At the Iowa caucuses on January 3, the first major electoral event of the U.S. presidential nomination process, Barack Obama, a first-term African-American U.S. senator from Illinois, was victorious among the field of Democratic candidates, while Mike Huckabee, a Baptist minister and former governor of Arkansas who was largely unknown outside his home state until a few months before the caucuses, came out on top for the Republicans.

Following a record voter turnout among Democrats, Obama defeated U.S. Senator Hillary Clinton of New York, who several months earlier had been considered the front-runner. Prior to his victory in Iowa, a predominantly white state, Obama faced questions about whether Americans would vote for a black man for president. Clinton came in third place, while John Edwards, a former U.S. senator from North Carolina, was second. The other major candidates included Bill Richardson, Joe Biden, Christopher Dodd, Dennis Kucinich and Mike Gravel.

At the Republican caucuses, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney was second after Huckabee; U.S. Senator John McCain of Arizona was third. The other candidates included Ron Paul, Fred Thompson, Rudy Giuliani, Duncan Hunter and Alan Keyes.

After almost 50 years in charge, ailing Cuban president Fidel Castro, age 81, announced on February 19 that he wouldn't seek or accept another term. Five days later, on February 24, Raul Castro, age 76, was elected by the National Assembly to succeed his older brother Fidel. Raul Castro participated in the 1959 revolution that brought Fidel to power and turned Cuba into a communist state. Raul Castro had been Cuba’s acting president since July 2006, when Fidel underwent surgery for an undisclosed medical condition.

Upon assuming office, Raul Castro introduced various agricultural reforms and for the first time ever allowed Cubans to buy such items as cell phones and computers and visit tourist hotels. These actions prompted speculation that Castro might move Cuba--where the average worker earns around $20 per month--toward a more capitalist economy.

A year of high-profile political scandals started off with the resignation of corruption-fighting New York Governor Elliot Spitzer on March 12 after he was identified as "Client Number 9" in a high-end prostitution ring. In August, former U.S. Senator John Edwards admitted to having an extra-marital affair with a female staffer who worked on his failed campaign for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination. Edwards denied charges he had fathered the woman’s baby. The following month, Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, who had been embroiled in a variety of controversies while in office, resigned and pled guilty to obstruction of justice and assaulting a police officer. In October, longtime Alaska Senator Ted Stevens, who began serving in the U.S. Senate in 1968, was convicted on corruption charges. In November, Stevens lost his bid for re-election in a close race. In December, in what was perhaps the biggest political scandal of the year, Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich was accused of trying to sell President-elect Barack Obama’s former senate seat, among other corruption charges. Blagojevich proclaimed his innocence and ignored calls for his resignation.

On March 20, the war in Iraq entered its sixth year. Also in March, the total number of U.S. troops killed since the conflict began in 2003 reached 4,000.

A total of 314 American troops died in Iraq in 2008, compared with 904 U.S. soldiers in 2007, according to the U.S. Department of Defense, which credited the decrease in violence to a variety of factors, including the "surge" of 33,000 additional U.S. troops, starting in January 2007. 

While American troops were concentrated in Iraq in 2008 and security there was relatively improved, violence in Afghanistan was on the rise with the resurgence of Taliban and al-Qaeda forces. More than 150 U.S. soldiers died in Afghanistan in 2008, a record high since the fighting there began in October 2001.

Texas authorities raided the Yearning for Zion Ranch on April 3 and removed more than 400 children following charges that girls there were being forced into underage marriages. The ranch, located near the West Texas town of Eldorado, is owned by the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (FLDS), which split from the mainstream Mormon Church in the late 19th century over the issue of polygamy. In 2007, FLDS leader Warren Jeffs was convicted of being an accomplice to rape for forcing an underage girl into marriage.

In late May, the Texas Supreme Court ruled that state authorities had illegally removed the children from the ranch and most were soon returned home. However, by the end of the year a dozen men from the ranch had been indicted on a variety of charges, including sexual assault of a minor.

