The past 10 years have been eventful ones, beginning with Iceland’s erupting Eyjafjallajökull volcano and the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, through the violent rise of the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq, the refugee crisis in Europe, the U.S. presidential election of 2016, the first close-up images of Pluto, the #MeToo movement, an impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump, and so much more. Warning: Some of the photos may contain graphic or objectionable content.
Photos of the Decade: 2010–19
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Fire boats battle a fire at the offshore oil rig Deepwater Horizon April 21, 2010, in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Louisiana. Multiple Coast Guard helicopters, planes, and cutters responded to rescue the Deepwater Horizon's 126-person crew after an explosion and fire caused the crew to evacuate. Eleven people died in the explosion, and the resulting spill released more than 170 million gallons of crude oil into the gulf—one of the worst environmental disasters in U.S. history. #
U.S. Coast Guard via Getty -
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A laughing gull is mired in thick oil on the beach at East Grand Terre Island along the Louisiana coast after being drenched in oil from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, on June 3, 2010. #
Charlie Riedel / AP -
Lance Corporal Chris Sanderson (rear) and Sergeant Travis Dawson (front), U.S. marines from Bravo Company, First Battalion, Sixth Marines, protect an Afghan man and his child after Taliban fighters opened fire in the town of Marjah, in Nad Ali district, Helmand province, Afghanistan, on February 13, 2010. U.S.-led NATO troops had launched an offensive against the Taliban's last big stronghold in Afghanistan's most violent province and were quickly thrown into a firefight with the militants. #
Goran Tomasevic / Reuters -
The northern lights are seen above the ash plume of Iceland's Eyjafjallajökull volcano in this April 22, 2010, photo. The photographer, Lucas Jackson: "The ash cloud brought the greatest disruption to European air travel since World War II, and the only way to get to Iceland was to fly from North America. On my last evening, I was blessed with a show from the aurora borealis (northern lights), while lava illuminated the ash plume from below." #
Lucas Jackson / Reuters -
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A man gestures to the hundreds of bodies piled up outside the morgue and main hospital in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, on January 15, 2010. The country was recovering from a powerful magnitude 7.0 earthquake that struck on January 12, 2010. The estimated death toll for the disaster varies, but most agree that more than 100,000 people lost their lives in the quake. #
Chris Hondros / Getty -
A wave approaches Miyako City from the Heigawa estuary in Iwate Prefecture after a magnitude 9.0 earthquake struck the area March 11, 2011. The earthquake, the most powerful ever known to have hit Japan, combined with a massive tsunami, claimed more than 15,800 lives, devastated many eastern-coastline communities, and triggered a nuclear catastrophe at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station. #
Mainichi Shimbun / Reuters -
Britain's Prince William and his wife Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, kiss on the balcony at Buckingham Palace, watched by bridesmaids Grace van Cutsem (left) and Margarita Armstrong-Jones and pageboy Tom Pettifer, after their wedding in Westminster Abbey, in Central London, on April 29, 2011. #
Dylan Martinez / Reuters -
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U.S. President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden, along with members of the national-security team, receive an update on the mission against Osama bin Laden in the Situation Room of the White House, May 1, 2011. Also pictured are Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Defense Secretary Robert Gates. Note: A classified document seen in this photograph was obscured at source. #
Pete Souza / White House via Reuters -
Foreign soldiers leave the Intercontinental Hotel at the end of a military operation against Taliban militants who had stormed the Kabul hotel on June 29, 2011. Taliban suicide bombers and gunmen attacked the hotel, sparking a five-hour battle with Afghan commandos backed by a NATO helicopter gunship in an assault that left at least 10 people dead. #
Pedro Ugarte / AFP / Getty -
A view of the Costa Concordia taken on January 14, 2012, the morning after the cruise ship ran aground and keeled over off the Isola del Giglio. The Italian cruise ship had more than 4,000 people on board; 32 passengers and one crew member died in the incident. The captain, Francesco Schettino, was later found guilty of manslaughter, and sentenced to 16 years in prison. #
