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Ten Most Significant World Events in 2018
U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping attend a working
dinner after the G20 leaders summit in Buenos Aires. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque/File
Photo

Blog Post by James M. Lindsay

December 20, 2018

You aren’t alone if you’re feeling worn down as 2018 comes to a close. It’s been a
trying year when it comes to the world scene. A seemingly unending parade of
summits, crises, protests, and conflicts dominated the news. Below is my list of
the top ten world events of the year, listed in descending order. You may want to
read what follows closely. Several of these stories will continue into 2019.

10. Democrats Win Back the House. Republicans and Democrats both came away from the
November midterms elections with something to brag about. Democrats, though,
secured the bigger victory. Republicans picked up two seats in the Senate, meaning
they will continue to have the final say on President Donald Trump’s judicial and
cabinet appointments. Democrats, by contrast, picked up forty seats on their way to
regaining control of the House. It was the Democrats’ biggest seat gain since the
iconic Watergate class of 1974, and it came because Democratic House candidates
outpolled their Republican counterparts by a record eight percentage points. When
the 116th Congress opens for business on January 3, Democrats will chair House
committees and decide the agenda. Democrats likely won’t succeed very often in
directly overturning Trump’s decisions, whether at home or abroad. That in most
instances requires them to reach agreement with the Republican-controlled Senate
and override a Trump veto. But they will be able to block him on issues requiring
their consent, like funding for a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border. They will also
use their oversight powers to highlight their disagreements with the White House,
potentially putting public pressure on Trump to reverse course. So the biggest
consequences of the 2018 elections have yet to be felt.

9. Humanitarian Crises Deepen. Venezuela and Yemen were sad stories in 2017. Things
only got worse in both countries in 2018. Over the past four years an estimated 2.3
million Venezuelans have fled the country; millions more have stayed behind and
face grinding economic hardship. The cause of Venezuela’s collapse has been the
mismanagement of the economy, first by Hugo Chávez, and then by Nicolás Maduro.
Both men also attacked and dismantled Venezuela’s democratic institutions. Maduro
won reelection in May in a rigged vote and shows no signs of retreating from
policies that have brought Venezuela sky-rocketing inflation, water and electrical
shortages, and growing rates of malnutrition. The Yemeni civil war entered its
fourth year in 2018. Yemen now holds the dubious distinction of being the world’s
worst humanitarian crisis. As many as fourteen thousand Yemenis have died in the
fighting, and fifty thousand or more are thought to have died because of a war-
induced famine. The horrifying photographs of emaciated Yemeni children have not
persuaded either side to lay down their weapons. Meanwhile, humanitarian crises in
the Central African Republic, Congo, Syria, and South Sudan, among other places,
continue to grind on. It seems like ages since world leaders embraced the principle
of a responsibility to protect.

8. Ethiopia Signs a Peace Deal with Eritrea. Not all news in 2018 was bad. In June,
new Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed surprised the world by announcing he would
accept a peace deal with Eritrea that had been gathering dust for eighteen years.
The two countries fought a twelve-year long war that ended in 2000 with nearly
eighty thousand dead. In July, Ahmad traveled to Asmara to meet Eritrean President
Isaias Afwerki and sign the peace deal. Both countries have now reopened embassies
in each other’s capitals, resumed commercial air traffic, and begun demilitarizing
their joint border. Besides agreeing to peace, Ahmed instituted significant reforms
at home, freeing political prisoners and ending Ethiopia’s state of emergency. Some
experts hope that the peace deal might undermine Afwerki’s authoritarianism in
Eritrea, which is sometimes dubbed “Africa’s North Korea.” Perhaps. What is clear
is that Eritrea has moderated its foreign policy, signing peace accords with
Somalia and Djibouti that ended long-running border disputes with the two
countries. In response, the United Nations Security Council lifted an arms embargo
on Eritrea. With some luck and smart political leadership, peace on the Horn of
Africa could boost the region’s economic development as well.

7. Trump’s Summitry Alarms Friends and Delights Foes. Donald Trump campaigned
pledging to do different things in foreign policy and to do them differently. His
summit meetings in 2018 showed him to be a man of his word. He spent the G-7 summit
in Quebec in June berating other leaders for their country’s trade policies, left
the meeting before it ended, and tweeted from Air Force One that he wouldn’t sign
the communique he had agreed to before he left. He then went to Singapore where
after five hours of meetings with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un he signed a
vague, four hundred word communique and declared that “there is no longer a nuclear
threat from North Korea,” despite abundant evidence to the contrary. At the NATO
summit in July, Trump accused German Chancellor Angela Merkel of being “totally
controlled” and “captive to Russia,” demanded an emergency session so he could push
NATO members to spend more on defense, and suggested he might take the United
States out of the alliance if he didn’t get his way. Days later at a joint press
conference in Helsinki with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Trump seemingly
rejected the unanimous assessment of the U.S. intelligence community that Russia
had interfered in the 2016 election, triggering stinging bipartisan criticism back
home. In November, Trump criticized French President Emmanuel Macron in a tweet as
he was arriving in Paris for ceremonies to mark the centennial of the end of World
War I, canceled a visit to an American military cemetery because of rain, and
declined to attend a peace forum the French government hosted. Trump’s final summit
meeting of the year, though, the G-20 summit in Buenos Aires, was uneventful. That
prompted news stories speculating about why he hadn’t been disruptive.