An earthquake measuring 7.9 on the Richter scale struck southwest China on May 12, leaving some 88,000 people dead or missing and millions more homeless.
Some Chinese scientists later blamed the government for ignoring warnings that the region where the earthquake struck, the mountainous Sichuan Province, was at risk. They claimed government officials had been lax about building codes and safety drills, among other measures that could’ve possibly reduced the death toll. Among the victims were thousands of children, who were killed when their schools were flattened during the massive earthquake.
In the quake's aftermath, the Chinese government accepted relief aid from other countries and allowed foreign journalists to cover the disaster. By contrast, following the 1976 earthquake that hit the Chinese city of Tangshan and killed at least 240,000 people, the government turned down all foreign assistance and tried to cover up details about what happened.  Some observers speculated that China's relative openness to foreign aid in 2008 was strategically designed, in part, to bolster the country's image before it hosted its first Olympic Games, in Beijing, later that summer. 

On May 15, the California State Supreme court struck down the state's ban on same-sex marriage as unconstitutional. A month later, on June 16, California began issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples, the second state, after Massachusetts, to do so.

On November 4, however, same-sex marriage was once again outlawed in America’s most populous state with the passage of Proposition 8, a constitutional amendment that defined marriage as only between men and women. Prop 8, which passed with 52 percent of the vote, was strongly backed by religious leaders and other social conservatives. At the time, an estimated 18,000 gay and lesbian couples had been legally wed in California. Same-sex marriage supporters soon staged mass protests across the U.S., including one outside the headquarters of the Mormon Church in Salt Lake City, Utah. The Mormons played a key role in campaigning for the passage of Proposition 8. By the end of the year, various lawsuits had been filed in California to overturn Prop 8, but same-sex marriage remained illegal.

On June 29, at a hospital in Bend, Oregon, Thomas Beatie, age 34, gave birth to a baby girl, Susan Juliette, who weighs in at 9 pounds, 5 ounces. Beatie, who was born female and competed in beauty pageants growing up, lives legally as a transgender man and is married to a woman. Although he took testosterone and had his breasts surgically removed, Beatie decided to retain his female reproductive organs with the intention of possibly having a baby one day. He became pregnant via artificially inseminated donor sperm. 

In April 2008, Beatie made international headlines when he and his wife went on "The Oprah Winfrey Show" to discuss the pregnancy. By the end of the year, Beatie had published a memoir and announced he was pregnant with his second child.

After more than six years of captivity in the Colombian jungle by Marxist guerillas, Colombian politician Ingrid Betancourt was rescued on July 2. Fourteen other hostages were freed along with the 46-year-old Betancourt, including three American defense contractors who were captured after their plane crashed while they were doing drug surveillance in Colombia in February 2003. Betancourt, who was born in Colombia and raised in France, was campaigning for the Colombian presidency when she was taken hostage in February 2002 by a rebel group known as the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). While in captivity, Betancourt endured mental and physical torture, including being kept in chains for years.

Colombian military forces pulled off the July 2008 rescue by disguising themselves as members of FARC and flying the hostages out of the jungle on a helicopter. Following the dramatic rescue, FARC was believed to still be holding some 700 hostages in jungle camps.

After a record-breaking July 18 opening weekend at the box office and strong reviews from critics, Batman movie The Dark Knight went on to become 2008's top earner, grossing more than $530 million in North America and $466 million abroad. Directed and co-written by Christopher Nolan, The Dark Knight starred Christian Bale as Bruce Wayne/Batman and Heath Ledger as his nemesis The Joker. Tragically, the 28-year-old Ledger had died earlier that year, on January 22, from an accidental prescription-drug overdose at his New York City apartment. The Dark Knight later garnered 8 Oscar nominations, including a Best Supporting Actor nod for Ledger.

Other top-grossing films of 2008 included Iron Man, Indiana Jones and the Castle of the Crystal Skull, Hancock, Wall-E, Kung Fu Panda, Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa, Twilight, Quantum of Solace and Sex and the City. Among the year’s high-profile flops were The Love Guru and Speed Racer.

