User:4me689/collage gallery with descriptions
Appearance
Year collages | ||||||||
2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | |||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() | |||||
Clockwise, from top left: road junction at Yamato-Saidaiji Station in Nara, Japan, several hours after the assassination of former primer minister Shinzo Abe; anti-government protests in Sri Lanka in front of the Presidential Secretariat; the Hunga Tonga–Hunga Haʻapai volcano erupts, making it the most powerful volcanic eruption of the 21st century; the state funeral procession of Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom; the 2022 FIFA World Cup is held in Qatar and is won by Argentina; the 2022 Winter Olympics are held in Beijing, China; protests in Almaty during a period of unrest in Kazakhstan; Russia invades Ukraine. | Clockwise from top-left: the James Webb Space Telescope is launched; protesters in Yangon, Myanmar, following the coup d'état; a civil demonstration against the October coup in Sudan; supporters of the former United States president Donald Trump stormed the United States Capitol in a failed attempt to overturn the 2020 United States presidential election; the container ship Ever Given gets stuck in the Suez Canal, blocking international shipping for six days; the 2020 Summer Olympics are held in Tokyo, Japan; the Ingenuity helicopter after deployment on the Martian surface by the Mars Perseverance rover; Taliban fighters in Kabul on a captured Humvee following the fall of Kabul at the end of the War in Afghanistan. | Clockwise, from top left: Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752 is shot down by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps; Malian Armed Forces overthrow the Government of Mali during the Malian coup d'état; a missile attack causes destruction in Ganja during the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War; a man on a burned-out car observes damage from protests following the murder of George Floyd, who was killed by police officer Derek Chauvin; the aftermath of an airstrike on Mekelle during the Tigray War in Ethiopia; destruction in the Port of Beirut, Lebanon, following an accidental explosion of ammonium nitrate that killed 218 people; mourners gather for the funeral of Iranian major general Qasem Soleimani after he was assassinated by a drone strike; a colorized transmission electron micrograph of the SARS-CoV-2 virus that caused the COVID-19 pandemic, a defining world event in 2020 and succeeding years. | ||||||
2019 | 2018 | 2017 | 2016 | |||||
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() | |||||
Clockwise from top-left: Hong Kong protests turn to widespread riots and civil disobedience; the U.S. House of Representatives votes to adopt articles of impeachment against Donald Trump due to the Trump-Ukraine scandal and other controversies; CRISPR gene editing first used to experimentally treat a patient with a genetic disorder; a fire destroys the spire and roof of Notre-Dame de Paris; the Venezuelan presidential crisis divided the nation and the world in support for Nicolás Maduro or Juan Guaidó; protesters in Tahrir Square during the Iraqi protests, caused by strong Iraqi nationalism; Chileans protest after the increase in the rates of the public transport system of Santiago; the Event Horizon Telescope captures the first image of a black hole. | Clockwise from top-left: the 2018 Winter Olympics are held in PyeongChang, South Korea; protests erupt following the assassination of Jamal Khashoggi, a journalist killed by the government of Saudi Arabia; the March for Our Lives protests take place across the United States and the world, caused by the Parkland high school shooting in which 20-year-old Nikolas Cruz massacred 17 students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School; the Yellow vests protests break out in France and the world due to fuel tax and other issues; the Camp Fire becomes the deadliest and most destructive wildfire in California's history, with 86 fatalities and $16 billion in damage; SpaceX CEO Elon Musk launches his Tesla Roadster into outer space; rescuers assemble to begin search-and-rescue operations during the Tham Luang cave rescue, in which 12 boys and one coach were rescued from a cave flooded by monsoon rains, resulting in all 13 members of the team coming out alive and the death of two rescuers; North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un meets South Korean President Moon Jae-in at the Korean Demilitarized Zone. | Clockwise from top-left: the war against ISIS at the Battle of Mosul; Islamic suicide terrorist Salman Abedi bombs the Manchester Arena following a concert of Ariana Grande, killing 22 people and himself; a view of the Solar eclipse of August 21 ("Great American Eclipse") in North Carolina; North Korea tests a series of nuclear missiles in the face of international condemnation, sparking a period of fierce tension between North Korea and the west; an earthquake strikes Central Mexico, killing 370 people; Spain rejects the result of the Catalan independence referendum, leading to massive protests and strikes; Stephen Paddock opened fire on a crowd attending a music festival in Las Vegas, killing 60 people and himself and becoming the deadliest mass shooting in the United States; after 13 years of orbiting Saturn, the Cassini-Huygens spacecraft ends its mission. | Clockwise from top-left: bombed-out buildings in Ankara following the Turkish coup d'état attempt; the impeachment trial of Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff; damaged houses during the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, which killed over 2,000 people; the 2016 Summer Olympics are held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil whilst the Zika virus was spreading; queues outside a bank to exchange demonetized banknotes during the Indian banknote demonetisation; the UK votes to leave the EU; the Girardet Bridge in Düsseldorf with its four Pokéstops; Donald Trump is elected U.S. president. | |||||
2015 | 2014 | 2013 | 2012 | |||||
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() | |||||
Clockwise from top-left: civil service in remembrance of the November Paris attacks; Germanwings Flight 9525 was purposely crashed into the French Alps by suicidal co-pilot Andreas Lubitz, killing all 150 people on board; an earthquake in Nepal killed 8,964 people; world leaders pose for a picture during the Paris Agreement, an international agreement on climate change; an airstrike in Sana'a during the Saudi Arabian–led intervention in Yemen; refugees of the Syrian civil war come ashore in Greece amidst a migrant crisis in Europe; FIFA president Sepp Blatter is forced to resign in disgrace in the wake of the FIFA corruption case; New Horizons makes a flyby and takes the first images of Pluto. | Clockwise from top-left: stocking up supplies and personal protective equipment (PPE) for the Western African Ebola virus epidemic; citizens examining the ruins after the Chibok schoolgirls kidnapping, carried out by Islamic terrorists; bundles of water inside of a C-17 Globemaster III in the War against the Islamic State; Thai soldiers at the Chang Phueak Gate during the Thai coup d'état; Pro-independence campaigners in the Scottish independence referendum; the 2014 Winter Olympics are held in Sochi, Russia; Malaysian Airlines Flight 370 disappears in the Indian Ocean while Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 is shot down over eastern Ukraine; Crimea is annexed by Russia. | From left, clockwise: Edward Snowden becomes internationally famous for leaking classified NSA wiretapping information; Typhoon Haiyan kills over 6,000 in the Philippines and Southeast Asia; the Rana Plaza collapse in Bangladesh kills over 1,000 people; the streak from the Chelyabinsk meteor that rocketed across the Russian morning sky; protests occur amid the coup d'état that overthrew President Mohamed Morsi of Egypt; smoke rises as a result of the Westgate shopping mall attack in Nairobi, Kenya, carried out by Al-Shabaab militants; the Boston Marathon bombing marks the first terrorist attack in the U.S. since 9/11; Pope Francis is elected to the Papacy in the papal conclave. | From left, clockwise: damage to Casino Pier in Seaside Heights, New Jersey as a result of Hurricane Sandy; Typhoon Bopha made landfall at its highest intensity and hit Mindanao, Philippines, causing 1,901 deaths; NASA's Curiosity Rover lands on the surface of Mars; the elementary particle, the Higgs boson, dubbed "The God Particle", is discovered by CERN and revolutionizes quantum physics; K-pop artist Psy performs his hit single "Gangnam Style", which became a cultural phenomenon in 2012; a crowd of protesters at the 2012 Sydney Anti-Islamic Film Demonstration protest against the film Innocence of Muslims; Tuareg militants, seen driving near Timbuktu, Mali during the Mali war; the 2012 Summer Olympics are held in London, United Kingdom. | |||||
2011 | 2010 | 2009 | 2008 | |||||
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() | |||||
