The following stories will show you how the world fractured in 2017. Our reporters have travelled to different places around the world, to show you different opinions of people. Later we're going to have an expert join us in the studio, to analyze the deep reasons behind the divisions. First, let's turn to the United States, where President Donald Trump promised to heal divisions in the US. But a year later, the gulf-like difference between Democrats and Republicans seems to have widened. CGTN's Owen Fairclough reports from Philadelphia.

Americans fighting each other with fatal consequences. 

A woman is killed last August after a car plows into a crowd in Virginia during demonstrations over removing a monument commemorating the Confederacy - one of a number of controversies that characterized Donald Trump's first year in office.

It's a far cry from the unity that brought the Founding Fathers together to create the United States more than 200 years ago at Philadelphia's Independence Hall.

OWEN FAIRCLOUGH PHILADELPHIA "Millions of people from across the world come here every year to see the table where both the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution were signed two great unifying moments in American history and a sharp contrast with today's politics."

ERIC KNIGHT, RANGER INDEPENDENCE NATIONAL HISTORICAL PARK "You had big personalities, you had Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson - some of the greatest minds of the times. There are arguments, and there are debates. They have to come together to work these things out. What I think people draw from that when they come here is how they were they able to work together."

This historian isn't optimistic about the immediate future of bridging the divisions.

MARY FRANCES BERRY PROFESSOR OF HISTORY, UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA "The people who are posturing for office in the next congressional cycle and for the presidency are mostly taking very sharp positions on an issue rather than trying to propose a middle way. Unfortunately, I foresee more polarization ahead."

But bipartisanship has been in short supply for years - the gap between Democrats and Republicans at its widest, since monitoring by the non-partisan Pew Research Organization began 20 years ago. That's mostly reflected on the streets of Philadelphia.

"There used to be much more of an idea of cooperation and sort of a unified purpose."

"There's no unity at all."

"Too divided, everybody just should just love everybody."

"America - USA - always brings people together."

A plea for unity in the City of Brotherly Love. OFA, CGTN, Philadelphia.