2015
Paris Climate Agreement
After two weeks of negotiations and decades of failure, 196 countries agreed to limit warming to well below two degrees Celsius. The pact relied on voluntary national pledges and ratchet mechanisms rather than enforcement. Diplomats wept and applauded in Le Bourget. Whether they had saved the planet remained to be seen.
Same-sex marriage legalized in U.S.
In Obergefell v. Hodges the U.S. Supreme Court ruled five to four that same-sex couples had a constitutional right to marry in all fifty states. Rainbow flags flew over the White House that evening, the facade lit in the colors of pride. The journey from Stonewall to wedding registry had taken forty-six years and felt, for one summer, almost complete.
Nepal earthquake
A magnitude 7.8 quake shook Kathmandu Valley on a Saturday afternoon, toppling temples that had stood for centuries, cracking the Dharahara tower in half, and killing nearly 9,000 people. Climbers were swept off Everest by avalanches. Whole hill villages slid into ravines. A country that ran on tourism and remittances was, in eighty seconds, set back a generation.
Iran nuclear deal signed
After two years of negotiations in Vienna and Geneva, Iran and the six world powers signed the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. Iran agreed to dismantle most of its nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief. Three years later, Donald Trump tore America out of it; eight years after that, the bombs would fall.
Paris attacks
A coordinated cell of Islamic State gunmen and suicide bombers struck the Bataclan theater, the Stade de France, and several cafés on a Friday night in Paris, killing 130. France declared a state of emergency that would last two years. The line between the war over there and the life over here finally vanished.
Falcon 9 lands itself
After delivering eleven satellites to orbit, the first stage of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket flipped, fired its engines, and set itself down upright on a Cape Canaveral landing pad. Elon Musk had been promising this for years and most of aerospace had laughed. The economics of space changed in eight minutes.
Charlie Hebdo attack
Two French brothers calling themselves al-Qaeda walked into the Paris offices of a satirical magazine and gunned down twelve people, including most of its senior cartoonists, for drawing the Prophet Muhammad. Marches of solidarity filled European capitals within days. The phrase Je suis Charlie became, briefly, a continent's identity card and a rallying cry for free expression.