In August, Michael Phelps, a 23-year-old swimmer from Baltimore, Maryland, won a total of eight gold medals at the Summer Olympics in Beijing, setting a new record for the most gold medals earned during a single Olympics. The previous record-holder was another American swimmer, Mark Spitz, who took home seven gold medals at the 1972 Olympics in Munich, Germany.

Other standouts from the 2008 Summer Games included Jamaican runner Usain Bolt, who earned the "World's Fastest Man" title by setting new world records in the 100- meter and 200-meter dashes, and U.S. swimmer Dara Torres, who at age 41 was competing in her fifth Olympics.

China invested heavily in new athletic facilities for the Olympics, including the Beijing National Stadium, an architectural marvel nicknamed “The Bird’s Nest,” which was the site of a spectacular opening ceremony. However, the Games were not without controversy as the first-time host nation faced questions about alleged human rights violations, air pollution and possible underage female gymnasts on its gold medal-winning national team.

On August 8, fighting erupted between Russia and its neighbor Georgia, an American ally and former member of the Soviet Union. The cause of the conflict was the situation in South Ossetia, a region of Georgia that has unsuccessfully sought its independence since the early 1990s. Many of South Ossetia’s 70,000 residents have Russian passports and Russia has had peacekeeping troops in the region since the 1990s. After skirmishes in early August between Ossetian separatist fighters and Georgian forces, Georgia launched a military attack on South Ossetia. In a show of support for South Ossetia, Russia responded by sending in tanks and thousands of troops, who pushed Georgian forces from South Ossetia and later took over other parts of Georgia.

The conflict increased tensions between Russia and the U.S., which condemned the fighting and called for its old Cold War enemy to withdraw its troops. Within days after the violence began, French President Nicolas Sarkozy brokered a cease-fire agreement between Russia and Georgia. Most of the fighting stopped; however, Russia continued to recognize South Ossetia and Abkhazia, another separatist region of Georgia, as independent nations.

In August, researchers at Harvard University announced they had reprogrammed one type of fully developed adult cell into another type in experiments with mice, an advance that could lead to cures for a number of medical conditions ranging from diabetes to heart disease to spinal cord injuries. The Harvard scientists were able to transform cells in the pancreases of mice into insulin-producing cells needed by diabetics. Despite the promise demonstrated by the experiments, it could be years before scientists attempt to convert the function of adult cells in humans.

At the Republican National Convention on September 3 in Minnesota, vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin, the 44-year-old governor of Alaska, delivered an acceptance speech that was seen by an estimated 40 million TV viewers. The charismatic, politically conservative mother of five, who was largely unknown on the national scene prior to her speech, was credited with giving Republican presidential candidate John McCain's campaign an immediate boost in the polls.

After John McCain lost the presidential election to Barack Obama in November, Palin returned to Alaska to resume her duties as governor amidst speculation she might be open to her own bid for the presidency in 2012.

In September, fueled by the ongoing, multi-billion-dollar mortgage crisis, Wall Street experiences what many experts label the biggest economic disaster since the Great Depression. Among the casualties were venerable financial-services giant Lehman Brothers, which filed for bankruptcy; American International Group, the country's largest insurance company, which received an $85 billion bailout from the Federal Reserve Bank; and Washington Mutual, America's biggest savings and loan, which was seized by the government and sold to JP Morgan Chase.

In early October, President George W. Bush signed into law a $700 billion rescue plan proposed by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and intended to get banks to lend more money and stimulate the economy. Some critics charged the plan lacked sufficient government oversight as to how the money would be spent, while others questioned why tax-payer funds were being used to bail out Wall Street firms and their well-paid executives while average Americans struggled.

In September, a tainted-milk scandal that sickened thousands of Chinese children made international headlines. At least six children eventually died from kidney failure and almost 300,000 more became ill after drinking powdered infant formula and other milk products contaminated by melamine, a toxic chemical used to make plastics and fertilizers. Melamine, which produces a falsely high protein count, was added to diluted milk as a way to cut costs and boost profits.