Clockwise from top-left: a protester partaking in Occupy Wall Street heralds the beginning of the Occupy movement; protests against Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, who was killed that October; a young man celebrates the independence of South Sudan, the world's newest country; the Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami devastates Eastern Japan and kills nearly 20,000 people, becoming the most expensive natural disaster on record; Minecraft is released and goes on to become the best-selling video game of all time; the Norway attacks mark the rise of white supremacist terrorism across the west; the U.S. national security team gathered in the White House Situation Room to monitor the progress of Operation Neptune Spear which resulted in the death of Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden; anti-government protests called the Arab Spring arose in 2010–2011, and as a result, many governments were overthrown in the Middle East and Northern Africa. | From top left, clockwise: the magnitude 8.8 Chile earthquake was one of the strongest recorded in history; the eruption of Eyjafjallajökull in Iceland disrupts air travel in Europe; the 2010 Winter Olympics are held in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada; the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig explosion and subsequent oil spill becomes the worst marine oil spill in history; the 2010 FIFA World Cup is held in South Africa and won by Spain; people entering the White House in Bishkek on 7 April during the Kyrgyz Revolution; the remains of Tu-154 after a crash that killed Polish president Lech Kaczyński; a child is treated for injuries following the Haitian earthquake which killed an estimated 100,000-250,000 people. | Clockwise from top-left: Air France Flight 447 crashes in the Atlantic Ocean leaving no survivors; Barack Obama becomes the first African American to become President of the United States; protests erupt over the 2009 Iranian presidential election; US Airways Flight 1549 crash-lands in the Hudson River with no fatalities, with the event becoming known as the "Miracle on the Hudson"; the "King of Pop" Michael Jackson dies by acute propofol intoxication; Bitcoin is initially launched by the pseudonymous name Satoshi Nakamoto; an earthquake strikes central Italy, killing 308; the H1N1 virus was responsible for the swine flu pandemic. | Clockwise from top-left: Lehman Brothers went bankrupt following the subprime mortgage crisis; Cyclone Nargis kills upwards of 138,373 in Myanmar and became the 7th-deadliest cyclone of all time; the 2008 Summer Olympics are held in Beijing, China; an earthquake in Sichuan kills over 87,000 and became the 18th-deadliest earthquake of all time; a destroyed Georgian T-72 tank during the Russo-Georgian War; the Trident Hotel in Mumbai was the site of the November Mumbai attacks; the Phoenix spacecraft is the first probe to prove that ice water still exists on Mars; poster in Pristina celebrating the Independence of Kosovo from Serbia. | |||||
2007 | 2006 | 2005 | 2004 | |||||
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() | |||||
Clockwise from top-left: Steve Jobs unveils Apple's first iPhone; TAM Airlines Flight 3054 overruns a runway and crashes into a filling station, killing almost 200 people; former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto is assassinated; 2007 marked the beginning of the Subprime mortgage crisis in the United States; a surge of troops is sent to fight in the Iraq War; the Virginia Tech community mourns the victims of the Virginia Tech shooting, in which 32 students were killed; Google Street View is unveiled to the world; the Treaty of Lisbon is signed by member states of the European Union | From top left, clockwise: the 2006 Winter Olympics are held in Turin, Italy in February; Hezbollah militants attack Israel in July, resulting in the onset of a 34-day long conflict between Israel and Islamists led by the Hezbollah; 209 people are killed and over 700 are injured in a series of train blasts in Mumbai, India; supporters rally the independence of Montenegro from the country of Serbia and Montenegro. An independence referednum is later held in the country, with 55% of the vote approving independence; the 2006 FIFA World Cup is held in Germany and won by Italy; a mid-air collision occurs over Peixoto de Azevedo in Brazil. 154 people die in Gol Transportes Aéreos Flight 1907#Aircraft and crew, one of the ships involved, which contributed to starting the worst aviation crisis in Brazil's history; a 6.4 magnitude earthquake strikes near Yogyakarta, [[Indonesia, killing 5,700 people and displacing over 600,000; due to the discovery of celestial objects such as Eris (planet) and Haumea, the International Astronomical Union votes on the official definition of a "planet", famously demoting Pluto from its position as the ninth planet from the Sun to a dwarf planet. | Clockwise from top-left: Facebook, originally called TheFacebook, is launched by Mark Zuckerberg; the 2004 transit of Venus, the first such occurrence since 1882; NASA lands the Opportunity and Spirit rovers on Mars; the 2004 Summer Olympics are held in Athens; Al-Qaeda bombs multiple trains in Madrid, killing 193 people; the European Union adds 10 new member-states; 333 people are killed in the Beslan school siege, carried out by Chechen terrorists; a massive 9.1-9.3 megathrust earthquake off the coast of Sumatra and the resultant tsunami kill over 227,000 people—one of the worst natural disasters in recorded history. | ||||||
2003 | 2002 | 2001 | 2000 | |||||
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() | |||||
From top left, clockwise: the crew of STS-107 perished when the Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated during reentry into Earth's atmosphere; SARS became an epidemic in China, and was a precursor to SARS-CoV-2; Myspace launches becoming one of the first major social media platforms; protests in London against the Invasion of Iraq; a river in France during the 2003 European heatwave; an earthquake in Bam, Iran kills 30,000 people; abuse and torture of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison by U.S. personnel; a statue of Saddam Hussein is toppled in Baghdad after his regime was deposed during the Iraq War. | From left, clockwise: the 2002 Winter Olympics are held in Salt Lake City, Utah; Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother and her daughter Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon die; East Timor gains independence from Indonesia and is admitted to the UN; the 2002 FIFA World Cup is held in South Korea and Japan and is won by Brazil; a bombing in Bali killed 202 people; the Überlingen mid-air collision kills 71 people; Vladimir Putin visiting hospitalized hostages of the Moscow theater hostage crisis; the Euro becomes the official currency of the Eurozone. | Clockwise from top left: Wikipedia is founded; Dipendra Dev massacred his family and the Nepalese monarchy on 1 June; a T-55 tank and crew in Aračinovo during the Macedonia insurgency; U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan during Operation Enduring Freedom; an earthquake in Gujarat killed 13,805–20,023 people; a major Palestinian uprising against Israel takes place; economic crisis and political instability provoked a period of civil unrest in Argentina; the World Trade Center and the Pentagon are attacked by Islamist terrorists, starting the War on Terror. | Clockwise from top-left: a U.S. Air Force MH-53 flies over the Mozambique flood which killed 700–800 people; heads of state meet for the Millennium Summit; the International Space Station in its infant form as seen from STS-97; the 2000 Summer Olympics are held in Sydney, Australia; Russian BTR-80 destroyed by Chechen fighters during the Second Chechen War; an Air France Concorde similar to the one that crashed after takeoff from Charles de Gaulle Airport; the PlayStation 2 releases and later becomes the best-selling video game console of all time; countries of the world celebrate the New Millennium. | |||||
1999 | 1998 | 1997 | 1996 | |||||
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() | |||||
Clockwise from top-left: the funeral procession of King Hussein of Jordan in Amman; an earthquake in İzmit kills over 17,000 people in Turkey; the Columbine High School massacre, one of the first major school shootings in the United States; the year 2000 problem ("Y2K"), perceived as a major concern in the lead-up to the year 2000; the Millennium Dome (currently The O2 Arena) opens in London; online music downloading platform Napster is launched, soon a source of online piracy; NASA loses both the Mars Climate Orbiter and the Mars Polar Lander; a destroyed T-55 tank near Prizren during the Kosovo War. | Clockwise from top-left: the 1998 Winter Olympics are held in Nagano, Japan; U.S. President Bill Clinton is impeached over the Clinton–Lewinsky scandal; a poster advocates for a "yes" vote on the Good Friday Agreement in Northern Ireland, which eventually prevails and ends most of the violence associated with The Troubles; Google is launched; protests erupt in Indonesia over the Fall of Suharto, which lead to 1,000 fatalities; the 1998 FIFA World Cup is held in France; SwissAir Flight 111 crashes off the coast of Nova Scotia after an in-flight fire; the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania are bombed by Al-Qaeda. | From left, clockwise: the movie set of Titanic, the highest-grossing movie in history at the time; Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, is published; Comet Hale-Bopp passes by Earth and becomes one of the most observed comets of the 20th century; Golden Bauhinia Square, where sovereignty of Hong Kong is handed over from the United Kingdom to the People's Republic of China; the Central European flood kills 114 people in the Czech Republic, Poland, and Germany; Korean Air Flight 801 crashes during heavy rain on Guam, killing 229; Mars Pathfinder and Sojourner land on Mars; flowers left outside Kensington Palace following the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, in a car crash in Paris. | Clockwise from top-left: "Macarena", sung by Los del Río and remixed by The Bayside Boys, becomes a major dance craze and cultural phenomenon; the center fuel tank explodes on TWA Flight 800, causing the plane to crash and killing everyone on board; eight people die in a blizzard on Mount Everest; the 1996 Summer Olympics are held in Atlanta, marking the Centennial (100th Anniversary) of the modern Olympic Games; the Port Arthur Massacre occurs on Tasmania, and leads to major changes in Australia's gun laws; during Operation Grapes of Wrath, a diagram of the Qana massacre in Lebanon; a Kazakhstan Airlines Ilyushin Il-76 collides with Saudi Arabian Airlines Flight 763, making it the deadliest mid-air collision in history; Dolly the Sheep becomes the first mammal to have been cloned from an adult somatic cell. | |||||