6. #MeToo Movement Goes Global. The #MeToo movement took off in the United States
last year in the wake of the sexual abuse allegations against Hollywood producer
Harvey Weinstein. In 2018, the movement went global as millions came forward to
share their stories. In Italy the movement became #QuellaVoltaChe (“that time
when”), in Spain it is #YoTambien, in France it is #BalanceTonPorc (“squeal on your
pig”), and in Arab-speaking countries it is #AnaKaman. According to analytics from
Google, searches related to #MeToo and its variants remain high around the world,
and the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded jointly to Congolese physician Denis
Mukwege and Yazidi assault survivor Nadia Murad “for their efforts to end the use
of sexual violence as a weapon of war and armed conflict.” The precise form the
#MeToo movement has taken and the success it has achieved have varied across
countries and regions as legal, political, economic, and cultural conditions have
differed. China, Russia, and sub-Saharan Africa are among the places where the
effort to highlight and end sexual abuse and harassment hasn’t taken off. But
elsewhere #MeToo has highlighted specific instances of abuse and harassment by
powerful figures and ordinary people alike. The question now is whether the #MeToo
movement will make a lasting difference. For that to happen, governments,
businesses, organizations, and most important, people will all need to change.

5. The Murder of Jamal Khashoggi. On October 2 Saudi dissident and Washington Post
columnist Jamal Khashoggi entered the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. He didn’t come
out alive. In the weeks that followed, Saudi officials told various stories about
what happened. What they hadn’t counted on was that Turkish intelligence had bugged
the consulate and that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was willing to
release what he knew to embarrass them. President Trump initially suggested the
murder wasn’t America’s concern because “to the best of our knowledge, Khashoggi is
not a United States citizen.” Congress took a different view, especially after the
CIA concluded that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) had ordered
Khashoggi’s murder. Trump repudiated that conclusion, releasing a statement saying
“it could very well be that the Crown Prince had knowledge of this tragic event—
maybe he did and maybe he didn’t!” The president said Riyadh’s commitment to spend
more than a $100 billion on U.S. weapons systems and its importance as an ally
justified his business-as-usual approach. But Saudi arm purchases actually are much
smaller, and it’s questionable whether relying on MBS serves U.S. interests. He has
shown a penchant for recklessness: he had many of his royal cousins arrested;
championed Saudi Arabia’s ill-advised intervention in Yemen; detained Lebanon’s
prime minister and temporarily forced him to resign; led the effort to impose an
embargo on Qatar; and broke off diplomatic relations with Canada over a tweet.
Saying that the Saudi relationship is too important to jeopardize only encourages
further risk-taking.

More on:

Global

2018

United States

Diplomacy and International Institutions

4. The United States Leaves the Iran Nuclear Deal. Donald Trump vowed on the
campaign trail to withdraw the United States from the Iran nuclear deal, formally
known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). In May, Trump made good on
his pledge, claiming it was a “one-sided deal that should have never, ever been
made.” Trump took steps against the counsel of many of his advisers and of
America’s closest allies. Secretary of Defense James Mattis was among the cabinet
officers who argued that for all deal’s weaknesses it was better to stay in it.
British, French, and German leaders flew to Washington to lobby for the United
States to stay in the deal, pledging to act to address the deal’s shortcomings. No
other country followed the United States out of the deal, even after the White
House announced that it would sanction any firm that does business with Iran. Iran
remains in compliance with the deal, and the other signatories are looking for ways
to help Tehran ease the pain of U.S. economic pressure. Whether they will succeed
and whether Iran will leave the deal if they don’t are two open questions. The
Trump administration has suggested that its goal in Iran goes beyond shutting down
its nuclear program. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo says the administration “wants
to restore democracy” in Iran. And even if the White House’s goals are more modest,
its sanctions effort could trigger a transatlantic brawl if European firms become
the target of U.S. penalties.

3. Dire Warnings About Climate Change Mount. The world’s climate is changing and
human activity is the cause. Scientists have been telling us this for more than
three decades and evidence backs them up. But these warnings haven’t led us to
change our ways. The emission of the heat-trapping gases that produce climate
change continues to rise globally. Now a sobering report released by the United
Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in October 2018 says we
may have as few as twelve years to act or pass the point of no return. To judge by
the powerful hurricanes, devastating wildfires, floods, and record-breaking heat in
2018 that climate change fueled, we won’t like the world we are heading toward. But
neither the UN report, nor the freak weather events of 2018, nor the release of a
U.S. government report outlining how much climate change will harm the U.S. economy
has turned President Trump into a climate-change believer. His rebuttal to the
National Climate Assessment Report was simple: “I don’t believe it.” The odds are
good—very, very good—that scientists have a better handle on the future we face.
But sadly, they don’t have the ability that an American president has to keep us
from going there.

