It’s been a big year. The moon visited Earth (kind of), a death curse swept through our ranks and a guy in a terrible wig landed the top job. Here are the biggest events of 2016 and why we failed.
Trump became President
For the rest of their lives, people around the world will remember where they were the day Donald Trump won the US Presidential Election. Even after the announcement was made, most of us wanted to believe it was a joke – perhaps The Apprentice host would pull off his hair piece and say this was all a test that we failed and now we’re fired. There’s still time for that to be true, right?
There was a Supermoon (apparently)
If you went outside on the night of Monday 14 November expecting to see werewolves and lunatics scampering around, you would’ve been disappointed. All the same, NASA told us that the supermoon that was supposed to light up the night sky would be the fullest and closest moon that the Earth had seen in nearly 70 years. In spite of the cloud cover, people emerged from their homes in droves to catch a glimpse of the scientifically-termed, perigee-syzygy that was said to be the brightest of the century. And if you stayed up until the wee hours of the morning, just before it started turning light, you might have glanced up absent-mindedly to see that the clouds had parted to reveal what was indeed, a tremendously white, bright moon.
That embarrassing Census thing happened
In the weeks leading up to the Census, all we heard about was how very necessary and important it was that we all complete it by the deadline. Well, no one wanted to cop a $180 fine. When the highly-anticipated night came, only about 2 million Aussies got their papers in before the website crashed. Like schoolkids, the Prime Minister blamed IBM and the ABS and the ABS blamed hackers. Anyway, in the end they all got together and put the website back up. Meanwhile, the rest of us managed to have a little giggle before getting on with our homework.
The 2016 death curse
They say deaths come in threes and, in January, that couldn’t have been truer. In a single month, our friends Pat Harrington, Alan Rickman and David Bowie all departed this world. But our losses in 2016 didn’t stop there. By February, Harper Lee had told her last story. By April, Prince had abdicated his throne. In June, Muhammad Ali tapped out for the last time. In August, Gene Wilder left for the chocolate factory in the sky and by November, Fidel Castro had set off to lead the ultimate revolution and Leonard Cohen went to serenade them all. And I hate to say it, but we still have to get through December.
The UK broke up with the EU
No man is an island but the UK is willing to try its luck. In June, after 43 years of loyalty, the people of the UK called it quits with the European Union, deciding to strike out on their own. In a nation-wide referendum, 52 per cent of people voted in favour of leaving the EU, a monumental decision that will forever be known as ‘Brexit’. The withdrawal, met with worldwide criticism, is set to be formalised by the end of March 2017.
What are some other memorable events that happened in 2016?
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