CHRONOLOGY: Major world events in 2009

Following is a chronology of major world events that took place in 2009:
January:
1 - Russia halts natural gas exports to Europe via Ukrainian pipelines because of a pricing dispute, causing hardship in several countries. Supplies resume January 20 after a new deal reached.
1 - Slovakia becomes 16th nation to adopt euro.
6 - Sheikh Hasina Wazed takes office as Bangladesh prime minister after landslide victory.
11 - More than 220 people drown in Indonesia ferry disaster.
15 - US Airways plane crash-lands on frozen Hudson River, outside New York City. All 155 passengers and crew escape unhurt.
16 - Kenya declares a national emergency, saying 10 million people are facing hunger due to a long drought that has affected millions more in the wider region.
18 - Israel ends its offensive on the Gaza Strip that left some 1,400 Palestinians dead, most of them civilians.
20 - Barack Obama sworn in as the 44th president of the United States, the first African-American leader of US.
22 - Obama orders the closure of the Guantanamo Bay detention centre within a year. Deadline subsequently elusive.
24 - Pope Benedict XVI lifts excommunication of four rebel ultra-orthodox bishops, igniting a row when it is discovered that one of them British-born Richard Williamson, is a Holocaust denier.
26 - Nadya Suleman, 33, gives birth to six male and two female babies, the second full set of octuplets ever born alive in US. She already has six children.
26 - Former Congolese rebel leader Thomas Lubanga is the first to stand trial at the International Criminal Court in The Hague.
26 - Government of Iceland resigns in the wake of financial crisis. Early elections are called and left-leaning coalition headed by Johanna Sigurdardottir takes office in May.
31 - More than 10,000 take to the streets across Russia to protest the Kremlin's economic policies in the face of rising financial and commercial instability.
30 - Moderate Islamist Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed elected president of war-torn Somalia days after Ethiopia withdraws its occupying force, raising hopes of peace in the Horn of Africa nation.
31 - Over 130 people die in Kenya when an overturned tanker catches fire and engulfs the crowds attempting to scoop up leaking fuel.
FEBRUARY:
2 - Long-term Libyan leader Moamer Gaddafi is elected chairman of the African Union and immediately vows to push on with his pet project, the creation of the United States of Africa.
7 - Devastating bushfires leave 173 people dead in Australia.
8 - Pop star Rihanna is beaten by her boyfriend, romantic crooner Chris Brown, the night before the Grammy Awards. Rihanna cancels her Grammy performance. Brown later pleads guilty to a felony assault.
11 - Power-sharing government inaugurated in Zimbabwe between President Robert Mugabe's party and the opposition led by Morgan Tsvangirai.
12 - Nigerian police arrest 12 people after a teething formula tainted with a compound used in anti-freeze kills 84 children.
14 - The first-ever female cabinet-level official in Saudi Arabia is appointed deputy minister for women's education, a milestone in a country where women only started to vote five years ago.
17 - Obama signs unprecedented 787-billion-dollar stimulus for recession-plagued economy.
17 - Japanese finance minister Shoichi Nakagawa forcedto resign after appearing to be drunk at G7 press conference in Rome.
19 - Court acquits defendants in contract-style killing of journalist Anna Politkovskaya in her Moscow apartment block in October 2006. Retrial of the four suspects opens August 5.
22 - India-based drama Slumdog Millionaire wins eight out of 10 Oscar nominations, including Best Picture and Best Director.
24 - Swedish Crown Princess Victoria and Daniel Westling announce their engagement, wedding set for June 19, 2010.
25 - Paramilitary border troopers mutiny in Bangladesh over command and pay, leaving at least 74 people dead.
26 - UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague clears former Serbian president Milan Milutinovic, sentences other leaders.
27 - Obama announces plans to withdraw most US combat troops from Iraq by late August 2010.
20 - Latvian Prime Minister Ivars Godmanis resigns, as his coalition collapses amid economic turmoil. Continues as caretaker until March 12, when Valdis Dombrovskis, 37, becomes Europe's youngest premier.
MARCH:
2 - Guinea Bissau President Joao Bernardo "Nino" Vieira is murdered in a revenge attack by soldiers loyal to a general who died in a bombing the previous evening.
4 - International Criminal Court in The Hague issues warrant of arrest for Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir on charges of war crimes.
7- IRA dissidents kill two British soldiers at barracks in Northern Ireland; shoot dead police officer two days later.
