2011 in Europe

Events

January

• January 1: Estonia officially adopts the euro currency and becomes the seventeenth eurozone country.
• January 21: Three people have been killed in the Albanian capital of Tirana during clashes between police and thousands of opposition supporters.
• January 24: 37 people were killed and more than 180 others wounded in a suicide bombing at Domodedovo International Airport in Moscow, Russia.
• January 29: At least 10 people were reported to have died in a train crash in eastern Germany.

  February

March

• March 26: At least 138 people were detained in a large protest march against planned public spending cuts by the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government in the city of London.

  April

• April 8: Due to very low visibility in a sandstorm, 80 cars piled up in a mass crash on German Autobahn 19. 30 of these caught fire, resulting in the death of eight people and the injury of 131 others.
• April 29: An estimated two billion people watched the wedding of Prince William, Duke of Cambridge and Catherine Middleton at Westminster Abbey in London.

  May

• May 11: A magnitudine 5.1 earthquake struck the Region of Murcia, Spain, causing significant damage in the city of Lorca. 10 people were reported dead.
• May 16: The European Union agreed to €78 billion rescue deal for Portugal. The bailout loan will be equally split between the European Financial Stabilisation Mechanism, the European Financial Stability Facility, and the International Monetary Fund.
• May 21: Two people have been killed and twenty others were seriously injured in a series of anti-government protests held in the Georgian capital of Tbilisi.
• May 22: Hundreds of flights were cancelled as a result of the eruption of Grímsvötn volcano.
• May 26
• *Three young Russian women have died and another twenty citizens were hospitalized after drinking poisoned alcohol on a yacht in Turkey.
• *Ratko Mladić, the war crimes fugitive accused of orchestrating the Siege of Sarajevo and the Srebrenica massacre, has been arrested in Serbia.
• May 27: Riot police clashed with protesters as authorities cleared away a makeshift camp in Plaça de Catalunya, Barcelona, set up as part of a Spain-wide demonstration against the country's precarious economic conditions. At least 121 people were lightly injured.

  June

• June 2: Four people have been killed in a major explosion at an oil refinery in south-west Wales.
• June 20: More than 300 people were injured in a sectarian interface near a Catholic enclave in east Belfast.
• June 21: 44 people have died in a plane crash in north-west Russia. Another eight have been taken to hospital with serious injuries.

  July

• July 10: At least 122 people have died when a passenger ship sank with more than 200 people aboard on Russia's Volga River.
• July 20: Goran Hadžić is detained in Serbia, becoming the last of 161 people indicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.
• July 22: Anders Behring Breivik kills 77 people in twin terrorist attacks in Norway after a bombing in the Regjeringskvartalet government center in Oslo and a shooting at a political youth camp on the island of Utøya.
• July 29: At least 17 people were killed and 11 injured in an explosion in Suhodolskaya-Vostochnaya coal mine, Ukraine. A short time after the explosion, an elevator collapsed at the Bazhanova coal mine, in the industrial city of Makiivka. According to local authorities, two miners were killed and three others were injured.

  August

• August 9: A Russian cargo plane has crashed in a remote far eastern area, with all 11 people on board believed to have been killed.
• August 12: A passenger train has crashed in central Poland, killing one passenger and injuring at least 81.

  September

• September 7: At least 45 people died when a plane carrying the Lokomotiv Yaroslavl ice hockey team crashed during take-off.
• September 15: Four miners died after the Gleision Colliery was flooded by the waters of River Tawe due to an explosion.
• September 26: Two people have been killed and six others injured in ethnic clashes in the Bulgarian city of Plovdiv.

  October

• October 15: About 200,000 people gathered in Rome, Italy, to protest against economic inequality and the influence of the European Commission, the European Central Bank, the International Monetary Fund on politics and also against the government of Silvio Berlusconi. The protest turned into a violent demonstration, resulting in the injury of 135 people and the arresting of 13 others.
• October 20: Basque separatist militant organisation ETA declared an end to its 43-year campaign of political violence, which has killed over 800 people since 1968.
• October 23: At least 604 people were killed and more than 4,152 injured in a magnitude 7.1 earthquake, near the city of Van, Turkey.
• October 24: 17 people died in Western European unprecedented floods, caused by low-pressure area Meeno.
• October 27: After an emergency meeting in Brussels, the European Union announced an agreement to tackle the European sovereign debt crisis which includes a writedown of 50% of Greek bonds, a recapitalisation of European banks and an increase of the bailout fund of the European Financial Stability Facility totaling to €1 trillion.