Filippo Monteforte / AFP / Getty -
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A police lieutenant swings his baton at an Occupy Wall Street activist in New York City on May 1, 2012. Hundreds of activists with a variety of causes spread out over New York City on International Workers' Day, or May Day, with Occupy Wall Street members leading a charge against financial institutions. #
Mary Altaffer / AP -
President Barack Obama hugs his wife, Michelle, after she introduced him at a campaign event at the village of East Davenport in Davenport, Iowa, on August 15, 2012. In November, this image was attached to a short message sent by Barack Obama's Twitter account, after his reelection became certain, saying simply, "Four more years." The image quickly became Twitter's most retweeted photo ever. #
Scout Tufankjian / Obama for America -
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The space shuttle Endeavour is transported from Los Angeles International Airport to the Forum arena for a stopover and celebration on its way to the California Science Center on October 12, 2012, in Inglewood, California. The retired shuttle was on its final 12-mile journey, headed for permanent public display. #
Kevork Djansezian / Getty -
A Syrian man cries while holding the body of his son near Dar El Shifa hospital in Aleppo, Syria, on October 3, 2012. Three suicide bombers detonated cars packed with explosives in a government-controlled area of the battleground Syrian city of Aleppo, killing at least 34 people, leveling buildings and trapping survivors under the rubble, state TV said. #
Manu Brabo / AP -
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The Star Jet roller coaster remains in the water after the Casino Pier it sat on collapsed from the forces of Superstorm Sandy, on February 19, 2013, in Seaside Heights, New Jersey. #
Mark Wilson / Getty -
In this January 31, 2014, photo, residents of the besieged Palestinian camp of Yarmouk line up to receive food supplies in Damascus, Syria. Christopher Gunness, a spokesman for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, said the agency needed around $250 million to fund its program to aid roughly half a million Palestinian refugees affected by the war in Syria. #
UNRWA / AP -
Anti-government protesters clash with police in Independence Square, Kiev, Ukraine, despite a truce agreed between the Ukrainian president and opposition leaders on February 20, 2014. After several weeks of calm, violence again flared between police and anti-government protesters, who were calling for the ouster of President Viktor Yanukovych over corruption and an abandoned trade agreement with the European Union. #
Jeff J. Mitchell / Getty -
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A body lies in a wheat field at the site of the crash of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 carrying 298 people from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur in Grabove, in rebel-held east Ukraine, on July 19, 2014. The downing of the Malaysian jet drew global condemnation of the Kremlin. All 298 passengers were killed, and international investigators determined that that the civilian aircraft was shot down by a surface-to-air missile launched from pro-Russian rebel-controlled territory in Ukraine. A trial in absentia at the Hague is scheduled in 2020 for three Russians and one Ukrainian charged with murder. #
Alexander Khudoteply / AFP / Getty -
Omu Fahnbulleh stands over her husband Ibrahim after he staggered and fell, knocking himself unconscious in an Ebola ward on August 15, 2014 in Monrovia, Liberia. People suspected of contracting the Ebola virus were sent by Liberian health workers to the center, a closed primary school originally built by USAID. The Ebola epidemic lasted through 2015, killing about 4,800 people in four West African countries. #
John Moore / Getty -
Islamic State militants are caught in the open, close to the explosion of an air strike on Tilsehir hill, Syria, near the Turkish border at Yumurtalik village, in Sanliurfa province on October 23, 2014. #
Bulent Kilic / AFP / Getty -
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NASA's New Horizons spacecraft captured this high-resolution, enhanced color view of Pluto on July 14, 2015. The distant dwarf planet had never before been visited by a human-made spacecraft, nor had it ever been seen in such detail—New Horizons flew within 7,750 miles (12,500 kilometers) of Pluto's surface. #
NASA / Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory / Southwest Research Institute -
This image may contain graphic or objectionable content.
