2025 in review

Friedrich Merz

He leads a coalition of his conservatives and the SPD.

💡 Did you know? No chancellor candidate had ever failed a first ballot before.

Francis

He was 88 and had served twelve years.

💡 Did you know? At his own wish he was buried not in St Peter's but in Santa Maria Maggiore.

Leo XIV

He had long served as a missionary and bishop in Peru.

💡 Did you know? An American pope was long considered unthinkable: too close to the superpower.

Liberation Day

Markets crashed before negotiation pauses followed.

💡 Did you know? Even an island group inhabited only by penguins appeared on the tariff list.

loosening the debt brake

Conservatives, SPD and Greens together secured the two-thirds majority.

💡 Did you know? They deliberately voted in the old parliament: the new one lacked the majority.

Twelve-Day War

Iran answered with missile barrages before a ceasefire took hold.

💡 Did you know? The truce didn't last a year: 2026 brought the full Iran war.

ceasefire

Numerous states signed the accord in Sharm el-Sheikh.

💡 Did you know? The hostages had been held in Gaza for over two years.

María Corina Machado

She was living in hiding at the time.

💡 Did you know? Months later the Venezuela crisis escalated with the 2026 US military operation.

Louvre

The haul: jewels worth around 88 million euros.

💡 Did you know? The thieves escaped through Paris traffic on scooters.

JJ

The countertenor took Austria's third Eurovision victory.

💡 Did you know? It brought the 2026 contest to Vienna.

Chelsea

Cole Palmer starred with two goals.

💡 Did you know? Trump simply stayed on stage during the trophy lift and never left.

Firefly Aerospace

It worked for two weeks until lunar sunset.

💡 Did you know? A rival's earlier attempt had tipped over in 2024.

Alaska

It was Putin's first US visit in ten years: no breakthrough followed.

💡 Did you know? Alaska belonged to Russia until 1867.

Trump and Musk

Musk had previously run Trump's cost-cutting agency DOGE.

💡 Did you know? Musk promptly founded the "America Party" that summer.

Ahmed al-Sharaa

The US and EU lifted large parts of their sanctions.

💡 Did you know? In November 2025 he became the first Syrian head of state ever to visit the White House.

Air India

A single passenger survived, in seat 11A.

💡 Did you know? It was the first total loss of a Boeing 787 Dreamliner.

KPop Demon Hunters

Its song "Golden" stormed charts worldwide.

💡 Did you know? Kids sang the songs in every schoolyard for months.

November 2026

First from autumn 2025 to May, then to 19 November 2026.

💡 Did you know? The second trailer still broke every viewing record.

Anora

Lead actress Mikey Madison won as well.

💡 Did you know? Baker collected four Oscars himself, equalling Walt Disney's one-night record from 1954, and no one had ever won four for the same film.

CDU/CSU

The SPD crashed to its worst post-war federal result.

💡 Did you know? Turnout was the highest since reunification.