2023 in review

Turkey and Syria

Hundreds of thousands of buildings collapsed or became uninhabitable.

💡 Did you know? Survivors were still being pulled from the rubble days later.

Hamas

The Gaza war followed, with devastating consequences for civilians.

💡 Did you know? It was the deadliest day in Israel's history.

Prigozhin

Two months later he died in a mysterious plane crash.

💡 Did you know? His column got within about 200 kilometres of Moscow.

Charles III

Camilla was crowned queen at his side.

💡 Did you know? Charles had been heir apparent for a record 70 years, and at 74 he was the oldest British monarch ever crowned.

Barbenheimer

Many watched both films back to back.

💡 Did you know? Oppenheimer later won seven Oscars; Barbie grossed 1.4 billion.

nuclear power plants

Isar 2, Emsland and Neckarwestheim 2 were the final three.

💡 Did you know? The exit had been delayed three and a half months by the energy crisis.

South Africa

They became the first nation to win the Rugby World Cup four times.

💡 Did you know? Hosts France had been knocked out in the quarter-finals by the same South Africans, 29 to 28.

Spain

Federation boss Rubiales' unwanted kiss at the ceremony overshadowed the triumph.

💡 Did you know? Rubiales had to resign and was later convicted.

India

Russia's Luna-25 had crashed just days earlier.

💡 Did you know? India became only the fourth nation ever to land on the Moon.

Titan

For days the world had hoped for knocking sounds from the deep.

💡 Did you know? Experts had repeatedly criticised its carbon-fibre hull.

GPT-4

Google, Meta and Anthropic followed with their own models.

💡 Did you know? An open letter vainly demanded a pause in AI development in 2023.

X

Musk dreams of an "everything app" modelled on China's WeChat.

💡 Did you know? The name goes back to X.com, the online bank Musk founded in 1999, which merged into what became PayPal.

Taylor Swift

Time magazine named her Person of the Year.

💡 Did you know? Her concert film became the highest-grossing ever.

Nagorno-Karabakh

The self-declared Republic of Artsakh dissolved itself.

💡 Did you know? The conflict had smouldered since the 1980s.

Silvio Berlusconi

Italy ordered a state funeral.

💡 Did you know? His family inherited the empire, including AC Monza.

Tina Turner

She had lived on Lake Zurich since the 1990s.

💡 Did you know? She took Swiss citizenship in 2013.

Inter Miami

MLS ticket prices exploded instantly.

💡 Did you know? The deal included shares of Apple and Adidas revenues.

OSIRIS-REx

The samples contained carbon compounds and traces of water.

💡 Did you know? Bennu could come dangerously close to Earth in the distant future.

The Super Mario Bros. Movie

It became the most successful video game film ever.

💡 Did you know? Jack Black's Bowser sang the ballad "Peaches".

private jet crash

Western agencies suspected a bomb on board.

💡 Did you know? The Kremlin called foul play an "absolute lie".