COVER STORY
The best thing about 2021? Well, it wasn’t as bad 2020, but 2020 was probably the worst year of the century - may be since the bubonic plague. Life started again, with people taking baby steps to test the waters after the pandemic hunkered down. The past twelve months had their ups and downs. New Zealand came and … went. We beat India! Can we ask for more?
Here is how the year went:
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle dropped bombshell accusations against Buckingham Palace in a tell-all interview with Oprah.
Beyoncé became the most-awarded woman in Grammy history.
Africa reported its first Omicron case.
Joseph R. Biden, Jr., was sworn in as the 46th president of the United States
Olympic Games in Tokyo
Goodbye to the iconic duo of Faisal Kapadia and Bilal Maqsood: “We have decided that today, 25/03/2021, is the day we graciously get to conclude STRINGS. The past 33 years have been incredible for both of us. It’s so rare to have the chance to be able to do things like this and we are infinitely grateful to all of our fans for making it possible.”
The ‘Friends’ Cast Reunion.
Britney Spears gains her freedom
Priyantha Kumara Diyawadana, a Sri Lankan citizen lynched by a mob in Sialkot, Pakistan over allegations of blasphemy.
After 20 years of war, the Taliban has swept to victory in Afghanistan.
The rocket company Blue Origin, owned by ex-Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, launched Star Trek actor William Shatner and three others just beyond the boundary marking outer space, making the 90-year-old Shatner the oldest space traveler in history.
WTO members made history when the General Council agreed by consensus to select Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala of Nigeria as the organisation’s seventh Director-General.
The first Nobel laureate from the Philippines, journalist Maria Ressa, was co-awarded the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize for her reporting.
Palestinians hurt when Israeli security forces stormed Al-Aqsa mosque
The German Bundestag elected Olaf Scholz as chancellor
Eccentric billionaire Elon Musk, went into overdrive in 2021. The company’s spacecraft ferried four non-astronauts on a three-day extraterrestrial voyage in the first-ever flight into Earth’s orbit by civilian space tourists.
Facebook has rebranded itself as Meta in an attempt to own the metaverse, a concept for a 3D version of the internet that a number of companies are working on.
The UK, US and Australia (AUKUS) have announced a historic security pact in the Asia-Pacific, in what’s seen as an effort to counter China.
Microsoft pulls the plug on the Internet Explorer