Wednesday 9pm ET: MaxMusic 21st Century – 2006 (Part 6)

July 1 – The Qinghai–Tibet railway launches a trial operation, making Tibet the last province-level entity of China to have a conventional railway.
July 6 – The Nathu La pass between India and China, sealed during the Sino-Indian War, re-opens for trade after 44 years.
July 11 – A series of seven bomb blasts hits the city of Mumbai, India, killing more than 200 people.
July 12 – Israeli troops invade Lebanon in response to Hezbollah kidnapping two Israeli soldiers and killing three others. Hezbollah declares open war against Israel two days later.
August 22 – Pulkovo Aviation Enterprise Flight 612 crashes near the Russian border in Ukraine, killing all 170 people on board.
August 24 – The International Astronomical Union defines ‘planet’ at its 26th General Assembly, demoting Pluto to the status of dwarf planet more than 70 years after its discovery.
September 19 – The Royal Thai Army overthrows the government of Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra in a coup d’état.
September 29 – Gol Transportes Aéreos Flight 1907 collides with a business jet over the Amazon rainforest, killing all 154 on board the former.
October 6 – Fredrik Reinfeldt replaces Göran Persson as Prime Minister of Sweden.
October 9 – North Korea claims to have conducted its first-ever nuclear test.
October 13 – South Korean Ban Ki-moon is elected as the new Secretary-General of the United Nations, succeeding Kofi Annan.
November 2 – No. 5, 1948 by Jackson Pollock becomes the most expensive painting after it is sold privately for $140 million.
November 5 – Former President of Iraq Saddam Hussein is sentenced to death by hanging by the Iraqi Special Tribunal. He is later executed by hanging for crimes against humanity on December 30.
November 12 – The breakaway state of South Ossetia holds a referendum on independence from Georgia.
November 23 – A series of car bombs and mortar attacks in Sadr City, Baghdad, kills at least 215 people and injure 257 other people.
December 5 – The military seizes power in Fiji, in a coup d’état led by Commodore Frank Bainimarama.
December 11 – Felipe Calderón sends the Mexican military to combat the drug cartels and put down the violence in the state of Michoacán, initiating the Mexican Drug War.
December 24 – Ethiopia admits its troops have intervened in Somalia.
December 26 – An oil pipeline explodes in Nigeria’s commercial capital, Lagos, killing at least 200 people.
December 29 – UK settles its Anglo-American loan, post-WWII loan debt.