  November

• November 4: Seven people have been killed and 51 injured in a 34-vehicle pile-up on the M5 motorway in Somerset.
• November 9: A magnitude 5.7 earthquake struck south-west of Van, causing the death of over 12 people in the collapse of several hotels.

  December

• December 18: A jack-up rig capsized and sank in the Sea of Okhotsk with the loss of 53 of its 67 crew.

  Architecture

• March 29: London Olympic Stadium, designed by Populous, is completed.
• May 5: Tour First, previously known as Tour AXA, becomes the tallest building in France, with a total height of 231 m.
• June 20: Glasgow Riverside Museum, designed by Zaha Hadid Architects, opens as the new development of the Museum of Transport.
• July 27: London Aquatics Centre, designed by Zaha Hadid, is completed.
• October 28: ArcelorMittal Orbit, designed by Anish Kapoor with Cecil Balmond, erected at Olympic Park, London.

  Arts and entertainment

• January 15–January 18: Milan Fashion Week
• January 19–January 23: Paris Fashion Week
• February 10–February 20: 61st Berlin International Film Festival
• February 18–February 23: London Fashion Week
• May 11–May 22: 64th Cannes Film Festival
• May 14: Eldar & Nigar, the representatives of Azerbaijan, won the 56th annual Eurovision Song Contest, with their single "Running Scared".
• August 31–September 10: 68th Venice International Film Festival
• September 17–October 3: Oktoberfest
• October 12–October 27: 55th BFI London Film Festival

  Deaths

January

• January 2: Pete Postlethwaite, 64, English stage, film and television actor.
• January 4: Gerry Rafferty, 63, Scottish singer and songwriter.
• January 15
• *Nat Lofthouse, 85, English professional footballer.
• *Susannah York, 72, English film, stage and television actress.
• January 24: Bernd Eichinger, 61, German film producer and director.
• January 30: John Barry, 77, English conductor and composer of film music.

  February

• February 3: Maria Schneider, 58, French actress.
• February 5: Brian Jacques, 71, English author.
• February 6: Gary Moore, 58, Northern Irish musician.
• February 8: Cesare Rubini, 87, Italian basketball player and coach, and water polo player.
• February 14: George Shearing, 91, British-born American jazz pianist.
• February 27: Necmettin Erbakan, 84, 25th Prime Minister of Turkey

  March

• March 4: Simon van der Meer, 85, Dutch Nobel physicist.
• March 6: Ján Popluhár, 75, Slovak footballer.
• March 17: Michael Gough, 94, English character actor.
• March 21: Nikolai Andrianov, 58, Russian gymnast.
• March 23
• *Elizabeth Taylor, 79, British-born American actress.
• *Teodor Negoiţă, 63, Romanian polar region explorer.
• March 26
• *Paul Baran, 84, Polish-born American computer engineer.
• *Diana Wynne Jones, 76, British writer.

  April

• April 19: Grete Waitz, 57, Norwegian marathon runner.

  May

• May 7: Seve Ballesteros, 54, Spanish professional golfer.
• May 19: Garret FitzGerald, 85, 7th Taoiseach of Ireland.
• May 24: Fănuș Neagu, 79, Romanian author and memoirist.
• May 29
• *Sergei Bagapsh, 62, 2nd President of the Republic of Abkhazia.
• *Ferenc Mádl, 80, 2nd President of Hungary.

  June

• June 7: Jorge Semprún, 87, Spanish writer and politician.
• June 10: Patrick Leigh Fermor, 96, British author, scholar and soldier.

  July

• July 4: Archduke Otto of Austria, 98.
• July 10: Roland Petit, 87, French choreographer and dancer.
• July 20: Lucian Freud, 88, German-born British painter.
• July 23: Amy Winehouse, 27, English singer and songwriter.
• July 25: Michael Cacoyannis, 89, Greek Cypriot filmmaker.