2. The Weakening of the West Worsens. For experts calling on America’s friends to
step up as America steps down in world affairs, 2018 wasn’t a good year. Friend
after friend faced domestic problems that made it hard for them to look, let alone
act, beyond their borders. Hopes that the United Kingdom could orchestrate an
orderly divorce from the European Union (EU) faded. While the two sides reached a
deal, British Prime Minister Theresa May couldn’t persuade the House of Commons to
endorse it. Whether Britain is headed toward a hard Brexit, a soft Brexit, or no
Brexit at all is anyone’s guess. Across the English Channel, French President
Emmanuel Macron saw his public approval ratings tumble into the mid-twenties in the
face of the gilets-jaunes, or yellow-vest, protests. The sometimes violent
demonstrations diminished Macron’s ability to push ahead with his ambitious plans
to reform the French economy. Further south, Italian voters elected a populist
coalition combining the anti-establishment Five Star Movement and the right-wing
League. The new government is now fighting with Brussels over a draft budget that
violates EU rules. Prime Minister Victor Orbán continued to dismantle Hungary’s
democracy, and several other central European countries drifted in the same
direction. Even Germany saw domestic turmoil. Chancellor Angela Merkel stepped down
as head of the Christian Democratic Union after the party lost several critical
state elections. Merkel’s protégé Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, succeeded her.
However, the chancellor no longer commands the authority at home or abroad she once
did, raising fears that Europe has become leaderless.

1. Trump Triggers a Trade War and More. “I want tariffs,” Donald Trump told his
advisers in July 2017. In 2018, he got his wish. In January the administration
imposed tariffs on imported washing machines and solar panels. A bigger move came
in March, though, when tariffs were slapped on imported steel and aluminum from
friends and foes alike because they posed a national security threat. Trump
subsequently imposed tariffs on $50 billion worth of Chinese imports, which by July
he had raised to $250 billion. Despite tweeting that “Trade wars are good, and easy
to win,” Trump’s tariffs had by year’s end hurt Americans more than helped them.
The stock market sold off, the overall U.S. trade deficit widened, and America’s
trading partners slapped retaliatory tariffs on U.S. exports, causing American
farmers to lose overseas markets and leading some U.S. manufacturers cut jobs as
higher input costs punished their bottom lines. Amidst this bad news, the
administration had second thoughts about fighting trade wars across multiple
fronts. In July, Trump struck a deal with the EU to hold off on imposing further
tariffs while the two sides conducted new trade talks. In November, he struck a
ninety-day trade truce with China. Trump’s tariffs, coupled with his repeated
references to the EU as a “foe” and threats to impose tariffs on imported autos,
left many Europeans wondering whether traditional transatlantic relations had
changed for good. Meanwhile in Beijing, Chinese leaders hearing the talk in
Washington about “strategic competitors” and reading Vice President Mike Pence’s
tough speech on Chinese behavior were debating whether Trump was looking to do more
than just reset the bilateral trade balance and instead seeking to contain China’s
rise as a great power.

Other stories of note in 2018. In January, the Pentagon released a National Defense
Strategy that said “great power competition—not terrorism—is now the primary focus
of U.S. national security.” In February, South Korea hosted the Winter Olympics at
PyeongChang. Russian President Vladimir Putin touted a new arsenal of weapons,
including an intercontinental nuclear cruise missile, in March. John Bolton became
President Trump’s third national security advisor in April. In May, the U.S.
Embassy in Jerusalem opened. Nikki Haley announced in June that the United States
is pulling out of the UN Human Rights Council, calling it a “protector of human
rights abusers, and a cesspool of political bias.” In July, the Japan-EU Economic
Partnership Agreement was signed, creating the largest world’s largest free-bloc,
covering 30 percent of global trade. In August, Apple became the first public
company to achieve a market capitalization of $1 trillion. At the very last minute
in September, Canada agreed to join with Mexico and the United States in revamping
the North America Free Trade Agreement, now renamed the United States-Mexico-Canada
Agreement. In October, the United States informed Russia that it intended to
withdraw from the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty because Russia was violating
the terms of the treaty. In November, Russia fired upon and then seized three
Ukrainian naval vessels in the Sea of Azov, escalating tensions between Moscow and
Kiev. In December, the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific
Partnership, essentially the Trans-Pacific Partnership minus the United States,
went into effect.

