This new year will be filled with milestones, including America’s 250th birthday, the world’s biggest sports competitions and a mission to the moon.
Here you will find an overview of some of the most important events taking place this year.
Milan Cortina Games
Grab your skis, snowboard and skates: it’s almost time for the Winter Olympics and Paralympics.
The Games will take place from February 6 to 22 in Milan and Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy, when the international stars of winter sports will compete for Olympic gold and glory.
The opening ceremony, that will is hosted by “TODAY” show host Savannah Guthrie and Terry Gannon of NBC Sportsis held at the San Siro football stadium in Milan. The celebration will consist of the parade of delegations, the lighting of the Olympic cauldron, a performance by Mariah Carey and an act of Italian actor Pierfrancesco Favino.
Some of Team USA’s favorites returning this year are cross-country skiers Jessie Digginspara-snowboarder Noah Elliotfreestyle skier Alex Hall and snowboarder Chloe Kim – all gold medalists.
The closing ceremony is scheduled for February 22. Both ceremonies will air on NBC and are available to stream on Peacock.
The Paralympic Games will take place from March 6 to 14, also in Milan and Cortina d’Ampezzo, with six sports: para-alpine skiing, para-biathlon, para-cross-country skiing, para-ice hockey, para-snowboard and wheelchair curling.
Launch of Artemis II
2026 is the year NASA finally returns to the moon – sort of.
The Artemis II mission, the next step in NASA’s return-to-the-moon program, is expected to launch sometime between February and April. The flight will be a major test of NASA’s Space Launch System rocket and the Orion spacecraft. The mission will send four astronauts on an approximately ten-day journey around the moon to evaluate how the Orion spacecraft’s various systems and hardware function in a deep space environment.
The mission will be the first manned flight of the Artemis program and will take astronauts to the closest humans have come to the moon in more than 50 years, since the end of the Apollo program.
This will be closely watched, especially as the Trump administration has repeatedly talked about the need to return to the moon before China lands its astronauts on the lunar surface. Much of that vision depends on the outcome of the Artemis II mission.
If successful, the flight will pave the way for the Artemis III mission, which is expected to land astronauts near the moon’s south pole. In a recent executive order, President Donald Trump directed NASA to return astronauts to the moon by 2028 “to assert American leadership in space, lay the foundation for lunar economic development, prepare for the journey to Mars, and inspire the next generation of American explorers.”
FIFA World Cup 2026
Long live football!
The FIFA World Cup, the world’s premier international football competition, returns for its 23rd tournament this summer. This year, a record number of 48 teams will compete for honors in three host countries: the US, Canada and Mexico, a first.
The spectacle kicks off with the opening match on June 11 at Aztec Stadium in Mexico City. The finals will take place on July 19 at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey.
There will be 104 matches taking place throughout the month, pitting the best from each country against each other.
The 16 host cities are Toronto and Vancouver in Canada; Guadalajara, Mexico City and Monterrey in Mexico; and Atlanta, Boston, Dallas, Houston, Kansas City, Los Angeles, Miami, New York-New Jersey, Philadelphia, the San Francisco Bay Area and Seattle in the US.
This year there are 16 more teams than the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.
This year sees the return of defending champions Argentina (three-time World Cup winners), the football legends of Brazil (record five-time winners), England (who won when they won the Cup in 1966), Germany (four-time winners), France (two-time winners, including most recently in 2018), Spain (2010 champions), Uruguay (two-time winners) and the USA – who have yet to claim the coveted title.
Nations that their World Cup debuts are Cape Verde, Curaçao, Jordan and Uzbekistan.
Since December, 42 teams have qualified, including Mexico, Canada, Australia, Colombia, Ecuador, Egypt, Ghana, Iran, Japan, South Korea, Morocco, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and South Africa.
The remaining six will be decided in March, with four teams coming from the European play-offs and the other two from the World Cup play-off tournament. according to FIFA.
America 250
This year, the US celebrates its 250th anniversary, commemorating the adoption of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776.
That day marked the establishment of the United States as a sovereign nation, breaking away from British colonial rule and enshrining America’s enduring beliefs of equality and “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
There are already events and initiatives to commemorate the anniversary, many planned throughout the year.
On New Year’s Day, America250the nonpartisan effort Congress created in 2016 to plan the anniversary will have a float in the Rose Parade in Pasadena, California. The theme is ‘Rising Together for 250 Years’.
In January 2025, Trump issued an executive order planning events to mark the anniversary. He later announced Freedom 250, a nonpartisan initiative launched at his direction to plan additional celebratory events. These events began on New Year’s Eve when the Washington Monument was transformed into the “World’s Tallest Birthday Candle” through projections shown nightly through January 5.
According to Freedom 250, a “Great American State Fair” will take place on the National Mall from June 25 to July 10, with pavilions from all 50 states.
“Frankly, you’ll never see anything like it again, and you’ll never see anything like it again,” Trump said in a speech. video address on December 18.
The festivities will culminate with a “unifying national celebration on the National Mall” on Independence Day, including a military flyover, a speech by Trump and a fireworks show.
The group also announced the first ‘Patriot Games’ – a four-day athletics competition featuring top high school athletes, one young man and one young woman, from each state and territory.
There will also be a Memorial Day parade and a UFC event at the White House on Flag Day, June 14, which is also Trump’s birthday.
Trump also said he plans to build a “triumphal arch,” similar to the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, in the nation’s capital.
Midterm elections
The battle for control of Congress, as well as key gubernatorial elections and elections across the country, will dominate the 2026 political calendar.
Republicans are defending a slim majority in the House of Representatives — Democrats only need to pick up three seats to take back control (a task that could be complicated by the ongoing redistricting fire that has engulfed state legislatures across the country). The Republican Party’s defense of its majority in the Senate will likely be easier because Democrats still have four seats to gain there, and most of that battleground is in states Trump won in 2024.
There will also be major gubernatorial races in key swing states like Georgia, Nevada, Arizona, Michigan and Wisconsin; legislative races that could determine control of legislatures across the country; and mayoral races in cities like Los Angeles and Washington, DC
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