Congratulations! It’s an NBA team! Jay-Z becomes a father twice: on January 7 when Beyonce gives birth to Blue Ivy, and again when he opens the subway-accessible Barclays Center – home to his Brooklyn Nets – with eight sold-out shows. Meanwhile, the world eagerly awaits a YouTube mashup called Call Me Maybe Gangnam Style. Katie Holmes divorces both Tom Cruise and the Scientology Industrial Complex, which barely recovers before The Master goes in for a knockout punch. The Avengers, the Hunger Games and Twilight dominate the box office. On TV, Honey Boo Boo is a thing. Girls makes a star (and a target) out of Lena Dunham. The space shuttles are shipped off to museums, while the private SpaceX missions supply to the space station in their place. Bobak “Mohawk Guy” Ferdowsi lands hearts – and the Mars rover, and Felix Baumgartner takes a giant leap into the history books.

The trailer for anti-Islam film Innocence of Muslims sparks protests across the Middle East and Africa in September. The mysterious film-maker behind it is eventually revealed to be an Egyptian Coptic Christian living in California. LIBYA: A September 11 attack on the US consulate in Benghazi kills four Americans. John McCain seizes on the incident to oppose UN ambassador Susan Rice’s possible nomination to as secretary of state, as Hillary Clinton tries to control the fallout. SYRIA: As forces loyal to Bashar al-Assad fights off rebels, the US says it stands ready to intervene if Assad uses chemical weapons. An American journalist, Austin Tice, has been missing in the country since August. UN: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad visits the US in September to deliver an unhinged speech to the UN general assembly; two days later, Binyamin Netanyahu uses his own speech – with visual aids – to highlight the threat Iran poses to Israel.