So that’s my top ten world events of 2018 plus some other events of note. You may
have a different list or you might put these events in a different order. If so,
let me know on Facebook or Twitter.

Corey Cooper, Angela Peterson, Patrice Narasimhan, and Sofia Ruiz assisted in the
preparation of this post.

Previous posts in this series:

Ten Most Significant World Events in 2017

Ten Most Significant World Events in 2016

Ten Most Significant World Events in 2015

Ten Most Significant World Events in 2014

Creative Commons: Some rights reserved.

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2018 Events

Dec 6, 2018

2018 Events

History.com Editors

Aaron Chown/Getty Images, John Moore/Getty Images, Joe Raedle/Getty Images,

Handout/Getty Images
The year 2018 was marked by milestones in the #MeToo movement, a contentious
Supreme Court hearing, battles over immigration and a groundbreaking royal wedding.

There was a government shutdown, a super blue blood moon, historic midterm
elections and a very American addition to the British royal family. Take a look
back at the eventful year of 2018 with a review of the most important events in
politics, culture, science and the environment.
Memorable Images of 2018
School Shooting-2018-GettyImages-918323872
9
Gallery
9 Images
Politics

Immigration crisis: In President Donald Trump’s second year in office, the issue of
immigration became an even bigger flashpoint for controversy. In January, the
federal government briefly shut down over the fate of an Obama-era program
deferring deportation for immigrants brought illegally to the United States as
children.
ADVERTISEMENT

Under the Trump administration’s “zero-tolerance” policy against illegal border

crossers, U.S. authorities separated some 2,300 children from their parents,
provoking widespread international outrage until Trump ended the family separation
policy by executive order in June. And in November, his administration deployed
nearly 6,000 active-duty military troops to the Mexico border to meet the arrival
of a large caravan of migrants from Central America.

Trump’s legal troubles: The investigation led by Special Counsel Robert Mueller
into possible collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign during the 2016
presidential election handed down dozens of indictments, including charges against
12 Russian intelligence officers for cyber-attacks against Democratic officials.

Paul Manafort, former Trump campaign chairman, and Michael Cohen, the longtime aide
who acted as Trump’s legal “fixer” in the case involving an alleged affair with
porn star Stormy Daniels, made plea deals to cooperate with the investigation. For
his part, Trump continued to denounce Mueller’s investigation as a “witch hunt,”
and his firing of Attorney General Jeff Sessions increased speculation that he
might be trying to shut the whole thing down.

Supreme Court battle: Judge Brett Kavanaugh, Trump’s pick to replace longtime swing
vote Justice Anthony Kennedy and create a solid conservative majority on the
nation’s highest court, faced a fierce confirmation battle after Dr. Christine
Blasey Ford alleged that Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her when they were both
teenagers.
President Trump's Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh.

President Trump's Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh.

Melina Mara/The Washington Post via Getty Images

Amid the #MeToo movement and a renewed focus on sexual misconduct, the nomination
fight galvanized supporters on both sides, and brought up memories of Anita Hill’s
accusations against Justice Clarence Thomas during his confirmation hearings in
1991. After both Ford and Kavanaugh testified, and after an five-day FBI
investigation into the allegations, the Senate Judiciary Committee voted 50-48 to
confirm Kavanaugh. It was the narrowest margin in history for a Supreme Court
justice.

Midterm elections reshuffle Congress: In November, U.S. voters turned out in record
numbers for a midterm election. Democrats took back control of the House of
Representatives after eight years, flipping 43 seats from red to blue (three seats
went the other way). Republicans retained a majority in the Senate, with a net gain
of two seats.

A united Korea?: All eyes turned toward the Korean peninsula in 2018, and not just
during the Winter Olympics, which were held there in February. After decades of
estrangement, the leaders of North Korea and South Korea met in an historic summit
in April, agreeing to an official end to the Korean War and pledging to rid the
peninsula of nuclear weapons. And after trading barbs about nuclear war on Twitter,
President Trump and Kim Jong Un appeared to make up. Their summit in Singapore in
June marked the first-ever meeting between a U.S. president and a North Korean
leader.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un (L) shakes hands with U.S. President Donald Trump
during their historic summit on June 12, 2018 in Singapore.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un (L) shakes hands with U.S. President Donald Trump
during their historic summit on June 12, 2018 in Singapore.

Handout/Getty Images

Ongoing conflict in Syria: The long-running civil war in Syria continued, involving
forces of President Bashar al-Assad’s government, opposition rebels and ISIS, among
others. In April, in response to a suspected chemical attack on the rebel
stronghold of Douma that killed dozens of civilians, U.S. and other Western forces
launched air strikes against government targets. As of mid-2018, more than 5.6
million Syrians had fled the country’s violence, according to the U.N. High
Commissioner of Refugees.