Click to view imageA paramilitary police officer investigates the scene before carrying the lifeless body of 3-year-old Aylan Kurdi from the seashore, near the beach resort of Bodrum, Turkey, on September 2, 2015. Kurdî's family had fled Syria, boarding a small inflatable boat on a Turkish beach, headed to the Greek island of Kos, reportedly trying to reach Canada eventually. The boat capsized in the early morning, and Aylan, his brother Galib, and mother Rehana all drowned. Photographs of Aylan’s small lifeless body quickly spread around the world on social media and news outlets, stoking many debates, such as: Who was ultimately responsible for the situation? Was it appropriate (or necessary) to publish an image of a dead child? And what could be done to prevent such tragedies in the future? The International Organization of Migration reports that more than 3,400 migrants are known to have died or gone missing while trying to cross the Mediterranean in 2015. #
AP -
Gael Monfils of France dives for a forehand in his fourth-round match against Andrey Kuznestov of Russia during day eight of the 2016 Australian Open at Melbourne Park on January 25, 2016, in Melbourne, Australia. #
Cameron Spencer / Getty -
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A migrant holds razor wire at the gate on the Greek-Macedonian border, near the Greek village of Idomeni, on March 1, 2016, where thousands of refugees heading north into Europe were stranded. With Austria and Balkan states capping the numbers of migrants entering their soil, there was a swift buildup along the Greece-Macedonia border. #
Louisa Gouliamaki / AFP / Getty -
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, the presumptive nominee, arrives to speak during her California primary night rally held in Brooklyn, New York, on June 7, 2016. While Clinton made history, becoming the first female presidential nominee of a major U.S. political party, she later lost the general election in November. #
Lucas Jackson / Reuters -
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Lone activist Ieshia Evans stands her ground while offering her hands for arrest as she is charged by riot police during a protest against police brutality outside the Baton Rouge Police Department on July 9 2016. Evans, a 28-year-old Pennsylvania nurse and mother of one, traveled to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, to protest against the shooting of Alton Sterling. Sterling was a 37-year-old black man and father of five, who was shot at close range by two white police officers. The shooting, captured on a multitude of cellphone videos, aggravated the unrest coursing through the United States over the use of excessive force by police, particularly against black men. #
Jonathan Bachman / Reuters -
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U.S. President-elect Donald Trump arrives for the inauguration ceremonies swearing him in as the 45th president of the United States on the West front of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on January 20, 2017. #
Brian Snyder / Reuters -
Mohammed Mohiedin Anis, also known as Abu Omar, 70, smokes his pipe as he sits in his destroyed bedroom, listening to music on his hand-cranked gramophone in Aleppo's formerly rebel-held al-Shaar neighborhood in Syria, on March 9, 2017. Anis had recently returned to Aleppo, with plans to rebuild not only his home, but also his large collection of vintage American cars, despite everything being reduced to rubble. When reporters asked him about the gramophone, he responded, “I will play it for you but first I have to light my pipe. Because I never listen to music without it.” #
Joseph Eid / AFP / Getty -
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A demonstrator catches fire during clashes with riot police amid a protest against Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, in Caracas on May 3, 2017. The photographer later said that bystanders were able to douse the flames and the man was taken to a hospital where he was treated for his burns. #
Ronaldo Schemidt / AFP / Getty -
Refugees and migrants swim towards a rescue craft as a rescue crew member of the Migrant Offshore Aid Station (MOAS) Phoenix vessel pulls a man aboard after a wooden boat bound for Italy carrying more than 500 people capsized on May 24, 2017, off Lampedusa, Italy. #
Chris McGrath / Getty -
Peter Cvjetanovic (right) along with neo-Nazis, alt-right, and white supremacists encircle and chant at counter-protesters at the base of a statue of Thomas Jefferson after marching through the University of Virginia campus with torches in Charlottesville, Virginia, on August 11, 2017. #
Samuel Corum / Anadolu Agency / Getty -
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People fly into the air as a vehicle is driven into a group of protesters demonstrating against a white-nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, on August 12, 2017, killing one person and injuring 28 others. The driver, James Alex Fields Jr., was sentenced to life in prison for multiple hate crime charges, including the murder of 32-year-old protester Heather Heyer. #
Ryan M. Kelly / The Daily Progress via AP -
The Eagle Creek wildfire burns as golfers play at the Beacon Rock Golf Course in North Bonneville, Washington, on September 4, 2017. A teenager was charged with reckless burning in an incident involving fireworks that is believed to have started the fire that eventually burned nearly 50,000 acres. #
Kirsti McCluer / Reuters -
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin (right) and his wife, Louise Linton, hold up a sheet of new $1 bills, the first currency notes bearing his and U.S. Treasurer Jovita Carranza's signatures, at the Bureau of Engraving and Printing (BEP) in Washington, D.C., on November 15, 2017. At left is BEP Director Leonard Olijar. #
Jacquelyn Martin / AP -
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People run from the Route 91 Harvest country music festival after gunfire was heard on October 1, 2017, in Las Vegas, Nevada. Stephen Paddock had opened fire on the music festival from his hotel-room window, 32 stories above, killing 58 people and wounding more than 400. Paddock shot himself before he could be captured, leaving behind no clear motive for his actions. #
