2011: Bin Laden Killed
• Date: May 2
• Location: Abbottabad, Pakistan
In an intense 40-minute nighttime firefight, 25 U.S. Navy SEALs hunt down and kill al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, mastermind of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, in a compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. Within hours, bin Laden’s body is identified using DNA and then buried at sea.
2012: The "God Particle" Is (Probably) Discovered
• Date: July 4
• Location: Near Geneva
Nearly 600 feet below the France-Switzerland border at CERN's Large Hadron Collider Facility, an international team of scientists discovers a new particle widely believed to be the elusive Higgs boson, known as the "God Particle," which is thought to be a fundamental component of the universe. Higgs boson has been an important element of particle physics theory for decades, but until 2012 there had been no physical evidence to support its existence.
2013: Snowden Reveals Secrets
• Date: June 6
• Location: Hong Kong
After surreptitiously leaving his job at U.S. National Security Agency contractor Booz Allen Hamilton, computer security consultant Edward Snowden meets secretly in Hong Kong with journalists Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras. He reveals the first of a series of secrets about numerous U.S. and European government surveillance operations. Hailed as a courageous whistleblower and privacy champion by some, and a traitor that compromised counterterrorism efforts by others, the American now resides in exile in Moscow.
2014: Russian Bear Bites Ukraine
• Date: March 16
• Location: Crimea
Exploiting political unrest in Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin orchestrates the annexation of the Crimean Peninsula. The action incites peals of condemnation from world leaders and a raft of economic sanctions against Moscow. This strategically important and predominantly Russian-speaking region on the Black Sea has been coveted by the Russians as part of their strategic efforts to check NATO expansion along Russia's western border.
2015: NASA Flies by Pluto
• Date: July 14
• Location: 3 billion miles from Earth
NASA spacecraft New Horizons becomes the first human-made object to fly past and observe the dwarf planet Pluto. New Horizons sends back stunning photographs of this enigmatic and distant member of the solar system, including images of a mountain range and massive icebergs floating in frozen nitrogen. New Horizons is now en route to the Kuiper Belt, a massive asteroid belt at the far reaches of the solar system.
2016: Trump Elected
• Date: Nov. 8
• Location: U.S.
Running on a populist agenda, Donald Trump is elected the 45th president of the United States and the fifth president in U.S. history (the second since the 2000) to win despite losing the popular vote. The real estate developer and television personality ran on a platform of putting "America First" in global trade and foreign policy negotiations and cracking down on undocumented immigrants.
2017: Hurricane Triple Whammy
• Date: August-September
• Location: Multiple
Within just four weeks, three massive hurricanes – Harvey, Irma, and Maria – strike Texas, Florida, and the Caribbean, killing 228 people, inflicting a combined $265 billion in damages, and displacing millions of homeowners. Hurricane Maria inflicts immense damage to the U.S. commonwealth of Puerto Rico, which was already struggling from economic insolvency.
2018: Wildfires
• Date: November
• Location: Northern California
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