  August

• August 7
• *Harri Holkeri, 74, 57th Prime Minister of Finland.
• *Nancy Wake, 98, New Zealand-born French Resistance fighter.
• August 16: Andrej Bajuk, 67, 3rd Prime Minister of the Republic of Slovenia.
• August 31: Valery Rozhdestvensky, 72, Russian cosmonaut.

  September

• September 7 - Victims of the 2011 Lokomotiv Yaroslavi air disaster
• *Vitaly Anikeyenko, 24, Ukrainian-Russian hockey player.
• *Mikhail Balandin, 31, Russian hockey player.
• *Gennady Churilov, 24, Russian hockey player.
• *Pavol Demitra, 36, Slovak hockey player.
• *Robert Dietrich, 25, Kazakhstani-German hocker player.
• *Marat Kalimulin, 23, Russian hockey player.
• *Alexander Kalyanin, 23, Russian hockey player.
• *Alexander Karpovtsev, 41, Russian hockey player.
• *Andrei Kiryukhin, 24, Russian hockey player.
• *Nikita Klyukin, 21, Russian hockey player.
• *Igor Korolev, 41, Russian hockey player.
• *Stefan Liv, 30, Polish-born Swedish hockey player.
• *Jan Marek, 31, Czech hockey player.
• *Sergei Ostapchuk, 21, Belarusian hockey player.
• *Karel Rachunek, 32, Czech hockey player.
• *Ruslan Salei, 36, Belarusian hockey player.
• *Maxim Shuvalov, 18, Russian hockey player.
• *Kārlis Skrastiņš, 37, Latvian hockey player.
• *Pavel Snurnitsyn, 19, Russian hockey player.
• *Daniil Sobchenko, 20, Ukrainian-Russian hockey player.
• *Ivan Tkachenko, 31, Russian hockey player.
• *Pavel Trakhanov, 33, Russian hockey player.
• *Yuri Urychev, 20, Russian hockey player.
• *Josef Vasicek, 30, Czech hockey player.
• *Alexander Vasyunov, 23, Russian hockey player.
• *Alexander Vyukhin, 38, Ukrainian-Russian hockey player.
• *Artem Yarchuk, 21, Russian hockey player.
• September 11: Andy Whitfield, 39, Welsh Australian actor and model.
• September 12: Alexander Galimov, 26, Russian hockey player.
• September 13: Richard Hamilton, 89, British painter and collage artist.
• September 14: Rudolf Mössbauer, 82, German Nobel physicist.
• September 19: Johnny Răducanu, 79, Romanian jazz pianist.
• September 27: Imre Makovecz, 75, Hungarian architect.

  October

• October 1: Sven Tumba, 80, Swedish ice hockey player.
• October 7: Ramiz Alia, 85, 1st President of Albania.
• October 16: Dan Wheldon, 33, English racing driver.
• October 23: Marco Simoncelli, 24, Italian professional motorcycle racer.
• October 29: Jimmy Savile, 84, English DJ, television presenter, media personality and charity fundraiser.
• October 31: Flórián Albert, 70, Hungarian international footballer.

  November

• November 8: Valentin Ivanov, 76, Russian footballer.
• November 22: Princess Elisabeth, Duchess of Hohenberg, 88.
• November 25: Vasily Alekseyev, 69, Russian weightlifter.
• November 27
• *Ken Russell, 84, English film director.
• *Gary Speed, 42, Welsh footballer and manager.
• November 28: Ante Marković, 87, 9th Prime Minister of SFR Yugoslavia.

  December

• December 1: Christa Wolf, 82, German literary critic, novelist, and essayist.
• December 5: Violetta Villas, 73, Belgian-born Polish singer and actress.
• December 15: Christopher Hitchens, 62, British American author and journalist.
• December 18: Václav Havel, 75, Czech playwright, 10th President of Czechoslovakia and 1st President of the Czech Republic.
• December 24: Johannes Heesters, 108, Dutch actor, singer and entertainer.