1995 | 1994 | 1993 | 1992 | |||||
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() | |||||
Clockwise from top-left: O. J. Simpson is acquitted of the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman from the year prior in "The Trial of the Century" in the United States; the Great Hanshin earthquake strikes Kobe, Japan, killing 5,000-6,000 people; the Sampoong Department Store collapsed, killing 502 people; gravestones mark the victims of the Srebrenica massacre near the end of the Bosnian War; American Airlines Flight 965 crashes near Cali, Colombia, killing 159 people; the first exoplanet, 51 Pegasi b, is discovered; Space Shuttle Atlantis docks with the Space station Mir in a display of U.S.-Russian cooperation; the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City is bombed by domestic terrorists, killing 168. | Clockwise from top-left: the 1994 Winter Olympics are held in Lillehammer, Norway; an earthquake strikes the San Fernando Valley, killing 57 people and becoming one of the costliest earthquakes on record; a model of the MS Estonia, which sank in the Baltic Sea; Nelson Mandela casts his vote in the South African general election, in which he was elected South Africa's first president, and which effectively brought Apartheid to an end; NAFTA, which was signed in 1992, comes into effect in Canada, the United States, and Mexico; the first passenger rail service to utilize the newly-opened Channel Tunnel; the 1994 FIFA World Cup is held in the U.S. and is won by Brazil; skulls from the Rwandan genocide, in which over half a million Tutsi people were massacred by Hutus. | From left, clockwise: Ramzi Yousef and other Islamic terrorists detonate a truck bomb in the subterranean garage of the North Tower of the World Trade Center in New York City, killing 6; the Russian White House is shelled during a constitutional crisis after Russian president Boris Yeltsin imposed a self-coup; Czechoslovakia is peacefully dissolved into the Czech Republic and Slovakia; in the U.S., the ATF besieges a compound belonging to David Koresh and the Branch Davidians in a search for illegal weapons, which ends in the building being set alight and killing most inside; Eritrea overwhelmingly votes to gain independence from Ethiopia; a major snow storm passes over the U.S. and Canada, leading to 318 fatalities; drug lord and narcoterrorist Pablo Escobar is killed by Colombian special forces; the Oslo I Accord is signed in an attempt to resolve the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. | Clockwise from top left: Mae Jemison becomes the first black woman in space during the STS-47 mission; the U.S. men's Olympic basketball team, nicknamed the 'Dream Team', win gold at the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona; Paul Keating acknowledges the crimes committed against Indigenous Australians since the European settlement of Australia and calls for reconciliation, shocking millions; a famine occurs in Somalia as a result of civil war, prompting the creation of UNOSOM I; Azerbaijani refugees during the First Nagorno-Karabakh War; a crashed car during the Siege of Sarajevo at the start of the Yugoslav Wars; Kabul in ruins during the Afghan Civil War; the beating of Rodney King by police officers prompts widespread rioting in Los Angeles. | |||||
1991 | 1990 | 1989 | 1988 | |||||
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() | |||||
Clockwise, from top left: A destroyed Serbian T-55 tank during the Croatian War of Independence, the beginning of the Yugoslav Wars; the eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines, the second-most powerful eruption of the 20th century; Lauda Air Flight 004 crashes, killing all 223 on board; Boris Yeltsin waves the new Russian flag after the 1991 Soviet coup d'etat attempt; the United States and soon-to-be dissolved Soviet Union sign the START I treaty; a flooded village in Bangladesh after a cyclone killed 138,866 people; the MV Moby Prince, which collides with an oil tanker in Italy, causing a disastrous fire and 140 deaths; USAF aircraft fly over burned-out Kuwaiti oil fields towards the end of the Gulf War. | From top-left, clockwise: the 1990 FIFA World Cup is held in Italy and is won by West Germany; the Human Genome Project is launched; Voyager 1 takes the famous Pale Blue Dot image-speaking on the fragility of humanity on Earth, astrophysicist Carl Sagan states: "That's here. That's home. That's us."; West Germany and East Germany reunify; police stand on-guard during the poll tax riots in the United Kingdom; Iraq under Saddam Hussein invades Kuwait, beginning the Gulf War; an earthquake kills between 35,000-50,000 people in northern Iran; the Hubble Space Telescope is launched from the Space Shuttle Discovery. | From left, clockwise: an earthquake strikes the San Francisco Bay Area, killing 63 people; the proposal document for the World Wide Web is submitted; the Exxon Valdez oil tanker runs aground in Prince William Sound, Alaska, causing a large oil spill; the fall of the Berlin Wall begins the downfall of Communism in Eastern Europe, and heralds German reunification; the United States invades Panama to depose Manuel Noriega; the Baltic Way led to the independence of the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania from the Soviet Union; the stands of Hillsborough Stadium in Sheffield, Yorkshire, where the Hillsborough disaster occurred; Students demonstrate in Tiananmen Square, Beijing; many are killed by forces of the Chinese Communist Party. | From left, clockwise: the oil platform Piper Alpha explodes and collapses in the North Sea, killing 165 workers; the USS Vincennes (CG-49) mistakenly shoots down Iran Air Flight 655; Australia celebrates its Bicentennial on January 26; the 1988 Summer Olympics are held in Seoul, South Korea; Soviet troops begin their withdrawal from Afghanistan, which is completed the next year; an earthquake in Armenia kills between 25,000-50,000 people; the 8888 Uprising in Myanmar, led by students, protests the Burma Socialist Programme Party; a bomb explodes on Pan Am Flight 103, causing the plane to crash down on the town of Lockerbie, Scotland – the event kills 270 people. | |||||
1987 | 1986 | 1985 | 1984 | |||||
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() | |||||
From top left, clockwise: the MS Herald of Free Enterprise capsizes after leaving the Port of Zeebrugge in Belgium, killing 193; Northwest Airlines Flight 255 crashes after takeoff from Detroit Metropolitan Airport, killing everyone except a little girl; the King's Cross fire kills 31 people after a fire under an escalator flashes-over; the MV Doña Paz sinks after colliding with an oil tanker, drowning almost 4,400 passengers and crew; Typhoon Nina strikes the Philippines, killing 1,036; LOT Polish Airlines Flight 5055 crashes outside of Warsaw, taking the lives of all aboard; the USS Stark is struck by Iraqi Exocet missiles in the Persian Gulf; U.S. President Ronald Reagan gives a famous speech, demanding that Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev tears down the Berlin Wall. | Clockwise from top-left: Space Station Mir is launched by the Soviet Union; the 1986 FIFA World Cup is held in Mexico and is won by Argentina; Halley's Comet comes into perihelion for the first time since 1910; the worst nuclear disaster in human history takes place at Chernobyl in present-day Ukraine; People Power Revolution protests against regime violence and electoral fraud in the Philippines; an earthquake in El Salvador kills 1,000-1,500 people; the U.S. administration is caught in a scandal involving the sale of weapons to Iran to fund the Contras in Nicaragua; Space Shuttle Challenger explodes 73 seconds after liftoff. | Clockwise from top-left: Royal Air Force C-130 airdropping food during the Ethiopian famine; reductions of up to 70 percent in the ozone column observed in the austral (southern hemispheric) spring over Antarctica; Nevado del Ruiz erupts, killing 23,000 people; an earthquake in Mexico City killed 45,000 people; Air India Flight 182 seen less than two weeks before the bombing;
the Nintendo Entertainment System is released in U.S. stores revitalizing the North American video game industry; a memorial plaque dedicated to the victims of the Heysel Stadium disaster; the Live Aid concert is held in order to fund relief efforts for the famine in Ethiopia during the time Mengistu Haile Mariam ruled the country. |
Clockwise from top-left: a civil unrest movement demands direct presidential elections in Brazil; Indian prime minister Indira Gandhi is assassinated by two of her security guards, heralding the beginning of the anti-Sikh riots in India; NASA and the FAA intentionally crash a remotely controlled Boeing 720 aircraft to acquire data and test new technologies to aid passenger and crew survival; the 1984 Summer Olympics are held in Los Angeles, California; Apple releases its revolutionary personal computer; the Sino-British Joint Declaration treaty is signed; the National Union of Mineworkers in the United Kingdom strike against the National Coal Board in an attempt to prevent colliery closures; a methyl isocyanate leak kills at least 3,787 people in Bhopal, India. | |||||
1983 | 1982 | 1981 | 1980 | |||||
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() | |||||
