2014: Year in Review

January 11 - Ariel Sharon, 11th Prime Minister of Israel, dies at age 85 after spending eight years in a coma.

January 27 - Pete Seeger, American singer, songwriter, musician, and activist, dies at age 94.

February – The Ebola virus epidemic in West Africa begins, infecting over 20,000 people and killing at least 7,000 people, the most severe both in terms of numbers of infections and casualties.

February 2 - Philip Seymour Hoffman, American actor, dies at age 46 from a drug overdose.

February 7 – The 22nd Olympic Winter Games are held in Sochi, Russia.

February 10 - Shirley Temple, American actress and diplomat, dies at age 85 from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).

February 13 – Belgium becomes the first country in the world to legalise euthanasia for terminally ill patients of any age.

February 22 – The Ukrainian parliament votes to remove President Viktor Yanukovych from office, replacing him with Oleksandr Turchynov, after days of civil unrest left around 100 people dead in Kiev.

February 24 - Harold Ramis, American film director, writer, and actor, dies at age 69 from complications of autoimmune inflammatory vasculitis.

February 26 – The pro-Russian unrest in Ukraine leads to the annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation and an insurgency in the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts.

March 5 – Nicolás Maduro, the President of Venezuela, severs diplomatic and political ties with Panama, accusing Panama of being involved in a conspiracy against the Venezuelan government.

March 8 – Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, a Boeing 777 airliner en route to Beijing from Kuala Lumpur, disappears over the Gulf of Thailand with 239 people on board. The aircraft is presumed to have crashed into the Indian Ocean.

March 19 - Fred Phelps, American pastor, dies at age 84.

March 24 – During an emergency meeting, the United Kingdom, the United States, Italy, Germany, France, Japan, and Canada temporarily suspend Russia from the G8.

March 31 – The United Nations International Court of Justice rules that Japan's Antarctic whaling program is not scientific but commercial and forbids grants of further permits.

April 6 - Mickey Rooney, American actor, dies at age 93.

April 14 – An estimated 276 girls and women are abducted and held hostage from a school in Nigeria.

April 16 – Korean ferry MV Sewol capsizes and sinks after an unmanageable cargo shift, killing 304 people, mostly high school students.

April 27 – The Catholic Church simultaneously canonizes Popes John XXIII and John Paul II.

May 5 - The World Health Organization identifies the spread of polio in at least 10 countries as a major worldwide health emergency.

May 5 - Boko Haram militants kill approximately 300 people in a night attack on Gamboru Ngala.

May 20 – Terrorists in Nigeria detonate bombs at Jos, killing 118 people.

May 22 – The Royal Thai Army overthrows the caretaker government of Niwatthamrong Boonsongpaisan after a failure to resolve the political unrest in Thailand.

May 25 - Wojciech Jaruzelski, Communist leader of Poland, dies at age 90 after suffering a stroke earlier that month.

May 28 - Maya Angelou, American poet and author, dies at age 86.

June 5 – A Sunni militant group called the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (also known as the ISIS or ISIL) begins an offensive through northern Iraq, aiming to capture the Iraqi capital city of Baghdad and overthrow the Shiite government led by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

June 15 - Casey Kasem, American radio host and voice actor, dies at age 82 from Parkinson's disease.

June 26 - Howard Baker, Republican Senator from Tennessee and Senate Majority Leader (1981-1985), dies at age 88 after a stroke he suffered the week prior.

July 8 – Amid growing tensions between Israel and Hamas following the kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teenagers in June and the revenge killing of a Palestinian teenager in July, Israel launches Operation Protective Edge on the Palestinian Gaza Strip starting with numerous missile strikes, followed by a ground invasion a week later. In 7 weeks of fighting, 2,100 Palestinians and 71 Israelis are killed.

July 14 - Alice Coachman, the first black woman to win an Olympic gold medal, dies at age 90 from cardiac arrest after respiratory problems.

July 17 - Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, a Boeing 777, crashes in eastern Ukraine after being shot down by a missile. All 298 people on board are killed.

July 19 - James Garner, American actor, dies at age 86 from an acute myocardial infarction.

July 24 – Air Algérie Flight 5017 crashes in Mali, killing all 116 people on board.

August 7 – Khmer Rouge leaders Nuon Chea and Khieu Samphan are found guilty of crimes against humanity and are sentenced to life imprisonment by the Khmer Rouge Tribunal.

August 8 – The United States military begins an air campaign in northern Iraq to stem the influx of ISIS militants.

August 11 - Robin Williams, American actor and comedian, dies at age 63 from suicide by asphyxiation.

August 24 - Richard Attenborough, British actor and film director, dies at age 90.

August 28 - Glenn Cornick, British bass guitarist a founding member of the band Jethro Tull, dies at age 67 due to congestive heart failure.

September 4 - Joan Rivers, American comedian, actress, and television host, dies at age 81 after complications from minor throat procedure.

September 22 – The United States and several Arab partners begin their airstrike campaign in Syria.

October 19 – The Roman Catholic Church beatifies Pope Paul VI.

November 2 – The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) releases the final part of its Fifth Assessment Report, warning that the world faces "severe, pervasive and irreversible" damage from global emissions of CO2.

November 12 – The Rosetta spacecraft's Philae probe successfully lands on Comet 67P, the first time in history that a spacecraft has landed on such an object.

December 17 – President Barack Obama announces the resumption of normal relations between the U.S. and Cuba.

December 28 – Indonesia AirAsia Flight 8501 disappears on a flight between Surabaya, Indonesia and Singapore with 162 people aboard. The plane is later found to have crashed in the Java Sea off the coast of Borneo.

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