Europe and beyond: Angela Merkel was sworn in for her fourth term as German
chancellor, but announced she would be stepping aside when it ends. In less
democratic news, Vladimir Putin won election to a new six-year term as Russia’s
president, and China changed its constitution to remove presidential term limits,
effectively allowing leader Xi Jinping to remain “president for life.”
Saying goodbye: It was a sad year for Republican nobility: John McCain died in
2018, as did both Barbara Bush and George H.W. Bush.
Culture
A British royal family portrait after the wedding of American actress Meghan Markle
and Prince Harry.

A British royal family portrait after the wedding of American actress Meghan Markle
and Prince Harry.

Alexi Lubomirski/The Duke and Duchess of Sussex/Getty Images

Meghan Markle joined the British royal family: On May 19, the biracial, divorced
American actress Meghan Markle married Prince Harry, becoming a real-life princess
(officially, the Duchess of Sussex). In October, the royal couple announced they
were expecting their first child.

#MeToo saw some justice served: Former Hollywood powerhouse Harvey Weinstein turned
himself in at a New York City police station in May to face rape and sexual assault
charges. Dozens of women have come forward to accuse Weinstein of sexual misconduct
over a period of decades. A Pennsylvania judge sentenced Bill Cosby to three to 10
years in prison after his conviction for aggravated indecent assault of Andrea
Costand, the only one of more than 60 women who accused Cosby of sexual misconduct
to see her case lead to criminal charges.

Advances for women: The Miss America pageant announced an end to its swimsuit
competition, and women were allowed to drive in Saudi Arabia for the first time in
history.

Two retail icons went bankrupt: Founded as a mail-order watch business in 1886,
Sears filed for bankruptcy this year, marking the end of an era for many Americans
who remember paging through its massive catalog. And after declaring bankruptcy
late last year, the former toy giant Toys “R” Us shuttered all of its stores after
more than 65 years in business.

Facebook woes: A data mining scandal involving Cambridge Analytica and the sale of
data from some 50 million users, a Congressional grilling for founder Mark
Zuckerberg and losing $119 billion in value in a single day all spelled a terrible
year for the world’s leading social network. In other tech giant news, Apple became
the first American publicly traded company to reach $1 trillion in value, and Jeff
Bezos of Amazon became the world’s richest man.
Students walking out of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland,
Florida after a shooter killed and injured multiple people there on February 14,
2018.

Students walking out of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland,
Florida after a shooter killed and injured multiple people there on February 14,
2018.

Joe Raedle/Getty Images

National nightmare: Mass shootings at high schools in Florida and Texas, a bar in
Southern California, and a synagogue in Pittsburgh, among many other places, fueled
the ongoing debate about gun control and Second Amendment rights—and reinforced the
presence of gun violence as a horrifying reality of American life. On March 24,
hundreds of thousands of people gathered in Washington, D.C. and at sites across
the country to call for tighter gun laws.

Troubled history confronted: 2018 saw the opening of the National Memorial for
Peace and Justice. The memorial and museum in Montgomery, Alabama commemorates the
United States' own history of slavery, lynching and Jim Crow laws.
Science and the Environment

Super Blue Blood Moon: Three lunar events coincided early in 2018 producing a rare
“super blue blood moon” for the first time since 1866. The night of January 30-31
saw a total lunar eclipse (also called a “blood moon,” due to the reddish color of
the moon while in Earth’s shadow) as well as a “blue moon,” or the second full moon
of the month. Not only that—the moon was also at the closest point to Earth in its
orbit, making it a “supermoon.”

Hurricane damage control: The 2018 Atlantic hurricane season opened in early
September with the arrival of Florence, a Category 4 hurricane that battered the
Carolinas and Virginia for days, resulting in some 51 fatalities. October brought
Hurricane Michael, which killed 46 people across Florida, Georgia, North Carolina
and Virginia. Meanwhile, Puerto Rico continued to struggle from the devastating
effects of last year’s Hurricane Maria. In August, the Puerto Rican government
revised the official death toll from 64 to 2,975, although some experts estimated
it could be as high as 4,600.

Mission to the sun: In August, NASA launched the $1.5 billion Parker Solar Probe,
its long-awaited first mission to the sun and its outermost atmosphere, the corona.
After zooming by the planet Venus, the spacecraft got its first up-close-and-
personal (or at least from 3.83 million miles away, by far the closest of any
mission in history) look at the sun in early November. Parker will make 24 similar
approaches over the next seven years.
Embers fall from burning palms and the sun is obscured by smoke as flames close in
on a house at the Woolsey Fire on November 9, 2018 in Malibu, California.

Embers fall from burning palms and the sun is obscured by smoke as flames close in
on a house at the Woolsey Fire on November 9, 2018 in Malibu, California.

David McNew/Getty Images

Wildfires ravaged California: 2018 marked the most destructive fire season ever for
California, with massive wildfires ravaging hundreds of thousands of acres in both
the northern and southern parts of the state. In November, at least 90 people died
as the Camp Fire destroyed the northern California town of Paradise, becoming the
deadliest fire in the state’s history.

