Timeline May 2010

Events in May 2010 13

• 1911 – 2010 Louise Bourgeois (1911-2010) Died 31 May 2010, aged 98 Bourgeois was a French-American artist known for her large-scale sculptures, including her iconic spider forms, exploring themes of family, memory, and the body. She continued producing major work into her nineties and became one of the most celebrated sculptors of the 20th century. She died of a heart attack in New York City.
• 1917 – 2010 Lena Horne (1917-2010) American singer, actress and civil rights activist, star of Stormy Weather.
• 1936 – 2010 Dennis Hopper (1936-2010) Died 29 May 2010, aged 74 Hopper was an American actor and filmmaker who directed and starred in the counterculture classic Easy Rider and later earned acclaim for roles in films including Blue Velvet and Apocalypse Now. His career spanned more than five decades of Hollywood film. He died of complications from prostate cancer.
• 1968 – 2010 Gary Coleman (1968-2010) Died 28 May 2010, aged 42 Coleman was an American actor who rose to fame as a child star on the sitcom Diff'rent Strokes. He struggled with health problems related to a congenital kidney condition throughout his life and later faced financial and legal difficulties. He died after a fall at his Utah home caused a brain hemorrhage.
• 2010 Eyjafjallajökull volcanic eruption Ash cloud grounds European air travel An eruption of the Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallajökull sent an ash plume into European airspace, grounding flights across the continent for days. Roughly 100,000 flights were cancelled, stranding millions of travelers and costing airlines billions of dollars. It was the largest disruption to European air travel since the Second World War.
• 2010 2010 World Snooker Championship Neil Robertson Victory Winner: Neil Robertson; Runner-up: Graeme Dott. Score: 18–13.
• 2010 Times Square car bombing attempt Failed attack in New York City A car bomb was discovered smoldering in a parked SUV in Times Square, New York, but failed to fully detonate. Faisal Shahzad, a Pakistani-American who had trained with the Pakistani Taliban, was arrested days later and pleaded guilty to the attempted attack. He was sentenced to life in prison.
• 2010 Greece receives EU-IMF bailout First rescue package amid sovereign debt crisis The European Union and International Monetary Fund agreed a 110 billion euro bailout for Greece after the country's mounting government debt threatened default. The rescue required deep austerity measures that triggered mass protests and strikes across the country. It marked the opening phase of the wider European sovereign debt crisis.
• 2010 First draft of the Neanderthal genome published Sequencing reveals interbreeding with modern humans An international team led by the Max Planck Institute published a draft sequence of the Neanderthal genome, drawn from bone fragments found in Croatia. The analysis showed that Neanderthals interbred with the ancestors of modern non-African humans. The findings reshaped scientific understanding of human evolutionary history.
• 2010 United Kingdom general election Hung parliament produces coalition government The UK general election produced the first hung parliament since 1974, with no party winning a majority. Conservative leader David Cameron and Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg formed the country's first coalition government since the Second World War. Gordon Brown resigned as prime minister after thirteen years of Labour government.
• 2010 Iron Man 2 #3 film of 2010 — $624m worldwide Directed by Jon Favreau. Tony Stark faces pressure from the government, a rival industrialist, and a vengeful Russian physicist.
• 2010 Lena Horne dies in New York Lena Horne dies aged 92.
• 2010 First synthetic cell created Craig Venter builds life from scratch Craig Venter's team announced the creation of the first synthetic bacterial cell on May 20, 2010, assembling its entire genome from chemicals and inserting it into a cell. It was the first life form with a computer-generated genome.