2014 in review

Germany

It was the fourth star: the first title since 1990.

💡 Did you know? Germany became the first European team to win a World Cup in South America.

7-1

Five German goals came in just 18 first-half minutes.

💡 Did you know? Toni Kroos scored twice within 69 seconds: a World Cup record.

Mario Götze

"Show the world you're better than Messi": Löw's legendary words on subbing him in.

💡 Did you know? Götze had come on for Klose in the 88th minute.

Crimea

"Little green men" without insignia had occupied the peninsula beforehand.

💡 Did you know? The UN General Assembly clearly condemned the annexation.

Viktor Yanukovych

The trigger was his halt of the EU association agreement.

💡 Did you know? More than 100 protesters died on the Maidan.

MH370

Only a few wreckage pieces later washed up on African coasts.

💡 Did you know? The search became the most expensive in aviation history.

MH17

Investigators blamed a Russian Buk missile.

💡 Did you know? Almost 200 Dutch citizens were aboard: the Netherlands mourned like rarely before.

Ebola

Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia were hit hardest.

💡 Did you know? The WHO declared an international emergency in August.

Ice Bucket Challenge

Everyone from Bill Gates to football stars joined in.

💡 Did you know? The campaign raised over 200 million dollars for research.

Sochi

At around 50 billion dollars, the most expensive Winter Games ever.

💡 Did you know? The Crimea crisis began just days after the Games.

Scotland

Turnout was almost 85 percent.

💡 Did you know? 16-year-olds were allowed to vote for the first time.

Robin Williams

He had won the Oscar for "Good Will Hunting".

💡 Did you know? His genius was improvisation: many film scenes were ad-libbed.

Rosetta

Philae bounced twice on landing and came to rest in shadow.

💡 Did you know? The comet's full name is 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko.

Conchita Wurst

The Copenhagen win became a Europe-wide symbol of tolerance.

💡 Did you know? It brought the 2015 ESC to Vienna.

Malala Yousafzai

She shared the prize with India's Kailash Satyarthi.

💡 Did you know? In 2012 she had barely survived a Taliban attack.

Narendra Modi

Over 550 million votes were cast: the largest election in history.

💡 Did you know? Modi was still in office more than a decade later.

WhatsApp

WhatsApp had barely 50 employees at the time.

💡 Did you know? That works out at almost 350 million dollars per employee.

Alibaba

Founder Jack Ma became China's richest man.

💡 Did you know? Ma had started out as an English teacher.

Hong Kong

The protests blocked the financial district for weeks.

💡 Did you know? Even bigger protests followed in 2019/2020 and a harsh security law.

Interstellar

Nobel laureate physicist Kip Thorne advised the filmmakers.

💡 Did you know? The black hole visualisation even led to research papers.