2005 (MMV) was a common year starting on Saturday (link displays full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar.

2005 was designated as:

• The Year of the Volunteer by the UK government.
• The World Year of Physics by the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics.
• The International Year of the Eucharist in Catholicism.
• The Year of Cork City as European Capital of Culture.
• The Year of the Veteran in Canada.
• The Year of Discovery.Fact: date=February 2009

The year 2005 was the end of the International Decade of the World's Indigenous People (1995-2005).

January

• January 4 – Gunmen assassinate the Governor of Baghdad, Ali Al-Haidri

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• January 6 – The Graniteville train disaster kills 9 and injures 250 in Graniteville, South Carolina.
• January 9 – The same storm which pounded the U.S. earlier in the month hits England, Scandinavia and the Baltic States, leaving 13 dead with widespread flooding and power cuts.

• January 9 – Mahmoud Abbas is elected to succeed Yasser Arafat as Palestinian Authority President.

• January 12 – Deep Impact is launched from Cape Canaveral by a Delta 2 rocket.
• January 13 – Armed militants enter Israel from Gaza and open fire near the border, killing 6 and wounding 5. Hamas and Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades claim joint responsibility for the attack.1
• January 14 – The Huygens probe lands on Titan, the largest moon of Saturn.
• January 16 – Adriana Iliescu gives birth at 66, becoming the oldest woman in the world to do so.
• January 16 – Armed militants kill 1 and wound 8 in the Gush Katif settlement, Gaza Strip. Hamas claims responsibility.
• January 20 – George W. Bush is inaugurated in Washington, D.C. for his second term as the 43rd President of the United States.
• January 20 – Ireland completes metrication.

• January 21 – In Belmopan, Belize, unrest over the government's new taxes erupts into riots.
• January 25 – A stampede at the Mandher Devi temple in Mandhradevi

• January 26 – Glendale train crash: Two trains derail, killing 11 and injuring 200, in Glendale, California.
• January 30 – The first free Parliamentary elections in Iraq since 1958 take place.
• January 30 – A Royal Air Force C-130 Hercules transport plane crashes in Iraq, killing 10 British servicemen. Iraqi insurgents release a video claiming to have shot the aircraft down using a missile.

February