Clockwise from top-left: the Ash Wednesday bushfires burned around 2,080 km2 (513,979 acres) killing 75 people in Victoria and South Australia; a suicide bombing in Beirut, Lebanon killed 63 people (+1 suicide bomber) and injuring 120; Soviet Sukhoi Su-15 shoots Korean Air Lines Flight 007 killing all aboard; the video game crash of 1983 caused a large-scale recession in the North American video game industry; Sally Ride became the first American woman in space during STS-7 mission; a truck bomb blew up in Beirut, killing more than 307 people; an anti-Tamil pogrom in Sri Lanka carries out; the United States and a coalition of six Caribbean nations invaded the island nation of Grenada. | Clockwise from top-left: the Syrian Arab Army and the Defense Companies besiege the city of Hama, killing 350–400 civilians; the compact disc (CD) is introduced; during the filming of Twilight Zone: The Movie, a Bell UH-1 Iroquois helicopter crashes at Indian Dunes, killing actor Vic Morrow and child actors Myca Dinh Le and Renee Shin-Yi Chen; Steven Spielberg releases E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial which becomes the highest-grossing film of the decade; the 1982 FIFA World Cup is held in Spain and is won by Italy; Michael Jackson releases his sixth studio album, Thriller, which becomes the best-selling album of all time; Israel invades Lebanon again; Argentina invades Falkland Islands, which starts the Falklands War. | From top left, clockwise: U.S. President Ronald Reagan is shot and injured by John Hinckley Jr.; the first case of HIV/AIDS begins in United States; the Salvadoran Army kill 800–1,000 civilians in El Mozote village; NASA launches Space Shuttle Columbia; Pope John Paul II is shot and injured by Mehmet Ali Ağca; IBM launches its first microcomputer; seven prisoners from the Provisional Irish Republican Army and three from the Irish National Liberation Army starve themselves to death in a hunger strike; Prince Charles marries Lady Diana Spencer. | Clockwise from top-left: people welcoming six freed hostages back to the United States, as a result of the "Canadian Caper"; the 1980 Summer Olympics are held in Moscow, Soviet Union in what is now Russia; Pac-Man is released in the arcades becoming the highest-earning arcade game of all time; Iraq invades Iran initiating the Iran-Iraq War; students of Gwangju, South Korea uprise in response to the coup d'état of May Seventeenth; John Lennon is shot by Mark David Chapman outside his New York City apartment; Bologna Centrale railway station in Bologna, Italy explodes killing 85 and injuring 200; Mount St. Helens erupts killing approximately 57 people. | |||||
1979 | 1978 | 1977 | 1976 | |||||
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() | |||||
Clockwise from top-left: the Soviet Union invades Afghanistan, starting the Soviet-Afghan War; Sony releases the Walkman; the SALT II treaties are signed; Iranian students crowd the U.S. embassy in Tehran during the Iran hostage crisis; the oil tanker Betelgeuse explodes, killing 50 people; American Airlines Flight 191 crashes, leaving 271 people dead; Ixtoc 1 suffers a blowout, spilling 3.5 million barrels of oil; the Iranian Revolution culminates in the overthrow of the Pahlavi dynasty. | Clockwise from top-left: the Jonestown massacre occurs, leaving 909 people dead; Pacific Southwest Airlines Flight 182 collides with a private Cessna 172 light aircraft, killing 146 people; an earthquake in Tabas kills around 25,000 people; the 1978 FIFA World Cup is held in Argentina; the Saur Revolution marks the end of power of the Barakzai dynasty after 152 years; Air India Flight 855 crashes around 3 km (1.9 mi) off the coast of Bandra, killing all passengers and crew aboard; Aldo Moro is kidnapped and murdered by the Red Brigades; the Camp David Accords are signed. | Clockwise from top-left: An earthquake in Romania and the Balkans kills 1,578 people; Atari releases Atari 2600; a military conflict between Somalia and Ethiopia is fought; two Boeing 747 passenger jets collided on the runway at Los Rodeos Airport, killing 583; the Andhra Pradesh cyclone kills 10,000 people; Elvis Presley dies due to cardiac arrest; Apple release its successful microcomputer; George Lucas release Star Wars which became a cultural phenomenon. | Clockwise from top-left: the Argentine coup d'état overthrew Isabel Perón as President of Argentina; VHS is released; an earthquake in Guatemala killed 23,000 people; a series of demonstrations and protests led by black school children in South Africa under apartheid takes place; the United States celebrates its bicentennial; a counter-terrorist hostage-rescue mission carried out by commandos of the IDF at Entebbe Airport in Uganda takes place; the 1976 Summer Olympics are held in Montreal, Quebec; an earthquake hits Tangshan killing 242,769 people. | |||||
1975 | 1974 | 1973 | 1972 | |||||
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() | |||||
Clockwise from top-left: Viking 1 is launched; Apollo–Soyuz, the first crewed international space mission, is carried out; Sheikh Mujibur Rahman is assassinated by the Bangladesh Army; the Khmer Rouge carried out a genocide in Cambodia, killing nearly two million; SS Edmund Fitzgerald sinks in Lake Superior with no survivors; a strategic mass demonstration forces Spain to bequeath the disputed autonomous semi-metropolitan province of the Spanish Sahara to Morocco; Typhoon Nina killed 26,000 people in Taiwan and China, resulting in dam collapses that killed an additional 240,000; the Fall of Saigon marked the end of the Vietnam War. | Clockwise from top-left: Turkey invades Cyprus; a bus depicting the 1974 FIFA World Cup, which was held in West Germany; Turkish Airlines Flight 981 crashes at the Ermenonville Forest leaving no survivors; Richard Nixon resigns as President of United States in the wake of the Watergate Scandal; a famine takes place in Bangladesh; Hurricane Fifi–Orlene wreaks havoc in Honduras, becoming the third deadliest Atlantic hurricane on record, killing over 8,000; West German authorities discovered that Guillaume was spying for the East German government; a painted wall that depicts the Carnation Revolution, in which a military coup overthrew the authoritarian Estado Novo. | Clockwise from top-left: the Thai popular uprising resulted in the end of the ruling military dictatorship of anti-communist Thanom Kittikachorn, the U.S. launches its first space station; an armed conflict between Israel and a coalition of Arab states led by Egypt and Syria takes place; a group of military officers led by General Augusto Pinochet seized power in a coup of their own; students in Athens protest the Greek military; Paris Peace Accords are signed to establish peace in Vietnam and end the Vietnam War; the Sydney Opera House is opened; OPEC proclaimed an oil embargo, which caused an oil crisis. | Clockwise from top-left: an earthquake in Nicaragua kills 4,000–11,000 people; the first commercial home video console is released; a photo of the Earth known as The Blue Marble is taken during Apollo's final mission; during the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, a terrorist attack carried out; Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty is signed; Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 crashes at the Andes, survivors resort to cannibalism to survive; President Ferdinand Marcos announces on television that the entirety of the Philippines is under martial law (eventually lifted in 1981); US President Richard Nixon is implicated in a scandal involving the theft of documents from the Watergate complex in Washington, D.C. | |||||
1971 | 1970 | 1969 | 1968 | |||||
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() | |||||
Clockwise from top-left: Idi Amin led a coup d'état against the government of President Milton Obote in Uganda; Intel produces the first commercial microprocessor; a JASDF F-86F Sabre jet fighter collided with All Nippon Airways Flight 58, causing both aircraft to crash and killing 162; the Pentagon Papers revealed that the U.S. had secretly enlarged the scope of its actions in the Vietnam War with coastal raids on North Vietnam and Marine Corps attacks; the United Arab Emirates is founded; the floppy disk is introduced; Soviet Union launches the first space station; members of the Pakistan Armed Forces and supporting pro-Pakistani Islamist militias from Jamaat-e-Islami killed 300,000-3,000,000 people and raped 200,000-400,000 Bengali women. | Clockwise from top-left: a 7.1 magnitude earthquake in Tonghai, China kills over 10,000 people; the Apollo 13 mission is aborted after an oxygen tank in the service module fails, resulting in the safe return of all passengers to Earth; the 1970 FIFA World Cup is held in Mexico and won by Brazil; the 1970 Ancash earthquake and subsequent avalanche kills about 70,000 in Peru and became the deadliest earthquake there; Japan launches its first satellite, Ohsumi, into outer space; terrorist groups hijack five airliners in Jordan, crashing all of them against each other; four student protesters protesting the Vietnam War are killed in Ohio by the police, resulting in outrage throughout the United States; a tropical cyclone kills 500,000 people in East Pakistan and India, becoming the deadliest tropical cyclone on record. | Clockwise, from top left: the Woodstock Music and Art Fair is held in Bethel, New York; a memorial plaque for Patrick Rooney and Hugh McCabe, who were killed during riots in Northern Ireland, which heralded the beginning of the Troubles; Muammar Gaddafi rose to power in Libya after a coup d'état there, leading the country for 42 years; pro-LGBT protests occur in the U.S., with goals of homosexuality rights in the U.S.; Hurricane Camille becomes the most intense tropical cyclone to hit the U.S. until 2005, killing 259 people in the southern U.S.; a statue of Ho Chi Minh, who died that September; an oil spill disrupts marine life off the coast of California; Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin become the first humans to step foot on the Moon during the Apollo 11 mission. | Clockwise, from top left: Left-wing civil disobedience erupt across France in May; U.S. athletes Tommie Smith and John Carlos raise a black-gloved fist in support of civil rights during the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City; Robert F. Kennedy is assassinated in Los Angeles while campaigning for the presidency; the TEV Wahine fatally sinks in Wellington Harbor, killing 53; the Prague Spring unfolds before the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia; U.S. troops perpetrate a massacre in Vietnam, killing up to 500 in a highly publicised war crime; African-American community volunteers distribute food in the aftermath of riots in the U.S. following the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.; Vietnamese soldiers in Saigon during the Tet Offensive of the Vietnam War. | |||||
