2006 is a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. It has been designated:

• The International Year of Deserts and Desertification

Predicted and scheduled events

January

• January 1 - Deadline by which the small remainder of non-metric road distance signs in the Republic of Ireland must be changed to metric units.
• January 1 - Requirement of television stations in the US to broadcast analog signals are lifted.
• January 1 - Shock jock Howard Stern contract with Sirius satellite radio begins.
• January 1 - 30 Cities across the Canadian Province of Quebec will be reconstituted, as the result of a referendum held June 20, 2004.
• January 9 - Planned launch date of New Horizons
• January 15 - Presidential election of Finland

February

• February 5 - Super Bowl XL to be held at Ford Field in Detroit, Michigan
• February 9 - Independence referendum in Serbia and Montenegro
• February 10 to February 26 - XX Olympic Winter Games in Torino, Italy
• February 28 - Mardi Gras

March

• March 1
• March 5 78th Academy Awards handed out in Hollywood, California
• March 7 Britney Spears Her 6th studio album "Original Doll" drops worldwide
• March 15 to March 26 - 2006 Commonwealth Games scheduled in Melbourne, Australia.
• March 29 - Total solar eclipse (Brazil, Mid Atlantic ocean, Sahara Desert, Turkey, Georgia, Russia, Kazakhstan, Mongolia)
  • Ash Wednesday
  • Attack Submarines USS-Lapon to start to be deactivated. Los Angeles class submarines USS Indianapolis, USS-Birmingham, USS-New York City and USS-Atlanta to also start to be deactivated

April

• April 1 to April 3 - NCAA Men's Basketball Final Four to be held at the RCA Dome in Indianapolis, Indiana.
• April 2 - WrestleMania 22 to be held at the Allstate Arena in Rosemont, Illinois

May

• May 16 - Statistics Canada to hold Census [1]

June

• June 9 to July 9 - 18th Football World Cup scheduled in Germany.

July

• July 1 - Smaller 10-, 20-, and 50-cent coins will start circulating in New Zealand.
• July 2 - Presidential election of Mexico.
• July 29 to August 5 - World Congress of Esperanto in Florence, Italy.

September

• Unknown date - In Germany elections for the Bundestag are to be held.
• September 22 - Annular solar eclipse (South America, Atlantic Ocean, Indian Ocean).
• September 24 - Sweden holds elections for the Riksdag.

October

• October 1 - 5-cent pieces will cease to be legal tender in New Zealand, and the larger 10-, 20-, and 50-cent piece will suffer the same fate.
• Unknown date - NASA's MESSENGER spacecraft to Mercury makes the first of two Venus flybys.

November

• November 1 - Official ratification of EU Constitution
• November 7 - US Mid-term Election which includes all 435 seats of the US House of Representatives, 33 of the 100 seats in the US Senate, and gubernatorial elections in 36 of the 50 states as well as many other state-wide offices in those states such as attorneys general and state auditors
• November 8 - Transit of Mercury
• November 11 - If still living, Gerald Ford will become the longest-lived President of the United States

December

• December 31 The United Kingdom pays off its 4.336 billion (thousand million, not million million) dollar (US) World War II debts to the Government of the United States of America.

Unknown dates

• The third Chinese manned space mission Shenzhou 7 is scheduled with the first Chinese space walk ever to be performed.
• Finland plans to cease analog television broadcasts.
• Airbus plans to release into service Airbus A380, the biggest airliner in the world.
• Microsoft may release Windows Longhorn, a computer operating system (although Microsoft has not stated an official release date, 2006 is a probable year)
• The European Space Agency plans to launch the KEO space time capsule
• The Republic of Ireland is expected to hold a referendum on the European Constitution (although 2005 is possible, from statements made by minsters, 2006 is more likely).
• OpenOffice.org is expected to release the Aqua version of OpenOffice.org for Mac OS X.
• Manuel Noriega becomes eligible for parole.
• The Osaka Outer Loop Line and the eighth line of the Osaka City Subway are scheduled to open in Osaka, Japan.
• Wembley Stadium expected to open after renovations.
• Kobe Airport, a controversial offshore airport in Kobe, Japan, is scheduled to open for airline service in the Northern spring.
• World oil production peaks this year according to "The Peak Of World Oil Production And The Road To The Olduvai Gorge" by Richard C. Duncan .
• The new Nintendo Revolution to be released worldwide
• The new Sony PlayStation 3 to be released worldwide (it will probably happen in 2006).
• General election in Italy, probably for the first half of the year.
• Australian Bureau of Statistics to hold a census.
• Motion Picture Indiana Jones 4 will be released.