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Hubble's mirror flaw was corrected by astronauts in December 1993, and the telescope went on to transform astronomy, helping to fix the age of the universe and revealing its accelerating expansion.
Governments adopted the Rio Declaration, Agenda 21 and the Forest Principles, and opened the UN climate change and biological diversity conventions for signature.
Industrialised countries agreed binding targets to cut greenhouse gas emissions by about 5 percent below 1990 levels in 2008-2012, backed by new international carbon markets; the United States never ratified it.
The largest structure ever built in space, continuously inhabited since November 2000 and a long-running model of international cooperation.
About 8,100 probable cases and 774 deaths in 29 countries; the outbreak was contained by July 2003 through isolation and quarantine.
The invasion toppled Saddam Hussein within weeks, but no weapons of mass destruction were found and Iraq descended into insurgency and sectarian war before US forces left in 2011.
About 230,000 people were killed and some 1.7 million displaced; an Indian Ocean tsunami warning system was created.
A near-collapse of the global banking system, massive government rescues and the deepest worldwide recession since the 1930s, followed by sweeping financial regulation.
No binding treaty was agreed; the conference merely 'took note' of the Copenhagen Accord, which set a 2 °C goal and promised climate finance for developing countries.
The first influenza pandemic of the 21st century caused an estimated 151,700–575,400 deaths in its first year, mostly among younger adults, and prompted a large vaccination campaign and a review of pandemic planning.
CRISPR-Cas9 became the most widely used tool for editing genes, earning Doudna and Charpentier the 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
Nearly every country agreed to hold global warming well below 2°C and pursue 1.5°C, through national pledges strengthened every five years; the treaty entered into force on 4 November 2016.
