2016 in Europe

Events

January

• 1 January
• * The Netherlands takes over the rotating presidency of the EU Council from Luxembourg.
• * San Sebastián and Wrocław are named European Capitals of Culture.
• 8 January – 32 people, including 22 asylum seekers, are arrested in connection to a series of apparently co-ordinated sexual assaults and thefts in the German city of Cologne on New Year's Eve.
• 9 January
• * Tens of thousands of people take to the streets in cities around Poland to protest against a new law giving the government control of state media.
• * 14 people are injured and the government building is set alight as opposition protests in Kosovo's capital Pristina turn violent.
• 12 January – A suspected suicide bombing kills at least 11 people and injures 14 in Istanbul's Sultanahmet Square.
• 24 January – Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa is elected President of Portugal.
• 28 January – A boat carrying Iraqi Kurdish migrants sinks off the Greek island of Samos, killing at least 24 people, including several children, with 11 others missing.
• 30 January – A massive pile-up involving 70 vehicles, including a bus and several lorries, kills four people and injures 30 on A1 motorway in western Slovenia.

  February

• 9 February – Two passenger trains collide in the German town of Bad Aibling, with 11 people killed and 82 injured.
• 12 February – Pope Francis and Patriarch Kirill sign an Ecumenical Declaration in the first such meeting since the East–West Schism in 1054.
• 15 February – Bosnia and Herzegovina formally applies to join the European Union.
• 28 February – A total of 36 people are presumed dead following three explosions at a coal mine in Vorkuta, Russia.

  March

• 5 March – The party of Slovak prime minister Robert Fico wins the election but loses the parliamentary majority.
• 13 March – At least 34 people are killed and 125 wounded in a suicide car bombing in the Turkish capital of Ankara.
• 18 March – Paris attacks suspect Salah Abdeslam is shot and arrested in a police raid in the Molenbeek area of Brussels after a four-month international manhunt.
• 19 March – Flydubai Flight 981 crashes while attempting to land at Rostov-on-Don Airport, Russia, killing all 62 people on board.
• 20 March – At least 14 people are killed after a coach carrying Erasmus exchange students crashes near Barcelona.
• 22 March – 32 people are killed and 316 injured in attacks at Brussels Airport and Maalbeek metro station.
• 24 March – Ex-Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadžić is sentenced to 40 years in prison after being found guilty of genocide and crimes against humanity committed during the Bosnian War.

  April

• 3 April – A ceasefire is announced after at least 193 soldiers are killed in clashes between Azerbaijani and Armenian forces over the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region.
• 4 April – Thousands of people protest in Reykjavík, asking for the resignation of Prime Minister Sigmundur Davíð Gunnlaugsson, after Panama Papers investigation revealed that he had hidden investments in tax heavens.
• 18 April – More than 400 migrants and refugees drown in the Mediterranean Sea while trying to cross by boat from Egypt to Italy.
• 21 April – The Bulgarian parliament approves the introduction of compulsory voting.
• 29 April – A helicopter ferrying passengers from a Norwegian oil platform crashes in the North Sea, killing all 13 people on board.

  May

• 11 May – Italy becomes the last Western European country to legalize same-sex civil unions.
• 14 May – Jamala, representing Ukraine with the song "1944", wins the Eurovision Song Contest 2016 in Stockholm, Sweden.
• 19 May – EgyptAir Flight 804 crashes off the Greek island of Karpathos, killing all 66 people on board.
• 22 May
• * A gunman fires shots into a small crowd attending an open air concert in Nenzing, Austria, killing two people and wounding 11 others before shooting himself to death.
• * Independent Green Alexander Van der Bellen is narrowly elected President of Austria.
• 29 May – 17 people die in a fire at a building housing elderly people in a village near Ukraine's capital Kiev.

  June

• 1 June – Gotthard Base Tunnel, the world's longest and deepest traffic tunnel, opens in Switzerland. It is the first flat route through the Alps.
• 3 June – Heavy rains cause severe flooding in parts of France as well as Belgium and Germany, with reports of at least 11 people dead.
• 6 June
• * Three people are killed and 36 injured in a train crash in eastern Belgium.
• * A bus carrying school children, teachers and parents plunges into an irrigation canal in southern Turkey, killing 14 people.
• 7 June – A car bomb attack targeting a police bus kills 11 people and injures 36 in central Istanbul.
• 14 June
• * UEFA fines the Russian Football Union €150,000 and imposes a suspended disqualification on their team for violence at UEFA Euro 2016.
• * At least 40 people are injured in violence during street protests in Paris against French labor reform.
• 19 June - Baku hosts the European Grand Prix which is won by Mercedes driver Nico Rosberg
• 23 June – The United Kingdom votes to leave the European Union.
• 25 June – Guðni Jóhannesson wins Iceland's presidential election.
• 26 June – Conservative People's Party, led by Mariano Rajoy, gains the most seats in the Spanish repeat election but remains short of a majority.
• 28 June – An armed attack at Istanbul Atatürk Airport leaves at least 41 people dead and 239 others injured.

