No matter how hard I tried, no matter which search engine I used, I could not find a single site taking a look back at the top events of the past year. Therefore, I decided to create my own article, summarizing what I consider to be the best and worst times of 2008! Keep in mind that this list doesn’t incorporate every single event that happened in the last 12 months; otherwise it would take me forever to write it. This list is just a summary of the most important events of 2008.

January 2008 

• Fears of an upcoming recession cause the stock market to begin to plunge.
• Heath Ledger, an actor in Brokeback Mountain and in Batman: The Dark Knight, dies.
• George Bush gives his final State of the Union address.
• The U.S. House of Representatives issues a $146 billion economic stimulus package.
• Asia and Africa lose the ability to use the internet when two underwater cables are damaged.

February 2008 

• The New York Giants defeat the New England Patriots (17 to 14) in Super Bowl XLII.
• The Writers Guild of America ends their strike.
• Toshiba stops making HD DVDs, letting Sony’s Blu-Ray Disc win the format war.
• Man named “Osama bin London” discovered running terrorist camps in the United Kingdom.
• England endures the biggest earthquake in 25 years.
• European Union penalizes Microsoft 899 million Euros.

March 2008 

• Alberta, Canada elects their 11^th consecutive Progressive Conservative government.
• Olympic Gold Medalist Marion Jones goes to jail for past steroid use.
• New York Governor Eliot Spitzer is discovered to have participated in an online prostitution ring.
• A new record is set when oil reaches $110 a barrel.
• The last World War 1 French veteran dies at the age of 110.
• Ford sells its Jaguar and Land Rover brands for $2.3 billion.

April 2008 

• A free trade agreement is signed between China and New Zealand.
• Korea sends its first Korean astronaut into space.
• Delta Airlines bought over control of Northwest Airlines.
• Montreal Canadians defeat the Boston Bruins in the NHL first round playoffs.
• The longest hockey game in the American Hockey League is played, lasting almost 83 minutes.
• In Toronto, Canada, the Toronto Transit Commission goes on strike.
• Mars Inc. buys out Wrigley Gum for $23 billion.
• Hewlett Packard creates the memristor to join the capacitor, resistor and inductor.

May 2008 

• Barbara Walters explains her affair with U.S. Senator Edward Brooke.
• Microsoft takes back its bid to buy over Yahoo! due to failed price negotiations.
• A new record is set when oil reaches $130 a barrel.
• Hewlett Packard buys out Electronic Data Systems for $13.9 billion.
• CBS buys out CNET for $1.75 billion.
• California Supreme Court rules in favor of same-sex marriage.
• Leaning Tower of Pisa is stabilized and will continue to be stable for the next 200 years.
• New York Governor David Patterson recognizes gay marriages performed in other jurisdictions.

June 2008 

• China bans all of the country’s stores from selling plastic bags.
• Universal Studios in Los Angeles deals with a large fire and explosion.
• Pittsburgh Penguins defeated by Detroit Redwings in the Stanley Cup final.
• A new record is set when oil reaches $138.54 a barrel.
• Apple introduces the iPhone 3G.
• McDonald’s temporarily  stops serving tomatoes due to Salmonella outbreak.
• Spanish truck drivers strike over the high cost of Diesel.
• Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper apologizes to Aboriginals for residential schools.
• Mozilla releases Firefox 3.0, the latest version of their internet browser.
• Bill Gates finishes working at Microsoft.
• Robert Mugabe once again becomes the Zimbabwe President, after Morgan Tsvangirai drops out because of the violence against his supporters.

July 2008 

• Starbucks closes 600 of its coffee shops.
• Google ordered to send data to Viacom regarding what videos a YouTube user watches.
• Water is discovered in Mercury’s atmosphere.
• NBC takes over control of the Weather Channel.
• Dog meat is banned from Chinese restaurants during the Olympics.
• Bush allows off-shore oil drilling.
• Batman: The Dark Knight opens with $158.4 million ticket sales for its first weekend.
• Google exceeds the 1 trillion mark in unique pages added to its search database.
• A liquid lake is found on Titan by NASA.
• Water is discovered on Mars.
• Chinese officials attempt to reduce pollution in Beijing by reducing traffic and closing factories.

August 2008 

• The United States unemployment rate reaches 5.7% with 84,000 jobs lost.
• The 2008 Summer Olympics kick off in Beijing, China. Stephanie Rice, Usain Bolt and Michael Phelps are among the top Olympic athletes of this season.
• A propane facility explodes in Toronto, Canada.
• Russia threatens Poland when the United States places a missile-defense base on Polish land.
• A listeriosis outbreak in the Maple Leaf foods plant in Toronto, Canada kills 12 people.
• Barack Obama accepts the nomination to lead the Democratic Party. Joe Biden is selected as the vice-presidential nominee.
• John McCain selects Sarah Palin to run as his vice-presidential nominee.