11 - A youth shoots dead 15 people and himself in a school =massacre at Winnenden, near Stuttgart in Germany.
22 - Nationalist Georgi Ivanov wins the presidency in Macedonia in the country' first violence-free vote in many years.
23 - India's Tata Motors launches the world's cheapest car, the Nano, priced at less than 2,000 dollars.
24 - Czech government of premier Mirek Topolanek collapses after losing a parliamentary vote of no-confidence halfway through the country's presidency of the European Union.
26 - UN officials say as many as 750 people died in southern Sudan during March as a result of clashes over cattle rustling.
27 - Dam burst in Indonesian capital Jakarta kills more than 100 people, many missing.
29 - Twenty-two football fans die in a crush at a World Cup qualifying match between Ivory Coast and Malawi in Abidjan.
31 - Benjamin Netanyahu is sworn in as Israeli prime minister.
APRIL:
1 - Albania and Croatia join the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation.
2- London summit of world's 20 richest nations agrees 1.1 trillion dollar plan to stabilise global trade and aid world's poorest.
3 - Najib Razak appointed as sixth prime minister of Malaysia.
4 - Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen elected secretary general of Nato. Lars Lokke Rasmussen succeeds him as premier.
4 - Slovakian President Ivan Gasparovic re-elected for another five-year term.
5 - US President Barack Obama visits Prague and meets all EU leaders for first time. Delivers landmark speech calling for global nuclear disarmament.
5 - North Korea launces rocket, claims to put satellite into orbit, condemned by UN Security Council.
6 - Powerful earthquake hits the central Italian city of L'Aquila, killing 307 people and leaving thousands homeless.
7 - Thousands of students protesting a communist election victory in Moldova storm parliament and burn the presidential palace in the capital Chisinau, leaving one dead and more than 200 injured.
10 - Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, 72, elected to an unprecedented third term with 90.24 per cent of the vote.
11-12 - Anti-government protestors derail ASEAN summit in Pattaya, Thailand.
12 - US Navy Seals shoot dead three Somali pirates and rescue Captain Richard Phillips after he was held for five days on a lifeboat following a failed attempt to hijack his ship, the Maersk Alabama.
14 - North Korea announces boycott of six-party denuclearization talks and says nuclear facilities have been restored.
14 - Businessman and former economy minister Gordon Bajnai is appointed Hungarian prime minister. His coalition government promptly hikes sales tax and embarks on drastic cutbacks to public sector.
15 - Trial of lone surviving gunman in Mumbai terror attacks begins in India.
18 - Jurdan Martitegi, military leader of the Basque separatist group ETA, is captured in France.
21 - Former Russian oil tycoon Mikhail Khordokovsky pleads not guilty to charges of embezzlement and money laundering at a new trial.
23 - Lethal H1N1 flu virus identified in Mexico, the epicentre of the ensuing global swine flu epidemic; Mexico closes all schools, cancels church services, shuts down restaurants.
May:
3 - US airstrike kills 140 civilians in Afghanistan's Farah province.
3 - Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's wife announces her plans to divorce, a decision that comes after a newspaper report of her husband attending the 18th birthday party of a lingerie model.
4 - Nepal's Maoist government collapses after eight months over sacking of army chief.
7 - Patxi Lopez is sworn in as the first pro-Spanish prime minister of Spain's Basque region.
9 - Jacob Zuma sworn in as South African president.
10 - Chad repels rebel attack, killing over 200 fighters aiming to reach the capital N'Djamena and depose President Idriss Deby.
16 - Alliance led by India's ruling Congress Party wins a decisive victory in general elections.
18 - Sri Lankan troops kill Tamil rebel leader Velupillai Prabhakaran, ending 26-year civil war.
19- House of Commons speaker Michael Martin resigns over abuse of expense claims by British parliamentarians.
21 - Egyptian billionaire real-estate tycoon Hisham Talaat Mustafa sentenced to death for the murder of Lebanese pop singer Suzanne Tamim.
23 - Former South Korean president Roh Moo Hyun commits suicide following bribery investigation.
25 - At least 100 people killed, 10,000 affected as cyclone Aila hits eastern India, Bangladesh.
25 - North Korea conducts its second underground nuclear test.
JUNE:
1 - US car giant General Motors enters bankruptcy; exits six weeks later under government control.
1 - Air France Airbus crashes into Atlantic off north-eastern Brazil killing 228 people, no survivors. Search called off in August after 51 bodies found.
