Not necessarily the top photos of the year, or the most heart-wrenching or emotional images, but a collection of photographs that are just so 2019—from “Old Town Road” to “Storm Area 51,” from a fast-food banquet at the White House to Tesla’s Cybertruck, from virtual reality for dairy cows to “30–50 feral hogs,” and much more. This is 2019.
The Most 2019 Photos Ever
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The zero here is actually the first image ever made of a black hole, released earlier this year. The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) imaged a black hole at the center of Galaxy M87, outlined by emissions from hot gas swirling around it, in a picture released on April 10, 2019. To make the image, the EHT, a network of eight radio observatories on six mountains in four continents, observed the black hole in Messier 87, a supergiant elliptical galaxy in the constellation Virgo, on and off for 10 days in April 2017. #
National Science Foundation / Getty / The Atlantic -
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Lil Nas X performs onstage during the 2019 Stagecoach Festival, at Empire Polo Field, in Indio, California, on April 28, 2019. The performer's song "Old Town Road" topped the Billboard Hot 100 chart for a record 19 consecutive weeks in 2019. #
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"The Child," better known on social media as Baby Yoda, a breakout character from the Disney+ television series The Mandalorian, in a still from the sixth episode, "The Prisoner." The adorable character spawned thousands of memes around the world almost overnight. #
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Tesla CEO Elon Musk unveils the new Cybertruck at the Tesla design studio in Hawthorne, California, on November 21, 2019. The cracked window occurred during a demonstration meant to show the strength of the glass. #
Robert Hanashiro / USA Today / Reuters -
President Donald Trump holds a chart showing the original projected track of Hurricane Dorian, which appears to have been extended with a black line to include parts of the Florida Panhandle and the state of Alabama, during a status-report meeting on the hurricane in the Oval Office, in Washington, D.C., on September 4, 2019. #
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The artist David Datuna eats a banana from a work of art that sold for $120,000. The fruit had been attached to a wall with duct tape by the artist Maurizio Cattelan, in a work titled Comedian. On December 7, 2019, Datuna walked up to the banana in front of a crowd at Art Basel in Miami Beach, Florida; removed the banana; and ate it without permission of the artist, owner, or gallery. No legal action was taken, with a gallery spokesperson noting that the banana was always meant to be replaced at some point. #
Ronn Torossian Via Reuters -
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"30–50 feral hogs." The hogs of this viral phrase were hypothetical animals, but were based on the experience of the Twitter user @WillieMcNabb, who replied to @JasonIsbell's tweet "If you’re on here arguing the definition of 'assault weapon' today you are part of the problem. You know what an assault weapon is, and you know you don’t need one" with a query: "Legit question for rural Americans—How do I kill the 30–50 feral hogs that run into my yard within 3–5 mins while my small kids play?" The phrase 30-50 feral hogs took off on its own steam, evolving into yet another 2019 meme. #
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Men dressed as aliens dance at the "Storm Area 51" spin-off event "Alienstock," in Rachel, Nevada, on September 20, 2019. The original "Storm Area 51" Facebook event jokingly encouraged participants to charge the famously secretive Area 51 military base in order to "see them aliens." While millions showed interest in the event, fewer than 200 people showed up, and according to reports, none made their way onto the base. #
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According to the Moscow Ministry of Agriculture and Food, a Russian dairy farm experimented with providing specialized virtual-reality headsets to some of its cows in an attempt to "reduce their anxiety." It reported that calmer cows are thought to be more productive, noting that in past experiments other dairies near Moscow installed sound equipment to play classical music, and saying, "The relaxing effect positively affected milk output." #
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Parts of the Gurschengletscher glacier are covered with tarps near the peak of Mount Gemsstock, in Andermatt, Switzerland, on July 5, 2019. The insulating blankets were installed to decrease the rate of melting, slowing the glacier's retreat. #
Arnd Wiegmann / Reuters -