September 2008 

• Sarah Palin’s 17-year-old daughter is discovered as being 5 months pregnant.
• John McCain accepts the nomination to lead the Republican Party.
• U.S. government plans to take over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
• Serena Williams wins the female U.S. open.
• Canada prepares for an October election as Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper unexpectedly dissolves Parliament.
• Roger Federer wins the male U.S. open.
• Apple introduces the new fourth-generation iPod Nano.
• OPEC cuts oil production by 500,000 barrels a day.
• Lehman Brothers files for bankruptcy.
• Hewlett-Packard cuts 24,600 jobs.
• Ozone hole over the Antarctic expands to 27 million square kilometers.
• Television networks air the 60^th Primetime Emmy Awards.
• New York Yankees play at Yankee Stadium for the last time.
• U.S. asks for $700 billion bailout, but is rejected by the House of Representatives.
• Dow Jones endures the biggest one-day point-drop in history, falling 777 points.

October 2008 

• O.J. Simpson convicted of armed robbery and kidnapping.
• Sarah Palin and Joe Biden debate against each other.
• Senior British Commander tells reporters it is impossible to win a military victory in Afghanistan.
• Dow Jones breaks its previous month record drop by dropping 800 points in one day.
• NATO plans on launching seven warships to attack pirate vessels in the waters near Somalia.
• Alaskan committee finds Sarah Palin guilty of firing Public Safety Commissioner Walter Monegan.
• Connecticut Supreme Court allows gay and lesbian marriages.
• Canada has its 40^th general election. Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper gets re-elected under another minority government, this time with 19 more Conservative seats.
• North Korea threatens to turn South Korea into “debris.”
• British Columbia, Canada endures two bombings of a gas pipeline.

November 2008 

• Barack Obama wins the 2008 United States Presidential Election.
• The passage of California Proposition 8 redefines marriage as a union between a man and a woman, thus overriding the Supreme Court’s decision in May to allow same-sex marriage.
• United States unemployment rate reaches its highest amount in 14 years.
• A group of over one million people located in over 300 U.S. cities protest the passage of Proposition 8.
• Japan explains that they too have now entered into a period of recession.
• Pepsi lays off 3,000 company workers.
• California Supreme Court agrees to hear the challenge to Proposition 8.
• Nepal Supreme Court allows foreign same-sex marriages for Nepalese people.
• The first deep-space communications protocol is tested by NASA. The results are successful, leading the way for interplanetary internet.
• NASA discovers large amounts of frozen underground water on Mars.
• Scientists search for remains of a meteorite that struck northern Canada, between the Alberta and Saskatchewan border.
• Dalai Lama states he’s losing confidence in Chinese officials.
• U.S. Federal Reserve releases an $800 billion economic stimulus package.
• Edna Parker, the oldest person currently on the planet, dies at 115 years old.
• Three people die during Black Friday, the start of the Christmas shopping season. Does anyone agree with me in that having the word ‘black’ in the name is a bad omen?
• In Canada, a week after returning to Parliament, the Liberals, NDP and Bloc Quebecois parties disagree with the economic update presented by the Conservatives. They threaten to defeat the Conservatives and form a coalition government amongst themselves, even though Canada just held a $300 million federal election in October 2008, when the Conservatives were re-elected. Many people complain that this idea of a “coalition government” is just a way for the three parties that lost the election to seize power from the democratically-elected Conservatives.

December 2008 

• In Canada, the Liberals, NDP and BQ parties sign a written coalition agreement in an attempt to overthrow the Conservatives.
• O.J. Simpson sentenced to 15-33 years in jail.
• Canadian Liberal Party Leader Stephane Dion resigns as leader of his party.
• Illinois Governor Rob Blagojevich is arrested due to corruption and the attempt to sell Obama’s senate seat to the highest bidder.
• Sony Inc. cuts 8,000 jobs and closes 10% of its plants.
• Canadian Member of Parliament Bob Rae withdraws from the Liberal leadership convention, allowing Michael Ignatieff to take over leadership of the party.
• For the second time in the year, the underwater telecommunications cables providing internet and telephone services to Asia, the Middle East and Europe, are cut.
• Canada announces a $3.3 billion bailout for the automotive industry. United States announces a $17.4 billion bailout.
• Toyota plans on its first operating loss in 70 years.
• Rob Blagojevich appoints Roland Burris to Obama’s vacant senate seat. Senate leaders argue they will not accept the appointment.