Dismal news on climate: In not-unrelated news, a major report from the United
Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change found that Earth will warm by 2.7
degrees Fahrenheit by 2040, with dire consequences—including extreme heat,
increased flooding, wildfires. drought, food shortages and poverty. Adding to the
grim prognosis, a report by numerous U.S. federal government agencies released in
November argued climate change will reduce the U.S. economy by 10 percent by 2100,
including a $141 billion cost from heat-related deaths.
Sources

“Timeline: Immigrant children separated from families at the border,” USA Today,
updated July 25, 2018

“Trump Is Expected To Extend U.S. Troops' Deployment To Mexico Border Into

January,” NPR, November 28, 2018

“‘Mueller knows a lot': Manafort and Cohen moves put Trump in line of fire,”
Guardian, December 1, 2018

“Kavanaugh Is Sworn In After Close Confirmation Vote in Senate,” New York Times,
October 6, 2018

“The 2018 Elections Saw Record Midterm Turnout,” Time, November 13, 2018

“What’s Happening in Syria”, BBC, April 16, 2018

Syrian War Fast Facts, CNN, May 3, 2018

“In pictures: President Trump meets Kim Jong Un,” CNN, June 2018

“China's Xi allowed to remain 'president for life' as term limits removed,” BBC,
March 11, 2018

“Harvey Weinstein surrenders to NYC police, is charged with rape,” NBC News, May
25, 2018

“Facebook just had the worst day in stock market history,” CNN Money, July 26, 2018

“Apple hangs onto its historic $1 trillion market cap,” CNBC, August 2, 2018“

Jeff Bezos Becomes the Richest Man in Modern History, Topping $150 Billion,”
Bloomberg, July 16, 2018

“The Super Blue Blood Moon Wednesday Is Something the US Hasn't Seen Since 1866,”
Space.com, January 30, 2018

“Puerto Rico increases Hurricane Maria death toll to 2,975,” BBC, August 29, 2018

“NASA Solar Probe Flies By Venus on Its Way to 'Touch' the Sun,” Space.com, October
3, 2018

“Stanford experts reflect on the most destructive fire season in California

history,” Stanford News Service, November 29, 2018

“Major Climate Report Describes a Strong Risk of Crisis as Early as 2040,” New York
Times, October 7, 2018

“Major Trump administration climate report says damage is ‘intensifying across the
country,’” The Washington Post, November 23, 2018
Citation Information
Article Title

2018 Events
Author

History.com Editors
Website Name

HISTORY
URL

https://www.history.com/topics/21st-century/2018-events
Access Date

31 July 2019
Publisher

A&E Television Networks

Last Updated
December 6, 2018
Original Published Date

December 6, 2018

By
History.com Editors

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2017 Events

Dec 11, 2017

2017 Events

History.com Editors

Contents

Politics
Culture
Health, Science and Environment
SOURCES

From the inauguration of Donald Trump to the first total solar eclipse to traverse
the Lower 48 in nearly a century, 2017 was a year for the history books. Here we
review the biggest news in politics, culture and science this year.
Politics

Trump’s inauguration: After a divisive election season, Donald Trump officially

became the 45th President of the United States on January 20, 2017. In a 16-minute
inaugural address (the shortest since Jimmy Carter‘s in 1977), Trump repeated his
“America First” campaign slogan in which he delivered a dark-toned nationalist,
populist message.
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The slogan “America First” has its origins in the America First Committee, a group
founded in 1940 to oppose U.S. involvement in World War II that was often
characterized by its anti-Semitic, pro-fascist rhetoric.

In his address, Trump embraced the legacy of Andrew Jackson, America’s seventh
president, and the first to win on an “anti-establishment” populist platform.

Tough talk on immigration: Shortly after taking office in January, President Trump
sought to make good on his “America First” campaign promise by imposing a series of
contentious travel bans on citizens from several Muslim-majority nations.

Federal district courts struck down implementation of the bans, though a Supreme
Court ruling in December 2017 reversed the lower courts’ decisions, allowing the
administration to fully implement the bans.

Trump also continued to promote his election campaign idea of a border wall with
Mexico that he says will help quell illegal immigration from Mexico and points
south.
Fired FBI director James Comey being sworn into a crucial Senate hearing, repeating
explosive allegations that President Donald Trump badgered him over the highly
sensitive investigation Russia's meddling in the 2016 election. (Credit: Brendan
Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images)

Fired FBI director James Comey being sworn into a crucial Senate hearing, repeating
explosive allegations that President Donald Trump badgered him over the highly
sensitive investigation Russia's meddling in the 2016 election. (Credit: Brendan
Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images)

Russia’s election meddling: The Office of the Director of National Intelligence

reported in January 2017 that the Russian government had ordered an influence
campaign aimed at the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

In March, FBI director James Comey announced that the FBI was investigating
election hacks and links between the Trump campaign and Russia. Attorney General
Jeff Sessions, the head of the United States Department of Justice, recused himself
from any investigation into the President’s campaign amid questions over his
contact with the Russian ambassador in 2016.

