pancreatic neuroendocrine tumor. | People | | Jan 10, 2007 | Iraq War Troop Surge announced — President George W. Bush announced a “surge” of roughly 30,000 additional U.S. troops to Iraq, shifting to population-centric counterinsurgency under General David Petraeus. | History & Politics | | Feb 2, 2007 | IPCC Fourth Assessment Report released — The IPCC began releasing its landmark Fourth Assessment Report (Working Group I, Paris), concluding with at least 90% certainty that human greenhouse-gas emissions caused most observed warming since the mid-20th century. | Science & Technology | | Feb 8, 2007 | Anna Nicole Smith dies — The model, actress, and reality-television star died at age 39 in a Hollywood, Florida, hotel room from an accidental combined-drug intoxication; her estate litigation produced two U.S. Supreme Court decisions. | People | | Feb 16, 2007 | Britney Spears shaves her head — During an acute personal crisis and a custody dispute, the pop star shaved her head at a Tarzana salon; the heavily photographed event became a defining moment in celebrity tabloid and mental-health discourse. | Arts & Culture | | Apr 11, 2007 | Kurt Vonnegut dies — The acclaimed American author of Slaughterhouse-Five, humorist, and humanist died in New York City at age 84 from brain injuries sustained in a fall, ending one of the most influential careers in postwar American literature. | People | | Apr 12, 2007 | Imus in the Morning cancelled — CBS Radio cancelled Don Imus’s long-running program after his April 4 racial remarks about the Rutgers women’s basketball team triggered civil-rights protest and mass advertiser withdrawal. | Arts & Culture | | Apr 16, 2007 | Virginia Tech shooting — Seung-Hui Cho killed 32 students and faculty at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Virginia, the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history to that point. | History & Politics | | Apr 23, 2007 | Boris Yeltsin dies — Russia’s first post-Soviet president died of congestive heart failure in Moscow aged 76; President Putin declared a national day of mourning on the day of his funeral. | People | | May 2007 | YouTube rises as global media platform — Following its 2006 Google acquisition, YouTube surpassed 100 million daily video views and launched its revenue-sharing Partner Program, formalizing the creator economy before co-hosting CNN’s first citizen-question presidential debates in July. | Science & Technology | | May 4, 2007 | Greensburg, Kansas EF5 tornado — An EF5 tornado—the first rated on the new Enhanced Fujita Scale—destroyed 95% of Greensburg, Kansas, killing 11; the town rebuilt as a national model of sustainable, LEED-certified, renewable-powered disaster recovery. | Society & Economics | | May 24, 2007 | Facebook Platform opens to developers — Facebook unveiled its developer platform at the first F8 conference, enabling third-party applications on the social network and accelerating its growth past MySpace in global traffic. | Science & Technology | | May 25, 2007 | Google Street View launches — Google added panoramic street-level imagery to Google Maps for five U.S. cities (San Francisco, Las Vegas, Denver, Miami, and New York), pioneering immersive online mapping and igniting lasting debates over geospatial data and privacy. | Science & Technology | | May 30, 2007 | Second Life peaks as social and corporate phenomenon — At the height of the virtual world’s boom — roughly seven million registered accounts and heavy investment from IBM, Reuters, and others — Sweden opened the first-ever virtual embassy in Second Life, emblematic of the institutional land rush into 3D virtual worlds. | Arts & Culture | | Jun 2007 | Blu-ray vs. HD-DVD format war reaches its decisive phase — Exclusive Blu-ray commitments from Blockbuster and 20th Century Fox, together with the PlayStation 3’s installed base, swung the high-definition optical-disc war toward Blu-ray, a lead that culminated in Toshiba’s surrender in February 2008. | Science & Technology | | Jun 2007 | Singularity University conceived — Peter Diamandis proposed to Ray Kurzweil an institution to educate leaders in exponential technologies; it was formally established in 2008 at NASA Research Park and launched its first Graduate Studies Program in 2009. | Science & Technology | | Jun 2007 | Nuclear power renaissance begins — Amid climate concern, energy security, and surging Asian demand, global interest in nuclear power rebounded after two decades of stagnation; uranium prices hit an all-time high and U.S. utilities filed the first new-reactor license applications in 28 years. | Society & Economics | | Jun 2007 | China emerges as global renewable energy manufacturing leader — Under the 2005 Renewable Energy Law, China became the world’s second-largest solar-panel producer (820 MW) and nearly doubled its wind capacity to 5.9 GW, beginning the ascent toward its later dominance of global clean-energy supply chains. | Society & Economics | | Jun 3, 2007 | Paris Hilton jail sentence — The heiress and reality-television personality began a 23-day jail term in Los Angeles County for violating probation from a 2006 drunk-driving case; a brief release to house arrest and court-ordered return generated saturation media coverage. | People | | Jun 10, 2007 | The Sopranos series finale airs — HBO’s landmark mob drama concluded with “Made in America,” whose abrupt ten-second cut-to-black left Tony Soprano’s fate ambiguous and became one of television’s most analyzed and influential endings. | Arts & Culture | | Jun 27, 2007 | Gordon Brown becomes UK Prime Minister — Gordon Brown succeeded Tony Blair as UK Prime Minister after a decade as Chancellor of the Exchequer, in the first mid-Parliament change of premier since 1990 and without a general election. | History & Politics | | Jun 29, 2007 | iPhone released — The first iPhone went on sale in the United States at $499–$599, with thousands of customers lining up at Apple stores nationwide. | Science & Technology | | Jul 2007 | Subprime mortgage crisis erupts — Bear Stearns disclosed that two of its subprime hedge funds had lost nearly all their value, signaling the onset of the global financial crisis. | Society & Economics | | Jul 7, 2007 | Live Earth 2007 concerts — More than 150 acts performed across twelve venues on all seven continents in a global benefit concert for climate-change awareness, produced with Al Gore’s Alliance for Climate Protection. | Arts & Culture | | Jul 21, 2007 | Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows published — J. K. Rowling’s seventh and final Harry Potter novel sold 8.3 million copies in the first 24 hours in the U.S. alone, setting a Guinness World Record. | Arts & Culture | | Jul 30, 2007 | Ingmar Bergman dies — The Swedish filmmaker behind The Seventh Seal and Wild Strawberries, widely regarded as one of cinema’s greatest directors, died at age 89 on Fårö the same day as Italian director Michelangelo Antonioni. | People | | Jul 31, 2007 | Darfur conflict escalates internationally — UN Security Council Resolution 1769 authorized the AU–UN hybrid UNAMID force—the largest peacekeeping mission yet approved—amid ICC war-crimes warrants against Sudanese officials and a renewed U.S. genocide designation over the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. | History & Politics | | Aug 1, 2007 | I-35W Bridge collapses — The eight-lane Interstate 35W steel truss bridge over the Mississippi River in Minneapolis collapsed during rush hour, killing 13 and injuring 145; the NTSB later traced the failure to undersized gusset plates. | History & Politics | | Aug 6, 2007 | Russia-Georgia conflict escalates — A Russian military aircraft violated Georgian airspace and fired a missile near Tsitelubani, the most serious of the 2007 incidents over South Ossetia and Abkhazia that foreshadowed the August 2008 Russo-Georgian War. | History & Politics | | Aug 7, 2007 | Barry Bonds surpasses Hank Aaron’s home-run record — Barry Bonds hit his 756th career home run off Washington’s Mike Bacsik at AT&T Park in San Francisco, breaking Hank Aaron’s 32-year-old all-time record of 755 amid the BALCO steroid scandal that clouded the achievement. | People | | Aug 17, 2007 | Federal Reserve launches its 2007 crisis response — Ben Bernanke’s Fed cut the discount rate 50 basis points, the first move of a 100-basis-point easing campaign that, with the December Term Auction Facility and international swap lines, sought to thaw frozen credit markets. | Society & Economics | | Sep 6, 2007 | Luciano Pavarotti dies — The Italian tenor, widely regarded as the greatest operatic voice of the 20th century, died of pancreatic cancer at his home in Modena, aged 71. | People | | Sep 14, 2007 | Northern Rock bank run — After the Bank of England disclosed emergency liquidity support, depositors queued to withdraw savings in the UK’s first retail bank run in over 150 years, exposing British exposure to the U.S. subprime credit freeze. | Society & Economics | | Sep 16, 2007 | Arctic sea ice hits record low — Arctic sea ice extent fell to a satellite-era minimum of 4.13 million km², about 24% below the 2005 record, opening the Northwest Passage to icebreaker-free navigation for the first time in recorded history. | Science & Technology | | Sep 24, 2007 | Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s Columbia University speech — The Iranian president spoke and took questions at Columbia University’s World Leaders Forum during his UN General Assembly visit, following a confrontational introduction by university president Lee Bollinger, in a widely debated test of academic engagement with authoritarian leaders. | History & Politics | | Oct 9, 2007 | Stock market peaks before 2008 crisis — The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at an all-time high of 14,164.53, the zenith of the 2002–2007 bull market before the global financial crisis. | Society & Economics | | Oct 10, 2007 | Radiohead releases In Rainbows — Radiohead released their seventh studio album as a digital download with a pay-what-you-want price, letting fans set any amount including zero; it was the first such experiment by a major established act and bypassed record labels entirely. | Arts & Culture | | Oct 12, 2007 | Al Gore and IPCC share Nobel Peace Prize — The Nobel Committee awarded the 2007 Peace Prize jointly to Al Gore and the IPCC for their work building consensus on man-made climate change. | History & Politics | | Nov 5, 2007 | Writers Guild of America strike — WGA members began a strike over compensation for internet-distributed content, halting U.S. television production for 100 days and reshaping residual-pay rules. | Arts & Culture | | Nov 19, 2007 | Amazon Kindle launched — Amazon introduced the Kindle e-reader at $399, selling out within 5.5 hours and fundamentally changing how consumers purchase and read books. | Science & Technology | | Nov 20, 2007 | Induced pluripotent stem cells created — The teams of Shinya Yamanaka (Cell) and James Thomson (Science) independently reprogrammed adult human cells into induced pluripotent stem cells, opening regenerative medicine without embryo destruction. | Science & Technology | | Nov 21, 2007 | No Country for Old Men released — The Coen Brothers’ adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s novel went into wide release, winning four Academy Awards including Best Picture at the 80th ceremony in February 2008. | Arts & Culture | | Nov 21, 2007 | Oil prices spike to near $100 per barrel — Crude oil futures reached $99.29 per barrel, the closest prices had ever come to the historic $100 threshold, signaling a structural shift in global energy markets. | Society & Economics | | Nov 24, 2007 | Australian federal election ends 11-year Howard government — Kevin Rudd’s Labor Party defeated John Howard’s Liberal-National Coalition in a landslide, winning 83 of 150 House seats; Howard became only the second sitting prime minister to lose his own seat. | History & Politics | | Dec 6, 2007 | Treasury brokers subprime ARM rate-freeze plan — Hank Paulson’s Treasury announced a voluntary five-year freeze on resetting subprime adjustable-rate mortgages, the centerpiece of its 2007 housing-crisis response alongside the Hope Now Alliance. | Society & Economics | | Dec 27, 2007 | Benazir Bhutto assassinated — Pakistan’s former prime minister was shot and killed in Rawalpindi after a political rally, destabilizing the country ahead of scheduled January elections. | History & Politics |