3 - Organisation of American States (OAS) lifts 47-year-old suspension of Cuba from membership. For readmission, Cuba must apply and demonstrate it is living up to OAS principles of democracy and human rights, the OAS says.
4 - Obama gives historic speech at Cairo University to reach out to Muslim world.
5 - Fire kills 48 young children at day-care centre in Hermosillo, Mexico.
8 - Omar Bongo, Africa's longest-serving president, dies in a Barcelona hospital aged 73 after 41 years in power.
9 - Royal Dutch Shell agrees to pay 15.5 million dollars to settle a lawsuit accusing it of human rights abuses brought by the families of activists executed in Nigeria.
12 - UN Security Council votes for new sanctions against North Korea following nuclear test.
12 - Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad wins landslide victory in presidential election opposition claims was rigged. Large numbers of demonstrators and dissidents following days of protests.
12 - UN Security Council imposes even tougher sanctions against North Korea for exploding nuclear device.
14 - Seven Germans, a Briton and a South Korean kidnapped in restive north-western Yemeni province of Saada. Three found dead and fate of the six others remains unknown.
28 - Military coup topples Honduran President Manuel Zelaya. Honduras subsequently suspended from OAS.
29 - Bernard Madoff, chief symbol of US financial greed, is sentenced to 150 years in prison for decades-long, 65- billion-dollar "Ponzi" rip off scheme.
JULY:
1- Egyptian pharmacist Marwa el-Shirbini stabbed to death in a Germany courtroom in a racially motivated attack against the pregnant 31-year-old. The assailant is given life imprisonment on November 12.
1 - Sweden assumes rotating presidency of the European Union.
5 - Deadly riots erupt in far western Chinese city of Urumqi between Uighurs and Han Chinese. At least 197 people die.
8 - President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono wins by a landslide in Indonesian presidential elections.
8 - The Group of Eight most-industrialised nations' summit begins in the earthquake devastated Italian city of L'Aquila.
11 - Barack Obama arrives in Ghana for his first official visit to Africa as US president - upsetting Kenya, where his father was born.
July 12 - Lithuania gains its first-ever female president when 53- year-old Dalia Grybauskaite is sworn into office. A former EU commissioner, she won a landslide victory in elections held in May.
17 - Pope Benedict XVI breaks his wrist in a fall during his summer vacation in the Italian Alps.
18 - Mauritania's former military leader Mohammed Ould Abdul Aziz wins presidential elections.
23- Carmaker Porsche's big to take over Volkswagen fails, and VW instead takes over Porsche. Both boards adopt the plan. Porsche chief executive Wendelin Wiedeking resigns.
24 - The "Arctic Sea", a Finnish-owned, Maltese-registered ship with a 15-strong Russian crew boarded by pirates in the Baltic Sea. Russia navy forces free the freighter off Cape Verde Islands weeks later.
29 - Malam Bacai Sanha declared winner of presidential elections to replace assassinated Joao Bernardo Vieira in Guinea-Bissau and vows to change the nation's role as hub for drugs smuggling.
30 - Nigerian authorities finally restore order after five days of violence during which an Islamist sect attacked police stations. More than 800 people, including the sect leader, are killed.
30 - ETA car bomb kills two police officers on Majorca.
31 - Philippine democracy icon and former president Corazon Aquino dies, millions of Filipinos turn out for her wake.
AUGUST:
7- Britain's Great Train Robber Ronnie Biggs released from jail on compassionate grounds.
8 - A centre-right coalition achieves a working majority in Moldova's parliament, and begins assembling the first non-Communist government in the former Soviet republic, in a decade.
8 - Typhoon Morakot hits kills more than 760 people in Taiwan.
11 - Myanmar democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi sentenced to 3 years prison, sentence later commuted to 18 months house arrest.
11- Josef Scheungraber, 90, former Germany army officer, is jailed for life in Munich for June 1944 military atrocity (10 dead) in an Italian village.
17 - Collapse at Sayano-Shushenskaya hydro-electric plant, Russia's largest, leaves more than 70 dead.
18 - Former South Korean president and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Kim Dae Jung dies.
19 - At least 100 people killed in co-ordinated wave of bomb attacks in central Baghdad.
20 - Afghanistan begins drawn out presidential elections marred by allegations of widespread vote-rigging. Hamid Karzai sworn in to new, five-year term.
