2010 – The Deepwater Horizon oil rig in the Gulf of Mexicoexplodes, spilling millions of gallons of oil into the sea. The spill becomes the worst oil spill in American history.
2010 – In the
2010 Midterm elections, the Republicans retake the House of Representatives as the Democrats lose 63 seats.[1]
2011 – Representative
Gabrielle Giffords is severely wounded in an assassination attempt when a gunman went on a shooting spree, killing federal judge John Roll and five other people, and wounding at least 13 others, at an event Giffords was hosting in suburban Tucson, Arizona.[2]
2011 – The ATF gunwalking scandal emerged, wherein thousands of guns were allowed to "walk" through interdiction to Mexico, supposedly to aid in the capture of criminals.
2011 – A series of tornadoes cause heavy damage in the South, Alabama being the hardest hit. 324 people are killed in the deadliest American natural disaster since Hurricane Katrina.
2011 – A tornado devastates Joplin, Missouri, killing 158 and injuring over 1,000,[4] making it the deadliest single U.S. tornado since the advent of modern weather forecasting
2011 – Casey Marie Anthony is acquitted of all charges related to her death of her daughter, Caylee; she was convicted of four counts of providing false information to a law enforcement officer. She was released a week later because of credit for time served.
January 20, 2013 – President Obama and Vice President Biden begin their second terms.[8]
2013 – Christopher Dorner murders three people in Southern California, starting the largest manhunt in Los Angeles history. His spree ends in Big Bear Lake, California where he barricades himself in a cabin, kills a second officer, before committing suicide.
2013 – Edward Snowden leaks highly classified documents from the National Security Agency.
2013 – Terrorists attack the Boston Marathon by detonating two bombs at the finishing line of the race, killing three and injuring 283 runners and spectators. Suspects Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev then led Boston police on a high-speed chase, killing one officer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Tamerlan was killed in a shootout with police and Dzhokhar was detained the day after.
2013 – A tornado devastates suburbs near Oklahoma City, killing 24.
January 20, 2017 – Trump becomes the 45th president, Pence becomes the 48th vice president. Trump is the first person without prior military or government service to hold the office.
2017 – Trump
Mueller investigation.
2017 – Relations between the U.S. and the U.N. and North Korea strain after the country tested missiles in various places.
November 5, 2017 – A gunman kills 26 people and wounds 22 others at a church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, before killing himself. This was the deadliest mass shooting in Texas history and the deadliest shooting in an American place of worship in modern history.
January 25, 2019 – The longest government shutdown in American history, which lasts from December 22, 2018 to January 25, 2019 (35 days), officially ends.
January 30, 2019 – Large portions of the United States are hit with a polar vortex. The city of Chicago once again hit a record low: 27 degrees below zero. It occurred for fifty-two straight hours.
February 1, 2019 – President Donald Trump confirms that the U.S. will leave the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty.
2019 – Mexican drug boss/lord Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán is found guilty on all ten counts at a drug-trafficking trial in New York.
February 22, 2019 – Singer R. Kelly charged with ten counts of aggravated criminal sexual abuse for incidents dating back as far as the year 1998.
February 27, 2019 – 2019 North Korea – United States Hanoi Summit held in Vietnam. It is the second summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.
March 26, 2019 – Vice President Mike Pence orders NASA to fly Americans to the Moon within the next five years, using either government or private carriers.[16]
2019 –The Supreme Court case Bucklew V. Precythe rules 5 to 4 that inmates on death row are not guaranteed "painless executions" under the Constitution.
April 4, 2019 – The 1973 War Powers Act Resolution is invoked for the first time when the House of Representatives votes 247–175 to end U.S. military assistance in Saudi Arabia in its intervention in the Yemeni Civil War.
April 2019 – The first image of a black hole is taken.[17]
April 2019 – James Earl Carter Jr. becomes the longest ever living U.S. president at 94 years old, following the death of George H. W. Bush in December 2018.
August 4, 2019 – A gunman opens fire on a bar in Dayton, Ohio. He kills nine people and injures another 27.
August 10, 2019 – Financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein is found dead in his prison cell under mysterious circumstances. It was declared a suicide by hanging, although the ruling is widely disputed.
August 12, 2019 – An anonymous whistleblower filed a complaint against Donald Trump and
Trump-Ukraine scandal
.
September 24, 2019 – Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi announces the House of Representatives would begin an
impeachment inquiry against Donald Trump
.
December 18, 2019 – The U.S. House of Representatives impeaches President Trump for high crimes and misdemeanors.
March 24, 2020 – The U.S. box office records zero revenue for the first time ever.[20]
March 26, 2020 – The Trump administration indicts Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro's government of drug trafficking and narcoterrorism and offers a $15 million reward for information leading to Maduro's arrest.
March 27, 2020 – President Trump signs the CARES Act in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
April 11, 2020 – The U.S. becomes the country with the highest number of reported COVID-19 deaths: over 20,000, overtaking Italy.
April 14, 2020 – President Trump announces that he will suspend U.S. funding of the World Health Organization (WHO) pending an investigation into its early response to the outbreak.
April 15, 2020 – Michigan governor
anti-lockdown sentiment
spreads.
April 16, 2020 – It is revealed that nearly 22 million Americans have filed for unemployment within a single month due to COVID-19 lockdowns, the worst unemployment crisis since the Great Depression.
April 21, 2020 –
Oil prices
reach a record low, falling into negative values, due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and the Russia–Saudi Arabia oil price war.
May 27, 2020 – The official nationwide COVID-19 death toll surpasses 100,000—more Americans than were killed in the Vietnam and Korean wars combined, and approaching that of the First World War, when more than 116,000 Americans died in combat.
January 13, 2021 – Trump becomes the only president to be impeached for a second time. Ten Republicans join all Senate Democrats in voting to impeach Trump.
March 31, 2021 – Four people are killed and two others, including the suspect, are injured in a shooting at an office building in Orange, California.
April 2, 2021 – The Capitol Building in Washington, D.C. is placed under lockdown after a suspect rams a car into a barricade on Constitution Avenue and exits the vehicle holding a knife. Two police officers are injured in the attack and taken to a hospital, where one dies from his injuries. The suspect is killed by Capitol Police.
in Miami collapses, killing ninety-eight people and injuring eleven others.
August 10, 2021 – New York Governor Andrew Cuomo announces he will resign effective August 24 after an inquiry found he sexually harassed multiple women.[28]
December 10, 2021 – A late season tornado outbreak occurs in the Southern and Midwestern United States, causing major damage and killing at least 94 people.
December 29, 2021 – British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell is convicted in a federal court on five of six charges relating to her recruiting and trafficking young girls to be sexually abused by the late financier Jeffrey Epstein.[34]
May 24, 2022 – A
school shooting in Uvalde, Texas kills 19 students and two teachers.[35]