Odd-numbered years tend to be transitional.  No Olympics, no national elections in the U.S.  From mostly  Wikipedia : January. 1:  Croatia will adopt the euro and become the 20th member of the Eurozone.  First new entry since Lithuania in 2015. 1:  Luis Lula da Silva will be sworn in as President of Brazil. 3:  Republicans take over House of Representative with either: Kevin McCarthy as speaker with a bare majority vote. Kevin McCarthy with only a plurality, which will make leadership an impossible task. No speaker at the beginning. Boy, are the Republicans screwed up. 5:  funeral for Pope Benedict XVI. February:  First light of the  Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile .  Also known as the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope.  Vera Rubin is an American astronomer.  Will have the largest digital camera of any telescope. February:  Ukraine will host a UN-backed peace summit around the end of the month. April:  Voyager 2 will overtake Pioneer 10 as the second-farthest spacecraft from Earth.  V