In 2018, the nation bid farewell to two Republican giants. Deadly fires scorched California, and Hurricane Michael seemed to come out of nowhere. An American actress became a British princess, and a shooting at a Florida school seemed painfully familiar. Migrants dreaming of Europe braved the Mediterranean, and migrants fleeing Central America flocked to the U.S. border.

J.David Ake / AP

1/50 January The Jefferson Memorial is reflected in the frozen surface of the Tidal Basin at daybreak in Washington on Jan 8.

Kenneth Song / Santa Barbara News-Press via Reuters

2/50 Firefighters rescue Lauren Cantin, 14, after she was trapped inside a home destroyed by a mudslide in Montecito, California, on Jan. 9. She was discovered when firefighters using search dogs heard a scream. Rescuers worked for over six hours to free her.

Chris Wattie / Reuters

3/50 February Patrick Robinson of the Philadelphia Eagles celebrates his team’s victory over the New England Patriots in the Super Bowl in Minneapolis on Feb. 4. The underdog Eagles defeated the Patriots, 41-33, to win their first Super Bowl.

Adnan Abidi / Reuters

4/50 A mahout bathes his elephant in the Yamuna river in New Delhi on Feb. 6.

SpaceX

5/50 “Starman” sits at the steering wheel of a Tesla as it leaves Earth in the distance after both were launched into space aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket on Feb. 6. Nine months later, the spacesuit-wearing mannequin and its Tesla Roadster had sped beyond the orbit of Mars, the aerospace manufacturer said Nov. 2 in a tweet.

Joe Raedle / Getty Images

6/50 Students walk out of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, on Feb. 14 after a former student opened fire, killing 17 people and wounding 17 others. The ex-student was taken into custody about a mile away.

Alexander Zemlianichenko / AP

7/50 March Journalists watch as Russian President Vladimir Putin delivers his annual state of the nation address in Moscow on March 1, where he boasted of a new generation of nuclear weapons. The array includes an intercontinental ballistic missile that can reach almost any target in the world and renders defense systems “useless,” Putin announced.

Amer Almohibany / AFP - Getty Images

8/50 A Syrian girl receives treatment as victims of reported airstrikes are brought to a makeshift hospital in the rebel-held enclave of eastern Ghouta on the outskirts of Damascus on March 7. The Syrian government, determined to wrest the area from the control of rebels after seven years of war, resorted to extreme levels of shelling and bombardment to clear the way for its troops to advance on the ground.

Tech. Sgt. Gregory Brook / U.S. Air Force via Reuters

9/50 A U.S. Army crew chief on board a CH-47F Chinook helicopter observes the successful test of flares during a training flight in Afghanistan on March 14.

Jeff Pachoud / AFP - Getty Images

10/50 Skiers compete during the first stage of the 33rd edition of the Pierra Menta ski mountaineering competition in Areches-Beaufort, France, on March 14.

Abdulmonam Eassa / AFP - Getty Images

11/50 A woman and child walk down a destroyed street as civilians and rebels prepare to evacuate one of the few remaining rebel-held pockets in Arbin, eastern Ghouta, on March 24, as the government moved closer to securing the outskirts of the capital.

Mosa’ab Elshamy / AP

12/50 April Tree-climbing goats feed on an Argania Spinosa, known as an Argan tree, in Essaouira, southwestern Morocco, on April 4. By eating the fruit and spitting out the seeds, the goats help in the process of manufacturing Argan oil.

Mohammed Salem / Reuters

13/50 Palestinian demonstrators clash with Israeli troops at the Israel-Gaza border on April 6. Palestinians say the protesters are demanding the right of refugees to return to homes their families fled or were driven from when Israel was founded 70 years ago.

Edgard Garrido / Reuters

14/50 Central American migrants, part of a caravan traveling through Mexico, in the open wagon of a freight train in Hidalgo State on April 14.

Lu Hui / Xinhua via AP

15/50 Fog drifts across skyscrapers on the waterfront in Qingdao in eastern China’s Shandong Province on April 20.

Mark Peterson / Redux Pictures

16/50 Members of the National Socialist Movement hold a rally in Temple, Georgia, on April 21.

Korea Summit Press Pool via AP

17/50 North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, left, with South Korean President Moon Jae-in at the truce village of Panmunjom in the Demilitarized Zone on April 27. After a year of tensions, the first North-South Korea summit in more than a decade began with a handshake. Their hands still clasped, Moon invited the North Korean leader into the South for the first time, just one step over a line marked by an ankle-high strip of concrete.

Mario Tama / Getty Images

18/50 May An ash plume from the Kilauea volcano rises in the distance behind golfers on Hawaii’s Big Island on May 15.

