By some mechanism I no longer remember, I became a subscriber to the Gates Notes mailing list a year or so ago, and on December 20th I received an e-newsletter from Bill Gates titled A Year to Remember.  He begins, “Looking back over 2016, I had some incredible experiences” and goes on to highlight amazing people he met and books he read.  “Seriously, Bill?” I thought to myself, “2016 was a year I’ll be happy to forget.”  Then I relented.  After all, I’m not the center of the universe (surprise!), and 2016 featured a number of earth-shaking events.  If Bill can play the long game, I thought, I can do that too.

In fact, when I reached an age milestone not so long ago (I won’t mention which), I started writing my autobiography in the form of a timeline.  Year by year and month by month, I listed my own life events, but I also picked out world events which I thought were important enough that I ought to recognize I lived through them.  I haven’t updated my autobiography recently, so today I decided to review the past year’s world historical events and then incorporate these into the impersonal part of my life in 2016 (and no, I’m not going to list any personal milestones this year).  For past years, I limited myself to one or two events per month; that’s what you see below.

• Jan:  WHO confirms outbreak of Zika virus.
• Feb: Pope Francis meets with Patriarch Kirill.  LIGO discovers gravitational waves.
• Mar: AlphaGo wins match against human Go master.  ISIL carries out terrorist bombings in Brussels.
• Apr: ICIJ leaks the Panama Papers from Mossack Fonseca.
• May: Iraqi Army battles ISIS for control of Fallujah.  State of emergency declared in Venezuela.
• Jun: Britain votes to leave the European Union.  Gun and bomb attack at Istanbul Airport produces many casualties.
• Jul: Solar Impulse completes circumnavigation of the globe.  Coup in Turkey fails.
• Aug: Brazil hosts successful Olympic games.  Earthquake measuring 6.2 damages central Italy.
• Sep: US and China ratify the Paris Climate Agreement.
• Oct: Peace deal with FARC rejected in Colombian referendum.
• Nov: Donald Trump elected 45th president of the US.  India demonetizes 500 and 1000 bank notes.
• Dec: Syrian government forces retake Aleppo.  Italian Prime Minister Renzi resigns.

Good-bye, 2016.  Have a safe and festive New Year’s Eve, and ring in 2017!