The killing of George Floyd, a black man who died after a white U.S. police officer pressed a knee into his neck for several minutes, sparked domestic and international outrage as thousands of anti-racism protestors headed to the streets to voice fury about police brutality. More than 10,000 Black Lives Matter demonstrations were held in the U.S. between May and August.
A protester carries a U.S. flag upside down as he walks past a burning building in Minneapolis on May 28, 2020, during a protest over the death of George Floyd.
The year ended as it began with tensions between Tehran and Washington inflamed by the killing of a top official. On Jan. 3, a U.S. drone strike killed Revolutionary Guard Gen. Qassem Soleimani. Iran responded with a missile attack that injured dozens of U.S. troops in Iraq. In December, a mysterious attack near Tehran killed a nuclear scientist whom the U.S. and others had identified as organizing Iran’s effort to seek nuclear weapons two decades ago. Iran blamed that attack on Israel.
In this photo released by the official website of the office of the Iranian supreme leader, worshippers chant slogans during Friday prayers ceremony, as a banner show Iranian Revolutionary Guard Gen. Qassem Soleimani, left, and Iraqi Shiite senior militia commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, who were killed in Iraq in a U.S. drone attack on Jan. 3, and a banner which reads in Persian: "Death To America, "at Imam Khomeini Grand Mosque in Tehran, Iran, Friday, Jan. 17, 2020.
The Democratic-controlled U.S. House of Representatives impeached President Donald Trump in December on two charges in the Ukraine matter, setting the stage for the trial in the Republican-led Senate on whether to remove him from office. It is the third Senate presidential impeachment trial in U.S. history. Trump, who has denied wrongdoing and denounced the impeachment process as a sham, was acquitted by the Senate in February.
U.S. House Sergeant at Arms Paul Irving and Clerk of the House Cheryl Johnson deliver the articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump to Secretary of the Senate Julie Adams on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Jan. 15, 2020.
Harvey Weinstein was sentenced in March to 23 years in prison for rape and sexual assault, a sight the Hollywood mogul's multitude of accusers thought they would never see. Weinstein, who has been accused of violating scores of women, was convicted in February of raping a woman in a New York City hotel room in 2013 and forcibly performing oral sex on another woman at his apartment in 2006.
Harvey Weinstein arrives at the courthouse during jury deliberations in his rape trial, Monday, Feb. 24, 2020, in New York.
Thousands of wildfires raged throughout the western U.S., claiming dozens of lives, destroying thousands of homes and bringing apocalyptic scenes of orange skies and hazardous air. Months before the usual start of the wildfire season, drought, extremely warm temperatures and winds gusting up to 160 kilometers per hour (100 miles per hour) fueled some of the most destructive blazes in the region’s history. Scientists say climate change is responsible for more intense and frequent extreme events such as storms, droughts, flooding and wildfires – including massive brush fires that raged for months in Australia.
Bruce McDougal watches embers fly over his property as the Bond Fire burns through the Silverado community in Orange County, Calif., on Thursday, Dec. 3, 2020.
Lebanon’s capital was devastated in August by one of the largest non-nuclear explosions ever recorded. A fire detonated a stockpile of nearly 3,000 tons of ammonium nitrates left to rot at a port warehouse. The explosion tore through Beirut, sucking in the air and blowing up homes as windows shattered for miles around. More than 200 people were killed and thousands were injured, compounding the woes of a nation already beset by mass protests and economic meltdown.
An injured man stands at the scene of an explosion that hit the seaport in Beirut Lebanon, Tuesday, Aug. 4, 2020.
Mass protests have gripped Belarus, an ex-Soviet nation of 9.5 million people, ever since official results from the Aug. 9 presidential election gave Lukashenko a landslide victory over his widely popular opponent, Svetlana Tikhanovskaya. She and her supporters refused to recognize the result, saying the vote was riddled with fraud, and some poll workers came forward to detail how the election was rigged in their areas. Authorities have cracked down hard on the largely peaceful demonstrations, the biggest of which attracted up to 200,000 people.
Opposition activist Nina Baginskaya, 73, center, struggles with police during a Belarusian opposition supporters rally at Independence Square in Minsk, Belarus, Wednesday, Aug. 26, 2020.