The food-safety scandal in the planet’s most populous nation shook consumer confidence and led to global recalls of Chinese-made dairy products. In December, the chairwoman of one of China’s largest dairy businesses pled guilty to selling adulterated baby formula, even after her company knew it was tainted. In January 2009, she was sentenced to life in prison, while two other major figures in the scandal received death sentences.

In 2007, melamine-tainted pet food from China was blamed for the deaths of thousands of dogs and cats in the U.S.

On October 3, former football star O.J. Simpson was found guilty of 12 charges, including armed robbery and kidnapping, after breaking into a Las Vegas hotel room with five other men in order to steal a collection of sports memorabilia worth thousands of dollars from two collectibles dealers. On December 5, a Las Vegas judge sentenced Simpson, age 61, to at least nine years in prison. At his sentencing, Simpson claimed he hadn't believed he was doing anything wrong in attempting to reclaim the items, which included trophies and family photos that he said had been stolen from his home.

Simpson's conviction came exactly 13 years to the day of his 1995 acquittal in the June 12, 1994, murders of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend, Ronald Goldman. The racially charged "Trial of the Century" generated a massive media frenzy and riveted the general public. The 2008 Las Vegas trial received comparatively little attention from the public.

A genetic test that enables people to get information about their ancestry and their risk for certain diseases was named Time magazine’s invention of the year on October 30. Offered by 23andMe, a Google-funded, California-based company, the $399 test analyzes each customer’s DNA through a saliva sample. While not the only company selling DNA tests, 23andMe "does the best job of making them accessible and affordable," according to Time, which also noted: "We are at the beginning of a personal-genomics revolution that will transform not only how we take care of ourselves but also what we mean by personal information."

On November 4, Barack Obama, a 47-year-old Democratic U.S. Senator from Illinois, defeats John McCain, a 72-year-old Republican U.S. senator from Arizona, to be elected America's 44th president and its first black chief executive. Obama won with 53 percent of the popular vote and 365 electoral votes to McCain's 173. That night, the new president-elect told a huge crowd gathered for a victory celebration in Chicago's Grant Park: "If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible, who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time, who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer."

In addition to Obama's victory, the Democrats won control of both houses of the U.S. Congress for the first time since 1995.

On November 18, pirates hijacked a Saudi Arabia-owned supertanker carrying over $100 million worth of crude oil some 480 miles off the coast of Somalia. Over the course of 2008, the number of attacks on vessels off the Somali coast, one of the world's key shipping lanes, rose sharply and presented a growing threat to international trade.

In certain parts of chaotic, poverty-stricken Somalia, which has been without a functioning government since 1991, the pirates, who raked in millions of dollars in ransom, were viewed as modern-day Robin Hoods. Poor coastal villages located near where the hijacked ships were anchored received a huge boost to their economies from pirates with money to spend.

By the end of 2008, some 100 ships had been attacked by Somali pirates. The Saudi supertanker was released in January 2009 for a reported $3 million ransom.

On November 26, a Pakistan-based militant organization, Lashkar-e-Taiba, launches a series of coordinated attacks on two luxury hotels, a railroad station, a tourist cafe and a Jewish center in Mumbai, one of the world's largest cities and the capital of India’s financial and movie-making industries. The 10-man crew of terrorists used bombs and guns to kill more than 160 people and injure hundreds of others during the siege, which lasted three days. The majority of the victims were Indian, but the casualties also included Americans and Europeans, among others. Nine of the 10 terrorists, all of whom were believed to be from Pakistan, were killed by Indian security forces over the course of the attacks. The lone surviving terrorist was taken into custody by the Mumbai police.

In the wake of the attacks, the Indian prime minister called Pakistan "the epicenter of terrorism" but avoided retaliatory military strikes.

