2008

What we know about 2008 on the last day of the year:

In 2008 America elected its first black president, Barack Obama. In January few dared to hope he could win, but he said, “Yes We Can”. And we did. Or most of us did. He lost among whites but more than made up for it among blacks and other people of colour.

In the Democratic Party he narrowly defeated Hillary Clinton, whom many had hoped would be the first woman president. But next to Obama she looked mean-spirited. She did not ring true.

Obama ran against John McCain, the Republican. McCain said he had more experience than Obama, but then showed how little that mattered by picking Sarah Palin, the governor of Alaska, as his vice president, someone with even less experience than Obama. Many loved her, many laughed at her.

Obama will get an America that is in deep trouble: many of its top banks have failed, the stock market has lost a third of its value, wiping out trillions of dollars. Millions are being thrown out of work. Few are buying cars, so the car companies are now in trouble too. And so on. America looks like it is about to enter bad times, the worst since the 1930s. It is affecting not just America but the whole world. Toyota, for example, has had its worse year ever in over 70 years.

Everyone thought the war in Iraq would be the big issue of the election, but as bad as Bush has been, it seems he has been able to put Iraq on the road to peace. Obama will pull out the troops as quickly as he can and give his attention to Afghanistan instead.

After Obama won, Governor Blagojevich tried to sell his Senate seat. Yes, sell.

Caroline Kennedy, daughter of President Kennedy, said she might run for Hillary Clinton’s Senate seat. Hillary will be the new secretary of state.

For the first time since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 Russia sent its army into another country: Georgia.

In the last days of the year, Israel started bombing Gaza, as if to soften it up for a land war. It tried that in 2006 and found itself at war with parts of Lebanon.

In November over 173 were killed in terror attacks on Mumbai (Bombay) in India.

The peace in Congo, what little there was, started to fall apart. Laurent Nkunda is fighting against government troops.

Zimbabwe continues to fall apart under Mugabe’s incapable leadership. Now cholera, of all things, is in the land.

The Olympics were held in Beijing. American swimmer Michael Phelps won eight gold medals.

Musharraf stepped down as president of Pakistan. At last.

The word ginormous made it into the dictionary. At last.

• Top song worldwide: “Bleeding Love” by Leona Lewis
• Highest-grossing film worldwide: “The Dark Knight”
• Nobel Prize for Literature: Jean-Marie Le Clezio
• Academy Award for Best Picture: not known yet.