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Year in review 2023 (2) infographic
Graphic shows a selection of key events that took place during 2023 and people in the public eye. Alternative events can be found in the GN On This Day in History database (see Menu or https://www.graphicnews.com/onthisday).
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YEAR END

Review of selected news events in 2023

By Tony Mullins

January 1, 2023 - December 31, 2023 - A review of major news stories in 2023 includes Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza, sparked by the brutal assaults of October 7, and an ever increasing series of catastrophic weather events attributed at least in part to climate change.

A brief ceasefire allowed the release of some Israeli hostages from Gaza in November but fierce fighting resumed in December.

The war in Ukraine ground on, with the destruction of the Nova Kakhovka dam near Kherson a notable catastrophe. A brief mutiny against Moscow by Yevgeny Prigozhin’s Wagner Group was soon called off, but Prigozhin and other senior Wagner Group figures were killed in a plane crash in October.

The earthquake in southern Turkey and northern Syria was the worst natural disaster in Turkey’s history. Morocco and Afghanistan also experienced severe earthquakes later in the year.

Climate-related disasters included Storm Daniel, a severe “medicane” that ravaged central Greece before bringing torrential rainfall to Libya, where the collapse of two dams led to devastation in the city of Derna. In southern Africa Cyclone Freddy wreaked havoc over a period of five weeks, and the worst wildfires in Canada’s history destroyed around 4% of its entire forest area, with air quality severely affected as far south as New York and beyond.

In the United States Donald Trump became the first former President to face a criminal trial, and Kevin McCarthy became the first Speaker of the House of Representatives to be ousted from office.

Far-right politicans won elections in Argentina and the Netherlands, and in Africa the leaders of Niger and Gabon were ousted in military coups.

On a more positive note, singers Beyoncé and Taylor Swift continued to dominate the music scene, “Barbenheimer” delighted summer cinemagoers, the coronation of King Charles III took place, India successfully landed a spacecraft near the south pole of the moon, and NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission returned samples of the asteroid Bennu to Earth.

Sources
PUBLISHED: 20/12/2023; STORY: Julie Mullins
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