Editor's Note: It's impossible to write a "wrap-up" of the year's events – there are too many. What I've done is highlighting two big stories for each month.

January

The Chang'e-4 probe makes a historic soft-landing on the far side of the moon, making China the first nation to ever do so. The probe sent back the world's first close picture of the moon's dark far side via the relay satellite Queqiao (Magpie Bridge). The Chang'e-4, which includes a lander and a rover, spends the year studying the mineral composition and shallow lunar surface structure of the moon's far side, as well as performing low-frequency radio astronomical observation.

In Brazil, a dam at the Corrego do Feijao iron ore mine ruptured near the municipality of Brumadinho, sending 12 million cubic meters of mining waste downstream in a river where water is largely used for fishing, drinking, washing, and watering crops. A massive mudflow destroyed the mine offices during lunchtime, along with several houses, roads and farms. A total of 237 people were killed. Residents and authorities struggled to deal with the toxic aftermath.

February

Venezuela's President Nicholas Maduro promises peace for his country and says there will be no civil war after U.S. President Donald Trump said that military intervention in Venezuela was "an option." Venezuelan opposition supporters held a nationwide protest to keep up the pressure on Maduro after Washington recognized self-proclaimed interim president Juan Guaido as the legitimate president and issued potentially crippling sanctions.

DPRK leader Kim Jong Un meets U.S. President Donald Trump for a summit in Hanoi, Vietnam, eight months after their first meeting. In Vietnam, Kim and Trump said their talks over the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula were going well. The two met again, in June, at the Korean Demilitarized Zone, making Trump the first American president to visit the DMZ.

March

Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 crashed near the town of Bishoftu, after taking off from Addis Ababa Bole International Airport. All 157 people on-board were killed. It came just months after a similar aircraft crashed in Indonesian waters, killing 189 people. Both planes were Boeing's 737 Max 8 Models, sparking a global debate about its safety. Carriers and regulators around the world ground the model, awaiting re-certification. By the year's end, Boeing's CEO was fired.

Fifty people were killed in deadly shootings during Friday prayers at two mosques in the New Zealand city of Christchurch. The shooter live-streamed footage of himself going room to room, victim to victim, shooting the wounded from close range as they struggled to crawl away. Six days later, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern toughened the country's gun laws, including a sweeping ban on semi-automatics and assault rifles.

April

The first-ever images of a black hole were revealed, marking a historic breakthrough in astrophysics research. The images were captured by the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT), an international cooperation program jointly established by more than 200 researchers around the world. This particular black hole is located 55 million light-years from the Earth and has a mass 6.5-billion times that of the Sun.

Easter Sunday coordinated terror attacks killed 259 people in Sri Lanka. Three churches and three luxury hotels in the commercial capital Colombo were targeted in a series of suicide bombings. At least 45 foreign nationals were among the dead. Two days later, a propaganda outlet for ISIL said the perpetrators of the attacks were ISIL fighters. The group's often-silent leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi praised the attackers in an 18-minute video. Al-Baghdadi killed himself months later, trying to evade capture by U.S. forces.

May

A top Taipei court ruled in favor of same-sex marriage in a landmark ruling that paved the way for Taiwan to become the first place in Asia to legalize gay and lesbian unions. The case was brought by gay rights activist Chi Chia-wei after the city government rejected his and his long-time partner's application to marry in 2013.

Protesters in Paris hijacked the May Day rally as the "yellow vest" movement continues its demonstrations across France in opposition to President Emmanuel Macron's policies.

June

Chinese President Xi Jinping met U.S. President Donald Trump on the sidelines of the G20 meeting in Osaka, Japan. The face-to-face meeting came one year after Trump introduced tariffs targeting China, triggering a trade war between the world's two biggest economies. Later in the year, the two sides agreed to a phase one trade deal.

Italy arrested the activist captain of a ship rescuing migrants. Carola Rackete, a German national, defied the Italian blockade and docked in the port of Lampedusa. The Sea-Watch 3 had been stranded in the Mediterranean for over two weeks with some 40 migrants on board. The migrants were allowed to disembark, after weeks of pushback.

July

Amid protests, Hong Kong held a flag-raising ceremony to mark the 22nd anniversary of its return to China. Days later, Carrie Lam, the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR)'s chief executive, declared "the bill is dead," in reference to a proposed legislation that aims to deal with a murder case that happened in China's Taiwan but involves a Hong Kong suspect who has returned to Hong Kong, and to fill loopholes in HKSAR's existing legal framework concerning mutual legal assistance in criminal matters. The legislation triggered citywide demonstrations which, on occasion, turned violent.

Britain's Royal Marines assisted in the seizure of an Iranian oil supertanker near Gibraltar. Two weeks later, Iranian forces seized a British-flagged oil tanker in the Strait of Hormuz, intensifying tensions in the strategic waterway that has become a flashpoint between Tehran and the West. The ongoing showdown caused jitters around the globe, with each maneuver bringing fear that any misunderstanding or misstep by either side could lead to war.

August

Protests erupted in Jammu and Kashmir after India's parliament revoked Article 370 of the Constitution, which guarantees the Indian-controlled region a "special status." The Indian military placed much of Kashmir under curfew. Pakistan denounced the move. China calls for calm.

Sudan's top general Abdel-Fattah Burhan was sworn-in as the leader of a joint military-civilian body created to rule the African country during a three-year transition period toward democratic elections. It came months after the army placed President Omar al-Bashir under house arrest, ending his 30-year rule.

September

Dorian, a category-5 hurricane with maximum sustained winds of 260 km per hour, battered the northern Bahamas, unleashing a storm surge of nearly eight meters. Officially, 67 people were killed, but nearly 300 were reported missing. The damage was estimated at 3.4 billion U.S. dollars. Most of the homes on Abaco Island were destroyed.

Greta Thunberg, a 16-year-old Swedish environmental activist, crossed the Atlantic in a carbon-neutral racing yacht, equipped with solar panels and underwater turbines. Her "how dare you" speech at the United Nations Climate Action Summit – shaming governments, corporations, and the establishment, earned her international praise and made her the young face of the fight against climate change. Thousands joined youth-driven climate protests around the world. Time Magazine named her its "Person of the Year."

October

U.S. President Donald Trump announced the withdrawal of American troops from northeastern Syria. He was denounced by critics who said the U.S. was abandoning its Kurdish allies in the area. The decision prompted a military incursion from Turkey, which said its offensive aimed at neutralizing Kurdish terrorists.

British police found the bodies of 39 people inside a lorry container on the outskirts of London. The victims were later confirmed to be Vietnamese nationals. Authorities believed they were being trafficked.

November

The World Health Organization prequalified an Ebola vaccine for the first time. The Democratic Republic of the Congo reported more than 3,000 infections just this year.

Iraq's Prime Minster Adil Abdul-Mahdi resigned, after weeks of violent and deadly protests across the country, including in the capital, Baghdad. Demonstrators denounced corruption, economic mismanagement, and Iranian influence in Iraqi politics. 

December

Boris Johnson won a clear mandate in the UK elections, taking the country one step closer to its divorce from the European Union, a process dubbed Brexit. Johnson replaced Theresa May as head of the Conservative Party, and thus prime minister, earlier this year after she resigned amid a Tory revolt against her handling of the deal.

Donald Trump became the third president in U.S. history to be impeached when the House of Representatives approved two articles: Abuse of power, and obstruction of Congress. At the core of the lower house inquiry, led by opposition Democratic lawmakers, was a phone call Trump had with Ukraine's new president in which he asked Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden and his son. Biden is among several Democrats running against Trump for the presidency in the 2020 elections.