20- Abdel Basset al-Megrahi, who was convicted of the 1988 Lockerbie bombing of a Pan Am airliner which killed 270 people, freed from jail in Scotland for health reasons.
21 - Hungarian President Laszlo Solyom refused entry to Slovakia amid diplomatic row over Slovak restrictions on use of minority languages.
26 - Blast in Kandahar, Afghanistan, kills 43 people.
27 - Saudi Arabia's deputy interior minister, Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, survives an assassination attempt when a man wanted on terrorism charges blows himself up in the minister's office.
28 - Court puts girl, 13, who wanted to sail solo around the world, in state custody.
29 - India's first lunar mission ends after contact is lost with the spacecraft.
30 - Opposition Democratic Party of Japan wins landslide victory in general elections, ousts ruling Liberal Democrats.
September:
3 - Ali-Ben Bongo, son of late president Omar Bongo, wins Gabon's presidential election, prompting riots by opposition activists.
4- German colonel orders two hijacked tankers bombed in Afghanistan, killing or wounding up to 142 Taliban and civilians. German defence minister at time and army's top general forced to resign amid allegations of a cover-up.
14 - A US raid in Somalia kills Saleh Ali Nabhan, an al Qaeda member wanted for his alleged role in several terror attacks against Israeli and US interests in East Africa.
15 - Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg's red-green alliance wins a second four-year term in office.
15 - A UN commission headed by South African judge Richard Goldstone charges both Israel and Palestinian militant groups with committing war crimes in Gaza.
16 - Japan's new government under Democratic Party of Japan leader Yukio Hatoyama takes office.
17 - US President Barack Obama informs the Czech Republic and Poland that his administration has shelved Bush-era, Moscow-opposed plans to build missile shield bases on their territories.
17 - Twenty-one people, including 17 African Union peacekeepers, die in suicide bomb attack on an AU base in the Somali capital Mogadishu.
18 - A methane explosion at a coal mine in Ruda Slaska, southern Poland, left 17 dead and 35 injured in the worst accident in years in the coal-rich region.
21 - Ousted Honduran President Zelaya secretly returns to Honduras, takes refuge in Brazilian embassy.
21 - Iran admits to building secret second uranium enrichment plant of Fordu near Qom.
23 - UN General Assembly opens its 64th annual session.
24-25 - World leaders declare G20 the chief forum for global economic co-operation and promise financial regulatory reforms in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
26 - Typhoon Ketsana hits Philippines, killing 464 people and affecting 5 million. Death toll in Vietnam hits 163.
27 - German Chancellor Angela Merkel re-elected to second term at head of new, centre-right coalition.
27 - Portuguese Prime Minister Jose Socrates wins second term in parliamentary elections. New cabinet takes office October 28.
28 - At least 157 people die when police in Guinea open fire on an opposition rally at a stadium in the capital Conakry. Many victims are bayoneted to death and sexually abused, rights groups say.
29 - Powerful earthquake in South Pacific sparks tsunami which kills 183 in Samoa, American Samoa and Tonga.
30 - Earthquake strikes West Sumatra, Indonesia, kills thousands.
30 - European Union report on August 2008 war between Russia and Georgia concludes that Georgia broke international law by attacking separatists in South Ossetia, but that Russia had also broken the law by invading Georgia in reply.
OCTOBER:
2 - IOC chooses Rio de Janeiro to host 2016 Olympics.
5 - More than 300 people die in floods in southern India.
7 - Italy's Constitutional Court overturns a law shielding Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and other top officials from prosecution, reactivating several legal proceedings against the premier.
9 - US President Barack Obama named winner of 2009 Nobel Peace Prize "for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and co-operation between peoples," Norwegian Nobel Committee says.
10 - Turkey and Armenia sign historic pact that could pave the way for restoring relations and opening their common border.
22 - Over 20 people die following a failed assassination attempt on Somali President Sheik Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, with African Union peacekeepers accused of indiscriminately shelling civilian areas.
22 - Microsoft launches Windows 7, a new operating system for personal computers to replace the unpopular Windows Vista.
26 - UN war crimes tribunal for former Yugoslavia opens genocide trial of Serb leader Radovan Karadzic.
26 - Tunisian President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali, 73, elected to a fifth term with almost 90 per cent of the vote.
28 - Car bomb kills at least 119 in Peshawar, making it the deadliest terror attack in Pakistan in two years.
