| 1 January 2007 | [international organizations] | Ban Ki-moon, South Korea's former foreign minister, takes office as the new United Nations secretary-general in succession to Kofi Annan. |
| 1 January 2007 | Romania Bulgaria [international organizations] | Romania and Bulgaria become the European Union's 26th and 27th member states. |
| February 2007 | Iraq [terrorism] | The high daily death toll in Iraq from sectarian and insurgent violence continues unabated. At the end of the month, in a significant change of policy, the US government says that it will talk to neighbouring Iran and Syria about stabilising Iraq. The UK government meanwhile announces a partial troop withdrawal from the south of the country, and the Iraqi government reaches a landmark agreement on sharing out the country's oil wealth between its Kurdish, Sunni Muslim and Shia populations. |
| 3 February - 13 February 2007 | England Hungary [animal husbandry] | An outbreak of the H5N1 strain of avian flu is confirmed at a turkey farm in Suffolk in England, prompting the slaughter of 159,000 birds. Subsequent scientific investigation into the source of the infection suggests a link to an earlier outbreak of the virus in Hungary. |
| 5 February 2007 | England [buildings] | The Swiss Re building at 30 St Mary Axe in London, England – more popularly known as the ‘Gherkin’ – is sold for £600 million in a deal thought to be the most expensive recorded in the capital for a single building. |
| 13 February 2007 | North Korea [weapons] | Following fresh multilateral talks involving the USA, China, Russia, South Korea and Japan, the North Korean government, which carried out its first nuclear weapon test in October 2006, agrees to shut down its nuclear facilities at Yongbyon and readmit international inspectors in return for fuel aid. |
| 26 February 2007 | [Balkan conflicts (c. 1991–2000)] | In the first ruling of its kind, the International Court of Justice, as the supreme judicial authority of the United Nations, declares that Serbia was not responsible for genocide in Bosnia during the 1992–95 war in former Yugoslavia. However, it denounces Serbia for failing to prevent the massacre of 8,000 Bosnian Muslims at Srebrenica in 1995 by the Bosnian Serb military. |
| 4 March 2007 | Côte d'Ivoire [political events] | President Laurent Gbagbo signs a peace deal with rebel leader Guillaume Soro to unify Côte d'Ivoire, which has been a divided country since the outbreak of a civil war in 2002. |
| 7 March 2007 | world [public health] | International scientists collaborating as part of the Cancer Genome Project announce the discovery of 120 new cancer causing genes. |
| 17 March 2007 | England [football] | After several years delay in its construction and high budget overruns, the new 90,000- capacity Wembley Stadium in London finally opens as the national home of English football. |
| 23 March - 31 March 2007 | Iran Iraq [diplomacy] | A serious dispute erupts between the UK and Iran as 15 British sailors and marines conducting routine anti-smuggling patrols around the Iraqi coast are seized by the Iranian navy for allegedly straying into Iranian territorial waters in the Shatt-al-Arab waterway. The British government denounces Iran's claims and its refusal to release the captives. |
| 27 March 2007 | world [medicine] | Scientists announce the world's first case of semi-identical human twins. |
| 3 April 2007 | France [railways] | France's TGV train sets a new world rail-speed record of 575 kph/357 mph on a new track between Strasbourg and Paris. |
| 24 April 2007 | [business and economics] | In Europe's biggest private equity deal to date, the UK's Alliance Boots pharmaceutical retail chain is bought by its deputy executive chairman Stefano Pessina, backed by the US investors Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, for just over £11 billion. |
| 28 May - 29 May 2007 | Iraq [diplomacy] | The USA and Iran have their first formal contact in nearly three decades as senior officials meet in Baghdad to discuss ways to stabilize Iraq which remains in the grip of sectarian and insurgent violence. |
| 27 June 2007 | UK [political events] | Gordon Brown, the new leader of the Labour Party and former chancellor of the Exchequer, takes over as British prime minister from Tony Blair. |
| 20 July - 31 July 2007 | UK [natural disasters] | Areas of England and Wales, particularly along the Severn and Thames rivers, are inundated by the worst flooding in decades as torrential summer rain again hits Britain following earlier deluges in June. Communities are cut off, thousands of people are left without power and water supplies, and transport is disrupted. |
| 22 July 2007 | United Arab Emirates [architecture] | The Burj Dubai, a skyscraper under construction in the United Arab Emirates, becomes the world's tallest building as it reaches 1,680 feet to surpass the Taipei 101 office block in Taiwan. |
| August 2007 | Iraq [terrorism] | In Iraq, in the most deadly single insurgent atrocity since the start of the war in 2003, the mostly Kurdish Yazidi religious minority living in the northwest of the country are targeted in co-ordinated bomb attacks on 14 August, killing over 500 people and injuring hundreds more. |
| 15 August 2007 | Peru [natural disasters] | An earthquake measuring 8.0 on the Richter scale hits the southern coast of Peru, killing around 500 people, injuring more than 1,000 and leaving 100,000 homeless. |
| 9 September 2007 | Italy [athletics] | Jamaican sprinter Asafa Powell breaks his own world record for the 100 metres by running 9.74 seconds at an athletics competition in Italy. |
| 17 September 2007 | [business and economics] | A €500 million fine imposed by the European Commission in 2004 on the giant computer software company Microsoft for alleged anti-competitive practices is upheld in a ruling by the European Union's Court of First Instance. |
| 8 October 2007 | [business and economics] | In the world's largest banking takeover, a consortium of European banks led by the Royal Bank of Scotland completes the €71 billion acquisition of Dutch bank ABN Amro. |
| 11 November 2007 | England [animal husbandry] | A second outbreak in Britain of the H5N1 strain of avian flu is discovered at a farm in Suffolk, England, necessitating a mass cull of poultry. |
| 18 November 2007 | UK [popular music] | Spirit by English singer Leona Lewis becomes the fastest-selling debut album in British music chart history. |
| 20 November 2007 | UK [political events] | In a major privacy and security lapse, the British government admits to the loss of computer discs containing personal data on 25 million child benefit recipients in postal transit from HM Revenue and Customs to the National Audit Office. |
| 21 November 2007 | [football] | England fails to qualify for the 2008 European Championship football finals as the team loses 3–2 to Croatia at home at Wembley in their last group game. Northern Ireland also goes out of the competition, losing 1–0 in Spain. |
| 3 December 2007 | Sri Lanka [cricket] | Sri Lankan cricketer Muttiah Muralitharan sets a new world bowling record as he takes his 709th Test wicket in a match against the visiting England team. |
| 13 December 2007 | Portugal [international organizations] | European Union heads of government, with the exception of UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown, gather in Lisbon, Portugal, to officially sign the controversial new treaty agreed in June on streamlining the institutional structure and operation of the enlarged EU. |
| 17 December 2007 | UK [political events] | Following revelations in November about missing personal data on child benefit recipients, the British government reveals the loss of a computer disc containing private records of more than 3 million driving test applicants by a private firm contracted to the Department of Transport. |
| 20 December 2007 | UK [political events] | Queen Elizabeth II reaches a new milestone as she becomes the oldest-ever British monarch. |
| 27 December 2007 | Pakistan [terrorism] | Benazir Bhutto, the leader of the main opposition Pakistan People's Party, is assassinated in a suicide attack at an election rally in Rawalpindi, enraging her supporters and triggering violence in cities across Pakistan. The government blames Islamist militants. |