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Former Congressman Beto O'Rourke of Texas speaks during his presidential kickoff campaign in downtown El Paso, Texas, on March 30, 2019. Decent early poll numbers greeted the campaign, leading to a brief outbreak of "Betomania" among some Democrats, but O'Rourke's numbers fell quickly and he dropped out of the race in early November. #
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Casey Dean inspects a McDonald's burger bought in 1995 and kept in an Australian shed for years, never decomposing, according to two men who now refer to the quarter-century Quarter Pounder as their "mate," in Melbourne on November 7, 2019. Though the burger has shrunk a little from its original size, its shape remains intact, there are no signs of mold, and it doesn't smell. #
William West / AFP / Getty -
President Donald Trump speaks with reporters in front of a spread of fast food on silver platters, to be provided to the 2018 college-football national champion, the Clemson Tigers, in the State Dining Room of the White House, in Washington, D.C., on January 14, 2019. The catering choice was said to have been due to the continuing government shutdown, which affected White House employees. #
Joyce N. Boghosian / The White House -
The Swedish environmental activist Greta Thunberg watches as President Donald Trump enters the United Nations to speak with reporters, in a still image from video taken in New York City on September 23, 2019. #
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Pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong hold posters showing President Donald Trump's head superimposed on a Rocky poster image during a Thanksgiving Day rally at Edinburgh Place, in Hong Kong, China, on November 28, 2019. Protesters gathered to say thank you to the United States after Trump signed legislation supporting the Hong Kong pro-democracy protesters, requiring annual reviews of Hong Kong's rights and freedoms. #
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A view of an ash-dump site belonging to a Novosibirsk energy plant, nicknamed the local Maldives, photographed on July 11, 2019. The industrial dump site in Siberia, with a turquoise lake resembling a tropical paradise, became a magnet for Instagrammers, who continue to risk their health in the toxic water to wow online followers. #
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A security guard with unusual body armor—featuring curved spikes, four head-mounted flashlights, two pairs of sunglasses, and a ready gas mask—keeps watch during the swearing-in ceremony of Malawian President-Elect Arthur Peter Mutharika at Kamuzu Stadium, in Blantyre, Malawi, on May 28, 2019, after a contentious election marred by allegations of fraud and vote-rigging. #
Amos Gumulira / AFP / Getty -
The actress Monica Ruiz is pictured in this screengrab from "The Gift That Gives Back" commercial by Peloton, obtained on December 4, 2019. The ad, featuring a husband who surprises his wife with a new exercise bike, spurred controversy across social media. #
Peloton via Reuters -
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Demonstrators shine green lasers at riot-police officers during a protest against the policies of Sebastián Piñera and long-standing inequality in Santiago, Chile, on November 15, 2019. Widespread unrest led to street protests in many places in 2019, with many participants bringing powerful laser pointers—using them to distract or blind opponents, to signal to one another, or to shine together to celebrate and show solidarity in groups. #
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President Donald Trump turns to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, with Vice President Mike Pence watching, as he delivers his State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress on Capitol Hill, in Washington, D.C., on February 5, 2019. #
Doug Mills / The New York Times via AP -
The U.S. forward Megan Rapinoe celebrates scoring her team's first goal during the Women's World Cup France 2019 quarterfinal between France and the United States, at the Parc des Princes stadium, in Paris, on June 28, 2019. The U.S. advanced to the final and won the championship on July 7, in a match against the Netherlands. #
Franck Fife / AFP / Getty -
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Visitors look at a temporary art installation by the Swiss artist Klaus Littmann, For Forest—The Unending Attraction of Nature, in the Wörthersee Stadion, in Klagenfurt, Austria, on September 8, 2019. #
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A Game of Thrones fan dressed as Daenerys watches the HBO series' finale at a viewing party at the Loft 51 nightclub in New York City on May 19, 2019. Fans of the popular series were largely disappointed in the last season, with the final episode, "The Iron Throne," going down as the lowest-rated episode of the entire series, as ranked by both IMDB and Rotten Tomatoes. #
Johannes Eisele / AFP / Getty
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