June

Klimt’s portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer sells for £73m: Cosmetics heir Ronald Lauder’s record-breaking purchase propels art prices to a stratospheric peak.

July

'Top of the Pops’ shown for the very last time: The show that occupied the central point in British pop music for four decades goes out with a whimper, killed off by the BBC because of lack of interest.

August

'Black Watch’ opens: The new National Theatre of Scotland gets off to a flying start with this gutsy, “total theatre” portrayal of the combat experiences of the legendary Scottish regiment.

September

Richard Dawkins’s 'The God Delusion’ published: Atheist polemic sets off heated debate about God, the universe and everything.

Sony Reader launched: A new way to read books – on an eye-friendly hand-held screen. Goodbye paper?

October

Premiere of Punchdrunk Theatre Company’s 'Faust’: Greatest of the site-specific productions that were such an adventurous feature of the decade.

December

Met Opera in New York begins HD broadcasts to cinemas worldwide: Crystal-clear sound, perfect picture and informality take the stuffing out of the opera house experience.

Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature: Pamuk’s work illuminates a country torn between a resurgent Islam and the West.

2007

January

Canongate publishes Barack Obama’s 'Dreams from My Father’: Small Edinburgh publisher picks up little-known American senator’s memoir. Two years later…

February

'Citizens and Kings’ opens at the Royal Academy of Arts: For two decades we saw countless blockbusters at the Royal Academy. This survey of portraiture in the age of enlightenment was one of the most ambitious – but would be one of the last. Throughout the decade the cost of such shows mounted, the danger to the objects increased and sponsorship became harder to find. A year later the markets crashed, taking with them the culture of the blockbuster.

March

Paul McCartney signs record deal with Starbucks: Anyone can be a record company now – even a coffee shop chain.

May

Rupert Goold’s 'Macbeth’ at Chichester Theatre Festival: This dazzling Stalinist take on Shakespeare makes Goold a director to watch.

June

Darcey Bussell retires from ballet: At the height of her powers, a great British ballerina gracefully bows out.

'Monkey: Journey to the West’ premieres at first Manchester Festival: Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett’s enchanting Chinese opera inaugurates the Manchester International Festival.

July

'Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows’ published: JK Rowling sends children (and adults) into a frenzy of speed-reading.

August

Simón Bolivar Youth Orchestra makes its British debut: The public face of a nationwide campaign to rescue Venezuelan street kids through music education, this orchestra electrifies audiences across the world. Gustavo Dudamel, its conductor, becomes a superstar.

Prince takes up residence at the O2 Arena in London: The Minneapolis Wonder’s 21 nights at the O2 Arena reconfirmed his superstar status as the most abundantly gifted musician of the modern pop age. Singing, playing and gyrating through a constantly shifting set of 130 songs, the jazz-soul-funk-rock-machine treated 420,000 ticket holders to some of the greatest shows on earth. He also cannily demonstrated the new music-business priorities by giving away his album Earth Songs with the Mail on Sunday.

September

Pavarotti dies: The world mourns the Italian tenor who had become the popular face of opera.

October

Radiohead release 'free’ album: Britain’s most influential band ask fans to name their price for In Rainbows.

'War Horse’ premieres at the National Theatre: Captivating equine puppets are the stars of the hugely acclaimed production.

Digital TV switchover: By 2012, all television will be digital. The revolution starts in the Lake District.

December

Karlheinz Stockhausen dies: The great guru of new music combined a mystical megalomania, a showman’s theatrical canniness, an inventor’s practical brilliance and true musical genius.

Led Zeppelin re-form for one night only: At a charity concert in the O2 Arena, the gods of Seventies rock unite. With veterans (from Neil Diamond to Leonard Cohen) at the top of the charts and the inevitable reformation of almost every ex-group with at least one member still breathing, nostalgia proves a potent commercial force.

2008

February

Polaroid announces that it is ceasing production of instant film: Henceforth, memories will be bright, digital and amnesiac rather than faded and ghostly.

'Yes We Can’ released: Rapper Will.I.Am from the Black Eyed Peas turns a Barack Obama speech into an uplifting hip-hop anthem, with a little help from celebrity friends including Scarlett Johansson.

June

The Public, West Bromwich, opens after a catalogue of delays: The much-derided £54m digital arts centre marks a low point for architecture.

July

'Mamma Mia!’ is released: Not so much a musical as a cinematic karaoke session, Mamma Mia! goes on to become the most successful British movie of all time.

August

Olympics Opening Ceremony, Beijing: Perhaps the spectacular audio-visual cavalcade dreamed up and choreographed by film director Zhang Yimou was little more than propaganda for a repressive regime. But it was hard not to marvel at how brilliantly he marshalled a 15,000-strong cast to tumble and move through Herzog and de Meuron’s extraordinary Bird’s Nest Stadium, and how dexterously he juggled drum platoons, LED paper scrolls, lip-synching singers and CGI fireworks in a militantly euphoric and made-for-television spectacle that felt like a national “coming out” to the world and an attempt to fashion a new sense of Chinese selfhood.