Yearly Recap (or What Happened this Year?)

Just wanted to get opinions on what many considered to be some of the most important events of this year (not necessarily good things), related to our site topics of course)....

For me:

The announcement by NASA that there was most likely water on Mars.

Turning over sovereignty in Iraq.

Pursuit of the X-Prize.

The Iraqi prison scandal.

etc. etc. (blanking on such topics, but had the basic idea, as so many media outlets are doing such recaps)....