Dubai unveiled the Burj Khalifa, soaring 828 meters into the sky, the tallest man-made structure ever built, in a fireworks spectacle watched worldwide.

A magnitude 7.0 earthquake struck near Port-au-Prince at 4:53 p.m., killing an estimated 220,000 people and leveling much of Haiti's capital.

A blowout aboard the Deepwater Horizon oil rig killed 11 workers and triggered the largest marine oil spill in U.S. history in the Gulf of Mexico.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs introduced the iPhone 4 at WWDC, featuring the first Retina Display and FaceTime video calling, despite a live demo plagued by Wi-Fi issues.

Shift foreman Luis Urzúa became the final miner rescued from Chile's collapsed San José mine, ending a 69-day ordeal that riveted the world.

The last of 33 trapped miners was pulled from the collapsed San José mine in Chile after a record 69 days underground, ending a rescue watched by a billion people worldwide.

Days before her final house arrest ended, Myanmar's junta held a widely criticized election on November 7; Aung San Suu Kyi was freed on November 13, but the groundwork for the transition stirred that week.

An Indian court's light sentencing in the 1984 Bhopal gas disaster case—capped years earlier but decided this period—reignited global anger over industrial accountability.

Street vendor Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire in Sidi Bouzid, Tunisia, after officials confiscated his cart—an act that ignited uprisings across the Arab world.

Street vendor Mohamed Bouazizi's self-immolation in Sidi Bouzid, Tunisia, ignited protests that toppled a dictator and sparked the Arab Spring.