A year of crises — political, humanitarian and environmental — began with the continued devastation in Syria, drawing the conflict into its seventh year.
January 9 Two Syrian sisters embrace after finding each other alive following an air strike on Hamouria, in the besieged rebel-held Eastern Ghouta area near Damascus
Read more: Threat of Syrian home demolitions sparks anger over redevelopment
March 1 Journalists watch as Russian president Vladimir Putin gives his annual state of the nation address in Moscow
Read more: Russian sanctions: why ‘isolation is impossible’
March 8 Members of the emergency services in biohazard suits put up a tent over the bench where Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were found on March 4 in critical condition at The Maltings shopping centre in Salisbury, England
Read more: Novichok attack sheds light on Putin’s feared military agency
March 21 French president Emmanuel Macron, right, and Dutch prime minister Mark Rutte have dinner at the Bistrot deux la Place during Mr Macron’s visit to The Hague, the Netherlands
Read more: Dutch take on Macron with ‘red lines’ over eurozone integration
April 10 Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg is about to testify before a joint hearing of the commerce and judiciary committees on Capitol Hill about the use of Facebook data in targeting American voters in the 2016 election
Read more: Mark Zuckerberg pulls off acrobatics at congressional circus
May 14 Palestinian protesters run for cover from tear gas during clashes near the border with Israeli forces in the east of Gaza Strip. Dozens of people were killed and more than 2,000 others were injured during protests against the US embassy’s move to Jerusalem as well as marking the Nakba day
Read more: At least 52 Palestinians killed in Gaza protests
May 19 Meghan Markle marries Prince Harry in St George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle in England
Read more: Meghan Markle, Prince Harry and the making of the royal mystique
May 26 Supporters celebrate at Dublin Castle following the referendum result on the 8th amendment on Ireland’s abortion laws. Ireland voted in favour of overturning the abortion ban by 66.4 per cent to 33.6 per cent
Read more: Ireland’s abortion battle — ‘We’ve had a lot of silence about this for a long time’
June 9 US president Donald Trump, seated, is surrounded by world leaders, including French president Emmanuel Macron, German chancellor Angela Merkel and Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe
Read more: FT View: Trump goes rogue at the G7
June 12 A two-year-old Honduran asylum seeker cries as her mother is searched and detained near the US-Mexico border in McAllen, Texas. The asylum seekers had rafted across the Rio Grande from Mexico and were detained by US Border Patrol agents before being sent to a processing centre
Read more: Mexico under pressure not to bow to US over immigrants
June 12 US president Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un after a signing ceremony during their historic summit in Singapore. They agreed to negotiate to end a decades-old nuclear stand-off
Read more: In quotes — Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un
July 1 Russia’s football players celebrate after winning a penalty shootout against Spain in the knockout stage of the World Cup at the Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow
Read more: Russia’s economy scores as World Cup fans splash out $1.5bn
July 13 Protesters in Parliament Square, London, gather around a giant balloon depicting US president Donald Trump as an orange baby during a demonstration against his visit to the UK
Read more: Verdi and disco join in harmony against Trump
August 1 People, including a wounded man, take shelter in a stall at a market in Harare after a protest against the results of Zimbabwe’s elections turned bloody
Read more: Zimbabwe election — what the strongman left behind
September 6 Presidential candidate Jair Bolsonaro grimaces after he was stabbed during a rally in Juiz de Fora, Minas Gerais, Brazil
Read more: Who is Jair Bolsonaro? Five facts about Brazil’s president-elect
September 8 Tennis star Serena Williams yells at umpire Carlos Ramos during the US Open women’s final
Read more: Naomi Osaka upsets Serena Williams in US Open final
September 20 UK prime minister Theresa May arrives for a photo with other EU leaders during a summit in Salzburg, Austria
Read more: Salzburg revisited: scale of May’s defeat in Brussels was impossible for her aides to disguise (December 14 2018)
September 27 US Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh testifies during his confirmation hearing before a Senate committee
Read more: Kavanaugh and the sorry state of US democracy
September 30 A displaced Yemeni girl looks out of the window of a damaged house where she and her family have been living since they sought refuge earlier this year in the south-western Yemeni city of Taez
Read more: FT View: Riyadh must be pressed to end its war in Yemen
October 23 This photo, released by the Saudi Press Agency, shows Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, right, shaking hands with Salah Khashoggi, a son of Jamal Khashoggi, the journalist who was killed in the Saudi consulate in Turkey
Read more: The Khashoggi affair could disrupt the Saudi succession
October 23 A trader on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. Stocks opened sharply lower on Wall Street following big drops in Asia and Europe
Read more: Charts of the Year: US market volatility likely to persist
November 6 Democratic congressional candidate Ilhan Omar, a Somali-American, at her election night party in Minneapolis, Minnesota
Read more: In charts: what we learnt from the midterm elections
November 25 A migrant from Honduras, part of a caravan of thousands from Central America trying to reach the US, runs away from tear gas with her children in front of the border wall between the US and Mexico, in Tijuana
Read more: Tensions rise as migrants rush US-Mexico border fence
November 11 A burnt car and a petrol station after the Camp Fire that tore through California
Read more: Insurers grapple with increasing wildfire risk
December 1 Protesters during a ‘gilets jaunes’ demonstration near the Arc de Triomphe in Paris
Read more: ‘Look at me, I exist’: French protesters send message to Macron
Helen Healy is the FT’s Head of Pictures