1967 | 1966 | 1965 | 1964 | |||||
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() | |||||
Clockwise, from top left: Muhammed Ali was stripped of his boxing title and banned from professional boxing for three years after he refused military service; anti-government protests in Hong Kong against the colonial government; Canada celebrates its centennial during the Expo 67 celebration; tanks entering a village in Cambodia during the Cambodian Civil War; destroyed houses after a riot in Detroit amidst a series of more than 150 race riots in the United States; aid workers in Nigeria unloading supplies to combat the famine in Biafra caused by the Nigerian Civil War; the crew of Apollo 1 are killed when a fire starts within the command module during training for the Apollo 1 mission; a destroyed Egyptian aircraft during the Six-Day War. | Clockwise from top-left: a catastrophic release of colliery waste kills 144 people in Aberfan, Wales; Vietnamese Buddhists stage an anti-government demonstration against the present government; a conflict between South West Africa (now Namibia), South Africa and the SWAPO takes place; the 1966 FIFA World Cup is held in England; the Gemini 8 mission is the first link of two spacecraft together in Earth's orbit; Hurricane Inez kills 1,269 people; a series of earthquakes in Xingtai kills over 8,064 people; Mao Zedong launches the Cultural Revolution to purge any remnants of pre-Communist society. | Clockwise from top-left: Soviet cosmonaut Alexei Leonov becomes the first person to perform a space walk during Voskhod 2; Anti-Communist Party of Indonesia literature during massacres against communists in Indonesia; U.S. spacecraft Mariner 4 flies by Mars, becoming the first spacecraft to return images from the planet; the funeral of Winston Churchill was the largest state funeral for a commoner and Prime Minister in British history; the infamous "Bloody Sunday" incident took place during the Selma to Montgomery marches; Black Muslim civil rights activist Malcolm X was assassinated by members of the Nation of Islam in Manhattan; two Indian soldiers stand next to a wrecked jeep during the Second India–Pakistan War; the Battle of Ia Drang was the first major battle between the United States Army and the People's Army of Vietnam. | Clockwise from top-left: three typhoons caused widespread flooding in South Vietnam with 7,000 people death; after a prolonged power struggle, Nikita Khrushchev was finally ousted from his post as First Secretary, the Khrushchev Era ends, but the Brezhnev Era begins; the 1964 Summer Olympics are held in Tokyo; massacres of Arabs photographed on the beach after the Zanzibar Revolution, the number is 2,000-20,000; the Brazilian coup ended the Fourth Brazilian Republic and initiating the military dictatorship; the worst football disaster takes place at the National Stadium of Peru, with 328 fatalities; an armed conflict between FRELIMO and Portugal is carried; The Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show launched American Beatlemania & the wider British Invasion of American pop music. | |||||
1963 | 1962 | 1961 | 1960 | |||||
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() | |||||
Clockwise from top-left: Hurricane Flora strikes Hispaniola and Cuba killing 7,193 people; Valentina Tereshkova becomes the first woman in space during Vostok 5 mission; Martin Luther King, Jr. gives his famous speech "I Have a Dream" during the March on Washington; Thích Quảng Đức self-immolated during the Buddhist crisis; an earthquake in Skopje kills 1,070 people; the U.S. and the Soviet Union sign the Hot Line Agreement; Doctor Who airs on BBC One becoming a icon of British pop culture; U.S. President John F. Kennedy is assassinated in Dallas, Texas. | Clockwise from top-left: the 1962 FIFA World Cup is held in Chile and won by Brazil; Marilyn Monroe sings "Happy Birthday, Mr. President" to U.S. President John F. Kennedy, just 4 months before her death; John Glenn becomes the first American to orbit the Earth in Mercury-Atlas 6 mission; a border dispute between India and China is fought; Algeria and other African countries gain independence from France; Mariner 2 was the world's first successful interplanetary spacecraft; Tropical Storm Harriet kills 50,935 people in Thailand and East Pakistan; the Cuban Missile Crisis, an international crisis that is considered the closest the Cold War came to escalating into a full-scale conflict, nuclear war. | Clockwise, from top left: The Tsar Bomba was detonated in the Soviet Union, becoming the most powerful nuclear bomb ever detonated; the Antarctic Treaty is signed; Portuguese guerilla soldiers during the Portuguese Colonial War in Portugal's colonies in Africa; a model of the Vostok 1, in which Yuri Gagarin stayed in during the first manned flight to space; a memorial following a massacre in Paris, in which 300 Algerians were killed in the city during the Algerian War; an Indian soldier during the annexation of Goa by India; American planes flying into the Bay of Pigs during the Bay of Pigs invasion; tensions in Berlin reached a climax, culminating in the construction of the Berlin Wall. | Clockwise, from top left: a refugee camp in the Democratic Republic of the Congo during the Congo Crisis; the massive Anpo protests take place in Japan against the United States-Japan Security Treaty; the construction of the Aswan Dam begins in Egypt; damage in Chile after the magnitude 9.5 Valdivia earthquake, which was the most powerful earthquake in modern history, killing 6,000; the London and Zürich Agreements take place, resulting in the independence of Cyprus from the United Kingdom; the deadliest earthquake in Morocco kills 12,000-15,000 people; the 1960 Summer Olympics are held in Rome, Italy; an independence rally in Zambia during the Year of Africa, in which 16 African countries gained independence from their European colonial rulers. | |||||
1959 | 1958 | 1957 | 1956 | |||||
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() | |||||
Clockwise, from top left: Typhoon Vera damage at Handa, Japan; The MOSFET (MOS transistor) is invented by Mohamed Atalla and Dawon Kahng at Bell Labs.; Tsarong Dazang Dramdul and several Tibetan monks captured by the PLA during the 1959 Tibetan uprising; Fidel Castro takes over Cuba; The squirrel monkey Baker and the rhesus macaque Able were the first two primates to be safely returned after entering space in the Jupiter AM-18 mission; Site of Australopithecus boisei discovery in Tanzania; Luna 3 became the first spacecraft to photograph the far side of the Moon; Richard Nixon and Nikita Khrushchev at the American National Exhibition and gave a famous speech. | Clockwise, from top left: The protester who was injured during the May 1958 crisis in France and was urgently taken to receive medical treatment ; Gamal Abdel-Nasser and Shukri al-Quwatli signing the Syria-Egypt union pact that formed United Arab Republic; U.S. Marines invade Lebanon to protect regime from 1958 Lebanon crisis; People were required to produce more steel during the Great Leap Forward, which indirectly led to the subsequent famine; Momofuku Ando invented instant noodles; Explorer 1 in its orbital configuration, the first satellite launched by the United States; Tennis for Two becomes the First pure Entertainment video game; Pelé scoring a goal in the 1958 World Cup final. | Clockwise, from top left: a Memorial to the Kyshtym disaster; The signature page on the original Treaty of Rome; Wreckage of the 1957 Cebu Douglas C-47 crash which killed Philippine President Ramon Magsaysay; 168 sick conscripts by asian flu in a sport arena att F 21 in Luleå. Picture was taken in 1957.; Hurricane Audrey kills 431 people; Spanish soldiers during the Ifni War; The slogan "carry out the anti-rightist struggle to the end" on display at the 1957 National Day parade during Anti-Rightist Campaigns.; The Soviet Union launches Sputnik 1, the first artificial satellite to orbit the Earth | Clockwise, from top left: Elvis Presley becomes the leading figure of the newly popular music genre of rock and roll; Illustration of the 1956 Grand Canyon mid-air collision; A reel of 2-inch quadruplex videotape compared with a later miniDV videocassette.; Smoke rises from oil tanks on Port Said following the invasion of Egypt by Israel, United Kingdom and France as part of the Suez Crisis; Ron Clarke carrying the Olympic Torch during 1956 Summer Olympics opening ceremony; Seawall being repaired after Typhoon Wanda; people protesting in the 1956 Poznań protests; Hungarian Revolution of 1956 | |||||
1955 | 1954 | 1953 | 1952 | |||||
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() | |||||
