On January 7, terrorists attacked the offices of the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo in Paris, killing 12 people and injuring 11¹.
On March 24, Germanwings Flight 9525 crashed into the French Alps, killing all 150 people on board. The co-pilot Andreas Lubitz deliberately caused the crash by locking the pilot out of the cockpit and setting the plane on a descent¹.
On April 25, a magnitude 7.8 earthquake struck Nepal, killing 8,964 people and injuring more than 23,000. It also triggered an avalanche on Mount Everest that killed 21 people¹.
On July 14, NASA's New Horizons spacecraft made a historic flyby of Pluto, taking the first close-up images and measurements of the dwarf planet and its moons¹.
On September 2, a photo of a drowned Syrian boy, Alan Kurdi, lying on a Turkish beach sparked global outrage and sympathy for the refugees fleeing the Syrian civil war⁴.
On September 28, NASA announced that liquid water had been found on Mars, raising the possibility of life on the red planet⁴.
On October 10, a series of coordinated bombings in Ankara, Turkey, killed 102 people and injured more than 400. It was the deadliest terrorist attack in Turkey's history⁴.
On November 13, a series of coordinated terrorist attacks in Paris, France, killed 130 people and injured more than 350. The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) claimed responsibility for the attacks¹.
On November 30, world leaders gathered in Paris for the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP21), where they reached a landmark agreement to limit global warming to well below 2 °C above pre-industrial levels¹.
On December 12, Saudi Arabian women voted for the first time in municipal elections. They also elected 20 female candidates to public office⁴.
On December 17, Star Wars: The Force Awakens was released in theaters, breaking numerous box office records and becoming the highest-grossing film of all time in North America⁴.