As another year draws to an end, numerous publications and news sources are taking a look back at the events that dominated the news during 2015.
Sadly, this past year — in this writer’s opinion — the biggest news stories dealt with war, terrorism, mass shootings, horrendous accidents and equally horrific natural disasters. (We will not even mention what has been abominable presidential politics — for now).
In its 2015 Year in review, ABC News introduces the 13 biggest news stories as follows:
From start to finish, many of this year’s biggest news stories were centered around violence, terror threats or a general sense of fear.
The year began with a targeted terror strike in Paris and closed out with another planned attack in California, proving that threats around the globe remain an issue for all.
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Domestically, mass shootings caused heartbreak and continuing the debate between those calling for stricter gun control and others arguing for the right to bear arms.
And indeed an Associated Press- Times Square Alliance poll finds that mass shootings and attacks “weighed heavily on the minds of Americans in 2015” to the extent that “68 percent of those polled listed mass shootings in the U.S. as very or extremely important news events this year…” followed closely behind by the Paris terrorist attacks and ISIL’s atrocities.
Other issues rated by those polled as extremely or very important are the deaths of blacks in police encounters, the deal to curtail Iran’s nuclear program, Europe’s migrant crisis, followed by the presidential race, the Paris climate conference , the Supreme Court’s legalization of gay marriage, and the thaw in U.S.-Cuban relations, in that order of importance.
The same poll finds that 57 percent of those polled say 2015 was worse “for the world as a whole” than 2014 and “[37] percent think this year was worse for the country than last year, while 44 percent don’t think there was much difference.”
Some of the 2015 events that fit into the “worst” category are natural disasters: “About 150 major natural disasters affected millions of people worldwide in 2015. Asia again bore the brunt of these disasters reported globally,” according to the Daily Star.
Some of those natural disasters:
The April, magnitude 7.8 quake that struck outside of Nepal’s capital Kathmandu, killed more than 8,000 people and made more than 450,000 others homeless. It was followed in October by a magnitude 7.5 earthquake that struck Afghanistan and Pakistan killing more than 360 people and injuring more than 2,000.
A U.S. Air Force C-17 Globemaster III with a 69-member team and 70,000 pounds of supplies headed for Nepal to assist with rescue operations after the country was struck by a 7.8-magnitude earthquake. (DOD photo)
The “top of the scale Category 5” tropical Cyclone Pam that swept across the Pacific Island nation of Vanuatu in March — “one of the worst natural disasters to ever strike the Pacific.”
Two more “ferocious” typhoons hit the Philippines in 2015.
A severe heat wave — “one of the worst [ones] in India’s recent history” — killed more than 2,500 people.
In Afghanistan, snow avalanches killed at least 200 people and displaced hundreds.
Huge wildfires (bushfires) once again struck Australia and the United States.
In the U.S. and even before the most recent California wildfires, the 2015 wildfire season had already become “the costliest on record, with $1.71 billion spent to fight the blazes…” They hit mostly the West and Alaska, burning an area equivalent to the size of “the states of Massachusetts and Connecticut combined,” according to sott.net.
Just coming over the news wires is the sad year-end story that at least 43 people have died as a result of the flooding, storms and tornados that struck the southern and Midwestern U.S. just after Christmas.
As it invariably occurs every year, there were once again some very tragic air disasters. Among them:
The Airbus A321 that crashed on October 31st over central Sinai after taking off from Sharm el-Sheikh on its way to Saint Petersburg, killing all 224 souls on board — a tragedy for which ISIL claimed responsibility.
The Germanwings Airbus A320 airliner that crashed into the French Alps on a flight from Barcelona to Dusseldorf killing all 148 people on board.
Indonesia experienced two air disasters. First, in June, an Indonesian Air Force C-130 crashed into a residential neighborhood killing all 122 people on board and 22 on the ground. Then, in August, an Indonesian commercial aircraft crashed during a domestic flight, killing all 49 passengers and five crew members on board.
Our military aviators also suffered several casualties in 2015, several in helicopter accidents.
The worst crash occurred March 10 when seven Marines and four soldiers died when an Army Black Hawk helicopter crashed during a night training exercise at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida.
A Marine Corps helicopter crashed while conducting humanitarian relief operations in the Himalayan Mountains area where the magnitude 7.8 earthquake struck previously, killing six U.S. marines and two Nepalese soldiers.
On October 2, six airmen supporting Operation Freedom’s Sentinel died when their C-130J Super Hercules aircraft crashed at Jalalabad Airfield, Afghanistan.
Sadly fitting the “worst” category for our military and marking the heaviest combat losses in nearly 18 months, six U.S. airmen were killed by a suicide bomber in Afghanistan just before Christmas.
Service members from several units at Bagram Airfield, Afghanistan, pay their respects during a fallen comrade ceremony held in honor of six Airmen who lost their lives in an improvised explosive attack near Bagram Airfield Dec. 21, 2015. (U.S. Air Force photo/Tech. Sgt. Robert Cloys)
In this writer’s opinion, 2015 will go down in the record books as the worst presidential campaign year ever, primarily because of one candidate behaving ‘yugely’ bad, but we’ll leave that end-of-year review to others, as we want to keep this piece relatively “seemly.”
For those who like to look at 2015 — especially the economy — in chart form, the New York Times presents “the state of the union” in 10 charts here — it is a mixed review.
Finally, 2015 was not bad in all respects. There were “stories that tugged on our heartstrings in 2015.”
Read some of them here.
Hoping for a better 2016 and that all our readers will be able to partake in it.
Note: Several links to relevant stories inserted in quotes by author
Lead image: www.shutterstock.com