28 - Suicide attack in Kabul kills five UN workers, forces UN to relocate 600 staff out of Afghanistan.
29 - Likely end of US recession: US government says economy grew 3.5 per cent in third quarter (later revised down to 2.8 per cent). Unemployment rate tops 10 per cent for the first time in 26 years.
30 - A flu epidemic strikes Ukraine's western provinces. Hundreds die and hundreds of thousands are infected before quarantines and international medical assistance bring the outbreak under control.
31 - Longest known Olympic torch relay in history, 45,000 kilometres, starts in Victoria, Canada, leading up to Winter Olympics in February in Vancouver. Athletes carry flame by foot, sled, canoe and airplane.
NOVEMBER:
3- General Motors cancels plans to sell its European arm, Opel, to a Russian-Canadian consortium after months of negotiations.
3 - Czech President Vaclav Klaus ratifies the European Union's Lisbon Treaty, allowing the 27-member bloc to begin an ambitious overhaul of its institutions from December 1.
3 - British mercenary Simon Mann, convicted of attempting to overthrow Equatorial Guinea President Teodoro Obiang Nguema in a failed coup in 2004, receives a presidential pardon and is released.
4 - China executes eight Uighurs, one Han Chinese for crimes in Urumqi riots.
5 - Gunman opens fire on soldiers at Fort Hood, Texas, killing 13 people. Army psychiatrist charged with shootings.
5 - Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas announces he will not seek re-election as president and intends to quit politics.
9 - Germany marks 20th anniversary of fall of Berlin Wall with spectacular ceremony attended by European leaders.
9 - Lebanese Premier Saad Hariri finally succeeds in forming a government of national unity, five months after his alliance won a parliamentary majority in elections.
11 - India, Canada clinch civil nuclear deal to enable New Delhi to access Canadian nuclear technology and uranium.
12 - Algerian football players injured by Egyptian football fans during violence ahead of a World Cup qualifying match. Attacks and riots in both countries strained Egyptian-Algerian relations.
13 - Trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, self-proclaimed mastermind of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, to be held in federal court in New York, Obama administration says.
15 - US President Barack Obama meets Myanmar junta leaders in Singapore, first meeting in 43 years.
15 - The leader of the Serbian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Pavle, dies at 95.
17 - Iran sentences five critics of President Ahmadinejad's re- election to death, 81 others to prison terms.
19 - Oprah Winfrey signals end of her signature daytime talk show on network television in September 2011. Winfrey is expected to launch a new show on a cable channel that she partly owns.
23 - 57 people are killed in a political massacre in the Philippines.
26 - Dubai World, the state-owned real-estate and ports giant, asks for a six-month moratorium on its debt, shaking financial markets from Shanghai to New York.
27 - Trial of former Khmer Rouge cadre, Comrade Duch, ends at the UN- Cambodian court in Phnom Penh.
29 - Honduras elections won by Conservative Porfirio Lobo, but results not widely accepted in the region because ousted President Zelaya had not been restored to power.
30- John Demjanjuk, 89, who was deported from the US to Germany on May 12, goes on trial in Munich as accessory to murder. Prosecutor say he served as a guard at Sobibor Nazi death camp in 1943.
DECEMBER:
1 - Afghanistan: Obama announces deployment of 30,000 more US troops while pledging to begin withdrawals in 18 months.
4 - More than 140 people killed when indoor fireworks set alight a night-club in Russian city of Perm.
5 - An Italian court convicts US student Amanda Knox and her Italian ex-boyfriend Rafaelle Sollecito for the 2007 murder of her roommate, Briton Meredith Kercher, in the university town of Perugia.
6 - Evo Morales elected to second term as president in Bolivia
6 - Romanian President Traian Basescu wins election run-off.
8 - Four co-ordinated bomb attacks in central Baghdad kill at least 100 and wound hundreds more.
11 - Turkey's Constitutional Court bans the country's largest Kurdish political party the DTP, ruling that it supported terrorism.
13 - Assailants hit Italian Premier Berlusconi in face with souvenir replica of Milan cathedral, putting him in hospital for four-days with a broken nose, cuts and two damaged teeth.
19 - Mammoth UN climate change conference in Copenhagen ends with a statement of intention, but without a binding pledge to begin taking international action to limit global warming.
31 - Eight CIA officials killed in a suicide attack at a US military base in eastern Afghanistan.