  July

• 1 July – Latvia becomes the 35th member of the OECD.
• 2 July – A gunman shoots five people dead and wounds 22 more after opening fire in a café in Žitište, Serbia.
• 8–9 July – Leaders of NATO member states meet at the two-day summit in the Polish capital of Warsaw.
• 12 July – 27 people are killed and dozens more injured in a head-on collision involving two passenger trains in the Apulia region of Italy.
• 13 July – Theresa May replaces David Cameron as leader of the Conservative Party and becomes Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
• 14 July – At least 86 people are killed after a truck is deliberately driven into a Bastille Day crowd in Nice, France.
• 15–16 July – At least 265 people are killed and more than 3,000 members of Turkey's armed forces arrested after an attempted military coup.
• 21 July – Rioting erupts in the Armenian capital of Yerevan as protesters clash with police over the government's handling of a four-day hostage crisis.
• 22 July – A gunman opens fire near a shopping mall in Munich, Germany, killing 9 people and injuring 27.

  August

• 6 August – An accidental explosion and fire kill at least 13 people in a bar in the French city of Rouen.
• 7 August – At least 21 people are dead and six are missing after torrential rains and flooding affect Macedonia's capital of Skopje.
• 10 August
• * Three people are killed and hundreds left critically injured as major wildfires sweep across the Portuguese island of Madeira.
• * A wave of Kurdish rebel attacks targeting police and soldiers in southeast Turkey kill at least 12 people.
• 20 August – At least 51 people are killed and scores more wounded in a suicide attack at a wedding ceremony in Turkey's southeastern province of Gaziantep.
• 24 August – A magnitude 6.2 earthquake hits central Italy, killing at least 290 people.
• 26 August
• * Yavuz Sultan Selim Bridge, the world's tallest suspension bridge, opens to traffic across the Bosphorus.
• * Kurdish militants attack a police checkpoint in southeast Turkey with an explosives-laden truck, killing at least 11 police officers and wounding 78 other people.
• 27 August – At least 17 migrant workers die after a fire breaks out at a Moscow warehouse.

  September

• 18 September – Russia's parliamentary elections bring a landslide win for President Vladimir Putin's United Russia and its allies.

  October

• 9 October – A car bomb attack outside the Durak gendarmerie station in southeastern Turkey leaves 10 soldiers and eight civilians dead and scores of others injured.
• 10 October – Kersti Kaljulaid becomes the first female President of Estonia.
• 26 October – Powerful earthquakes rock central Italy, causing buildings to crumble, knocking power out and sending panicked residents fleeing into the streets.

  November

• 9 November – A derailment on the Tramlink in Croydon, London, kills seven people and injures more than 50 others.
• 13 November – Pro-Russian candidate Igor Dodon wins the second round of Moldova's presidential election.
• 14 November – Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borisov submits his resignation to the National Assembly after opposition-backed Rumen Radev wins the presidential runoff.
• 16 November – Russian President Vladimir Putin issues a decree for Russia to withdraw from the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.

  December

• 4 December – Alexander Van der Bellen wins the Austrian presidential election in a re-run of the second round.
• 5 December – Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi resigns after Italy votes no in a referendum on constitutional reform.
• 9 December – The European Union grants visa-free travel for Georgia and Ukraine.
• 10 December – A cargo train carrying propane-butane derails and explodes in a northeastern Bulgarian village, killing five people and injuring at least 27.
• 17 December – A suspected suicide car bomb in central Turkey kills 13 soldiers aboard a bus and wounds 55 more.
• 19 December
• * The Russian ambassador to Turkey, Andrei Karlov, is assassinated in Ankara.
• * At least 12 people are killed and more than 40 others are injured as a truck rams into a packed Christmas market in Berlin.
• * At least 75 people die from poisoning after consuming a bath lotion containing alcohol in the Siberian city of Irkutsk.
• 23 December – An Afriqiyah Airways flight originating from Sabha, Libya, is hijacked and forced to make an emergency landing in Malta.