Clockwise, from top left: PLA troops assaulting Nationalist positions in Battle of Yijiangshan Islands; Civilians who died as a result of the Bombing of Plaza de Mayo; Damage in Corozal, Belize caused by Hurricane Janet, this hurricane resulted in over 1023 deaths; the Conference that during which the Warsaw Pact was established and signed; Rosa Parks being fingerprinted by Deputy Sheriff D.H. Lackey after her arrest for boycotting public transportation; Saigon City Hall display The results of the 1955 State of Vietnam referendum; the Freedom Charter wrote on the wall Palace of Justice, Pretoria; Plenary session during the Bandung Conference. | Clockwise, from top left: Cinematographic photo of Viet Minh troops planting their flag on top of the French Army's headquarters in the Battle of Dien Bien Phu, where the French suffered a defeat that forced them to sign the Geneva Accords; U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower with U.S. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, the advocate of the 1954 Guatemalan coup d'état; The destruction caused by Hurricane Hazel in Toronto, Canada; A thermonuclear test, code named Castle Romeo; a typhoon in the Tsugaru Strait sinks the ferry Tōya Maru, killing over 1,100 passengers and crew; Soldiers of the National Liberation Army during the Algerian War of Independence; Final of the 1954 FIFA World Cup; The first mass vaccination of children against polio begins in Pittsburgh, United States. | Clockwise, from top left: Troops of the King's African Rifles on watch for Mau Mau rebels during the Mau Mau rebellion; Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay become the first people to reach the summit of Mount Everest; Coup supporters celebrate victory of the 1953 Iranian coup d'état; Soviet T-34-85 in East Berlin during the East German uprising of 1953; Elizabeth proceeding past the Coronation Chair in her Coronation; The wreckage of the KA locomotive in the Tangiwai disaster; the state funeral procession of Joseph Stalin; Aftermath of the North Sea flood of 1953. | Clockwise, from top left: President Sukarno addressing protestors in front of the Merdeka Palace during the 17 October affair; supporters of the Bolivian National Revolution;the ruins of Severo-Kurilsk, a tsunami produced by a 9.0 magnitude earthquake in Kamchatka Krai, Russia that killed 2,336 people ; The Catalina shot down by Soviet forces while searching for the missing Hugin; the 1952 Winter Olympics are held in Oslo, Norway; The leaders of the 1952 Egyptian Revolution; the signing of Reparations Agreement between Israel and the Federal Republic of Germany; George VI passed away, Elizabeth II becomes monarch of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. | |||||
1951 | 1950 | 1949 | 1948 | |||||
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() | |||||
Clockwise from top-left: the Treaty of Paris establishes the European Coal and Steel Community, a precursor to the European Union; Shigeru Yoshida, Prime Minister of Japan signing the Treaty of San Francisco; Ships in Wellington harbour during the 1951 New Zealand waterfront dispute; Leading figures of the Nepali Congress in the 1951 Nepalese revolution; The Rosenbergs sentenced to death; The Sakuragichō train is on fire; Remington Rand delivers the first UNIVAC I computer; Destruction left in the wake of the 1951 eruption of Mount Lamington. | Clockwise from top-left: PLA soldiers marching toward Tibet in the Annexation of Tibet by the People's Republic of China; The refugees who fled after the 1950 Assam-Tibet earthquake; The opening game of the Maracanã Stadium, shortly before the 1950 FIFA World Cup; Bhumibol Adulyadej at his coronation, on a royal procession; The meteorological chart of the Great Appalachian Storm of 1950, which caused a total of 383 fatalities; The earliest credit card was invented by Diners Club International; During the invasion of Ambon, the Indonesian army deployed tanks and troops to patrol in Ambon. Following this campaign, the Republic of South Maluku was annexed by Indonesia; The scene of the Incheon landing during the Korean War. | Clockwise, from top left: British astronomer Fred Hoyle coins the term Big Bang; the North Atlantic Treaty is signed, forming NATO; Police and protesters clach during the 1949 Kemi strike; EDSAC is the second electronic digital stored-program computer to go into regular service; The first Soviet atomic bomb, RDS-1, is made; Devastation after the Prüm explosion in Germany; Wreckage of an Avio Linee Italiane Fiat G.212 after the Superga air disaster; Mao Zedong proclaiming the foundation of the People's Republic of China. | Clockwise, from top left: Israeli Declaration of Independence; British Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin signing the Treaty of Brussels; The 1948 Summer Olympics opens in London, United Kingdom; The trial of persons accused of participation and complicity in the Assassination of Mahatma Gandhi; Photo of a damaged building taken by Bert Cohen after the 1948 Fukui earthquake; a Australian Avro Lincoln bomber dropping 500 lb (230 kg) bombs in the Malayan Emergency; Pro-Communist demonstrations before the 1948 Czechoslovak coup d'état; West Berliners watch a Douglas C-54 Skymaster land at Tempelhof Airport in the Berlin Blockade. | |||||
1947 | 1946 | 1945 | 1944 | |||||
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() | |||||
Clockwise, from top left: The centuries-long Indian Independence Movement resulted in the Indian Independence Act of 1947, which resulted in the independence of Pakistan and India from the British. This resulted in the dissolution of the British Raj and the Partition of India. Mass migration and religious violence followed, reuslting in over 1 million deaths and 20 million displaced. Pictured here, tensions escalate between Pakistan and India over the princely state of Jammu and Kashmir, resulting in a war between the two countires, ending with a ceasefire and an additional 10,000 deaths; 184 people are killed and 495 people are injured after the deadliest railway disaster in Japan ensued in Hachikō Line in Japan; the Greek passenger ship SS Heimara collided with a reef in the Aegean Sea, killing 400 people; after the newly-formed United Nations recommended a parition of the British-controlled Palestine, a civil war broke out in the region. The war began the Israeli war of independence, the flight of 700,000 Palestinians from the region, the Israeli Declaration of Independence, and later the invasion of Palestine by Zionist forces, beginning the Israeli-Palestine conflict; a museum dedicated to a Malagasy nationalist rebellion that broke out in Madagascar against French colonial rule in Madagascar, resulting in possibly over 89,000 deaths. The rebellion was crushed by French forces; a anti-China uprising in Taiwan was violently suppressed by Kuomintang forces resulted in 20,000 deaths, martial law in Taiwan, and political suppression of the Taiwanese people that continued for 40 years; the SS Wilson B. Keene lays destroyed after a major ammonium nitrate explosion in Texas City, Texas, which was one of the largest non-nuclear explosions in the world and killed 581 people; a thankful sign in Germany pointing to the United States initiation of the Marshall Plan, which ended to provide $173 billion to Western Europe after World War II. | Clockwise, from top left: A series of seven acient Jewish manuscripts called the Dead Sea Scrolls are discovered in caves on the northern shore of the Dead Sea; the All-India Muslim League, endeavoring to create a separate Muslim state from India during the Partition of India, began a campaign of direct action in support of the cause in Calcutta, resulting in religious violence between Muslims and Hindus there and 4,000 deaths; after the defeat of Japan in the Southeast Asia, France attempted to take back control of Indochina, dawning a war between the two. The war would last for seven years, resulting in a Vietnamese victory, the independence of the State of Vietnam and the Kingdoms of Laos and Cambodia, and the inception of the Second Indochina War (or the Vietnam War); the first programmable computer, called ENIAC, was first widely used in 1946; the first major war involving a proxy conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union, the Greek Civil War, began in 1946. The war lasted for two years and ended with the victory of the pro-Western Kingdom of Greece; a reburial of the victims of a major famine in Russia. In the aftermath of World War II and under the reign of Joseph Stalin, a major famine in the Soviet Union resulted in the deaths of 2 million people; after the Soviet Union refused to give up territory in Persia in violation of the Potsdam Conference, a crisis erupted between a pro-Western Iran and its allies and the Soviet Union, resulting in a bloody crisis, ending in around 2,000 deaths; the defendants of the Nuremburg Trials. Many representatives of Nazi Germany were put on trial due to the plotting and undertaking on invasions of countries during World War II, and also due to atrocities such as The Holocaust. | Clockwise, from top left: A B-25 Mitchell bomber is accidentally crashed into the north side of the Empire State building in New York City due to fog, killing 14 people; the funeral of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who died that April due to cerebral hemorrhage; the United Nations is founded and goes into effect in October in the aftermath of World War II; a British Sherman Firefly tank near the Namur River during the Battle of the Bulge, ending in a decisive Allied victory; Japanese cities Hiroshima and Nagasaki are bombed by the United States, killing 226,000 and leading to Japan’s surrender to the United States, ending World War II; Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima became an epochal symbol of American endurance during the Battle of Iwo Jima in the Pacific War; the Fuhrerbunker bunker in Berlin, Fermany, where Nazi leader Adolf Hitler commit suicide by gunshot near the end of World War II; Raising the Flag over the Reichstag during the Battle of Berlin, the last major Allied offensive in Europe during World War II. | Clockwise, from top left: Destruction in to downtown San Juan, Argentina after the 1944 San Juan earthquake that killed 10,000 people; Friedrich Olbricht and other pro-Westerners attempt to assassinate Adolf Hitler. The assassination attempt fails, leaving Hitler with minor injuries, the failure of an alleged coup, and the arrest of over 7,000 suspected plotters; led by the Polish Underground State, Polish civilians initiate Operation Tempest, beginning an uprising against Nazi rule of Poland in the city of Warsaw. Over 230,000 people are killed (including 200,000 civilians) in the uprising and 90% of Warsaw is destroyed by Nazi Germany, who defeats the Underground Army and wins the battle; the Soviet Union initiates Operation Bagration, a major offensive against Nazi Germany in Soviet Byelorussia during World War II. There are hundreds of thousands of casualties on each side. Soviet forces win the two-month long offensive despite heavy losses, retaking all of the Byelorussian SSR and gaining land in Eastern Poland; during the Second Sino-Japanese War during World War II, Imperial Japan launches Operation Ichi-Go in the Republic of China (who is supported by the United States) to take back the provinces of Henan, Hunan and Guangxi. 