Deaths that marked 2009:
HELEN SUZMAN (died January 1, aged 91): Suzman was for decades the lone voice of white dissent in South Africa's parliament against apartheid rule. She served in parliament between 1953 and 1989 and was the first lawmaker to visit African National Congress leader Nelson Mandela in jail. After Mandela became the first post-apartheid president in 1994, she was also critical of the new government's record on fighting AIDS, crime and unemployment.
JADE GOODY (died March 22, aged 27): The former dental nurse from London rose to fame on the "Big Brother" reality television show in Britain, fascinating audiences with her ordinariness and lack of general knowledge. Goody was shamed after subjecting Bollywood actress Shilpa Shetty to a racist insult on the show, almost provoking a diplomatic incident. She was taking part in a remake show in India in a bid to clean up her image when told she had cervical cancer. Goody opened up her dying days to the media to earn money for her children, earning new respect. Crowds lined the street for her funeral.
FEROZ KHAN (died April 27, aged 69): The Bollywood actor was dubbed "the Clint Eastwood of the East". Khan, whose father was of Afghan origin and mother Iranian, played up the cowboy tough guy image in more than 50 films. He even died from cancer at his Faroz Khan Ranch in Bangalore. Khan found fame in "Oonche Log" (High Society) and the musical "Arzoo" (Wish), both in 1965. But it was with the 1980 Hindi/Urdu gangster film "Qurbani" (Sacrifice) that he scored his biggest hit as an actor, producer and director.
MILLVINA DEAN (died May 31, aged 97): Millvina Dean was only nine weeks old when she was bundled up in a sack after the Titanic hit an iceberg and carried to safety just before it sank in the Atlantic on April 14, 1912. Though her mother and brother survived, her father was killed and the family never made it to Kansas to open a tobacco store. Dean never married and never had children, but in her 70s became an international star as a Titanic survivor. When she died she was the last person to have been on the ill-fated liner.
NEDA AGHA-SOLTAN (died June 20, aged 27): Neda Agha-Soltan was a talented student and musician who became a symbol of Iran's opposition because she was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Agha-Soltan was stood watching opposition demonstrations against Iran's disputed presidential election, shots rang out and she died in a pool of blood on the roadside. Amateur videos of her death, spread by Internet, heightened outrage over Iran's clampdown. Witnesses blamed Basij pro-government militias, the authorities blamed rioters inspired by the West. The government has protested at several moves around the world to turn her into an icon.
MICHAEL JACKSON (died June 25, aged 50): A brilliant but bizarre pop singer and dancer, Jackson was beaten by his father as a child. It left mental scars but also inspired him to work such as "Thriller", the world's best-selling album with more than 70 million copies sold. He became "The King of Pop". But his erratic behaviour and use of plastic surgery attracted growing attention.
Jackson had lived as a virtual recluse since his acquittal in 2005 on child molestation charges. He had been preparing for a series of comeback shows when he suffered an apparent cardiac arrest at his Los Angeles home. Coroners ruled Jackson's death a homicide highlighting the excess use of a powerful sedative propofol. So the show is set to go on.
KIM DAE-JUNG (died August 18, aged 85): As a democracy campaigner against successive US-backed military governments, Kim survived assassination attempts and was at one point sentenced to death. But he won the presidency, and served from 1998 to 2003, winning the Nobel Prize in 2000 for his policy of trying to seek peace with Communist North Korea.
He left office under a cloud over corruption allegations involving his government and the attempts to woo the North.
EDWARD KENNEDY (died August 26, aged 77): Once seen as the political heir to his assassinated brothers John F. and Robert, Edward Kennedy's hopes of getting a chance to win the White House were killed off in 1969 when a he was driving went off a bridge after a late-night party and a young woman who was with him drowned.
Ted Kennedy still had a long and distinguished career as a Democratic senator, notably campaigning for labour legislation and against South Africa's apartheid regime. He became known as "The Lion" of the Democratic party. He died of a brain tumor at his home in Massachusetts.
CLAUDE LEVI-STRAUSS (died October 30, aged 100): A French anthropologist who helped shape Western thinking about human civilisation, Levi-Strauss trained as a philosopher and shot to prominence with his 1955 book "Tristes Tropiques" (A World on the Wane), a haunting account of travels and studies in the Amazon basin. He was a leading proponent of structuralism, which sought to uncover the hidden, unconscious or primitive patterns of thought believed to determine the outer reality of human culture and relationships.