  Sports

• 2016 European Grand Prix
• Euro 2016

  Arts and entertainment

Deaths

January

• 1 January – Vilmos Zsigmond, Hungarian-American cinematographer
• 2 January – Michel Delpech, French singer-songwriter and actor
• 3 January – Peter Naur, Danish computer scientist
• 4 January – Michel Galabru, French actor
• 5 January – Pierre Boulez, French composer, conductor, writer and pianist
• 6 January – Silvana Pampanini, Italian actress and director
• 7 January – André Courrèges, French fashion designer
• 8 January – Maria Teresa de Filippis, Italian racing driver
• 10 January – David Bowie, English singer, songwriter and producer
• 14 January – Alan Rickman, English actor and director
• 18 January – Michel Tournier, French writer
• 19 January – Ettore Scola, Italian screenwriter and film director
• 26 January – Black, English singer-songwriter
• 29 January – Jacques Rivette, French film director and film critic
• 30 January – Frank Finlay, English stage, film and television actor
• 31 January – Terry Wogan, Irish-British radio and television broadcaster

  February

• 13 February
• * Trifon Ivanov, Bulgarian footballer
• * Slobodan Santrač, Serbian football manager and player
• 15 February – George Gaynes, Finnish-born American actor
• 17 February – Andrzej Żuławski, Polish film director and writer
• 19 February – Umberto Eco, Italian novelist, essayist, literary critic, philosopher and semiotician
• 22 February – Douglas Slocombe, English cinematographer
• 29 February
• * Hannes Löhr, German football player and manager
• * José Parra Martínez, Spanish football defender

  March

• 5 March – Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Austrian conductor
• 8 March – George Martin, English record producer, arranger, composer, conductor, audio engineer and musician
• 10 March – Keith Emerson, English keyboardist and composer
• 11 March
• * Iolanda Balaș, Romanian Olympic high jumper
• * Dragan Nikolić, Serbian actor
• 14 March – Peter Maxwell Davies, English composer and conductor
• 18 March
• * Lothar Späth, German politician
• * Guido Westerwelle, Foreign Minister and Vice Chancellor of Germany
• 20 March – Anker Jørgensen, Prime Minister and Foreign Minister of Denmark
• 21 March – Andrew Grove, Hungarian-born American businessman, engineer, author and science pioneer
• 24 March
• * Roger Cicero, German jazz and pop musician
• * Johan Cruyff, Dutch professional football player and coach
• 31 March
• * Georges Cottier, Swiss Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church
• * Hans-Dietrich Genscher, Vice Chancellor, Foreign Minister and Interior Minister of Germany
• * Zaha Hadid, Iraqi-born British architect
• * Imre Kertész, Hungarian author

  April

• 3 April – Cesare Maldini, Italian football manager and player
• 4 April – Chus Lampreave, Spanish actress
• 12 April – Arnold Wesker, English dramatist
• 16 April – Louis Pilot, Luxembourgian football player and manager
• 19 April – Walter Kohn, Austrian-born American theoretical physicist and theoretical chemist
• 20 April – Guy Hamilton, English film director
• 24 April – Klaus Siebert, German biathlete
• 25 April – Martin Gray, Polish writer
• 27 April – Viktor Gavrikov, Lithuanian-Swiss chess Grandmaster
• 30 April – Harry Kroto, English Nobel chemist

  May

• 5 May – Siné, French political cartoonist
• 6 May – Margot Honecker, East German politician
• 16 May – Giovanni Coppa, Italian Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church
• 19 May
• * Alexandre Astruc, French film critic and film director
• * Marco Pannella, Italian politician
• * Alan Young, English-born Canadian-American actor
• 21 May
• * Sándor Tarics, Hungarian Olympic water polo player
• * Nick Menza, German-born American drummer
• 22 May – Bata Živojinović, Serbian actor and politician
• 26 May
• * Loris Francesco Capovilla, Italian Roman Catholic prelate and cardinal
• * Arturo Pomar, Spanish chess grandmaster
• 28 May
• * Giorgio Albertazzi, Italian actor and film director
• * David Cañada, Spanish professional road racing cyclist
• 31 May – Corry Brokken, Dutch singer

  June

• 2 June – Tom Kibble, British theoretical physicist
• 3 June – Luis Salom, Spanish motorcycle racer
• 6 June
• * Peter Shaffer, English playwright and screenwriter
• * Viktor Korchnoi, Russian chess grandmaster and author
• 8 June – Pierre Aubert, Swiss politician and lawyer
• 11 June – Rudi Altig, German professional track and road racing cyclist
• 18 June – Vittorio Merloni, Italian entrepreneur and industrialist
• 19 June
• * Victor Stănculescu, Romanian general
• * Anton Yelchin, Russian-born American actor
• 20 June – Edgard Pisani, French statesman, philosopher, and writer
• 25 June – Maurice G. Dantec, French science fiction writer and musician
• 27 June – Bud Spencer, Italian actor, filmmaker, and professional swimmer
• 28 June – André Guelfi, French racing driver