Bruce Omori / Paradise Helicopters via EPA

19/50 A fast-moving lava flow consumes everything in its path, setting a home on fire near Pahoa, Hawaii, on May 19. Lava from the volcano destroyed hundreds of homes on Hawaii’s Big Island.

Danny Lawson / Pool via AP

20/50 Meghan Markle walks down the aisle at her wedding to Prince Harry at St. George’s Chapel in Windsor Castle on May 19. The son of British royalty and the daughter of middle-class Americans wed in a service that reflected the groom’s royal heritage, Markle’s biracial roots and the pair’s shared commitment to putting a more diverse, modern face on the monarchy.

Jesco Denzel / German Federal Government via Getty Images

21/50 June German Chancellor Angela Merkel with President Donald Trump during the G-7 summit in La Malbaie, Quebec, on June 9. The gathering, which included Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, also with folded arms, and French President Emmanuel Macron, next to Merkel, was marked by sharp disagreements over Trump’s decision to impose higher import taxes on aluminum and steel imports. After leaving, Trump tweeted that he would instruct U.S. officials not to endorse the G-7 statement, after objecting to comments from Trudeau, the summit’s host.

John Moore / Getty Images

22/50 A 2-year-old girl cries as her mother is searched and detained near the U.S.-Mexico border on June 12 in McAllen, Texas. The asylum-seekers from Honduras had rafted across the Rio Grande from Mexico and were detained by U.S. Border Patrol agents before being sent to a processing center.

Mike Blake / Reuters

23/50 Immigrant children at a detention facility next to the Mexican border in Tornillo, Texas, on June 18. The Trump administration vastly expanded its ability to hold immigrant children in temporary tent shelters before they were united with parents, other relatives or sponsors.

Rob Blakers / AAP via Reuters

24/50 Wearing nothing but red caps, swimmers return to shore at dawn in Hobart, Australia, during the Dark Mofo Nude Solstice Swim on June 22. More than 1,500 swimmers participated.

Kena Betancur / Getty Images

25/50 Members of the New York City Fire Department cheer as a couple gets engaged at the annual Gay Pride Parade on June 24 in New York. The first gay pride parade in the U.S. was held in Central Park on June 28, 1970.

Anton Vaganov / Reuters

26/50 July A ballerina watches the broadcast of the World Cup quarter-final match between Russia and Croatia at the Mikhailovsky Theatre in St. Petersburg, Russia, on July 7. Croatia defeated the host country Russia in a 4-3 shootout following a 2-2 draw.

Alexei Nikolsky / Sputnik - Kremlin pool via AP

27/50 French President Emmanuel Macron cheers on France during the World Cup final against Croatia in Moscow on July 15. Les Bleus won to earn France its second World Cup title in 20 years.

Ronen Zilberman / AFP - Getty Images

28/50 August Transfer cases containing the remains of American soldiers repatriated from North Korea are draped in flags after arriving at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam in Honolulu on Aug. 1. In a solemn ceremony, the remains were escorted by military honor guards onto U.S. soil, 65 years after an armistice ended the conflict and weeks after President Donald Trump received a commitment from North Korean leader Kim Jong Un for their return.

Melissa Delport / @trufflejournal via AFP - Getty Images

29/50 A crowd waits to be evacuated from Gili Trawangan island in Indonesia to neighboring Lombok island on Aug. 6, the day after a 6.9 magnitude earthquake struck the area.

Dean Lewins / EPA

30/50 A dead sheep lies in a dry and dusty field of a failed crop near Parkes, on Aug. 14. The drought in New South Wales this year was the driest and most widespread since 1965.

Korea Pool via AP

31/50 Lee Keum-seom, 92, left, from South Korea, weeps as she meets with her North Korean son, Ri Sang Chol, 71, during a reunion of separated families at the Diamond Mountain resort in North Korea on Aug. 20. Ri was 4 years old when he last saw his mother. Dozens of elderly South Koreans crossed the heavily fortified border into North Korea for heart-wrenching meetings with relatives most hadn’t seen since they were separated during the Korean War.

Paul Sancya / Pool via AFP - Getty Images

32/50 Aretha Franklin was waked in a gold-plated casket at the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History in Detroit on Aug. 28. The “Queen of Soul” was dressed completely in red, including high-heeled pumps, proving, as one person put it, that she was a “diva to the end.”

David Hume Kennerly / McCain family via Reuters

33/50 September Cindy McCain with her husband’s casket during his burial service at the cemetery at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, on Sept. 2. In a five-day procession, the nation said goodbye to Sen. John McCain, the Arizona Republican who died at 81 of brain cancer.