On December 11, U.S. financier Bernard Madoff was arrested in New York and charged with securities fraud for allegedly masterminding a massive Ponzi scheme that by his own estimation bilked investors out of some $50 billion. Under the scheme, earlier investors were paid returns with money from later investors. Madoff, age 70 and a former NASDAQ chairman, was arrested after he told his two sons about the alleged fraud and they turned him in to the authorities. Madoff's investment-management business, which he founded in 1960 and eventually turned into a leading Wall Street firm, had an international client list that included banks, charities and celebrities. After news of the scandal broke, one victim, a Frenchman who had invested more than $1 billion with Madoff, committed suicide.

By the end of the year, Madoff, who claimed to have acted alone in the mega-swindle, remained under house arrest, awaiting indictment, at his multi-million-dollar apartment on Manhattan's Upper East Side.

During a December 14 Baghdad news conference given by President George Bush and Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki to discuss a new security agreement, an Iraqi television journalist hurls his shoe at Bush's head and yells in Arabic: "This is a gift from the Iraqis; this is the farewell kiss, you dog." Bush ducked and avoided being hit and the journalist, Muntader al-Zaidi, then threw his other shoe and shouted: "This is from the widows, the orphans and those who were killed in Iraq." The second shoe also missed the president, who later joked, "All I can report is it is a size 10."

In Iraq, throwing a shoe at another person is considered a supreme insult and Zaidi was quickly removed from the room by security guards and arrested. According to some reports, he was later beaten by Iraqi forces. By the end of the year, Zaidi was still in custody and awaiting trial.

On December 19, President George W. Bush signed a $17.4 billion rescue package of loans for ailing auto makers General Motors and Chrysler. In November, the heads of the two companies, Rick Wagoner and Robert Nardelli, testified before Congress that without federal aid they would go out of business by early 2009. The CEO of Ford, Alan Mulally, who also spoke at the hearings, did not request a financial lifeline but favored the bailout in order to prevent the collapse of his company’s large supply network, which it shares with rivals GM and Chrysler.

The Big Three CEOs blamed the growing global economic crisis for their woes; however, critics charged the companies’ troubles were due in part to their continuing production of large, gas-guzzling vehicles that Americans no longer wanted, along with their failure to innovate and be financially competitive. During the Congressional hearings, the CEOs also received flack for flying to Washington on their private jets to ask for tax-payer assistance. When a divided Congress failed to reach an agreement about the auto bailout, President Bush moved forward with his emergency-loan package, deeming the auto industry too critical to the U.S. economy to fail.

Deaths

Sir Edmund Hillary, first person (along with Tenzing Norgay) to summit Mt. Everest, age 88 (d. 1/11)…Bobby Fischer, chess champion, age 64 (d.1/17)… Heath Ledger, actor, age 28 (d. 1/22)…William F. Buckley Jr., conservative commentator, age 82 (d. 2/28)… Arthur C. Clarke, science-fiction writer, age 90 (d.3/19)… Charlton Heston, actor, age 84 (d. 4/5)… Robert Rauschenberg, American artist, age 82 (d. 5/12)… Sydney Pollack, movie director, age 73 (d. 5/26)…Yves Saint Laurent, fashion designer, age 71  (d. 6/1)…Bo Diddley, blues musician, age 79 (d. 6/2)…Tim Russert, moderator of TV’s Meet the Press, age 58 (d. 6/13)…George Carlin, comedian, age 71 (d. 6/22)… Jesse Helms, conservative U.S. senator, age 86 (d. 7/4)…Isaac Hayes, singer/actor, age 65 (d. 8/10)… Paul Newman, actor, age 83 (d. 9/26)…Studs Turkel, oral historian, age 96 (d. 10/31)… Michael Crichton, best-selling novelist, age 66 (d. 11/4)…Sunny von Bulow, heiress who spent decades in a coma, age 76 (d. 12/6)…Bettie Page, 1950s pin-up model, age 85 (d. 12/11)…Mark Felt, “Deep Throat” Watergate whistleblower, age 95 (d. 12/18)…Eartha Kitt, singer/actress, age 81 (d. 12/25)