2026

2026 (MMXXVI) is the current year, and is a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar, the 2026th year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 26th year of the 3rd millennium and the 21st century, and the 7th year of the 2020s decade.

The year so far has been volatile, associated with escalating armed conflicts in the Americas and the Middle East. In early January, the United States launched a military operation in Venezuela and captured sitting President Nicolás Maduro. The intervention led to a blockade of Venezuelan oil exports, contributing to a crisis in Cuba. In Syria, an offensive by the Syrian government lead to the Syrian Democratic Forces to be eventually integrated into the Syrian Army, while in Yemen, a counteroffensive by the Yemeni government lead to the collapse of the Southern Transitional Council. In February, Pakistan launched airstrikes against Afghanistan, leading to an open war between both nations. In Iran, in response to authorities cracking down on protests, the United States and Israel began a war on February 28 with the assassination of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, which has resulted in widespread economic grief and retaliatory strikes on Gulf nations, as well as the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. Outside of armed conflicts, the continued release of the Epstein files which began the previous year has influenced scrutiny, media coverage, and in some cases arrests in the Western World.

In science and technology, the dominant headline was NASA's Artemis II lunar flyby mission, the first crewed mission beyond low Earth orbit since Apollo 17 in 1972. Artificial intelligence has also continued to advance, with increasing focus on scaling models, infrastructure, and commercial applications. While some high-profile projects such as OpenAI's Sora are being discontinued, development of generative AI—including text-to-video models—has continued across the industry.