Events that shaped the world in 2017

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A timeline of international events that grabbed our attention, shook our foundations and shaped the world in 2017:

Jan 20 - Donald Trump is inaugurated as 45th US president

Feb 12 - North Korea conducts its first known test of a new mid-range ballistic missile Pukguksong-2

Feb 15 - Kim Jong-un's half brother Kim Jong-nam is assassinated at an airport in Kuala Lumpur when two women attack him with the VX nerve agent

March 22 - Khalid Masood drives a car over Westminster Bridge in London and kills three pedestrians before stabbing a police officer to death and being shot dead by police

March 29 - UK triggers Article 50 to formally begin Brexit

April 4 - Gas attack kills scores of people in Idlib, Syria

April 7 - US orders a barrage of missile strikes against an airfield in Syria to punish the Assad regime for the Idlib attack

April 12 - Australian woman Cassie Sainsbury is arrested with almost 6kg of cocaine in her luggage at Colombia's El Dorado airport

May 8 - Emmanuel Macron wins the French presidential election, defeating populist Marine Le Pen

May 10 - Donald Trump fires FBI director James Comey, as Comey steps up investigation into Trump-Russia probe

May 14 - North Korea premiers a newly developed intermediate range missile, Hwasong-12

May 19 - Sweden's top prosecutor says she is dropping an investigation into rape claims against Wikileaks founder Julian Assange

May 22 - Suicide bomber Salman Abedi detonates a bomb at Manchester Arena as fans are leaving an Ariana Grande concert, killing himself and 22 others

June 2 - President Donald Trump announces he is pulling the US out of the Paris Climate accord

June 3 - Eight people, including Australians Sara Zelanak and Kirsty Boden, are killed in a terror attack on London Bridge and Borough Markets

June 8 - Theresa May's conservatives fail to win a majority in a shock result in the snap British election, forcing her to broker a deal with Northern Ireland's DUP

June 15 - Fire rips through Grenfell Tower in West London, killing 71 people

July 4 - North Korea conducts its first flight test of an ICBM, the Hwasong-14

July 12 - Scientists confirm that a one trillion tonne iceberg measuring 5800 square km has calved away from the Larsen C Ice Shelf in Antarctica, one of the biggest icebergs on record to break away from the continent

July 15 - Australian woman Justine Damond is fatally shot by a US police officer outside her home in Minneapolis after making an emergency call

July 21 - Donald Trump's press secretary Sean Spicer resigns, following the appointment of Anthony Scaramucci

July 28 - North Korea conducts its second test of the Hwasong-14 ICBM

July 31 - Anthony Scaramucci is ousted by new chief of staff John Kelly after 10 days on the job

Aug 1 - A calf born in Texas makes global headlines for it's uncanny resemblance to KISS frontman Gene Simmons

Aug 8 -Trump threatens North Korea with 'fire and fury" if it threatens the US, North Korea responds by saying it will attack Guam

Aug 12 - A woman is killed and 19 people are injured when a car ploughs into a crowd at a White Supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virgina. Trump condemns violence "on many sides" and later says there were some "very fine" people on both sides

Aug 18 - A van ploughs into crowds in Barcelona's historic Las Ramblas district in a terror attack, killing seven-year-old NSW boy Julian Cadman and injuring four other Australians including his mother

Aug 25 - Myanmar's military launches a sweeping military offensive in response to coordinated attacks on the security forces by Rohingya muslim insurgents in the north of Rakhine State

Sept 3 - North Korea tests a hydrogen bomb designed for a long-range missile, its most powerful nuclear test to date

Sept 15 - North Korea fires another Hwasong-12 missile over Japan into the Pacific, marking it the country's longest missile flight

Sept 4 - Kensington Palace announces a third royal baby is on the way for the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge

September 15 - A home-made bomb explodes on a packed rush-hour commuter train in London injuring 30 people

Sept 15 - Cassini spacecraft plunges into Saturn's atmosphere and burns up after 20 year mission

Sept 19 - Earthquake in Mexico City kills 370

Sept 19 -Trump delivers maiden speech to UN General Assembly taunting Kim Jong Un as "rocket man" and threatening to "totally destroy North Korea". Kim retorts by calling Trump a mentally deranged dotard

Sept 24 - Angela Merkel wins a fourth term as German Chancellor

Oct 1 - Gunman Stephen Paddock kills 58 people in worst mass killing in modern US history when he opens fire on concertgoers in Las Vegas

Oct 5 - The New York Times publishes a story chronicling decades of sexual harassment by Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein

Oct 17 - US-backed militias in Syria declare victory over Islamic State in its capital Raqqa

Oct 19 - Winston Peters announces he'll form a coalition government with Labour, handing Jacinda Ardern the prime ministership of New Zealand.

Oct 23 - Philippines declares end to fighting in Marawi

Oct 27 - Catalan parliament declares independence from Spain

Oct 31 - Sayfullo Saipov ploughs a rented ute into a New York bicycle path killing eight people

Nov 13 - Earthquake near Iraq-Iran border kills 530 people

Nov 27 - Prince Harry and Meghan Markle announce their engagement, ending months of feverish speculation

Nov 29 - North Korea launches its Hwasong 15, an ICBM capable of reaching the US mainland

Dec 6 - IOC bans Russia from Winter Olympics

Dec 7 - Trump announces US will recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel

© AAP 2017

Photo: AP/Yin fujun