2020 Timeline
Samantha Gould, 24’
2020 has been a crazy year from day one. The sheer number of stories have almost been overwhelming. Remember Brexit? The murder hornets? Many of the events that took place feel like years ago, or they have faded into the background in favor of new things that would take up the news cycle for weeks in a regular year. In 2018, Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation was front page worthy for months, but Amy Coney Barret’s was only trending for a week. With the intense saturation of the market, it can get hard to keep track. However, at the risk of sounding like a Buzzfeed article, here are some of the biggest news stories to come out of 2020.
January:
Jan. 3: A U.S. drone kills Iranian General Qasem Soleimani, prompting rumors of a “World War Three”
Jan. 15: The House of Representatives, after impeaching former President Donald Trump, votes to send the impeachment articles to the Senate.
Jan. 20: The U.S. reports its first case of coronavirus, a 35-year-old man from Washington State.
Jan. 26: Basketball player Kobe Bryant and his daughter Gianna, along with seven others, die in a helicopter crash in California.
Jan. 31: Trump bans travel from China, with some exceptions. Brexit becomes official and the UK begins the process of formally withdrawing from the European Union.
February
Feb. 6: The United States reports its first coronavirus death, a woman from Southern California
Feb. 23: Ahmaud Arbery is shot and killed while jogging by two men in Georgia
March
March 11: The coronavirus is declared a pandemic by the WHO. The NBA season is suspended after a player from Utah, Rudy Gobert, tests positive for coronavirus. Harvey Weinstein is convicted and sentenced to 23 years in prison. Tom Hanks and his wife Rita Wilson reveal that they tested positive for the coronavirus, becoming some of the first American celebrities to do so.
March 13: Coronavirus is declared a national emergency by Trump. Police kill Breonna Taylor after breaking into her apartment in Louisville.
March 15: Public schools are closed in New York
March 20: The coronavirus worldwide death toll passes 10,000. Stay-at-home orders are issued for New York.
March 26: Boris Johnson, the British Prime Minister, is diagnosed with coronavirus. The global count of coronavirus cases passes 500,000. The U.S. passes China and Italy in number of cases and passes 1,000 deaths.
March 31: Australian Bushfires end after 10 months of devastation
April
April 2: The number of worldwide coronavirus cases passes 1 million. Over 6.6. Million people file for unemployment in the U.S.
April 8: Bernie Sanders is the last opponent to drop out of the Democratic primaries, leaving Joe Biden as the Democratic nominee.
April 15: Kim Jong-un is thought missing after not appearing at the celebration of the birthday of the founder of North Korea: his grandfather
April 27: The U.S. counts over 1,000,000 coronavirus cases, and the worldwide count passes 3,000,000.
May
May 1: Kim Jong-un confirmed alive after he was seen cutting a ribbon to open a factory
May 4: The first muder hornet in the U.S. is spotted in Washington State
May 6: Elon Musk names his child X Æ A-12
May 25: George Floyd is killed in Minneapolis by a police officer, leading to protests against police brutality and racial injustice.
May 30: Two U.S. astronauts are launched to the International Space Station by SpaceX
June
June 5: New York City reports its first day without deaths from COVID-19 since March 11.
June 17: John Lewis passes away at 80 at his home in Atlanta
June 20: After tickets are reserved by people around the country who had no plans to attend, Trump holds a sparse rally in Tulsa, the day after both the Tulsa Massacre and Juneteenth
July
July 2: Ghislaine Maxwell, an accomplice to Jeffrey Epstein, is arrested
July 4: Rapper Kanye West announced his plan to run for President over Twitter
July 7: The NBA bubble goes into effect in Orlando, Florida
July 26: The NHL bubble starts in Toronto and Edmonton, Canada
August
August 11: Joe Biden chooses Kamala Harris as his Vice Presidential pick, later making her the first woman, the first Black person and the first South Asian person to be elected to that office
August 18: A state of emergency is declared in California by Governor Gavin Newsom after weeks of fires in the west coast, destroying millions of acres, and making the air unsafe to breathe as far north as Seattle.
August 28: Chadwick Boseman passes away at 43 from colon cancer
September
September 2: Carole Baskin from Tiger King is confirmed as a contestant on Dancing with the Stars
September 10: The NFL season starts, not in a bubble
September 18: Ruth Bader Ginsburg dies at 87 of complications from cancer.
October
October 2: Trump tests positive for the coronavirus
October 26: Amy Coney Barret is confirmed to the United States Supreme Court after the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg
November
Nov 3: Election day, there were no results on this night.
November 7: Joe Biden is elected President of the United States, later, all points tally up to 306 electoral college votes