Israel normalized relations with long-time foes Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) at a White House ceremony in September. Later, Sudan and Morocco followed suit. The move is part of the outgoing U.S. President Donald Trump's diplomatic push to bring Israel and Arab states together.
U.S. President Donald Trump, center, with, from left, Bahrain Foreign Minister Khalid bin Ahmed Al Khalifa, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and United Arab Emirates Foreign Minister Abdullah bin Zayed al-Nahyan, during the Abraham Accords signing ceremony on the South Lawn of the White House, Tuesday, Sept. 15, 2020, in Washington. (
About 20% of Azerbaijan's territory had been under illegal Armenian occupation for nearly three decades. In the most recent clashes that began on Sept. 27, Azerbaijan took back much of the land in and around the Nagorno-Karabakh enclave that it lost in a 1991-1994 war. During the 44-day conflict, Azerbaijan liberated several cities and nearly 300 settlements and villages from the Armenian occupation. The recent clashes ended with a Russian-brokered peace agreement that is seen as a victory for Azerbaijan and a defeat for Armenia, whose armed forces have been withdrawing as the deal specified.
An Azerbaijani soldier fixes a national flag on a lamp post in Lachin, Azerbaijan, Dec. 1, 2020.
For months, a student-led protest movement in Thailand has been campaigning for Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha and his government to step down, the constitution to be amended to make it more democratic and the monarchy to be reformed. The demands to reform the monarchy are radical and controversial because by tradition, the institution has been considered untouchable, one of the main foundations of Thai nationalism. The protest movement has nevertheless emphasized reform of the monarchy as a key demand, and made it the theme of several of its rallies, which have attracted thousands of people, including many students.
Pro-democracy protesters march past a portrait of Thai King Maha Vajiralongkorn during a demonstration in Bangkok, Thailand, Wednesday, Oct. 14, 2020.
Three of 2020's deadliest earthquakes all took place in Turkey. A magnitude 6.7 quake hit the eastern provinces of Elazığ and Malatya in January, killing 41 people. A month later, 10 people died after another eastern province, Van, was struck by a 5.8-magnitude tremor. The deadliest earthquake happened in October in the Aegean Sea off the western province of Izmir as at least 118 people died in the aftermath of a magnitude 6.6 earthquake.
Members of various rescue services carry a 3-year-old girl, after she was rescued from the rubble of a building some 65 hours after a magnitude 6.6 earthquake in Izmir, Nov. 2, 2020.
Democratic candidate Joe Biden beat U.S. President Donald Trump in the November presidential election, setting off a barrage of court challenges and false claims over election fraud from the incumbent U.S. president and his campaign.
Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden smiles as he puts on his face mask after speaking to media in Wilmington, Delaware, on Sept. 4, 2020.
For sports fans worldwide, 2020 was sadly bookended by the deaths of two popular superstars – basketball’s Kobe Bryant, 41, and football's Diego Maradona, 60. Among those killed along with Bryant in the helicopter crash was his 13-year-old daughter Gianna, herself a promising athlete. Other revered figures who died included U.S. civil rights leader John Lewis, guitarist Eddie Van Halen and actors Chadwick Boseman and Sean Connery. Many admirers of liberal U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg not only mourned her death but deplored her replacement by a conservative, Amy Coney Barrett.
People gather to mourn the death of football legend Diego Maradona, outside the Diego Armando Maradona stadium, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Nov. 25, 2020.
Fighting in Ethiopia's Tigray began when Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed deployed troops in November to put down an uprising by the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF), a regional political organization. The TPLF had long dominated Ethiopian politics, but since taking office in 2018, Abiy has been at odds with the elites in Tigray. Both sides have reported bloodshed, but an internet blackout and blocked telephone lines make it difficult to get a sense of what was happening on the ground in Tigray. Roughly 50,000 Ethiopian refugees have fled Tigray for neighboring Sudan.
People who fled the conflict in Ethiopia's Tigray region, stand on a hill top over looking Umm Rakouba refugee camp in Qadarif, eastern Sudan, Nov. 26, 2020.