President Trump fired Comey in May, making Comey just the second FBI director ever
to be dismissed by the President. (The first was William S. Sessions, who was fired
by President Bill Clinton in 1993 after being accused of tax evasion.)

Later in May, the FBI announced a special counsel, led by former FBI director
Robert Mueller, to investigate any coordination between the Russian government and
the Trump campaign.

Fights over Obamacare: Republicans and Democrats in the House of Representatives

and Senate sparred over whether to repeal President Obama’s signature Affordable
Care Act.

The GOP, in control of both the House and Senate for the first time since 2006,
made it a legislative priority to dismantle the healthcare bill, yet a series of
Republican plans to repeal and replace the legislation ultimately failed.

Rohingya refugee crisis: In late August, Myanmar stepped up attacks against the
Rohingya, a mostly Muslim ethnic minority in Buddhist-majority Myanmar, in what a
United Nations commissioner called a “textbook example of ethnic cleansing.” As a
result, more than 600,000 Rohingya refugees fled across the border into neighboring
Bangladesh, leading to a humanitarian crisis in that country.
An undated picture released from North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency
on September 16, 2017 shows North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un inspecting a launching
drill of the medium-and-long range strategic ballistic rocket Hwasong-12 at an
undisclosed location. (Credit: STR/AFP/Getty Images)

An undated picture released from North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency
on September 16, 2017 shows North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un inspecting a launching
drill of the medium-and-long range strategic ballistic rocket Hwasong-12 at an
undisclosed location. (Credit: STR/AFP/Getty Images)

North Korean missile launch: North Korea launched a ballistic missile over Japan in
August, stepping up tensions between Pyongyang and Washington. North Korean state
media said the launch was a prelude to more military actions aimed at the U.S.
territory of Guam, a small island in the Western Pacific home to two U.S. military
bases.

U.S.-backed forces take Raqqa: After a four-month fight, the ISIS “capital” of
Raqqa fell to a U.S.-backed coalition of Syrian forces, ending three years of ISIS
control in the Syrian city. The defeat carried symbolic weight as the second major
loss of territory for the Islamic State in three months. In July, ISIS troops were
pushed out of the Iraqi city of Mosul.
Culture

Women’s rights: In January, the Women’s March on Washington, which advocated for
policies regarding women’s rights and other issues, became one of the largest
single-day demonstrations in U.S. history.

The Washington Post estimated that more than 5 million people may have attended 653
marches in U.S. cities, rivaling participation in the Vietnam War Moratorium Days
of 1969 and 1970.

Later, women of the #MeToo movement, a social media campaign to raise awareness
about sexual harassment and assault, would be named Time magazine’s Person of the
Year, after helping take down a number of pop culture’s most powerful men.

Super Bowl comeback: The New England Patriots mounted the largest comeback in Super
Bowl history to beat the Atlanta Falcons in overtime after trailing by 25 points in
the third quarter.

NFL anthem protests: During the 2017 football season, several National Football
League players remained kneeling during the national anthem in silent protest of
racial bias, violence and profiling by police forces around the country. President
Trump attacked the players on Twitter, sparking a further wave of protest by NFL
players.

Snapchat IPO: In one of the biggest and most highly anticipated U.S. market debuts
in recent years, the image messaging service Snapchat began trading publicly on the
New York Stock Exchange in March. After the IPO, Snapchat stocks rose from $17 to
$27 in its first two days of trading, before falling 30 percent in subsequent
weeks.

“Fake” news: In September, Facebook announced that they had shut down nearly 500
fake “troll” accounts and pages created by Russian company the Internet Research
Agency. The Russian company, linked to the Kremlin, purchased more than 3,000
divisive ads on hot-button social issues during and after the 2016 U.S.
presidential campaign.
The statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee in the center of Emancipation Park
the day after the Unite the Right rally devolved into violence August 13, 2017 in
Charlottesville, Virginia. The Charlottesville City Council voted to remove the
statue and change the name of the space from Lee Park to Emancipation Park,
sparking protests from white nationalists, neo-Nazis, the Ku Klux Klan and members
of the 'alt-right.' (Credit: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

The statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee in the center of Emancipation Park
the day after the Unite the Right rally devolved into violence August 13, 2017 in
Charlottesville, Virginia. The Charlottesville City Council voted to remove the
statue and change the name of the space from Lee Park to Emancipation Park,
sparking protests from white nationalists, neo-Nazis, the Ku Klux Klan and members
of the 'alt-right.' (Credit: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

Confederate monuments fall: White supremacists marched in Charlottesville,

Virginia, in August to protest the city’s plan to remove a statue of Confederate
Army commander Robert E. Lee. One woman was killed and many more injured while
protesting the white nationalist rally.