700,00 people are killed or missing in the offensive, and the Empire of Japan eventually wins the engagement; General Douglas MacArthur, Philippine president Sergio Osmeña and staff at Palo, Leyte in the Philippines during the Battle of Leyte between Imperial Japan and the Commonwealth of the Philippines, supported by the United States, resulting in an Allied victory. The battle is part of the larger Philippines campaign of 1944 to 1945, which overall leads to liberation of the Philippines from Imperial Japan; during the Italian Campaign of World War II, Allied forces attempt to break through the German and Italian Winter Line in central Italy, resulting in the Battle of Monte Cassino near Rome. The battle results in a strategic Allied victory and 75,000 overall casualties; Allied forces initiate Operation Overlord in Western Europe, beginning with the Normandy landings and ending with the liberation of France. Airborne forces and amphibious forces assault the German-occupied lands, and overall, 39,000 deaths occurr during the assault, which is considered to be the beginning of Nazi Germany's downfall. | |||||
1943 | 1942 | 1941 | 1940 | |||||
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() | |||||
Clockwise, from top left: | Clockwise, from top left: | Clockwise, from top left: | Clockwise, from top left: Soviet forces led by Soviet Internal Affairs kill 22,000 Polish military officers in Russia. Seen here, bodies are exhumed in the Katyn Forest, where most of the killings took place; Nazi Germany initiate Operation Weserübung, which led to the invasions of Denmark and Norway and a German victory after only six hours of fighting in Denmark and two months of fighting in the Norwegian campaign; in an attempt to protect the Baltic states from German occupation, the Soviet Union compelled the countries to allow Soviet forces to establish military bases, leading to a invasion and annexation by Soviet forces and a two-month long occupation; during the Battle of Dunkirk (part of theBattle of France of the Second World War), hundreds of thousands of Allied forces are sieged at the Dunkirk beach area in northern France by German troops. 338,000 Allied forces retreat from the area over the course of a week as a result. British Prime Minister Winston Churchill calls it a "colossal military disaster" and subsequently gives the We shall fight on the beaches speech; | |||||
1939 | 1938 | 1937 | 1936 | |||||
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() | |||||
Clockwise, from top left: Italy invades Albania. Albania is rapidly overrun by Italian forces, resulting in the Italian control of the Adriatic Sea and a strategic victory for Fascist Italy shortly before the breakout of World War II; the Soviet Union invades Finland during the beginning months of World War II, beginning the Winter War. Despite having superior forces, the Soviets suffered heavy losses and gained only a fraction of their desired territory; in preparation for the Invasion of Poland, the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany agree to split Central and Eastern Europe between them; Gone With the Wind is released by Victor Fleming. It becomes the highest grossing film when adjusted for monetary inflation; 28,000 people die in the 1939 Chillán earthquake, currently the deadliest earthquake in the history of Chile; destruction after the 1939 Erzincan earthquake, which killed 32,000 people in northeastern Turkey along the North Anatolian Fault; a series of border skirmishes take place in the Khalkin Gol region of eastern Mongolia between the Soviet Union and the Empire of Japan, resulting in over 90,000 deaths; Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union invade Poland in what is widely considered to be the beginning of World War II. Their invasion receives condemnation from many countries, including declarations of war on Nazi Germany from the United Kingdom and France. The joint invasion of Poland is completed in little more than a month, an joint occupation of Poland would continue for six years. | Clockwise, from top left: Crowds gather at the Heldenplatz to hear Adolf Hitler's announcement of the annexation of the Federal State of Austria into the German Reich, which came in violation of the Treaty of Versailles; the phenomenon of nuclear chain reaction is discovered by German scientists Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassmann, giving way to the development of nuclear weapons; the 1938 FIFA World Cup is held in France and won by Italy; due to the assassination of Ernst von Rath by Jew Herschel Grynszpan and a wave of antisemitism in Nazi Germany under Adolf Hitler, a pogrom against Jews called Kristallnacht ensued, resulting in more than 91 deaths and many synagogues attacked, incuding the Fasanenstrasse Synagogue, photographed here. After the events, more than 30,000 Jews were arrested and sent to concentration camps; during the Second Sino-Japanese War, Kuomintang forces ordered the city of Changsha to be burnt to the ground to prevent Japanese forces from capturing the city. The fire resulted in 56,000 buildings destroyed, 30,000 dead, and over $1 billion in damage; also during the Second Sino-Japanese War, the National Revolutionary Army ordered the intentional destruction of dikes along the Yellow River during their scorched-earth defense line, with the floods killing a total of 500,000 people dying from drowning, plague, and famine; a surface weather analysis of the 1938 New England hurricane, which killed upwards of 800 people in the East Coast of the United States; heads of state meet for the Munich Agreement, which led to the annexation of Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia during an appeasement strategy attempt by the Allies. | Clockwise, from top left: 385 people die during a series of vast flooding along the Ohio River valley. Damage ranges from Illinois to Pennsylvania, leaving over $500 million lost and one million people homeless, exasperated by the effects of the Great Depression; the LZ 129 Hindenburg catches on fire and is destroyed in New Jersey. 37 people are killed in the disaster, including 36 people on the ship and 1 on the ground, contributing to the sudden public rejection of the airship and the end of the so-called airship era; a typhoon strikes British Hong Kong, killing 11,000 people; corpses in the aftermath of the Nanjing Massacre, in which immediately after the Battle of Nanking during the Second Sino-Japanese war, Japanese forces killed 200,000 people and raped 80,000 women, and commited numerous additional atrocities such as killing contests and denial of the massacre that continues in Japan to this day; Rafael Trujillo, pictured here, ordered the killing of 35,000 Haitians in the Dominican Republic during a wave of antihaitianismo in the country; a memorial for the New London School explosion, in which more than 295 people were killed in a blast caused by a natural gas leak; Amelia Earhart goes missing during an attempted circumnavigational flight around the world after her departure from Lae, Papua New Guinea, sending shock throughout the world; Joseph Stalin begins a campaign of mass imprisonment and elimination of political rivals in the Soviet Union to consolidate his power. During this purge, 9,000 to 11,000 people are killed in Vinnytsia, Ukraine by Soviet secret forces. | ||||||
1935 | 1934 | 1933 | 1932 | |||||
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() | |||||
Clockwise, from top left: The Yangtze River is hit by a major flood, killing above 145,000 people; the Hoover Dam is inaugurated; King George II of Greece returns to Greece after exile in the United Kingdom; the German Nuremberg Laws are passed in a quest for racial purity, stripping Jews of their citizenship; under the leadership of Bonito Mussolini, Italy invades Ethiopia (picture of 1936 compat); an earthquake in Quetta, Balochistan, British India caused the deaths of 30,000 to 60,000 people; the Moscow Metro opens; Nazi propaganda from the referendum where 90% of people in the Territory of the Saar Basin votes to join the German Reich. | Clockwise, from top left: | Clockwise, from top left: During a thunderstorm, the USS Akron of the US Navy is destroyed, killing 73 out of the 76 people on board and resulting in the largest loss of life on an airship; a destroyed village, part of the 100 or more demolished by Arab and Kurdish forces during the Simele massacre, which was committed against Assyrians with thousands of estimated deaths; a train derailment in northern France kills 204 people and leaves 120 more injured; in the aftermath of the Reichstag Fire, committed by Marinus van der Lubbe, Adolf Hitler blames the fire on communists, leading to the Enabling Act of 1933, which contributed to the rise of Adolf Hitler and gave him the power to enact laws with our intervention from the Reichstag, ending the Weimar Republic and giving rise to Nazi Germany; the town of Diexi in China, where an earthquake struck this year, killing around 9,300 people; fires burn in Kamaishi, Iwate after the 8.4 magnitude 1933 Sanriku earthquake, which killed 1,500 people and left another 1,500 missing; a 6.4 magnitude earthquake strikes Los Angeles, killing 120 people and destroying $40 million, becoming the second deadliest earthquake in California of all time; during the Soviet famine of 1930-1933, the Holodomor ensues in the Ukrainian SSR, ending with the death of 5 million people, or 10 percent of the republic's population. It is considered by select countries as genocide against Ukrainians by Joseph Stalin. | Clockwise, from top left: | |||||
