2015

2015 (MMXV) is the current year, and is a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar (dominical letter D), the 2015th year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 15th year of the 3rd millennium, the 15th year of the 21st century, and the 6th year of the 2010s decade.

2015 has been designated the International Year of Light and the International Year of Soils by the Sixty-eighth session of the United Nations General Assembly.

Predicted and scheduled events

January

• January 1:
  • The Eurasian Economic Union will come into effect.
  • Lithuania will officially adopt the euro currency and will become the nineteenth Eurozone country, replacing the litas.

March

• March 20 – Total solar eclipse of March 20, 2015 will occur, visible in the North Atlantic.

April

• NASA's Dawn spacecraft is expected to arrive at the dwarf planet Ceres.^[1]

May

• May 5 – October 31 – Expo 2015 will be held in Milan, Italy.
• May 7 – Date set for a United Kingdom General Election by the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011

June

• June 12 – June 28 – The first European Games will be staged in Baku, Azerbaijan.

July

• The ESA and NASA plan to launch the LISA Pathfinder spacecraft.
• July 14 – NASA's New Horizons spacecraft is expected to fly by Pluto and Charon and explore the area for five months, until the distance becomes too great. New Horizons will then enter the Kuiper belt and eventually leave the Solar System.^[2]

September

• September 10 – If still reigning, Queen Elizabeth II will surpass her great-great-grandmother Queen Victoria as Britain's longest-reigning monarch.^[3]
• September 13 – A partial solar eclipse will occur.

December

• December 15 – There will be no roaming charges within the European Union.^[4]
• December 18 – Star Wars: The Force Awakens will come to theaters.

Date unknown

• The United States and South Korea will dissolve the post-Korean War Combined Forces Command.^[5]
• Cloud computing may contribute to the creation of two million computerized jobs worldwide by 2015.^[6]

In fiction

Literature

• "Runaround" (1941), a science fiction short story by Isaac Asimov, is set in this year.
• The Carbon Diaries: 2015 (2009), a teenage diary series about climate change, is set in this year.
• Part of the second TimeRiders book Day of the Predator (2010) is set at a Scientific Institute in Texas (set up by President Barack Obama in 2012) in this year.

Computer and video games

• Back to the Future II & III NES (1990): In this 2D platform game you play as Marty who can time travel in the flying DeLorean to visit and explore the years 1955, 1985, and 2015 to find all 30 objects so you can put the puzzle pieces of the Gray's Sports Almanac and burn the book Biff has.
• Star Control (1990): The Small War of 2015 takes place, in which many of humanity's nuclear weapons are used.
• Doom (1993): The Union Aerospace Corporation is founded in 2015.^[7]
• Jetfighter 2015 (2005).
• Ace Combat 6: Fires of Liberation (2007).
• Ninja Blade (2009).
• MAG: Massive Action Game (2010): The war between Valor, Raven and S.V.E.R. starts in 2015.
• Ace Combat: Assault Horizon (2011).
• XCOM: Enemy Unknown (2012): The events of the game begin in March 2015.
• Stunt Race/Wild Tracks (TBA) - Stunt Race FX

Film

• Firebird 2015 AD (1981).^[8]
• Back to the Future Part II (1989): Dr. Emmett Brown, Marty McFly, and Jennifer Parker time travel to October 21 of this year. Lawyers are abolished, automated clothing is in vogue and people travel in flying cars and on hoverboards.
• Event Horizon (1997): The first permanent colony is said to be established on the Moon in 2015.
• The 6th Day (2000).
• Shank (2010).
• Underworld: Awakening (2012).

Television

• FlashForward (2010): On the show Future Shock (FlashForward) at the end has "Happy New Year 2015" on a sign in a montage in the second blackout.
• Defenders of the Earth (1986).
• Future GPX Cyber Formula (1991).
• Neon Genesis Evangelion (1995–1996): The main events of the series take place in this year.
• Space: Above and Beyond (1995–1996): Aerospace and defense supplier Aero-Tech is founded.
• Fringe (2008–2013): The Purge occurs and The Observers take control of Earth.

Media franchises

• .hack: A fire occurs at the main CC Corp building in 2015, resulting in a large loss of data and forcing original version of the online game known as The World to be shut down and replaced with The World: R2.

See also

• List of international years

References