In the wake of Charlottesville, monuments of Lee, “Stonewall” Jackson and other

confederate figures were removed from public spaces around the country.

Las Vegas shooting: On October 1, gunman Stephen Paddock opened fire on a crowd of
concertgoers at the Route 91 Harvest Music Festival on the Las Vegas Strip from the
32nd floor of the nearby Mandalay Bay Hotel.

Paddock killed 58 people and wounded more than 500. News outlets called it the
deadliest mass shooting in recent American history. The shooting reignited debate
about gun control and Second Amendment rights.
Health, Science and Environment

Opioid epidemic: Public health officials announced that drug overdoses have become
the leading cause of death for Americans under age 50, with more than two-thirds of
those deaths coming from opioid painkillers. President Trump declared the opioid
crisis a “public health emergency” in October.

Artificial intelligence: Facebook’s artificial intelligence (AI) research program

announced over the summer that its “chatbots” not only developed their own
language, but also figured out a way to deceive the humans. This prompted a social
media scuffle between tech billionaire Elon Musk and Facebook founder Mark
Zuckerberg over the potential dangers of AI.
Defiant Dakota Access Pipeline water protectors faced-off with various law
enforcement agencies on the day the camp was slated to be raided. Many protesters
and independent journalist, who were all threatened with multiple felony charges if
they didn't leave were met with militarized police on the road abutting the camp.
(Credit: Michael Nigro/Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Images)

Defiant Dakota Access Pipeline water protectors faced-off with various law
enforcement agencies on the day the camp was slated to be raided. Many protesters
and independent journalist, who were all threatened with multiple felony charges if
they didn't leave were met with militarized police on the road abutting the camp.
(Credit: Michael Nigro/Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Images)

Pipeline protests squelched: Shortly after taking office, Donald Trump signed
orders clearing the way for the controversial Keystone XL and Dakota Access
Pipelines. The move was an effort to expand U.S. energy infrastructure and rollback
Obama-era environmental regulations.

Paris climate agreement: The Trump administration delivered official notice in

August that the United States would stop participating in the Paris Agreement on
climate change.

The Paris Agreement, which was negotiated by 196 countries in 2015, details the
steps each country will take to respond to the threat of global climate change.
Syria announced in November that it would join the landmark pact, leaving the
United States the planet’s lone holdout.

Record-setting hurricane season: The 2017 Atlantic hurricane season, which included
17 named storms and 10 hurricanes, may go down as the costliest hurricane season
ever. In the United States alone, hurricanes caused more than $2 billion in 2017.

In August, Hurricane Harvey slammed the Gulf Coast of Texas, dropping more than 50
inches of rain on Houston. A few weeks later, Hurricane Irma, which destroyed more
than 95 percent of the buildings on the tiny Caribbean island of Barbuda before
steamrolling the Florida Keys, became the most intense hurricane to make U.S.
landfall since Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

Hurricane Maria struck Puerto Rico in late September, leaving large swaths of the
U.S. commonwealth without electricity for months.

Wildfires across the globe: In the western United States, Canada and Alaska,
wildfires scorched millions of acres in a devastating wildfire season (only 2015
had worse wildfires). Fires also raged across Chile, South Africa, Portugal,
Australia, New Zealand and—somewhat ironically—Greenland, where peat and permafrost
are drying out because of climate change.

Solar eclipse: On August 21, 2017, a total solar eclipse crossed the United States
from coast to coast, the first total solar eclipse to do so since 1918. The next
total solar eclipse visible from the U.S. mainland will take place in 2024.
SOURCES

The wild inauguration of Andrew Jackson, Trump’s populist predecessor; The New York
Times.
A short history of ‘America First’; The Atlantic.
Person of the Year 2017: The Silence Breakers; Time.
This is what we learned counting the women’s marches; Washington Post.
The U.S. is now the only country not part of the Paris climate agreement after
Syria signs on; USA Today.
The most expensive U.S. hurricane season ever: By the numbers; Bloomberg.
This is how much of the world is currently on fire. Popular Science.
A ‘Massive’ Wildfire Is Now Blazing In Greenland. NPR.
How much did climate change affect California’s wildfires? Depends on where you
are. Vox Media.
Darker and more dangerous: High Commissioner updates the Human Rights Council on
human rights issues in 40 countries. United Nations High Commissioner for Human
Rights.
Citation Information
Article Title

2017 Events
Author

History.com Editors
Website Name

HISTORY
URL

https://www.history.com/topics/21st-century/2017-events
Access Date

31 July 2019
Publisher

A&E Television Networks

Last Updated

August 21, 2018

Original Published Date

December 11, 2017

Tags
RussiaSuper BowlDrugsHurricanesImmigrationWomen's HistoryProtests

By
History.com Editors

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