David Becker / Getty -
A worker rides a shared bicycle past a huge pile of unused shared bikes in a vacant lot in Xiamen, Fujian province, China, on December 13, 2017. In 2017 and 2018, supply vastly outstripped demand and eager companies ran into trouble with local governments as dockless bike-share ventures placed millions of bikes on the streets of China's cities, only to have many bikes impounded, or to go bankrupt and abandon their inventories. The end result: countless piles of surplus or discarded bike-share bicycles dotting the landscape in urban China. #
Reuters -
This photo was posted to Instagram by Elon Musk, the CEO of SpaceX, on February 7, 2018, with the caption: "Last pic of Starman in Roadster enroute to Mars orbit and then the Asteroid Belt." The sports car was launched into space aboard the Falcon Heavy rocket built by SpaceX as a dummy payload for its first test launch. After the final burn, astronomers determined that the Tesla won't quite reach the asteroid belt, but will now be in an orbit around the sun that will take 18.8 months to complete, crossing Mars's orbit twice per Tesla orbit. #
SpaceX -
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Emma Gonzalez, a student and shooting survivor from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, cries as she addresses the conclusion of the "March for Our Lives" event demanding gun control after recent school shootings at a rally in Washington, D.C., on March 24, 2018. During her emotional speech, Gonzalez set aside several long minutes of silence, staring at the crowd and cameras, to drive home the impact of the six minutes and 20 seconds it took for the shooter at her school to cause so much pain. #
Jonathan Ernst / Reuters -
In this photo made available by the German Federal Government, German Chancellor Angela Merkel (center), speaks with U.S. President Donald Trump, seated at right, during the G7 Leaders Summit in La Malbaie, Quebec, Canada, on Saturday, June 9, 2018. #
Jesco Denzel / German Federal Government via AP -
15-year-old Swedish student Greta Thunberg leads a school strike and sits outside of Riksdagen, the Swedish parliament building, to raise awareness of climate change on August 28, 2018, in Stockholm, Sweden. Greta continues her activism to this day, having gained a global audience. #
Michael Campanella / Getty -
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A 2-year-old Honduran asylum seeker cries as her mother is searched and detained near the U.S.-Mexico border on June 12, 2018, in McAllen, Texas. The asylum seekers had rafted across the Rio Grande from Mexico and were detained by U.S. Border Patrol agents. The mother set her down to allow the search to take place, and the girl immediately began screaming. Then, according to an interview with Moore by the Washington Post reporter Avi Selkan, "the woman picked up her daughter, they walked into the van, the van drove away, and Moore never saw them again." A June 20 article from The Daily Beast says that they spoke with a U.S. Customs and Border Protection spokesperson, who told them that this particular mother and child were not separated during processing. The photo became iconic and spread around the world as opposition rose against the Trump administration's "zero tolerance" policy toward undocumented immigrants, which led to hundreds of families being separated at the border, despite the fact that this particular family was never separated. #
John Moore / Getty -
Bill Cosby is escorted out of the Montgomery County Correctional Facility in Eagleville, Pennsylvania, after being sentenced to a three-to-10-year prison sentence for sexual assault on September 25, 2018. #
Jacqueline Larma / AP -
Christine Blasey Ford is sworn in before testifying to the Senate Judiciary Committee in the Dirksen Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill, on September 27, 2018, in Washington, D.C. A professor at Palo Alto University and a research psychologist at the Stanford University School of Medicine, Ford accused the then–Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexually assaulting her during a party in 1982 when they were high-school students in suburban Maryland. In prepared remarks, Ford said, "I don't have all the answers, and I don't remember as much as I would like to. But the details about that night that bring me here today are ones I will never forget. They have been seared into my memory and have haunted me episodically as an adult." #
Win McNamee / Getty -
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Palestinians burn tires and throw stones toward Israeli forces as they gather to support a maritime demonstration to break the Gaza sea blockade in Gaza City on October 22, 2018. #
Mustafa Hassona / Anadolu Agency / Getty -
A protester clenches his fist as hundreds of thousands of people march on the streets to stage a protest against the unpopular extradition bill in Hong Kong on June 16, 2019. Demonstrations and clashes with riot police have filled Hong Kong streets for much of the year. #
Vincent Yu / AP -
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An aerial view of damage caused by Hurricane Dorian is seen in Marsh Harbour on Great Abaco Island on September 4, 2019, in Great Abaco, Bahamas. Dorian struck the islands as a Category 5 storm, and was responsible for at least 60 deaths and more than $3 billion in damages—the worst natural disaster to ever hit the Bahamas. #
Scott Olson / Getty -
Democratic Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee Adam Schiff awaits Bill Taylor, charge d'affaires at the U.S. embassy in Ukraine, and George Kent, the deputy assistant secretary of state for Europe and Eurasia, to testify during a hearing on the impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump, on Capitol Hill, November 13, 2019. #
Jim Lo Scalzo / Pool via Reuters -
Students take part in a march for the environment and the climate in Brussels, Belgium, on February 21, 2019. Environmental protests and strikes, most led by students, took place around the world multiple times throughout the year. #
Emmanuel Dunand / AFP / Getty -
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