1931 | 1930 | 1929 | 1928 | |||||
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() | |||||
Clockwise, from top left: A series of floods in the Republic of China kill 422,000 to 4,000,000 people, widely considered to be the deadliest natural disaster in the history of man; the Empire State Building, built by the Starrett Corp., is completed, becoming the tallest building on earth and holding that record for 29 years (until the Willis Tower is built); the St. Philibert, a small cruise ship, capsizes and sinks near the mouth of the Loire River, killing 458 of the 467 people on board; the exit of Germany from the gold standard resulted in financial instability Austria and Germany Europe during the Great Depression, assisting in the collapse of several banks, and indirectly, the rise of the Nazi regime in central Europe; damage in British Honduras after the 1931 British Honduras hurricane, which killed 2,500 people and damaged $7.5 million in property; a 6.1 magnitude earthquake strikes Managua, Nicaragua, killing 2,400 and dealing $35 million in property damage; an earthquake strikes the Hawke’s Bay region of the North Island of New Zealand, killing 256 people, making it the deadliest natural disaster in the history of New Zealand; in the aftermath of a staged train bombing by Imperial Japanese forces, the Kwantung Army initiates an invasion of Manchuria. After the invasion ends, Japan occupies the area and establishes the puppet state of Manchukuo. | Clockwise, from top left: | Clockwise, from top left: | Clockwise, from top left: | |||||
1927 | 1926 | 1925 | 1924 | |||||
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() | |||||
Clockwise, from top left: | Clockwise, from top left: | Clockwise, from top left: | Clockwise, from top left: | |||||
1923 | 1922 | 1921 | 1920 | |||||
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() | |||||
Clockwise, from top left: | Clockwise, from top left: | Clockwise, from top left: | Clockwise, from top left: | |||||
1919 | 1918 | 1917 | 1916 | |||||
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() | |||||
Clockwise, from top left: | Clockwise, from top left: | Clockwise, from top left: | Clockwise, from top left: | |||||
1915 | 1914 | 1913 | 1912 | |||||
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() | |||||
Clockwise, from top left: An Imperial German Navy U-boat torpedoes the RMS Lusitania, which was violating the German notice given to the Allies which forbid Allied ships from crossing into warzones during the war. As a consequence of the torpedo striking the vessel, it sunk, killing 1,195 people; | Clockwise, from top left: The RMS Empress of Ireland sinks near the mouth of the Saint Lawrence River in Canada after colliding with a cargo ship, killing 1,012 people; a mine explosion in Japan kills 687 people; after 10 years of construction, the United States officially completes the initial development of the Panama Canal; Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, the heir presumptive of Austria-Hungary, and his wife Sophie, Duchess of Hohenberg, are assassinated in Sarajevo by Gavrilo Princip and other terrorists, sparking the July Crisis, which culminated in the Austria-Hungarian declaration of war on Serbia and the onset of World War I; the Battle of Liège takes place during the German invasion of Belgium, with the battle itself and the invasion drawing in international condemnation on the German Empire; during the Asian and Pacific theatre of World War I, Japanese and British forces commenced a siege against the German colony of Qingdao in China, ending in a decisive Allied victory; the seven-day Battle of Tannenberg takes place between Germany and the Russian Empire, ending in a German victory. 91,000 people die in the engagement, and the seven-day battle ends with a military and logistical disaster for the Russian Empire; the First Battle of the Marne takes place between Allied forces and Germany, ending in a victory for the French Third Republic, the failure of the Schlieffen Plan for Germany, the inception of trench warfare during World War I, and the dawn of the Race to the Sea. | Clockwise, from top left: | Clockwise, from top left: | |||||
1911 | 1910 | 1909 | 1908 | |||||
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() | |||||
Clockwise, from top left: | Clockwise, from top left: | Clockwise, from top left: | Clockwise, from top left: | |||||
1907 | 1906 | 1905 | 1904 | |||||
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() | |||||
Clockwise, from top left: | Clockwise, from top left: | Clockwise, from top left: | Clockwise, from top left: | |||||
1903 | 1902 | 1901 | 1900 | |||||
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() | |||||
Clockwise, from top left: | Clockwise, from top left: | Clockwise, from top left: | Clockwise, from top left: | |||||
1899 | 1898 | 1897 | 1896 | |||||
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() | |||||
Clockwise, from top left: | Clockwise, from top left: | Clockwise, from top left: | Clockwise, from top left: | |||||
1895 | 1894 | 1893 | 1892 | |||||
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() | |||||
Clockwise, from top left: | Clockwise, from top left: | Clockwise, from top left: | Clockwise, from top left: | |||||
1891 | 1890 | 1889 | 1888 | |||||
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() | |||||
Clockwise, from top left: | Clockwise, from top left: | Clockwise, from top left: | Clockwise, from top left: | |||||
1887 | 1886 | 1885 | 1884 | |||||
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() | |||||
Clockwise, from top left: | Clockwise, from top left: | Clockwise, from top left: | Clockwise, from top left: | |||||
1883 | 1882 | 1881 | 1880 | |||||
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() | |||||
Clockwise, from top left: | Clockwise, from top left: | Clockwise, from top left: | Clockwise, from top left: | |||||
1879 | 1878 | 1877 | 1876 | |||||
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() | |||||
Clockwise, from top left: | Clockwise, from top left: | Clockwise, from top left: | Clockwise, from top left: | |||||
1875 | 1874 | 1873 | 1872 | |||||
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() | |||||
Clockwise, from top left: | Clockwise, from top left: | Clockwise, from top left: | Clockwise, from top left: | |||||
1871 | 1870 | 1869 | 1868 | |||||
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() | |||||
Clockwise, from top left: | Clockwise, from top left: | Clockwise, from top left: | Clockwise, from top left: | |||||
1867 | 1866 | 1865 | 1864 | |||||
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() | |||||
Clockwise, from top left: | Clockwise, from top left: | Clockwise, from top left: | Clockwise, from top left: | |||||
1863 | 1862 | 1861 | 1860 | |||||
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() | |||||
Clockwise, from top left: | Clockwise, from top left: | Clockwise, from top left: | Clockwise, from top left: | |||||
1859 | 1858 | 1857 | 1856 | |||||
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() | |||||
Clockwise, from top left: | Clockwise, from top left: | Clockwise, from top left: | Clockwise, from top left: | |||||
1855 | 1854 | 1853 | 1852 | |||||
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() | |||||
Clockwise, from top left: | Clockwise, from top left: | Clockwise, from top left: | Clockwise, from top left: | |||||
1851 | 1850 | 1849 | 1848 | |||||
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() | |||||
Clockwise, from top left: | Clockwise, from top left: | Clockwise, from top left: | Clockwise, from top left: | |||||
1847 | 1846 | 1845 | 1844 | |||||
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() | |||||
Clockwise, from top left: | Clockwise, from top left: | Clockwise, from top left: | Clockwise, from top left: | |||||
1843 | 1842 | 1841 | 1840 | |||||
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() | |||||
Clockwise, from top left: | Clockwise, from top left: | Clockwise, from top left: | Clockwise, from top left: | |||||
1839 | 1838 | 1837 | 1836 | |||||
Clockwise, from top left: | Clockwise, from top left: | Clockwise, from top left: | Clockwise, from top left: | |||||
1835 | 1834 | 1833 | 1832 | |||||
Clockwise, from top left: | Clockwise, from top left: | Clockwise, from top left: | Clockwise, from top left: | |||||
1831 | 1830 | 1829 | 1828 | |||||
Clockwise, from top left: | Clockwise, from top left: | Clockwise, from top left: | Clockwise, from top left: | |||||
1827 | 1826 | 1825 | 1824 | |||||
Clockwise, from top left: | Clockwise, from top left: | Clockwise, from top left: | Clockwise, from top left: | |||||
1823 | 1822 | 1821 | 1820 | |||||
![]() | ||||||||
Clockwise, from top left: | Clockwise, from top left: | Clockwise, from top left: | Clockwise, from top left: | |||||
1819 | 1818 | 1817 | 1816 | |||||
Clockwise, from top left: | Clockwise, from top left: | Clockwise, from top left: | Clockwise, from top left: | |||||
1815 | 1814 | 1813 | 1812 | |||||
Clockwise, from top left: | Clockwise, from top left: | Clockwise, from top left: | Clockwise, from top left: | |||||
1811 | 1810 | 1809 | 1808 | |||||
Clockwise, from top left: | Clockwise, from top left: | Clockwise, from top left: | Clockwise, from top left: | |||||
1807 | 1806 | 1805 | 1804 | |||||
Clockwise, from top left: | Clockwise, from top left: | Clockwise, from top left: | Clockwise, from top left: | |||||
1803 | 1802 | 1801 | 1800 | |||||
Clockwise, from top left: | Clockwise, from top left: | Clockwise, from top left: | Clockwise, from top left: |