Noah Berger / AP

34/50 A firefighter works to control a backfire as the Delta Fire burns in California’s Shasta-Trinity National Forest on Sept. 6. The fire prompted evacuation orders for scattered homes and buildings in three counties in and around the forest.

Marcos Moreno / AFP - Getty Images

35/50 Migrants are packed into a boat stranded in the Strait of Gibraltar before being rescued on Sept. 8. While the overall number of migrants reaching Europe by sea was down from a peak in 2015, Spain saw a steady increase in arrivals this year and overtook Italy as the preferred destination for people desperate to reach the Continent

Jonathan Drake / Reuters

36/50 Oliver Kelly, 1, is carried off the sheriff’s airboat during his rescue from rising floodwaters in the aftermath of Hurricane Florence in Leland, North Carolina, on Sept. 16.

Evan Vucci / AP

37/50 Supporters of President Donald Trump at a campaign rally on Sept. 20 in Las Vegas.

Jacqueline Larma / AP

38/50 Bill Cosby is led in handcuffs out of the Montgomery County Correctional Facility on Sept. 25 in Eagleville, Pennsylvania, after he was sentenced to three to 10 years in prison for sexual assault. The disgraced comedian was convicted in April of drugging and sexually assaulting Andrea Constand, then Temple University women’s basketball administrator.

Win McNamee / Getty Images

39/50 Christine Blasey Ford is sworn in before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Sept. 27. A professor and research psychologist, Ford accused Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexually assaulting her during a party in 1982 when they were high school students in suburban Maryland.

Juan Medina / Reuters

40/50 October A migrant who was in a group intercepted off the coast in the Mediterranean Sea stands in line after arriving on a rescue boat at the port of Motril, southern Spain, on Oct. 2.

Jewel Samad / AFP - Getty Images

41/50 A passenger ferry sits between two buildings after an earthquake in Wani, Indonesia, on Oct. 3. A magnitude 7.5 earthquake struck at dusk on Sept. 28 and generated a tsunami said to have been as high as 20 feet in places. More than 800 people were killed.

Saul Loeb / AFP - Getty Images

42/50 Melania Trump visits the Giza Pyramids in Egypt on Oct. 6 during the final stop of her weeklong visit to four countries in Africa. It was her first solo trip overseas as first lady.

Joe Raedle / Getty Images

43/50 Kathy Coy stands amid the remains of her home in Panama City, Florida, on Oct. 11, the day after Hurricane Michael made landfall in the Florida Panhandle.

Jonathan Ernst / Reuters

44/50 November CNN’s Jim Acosta questions President Donald Trump at a news conference at the White House on Nov. 7 as an intern reaches for the microphone. Trump’s ongoing feud with Acosta, CNN’s chief White House correspondent, boiled over with Trump verbally berating him and the White House suspending his press access hours later.

Noah Berger / AP

45/50 A van is engulfed in flames as the Camp Fire tears through Paradise, California, on Nov. 8. Tens of thousands of people fled the fast-moving wildfire in Northern California, some clutching babies and pets as they abandoned vehicles and struck out on foot ahead of the flames that forced the evacuation of an entire town and destroyed hundreds of structures.

Mohamed al-Sayaghi / Reuters

46/50 Saleh Hassan al-Faqeh holds the hand of his 4-month-old daughter, Hajar, who died at the malnutrition ward of al-Sabeen hospital in Sanaa, Yemen, on Nov. 15. Hajar was one of thousands of Yemeni children suffering from malnutrition in a country that has been pushed to the brink of famine by more than three years of war.

Kim Kyung Hoon / Reuters

47/50 Maria Meza, 40, a migrant from Honduras who was part of a caravan of thousands from Central America trying to reach the United States, runs from tear gas with her 5-year-old twin daughters, Saira and Cheili Mejia, near the U.S.-Mexico border in Tijuana on Nov. 25. U.S. border agents hurled tear gas canisters as migrants approached the border crossing into San Diego, provoking public outrage.

Marc Lester / Anchorage Daily News via AP

48/50 A car is trapped on a damaged road south of Wasilla, Alaska, after back-to-back earthquakes on Nov. 30. The quakes, measuring 7.0 and 5.7, shattered highways and rocked buildings in Anchorage and the surrounding area, sending people running into the streets and briefly triggering a tsunami warning for islands and coastal areas south of the city.

Kamil Zihnioglu / AP

49/50 December Smoke hangs over Paris as seen from the top of the Arc de Triomphe on Dec. 1. Protests against rising taxes and the high cost of living turned into a riot as police fired tear gas and water cannons in street battles with activists from the “yellow vest” movement.

Alex Brandon / AP