  July

• 1 July – Yves Bonnefoy, French poet and art historian
• 2 July
• * Rudolf E. Kálmán, Hungarian-born American electrical engineer, mathematician, and inventor
• * Michel Rocard, Prime Minister of France
• * Elie Wiesel, Romanian-born American Jewish writer, professor, political activist, Holocaust survivor, and Nobel laureate
• 6 July – Turgay Şeren, Turkish footballer
• 9 July – Silvano Piovanelli, Italian prelate of the Roman Catholic Church
• 12 July
• * Goran Hadžić, Serbian politician and alleged war criminal
• * Zygmunt Zimowski, Polish prelate of the Roman Catholic Church
• 13 July – Bernardo Provenzano, member of the Sicilian Mafia
• 14 July – Péter Esterházy, Hungarian writer
• 20 July – Radu Beligan, Romanian actor, director, and essayist
• 23 July – Thorbjörn Fälldin, Prime Minister of Sweden
• 25 July – Halil İnalcık, Turkish historian
• 27 July
• * Einojuhani Rautavaara, Finnish composer
• * Piet de Jong, Prime Minister of the Netherlands

  August

• 1 August – Queen Anne of Romania
• 2 August – Franciszek Macharski, Polish cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church
• 5 August – Alphons Egli, Swiss politician
• 9 August – Gerald Grosvenor, 6th Duke of Westminster
• 13 August
• * Kenny Baker, English actor and musician
• * Françoise Mallet-Joris, Belgian author
• 14 August – Hermann Kant, German writer
• 15 August
• * Dalian Atkinson, English footballer
• * Stefan Henze, German slalom canoeist
• 18 August – Ernst Nolte, German historian and philosopher
• 19 August – Nina Ponomaryova, Russian discus thrower
• 22 August – Toots Thielemans, Belgian jazz musician
• 24 August
• * Michel Butor, French writer
• * Walter Scheel, President of the Federal Republic of Germany
• 25 August – Sonia Rykiel, French fashion designer and writer
• 26 August – Harald Grønningen, Norwegian cross country skier
• 30 August
• * Věra Čáslavská, Czech artistic gymnast
• * Marc Riboud, French photographer

  September

• 2 September – Daniel Willems, Belgian road bicycle racer
• 3 September – Jean-Christophe Yoccoz, French mathematician
• 12 September – Sándor Csoóri, Hungarian poet, essayist, writer and politician
• 13 September – Jonathan Riley-Smith, English medieval historian
• 16 September
• * Gabriele Amorth, Italian Roman Catholic priest and an exorcist
• * Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, 10th President and 49th Prime Minister of Italy
• 17 September – Sigge Parling, Swedish footballer
• 23 September – Marcel Artelesa, French footballer

  October

• 1 October – David Herd, Scottish footballer
• 2 October – Neville Marriner, English conductor
• 4 October – Brigitte Hamann, German-Austrian author and historian
• 5 October – Michal Kováč, 1st President of Slovakia
• 8 October – Stylianos Pattakos, Greek military officer
• 9 October – Andrzej Wajda, Polish film and theatre director
• 13 October – Dario Fo, Italian actor, Nobel playwright and comedian
• 14 October – Klim Churyumov, Ukrainian astronomer
• 16 October – Viktor Zubkov, Russian basketball player
• 23 October – Pete Burns, English singer-songwriter and television personality
• 24 October
• * Benjamin Creme, Scottish artist, author and esotericist
• * Reinhard Häfner, German footballer and coach
• 29 October – Roland Dyens, French classical guitarist, composer and arranger
• 31 October – Silvio Gazzaniga, Italian sculptor

  November

• 2 November – Oleg Popov, Russian clown and circus artist
• 5 November – Marek Svatoš, Slovak professional ice hockey winger
• 6 November – Zoltán Kocsis, Hungarian virtuoso pianist, conductor and composer
• 9 November - La Veneno, Spanish transsexual vedette, singer and actress
• 11 November
• * Ilse Aichinger, Austrian writer
• * Željko Čajkovski, Croatian football player and coach
• 13 November – Enzo Maiorca, Italian free diver
• 16 November – Daniel Prodan, Romanian footballer
• 20 November
• * Konstantinos Stephanopoulos, 5th President of Greece
• * William Trevor, Irish novelist, playwright and short story writer
• 23 November
• * Andrew Sachs, German-born British actor
• * Rita Barberá, Spanish senator and Mayoress of Valencia
• 25 November – David Hamilton, English photographer and film director
• 27 November – Ioannis Grivas, 176th Prime Minister of Greece
• 28 November – Mark Taimanov, Russian chess Grandmaster and concert pianist

  December

• 4 December – Gotlib, French comic artist
• 5 December – Geydar Dzhemal, Russian Islamic revolutionist, philosopher, poet, political and social activist
• 14 December - Bernard Fox, Welsh actor