On February 2, 2014, Philip Seymour Hoffman, considered one of the most talented and versatile actors of his generation, dies of a drug overdose at age 46 in New York City. During his career, the prolific performer appeared in more than 50 movies, including Capote, Doubt and The Hunger Games series, and earned a reputation for playing difficult or quirky characters. Hoffman also was an accomplished stage actor and director.

On February 10, 2014, Shirley Temple Black, who as a child in the 1930s became one of Hollywood’s most successful stars, dies at her Woodside, California, home at age 85. The plucky, curly-haired performer sang, danced and acted in dozens of films by the time she was a teen; as an adult, she gave up making movies and served as a U.S. diplomat.

On February 22, 2014, one of the world’s most-wanted criminals, Joaquin “El Chapo” (“Shorty”) Guzmán Loera, head of the Sinaloa cartel, the world’s biggest drug trafficking organization, is captured and arrested in a joint U.S.-Mexican operation in Mazatlán, Mexico, after outrunning law enforcement for more than a decade.

On February 23, 2014, Brooklyn Nets center Jason Collins becomes the first openly gay athlete to play in a game in the United States’ four major professional leagues. The 35-year-old journeyman plays 10 scoreless minutes, recording two rebounds and five fouls in the Nets’ 108-102 victory over the Los Angeles Lakers.

On March 8, 2014, Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, carrying 227 passengers and 12 crew members, loses contact with air traffic control less than an hour after taking off from Kuala Lumpur, then veers off course and disappears. Most of the plane, and everyone on board, are never seen again.

On March 22, 2014, 43 people die when a portion of a hill suddenly collapses and buries a neighborhood in the small community of Oso, Washington, some 55 miles northeast of Seattle. It was one of the deadliest mudslides in U.S. history.

On April 18, 2014, 16 Nepali mountaineering guides, most of them ethnic Sherpas, are killed by an avalanche on Mt. Everest. It was one of the deadliest accidents in the history of the Himalayan peak, which rises more than 29,000 feet above sea level and lies across the border between Nepal and China.

On April 25, 2014 officials from Flint, Michigan switched the city’s water supply to the Flint River as a cost-cutting measure for the struggling city. In doing so, they unwittingly introduced lead-poisoned water into homes, in what would become a massive public-health crisis.

On May 16, 2014, broadcast journalist and TV personality Barbara Walters retires from ABC News and as co-host of the daytime program “The View.” In a landmark career that spanned some 50 years on air, the 84-year-old Walters blazed a trail for women in TV news. On Walter’s May 16th “View” sendoff, Oprah Winfrey, Diane Sawyer and Katie Couric were among the more than two dozen female broadcasters who appeared on the show to pay tribute to the legendary newswoman.

On May 29, 2014, Laverne Cox, the transgender actor and advocate best known for her Emmy-winning performance on Orange Is the New Black, appears on the cover of TIME magazine's June 14 issue for their story "The Transgender Tipping Point." The moment is widely cited as a turning point for transgender representation in mainstream media.

When the clock struck midnight on June 19, 2014, King Juan Carlos I of Spain’s nearly 40-year reign came to an end. Two weeks after abdicating the Spanish throne amidst sagging approval ratings, Juan Carlos symbolically removed his red sash—signifying his status as leader of the Spanish military—and wrapped it around the waist of his son, 46-year-old Crown Prince Felipe.

On July 17, 2014, two New York Police Department officers confront Eric Garner, a 43-year-old African American father of six, for illegally selling cigarettes. Garner dies after losing consciousness as a police officer locks him in an illegal chokehold, and within hours, a video of the incident begins to spark outrage across the country.

On July 17, halfway through a flight from Amsterdam to Malaysia, a passenger plane was shot down in Eastern Ukraine, near the war-torn border with Russia. All 298 people on board, most of whom were citizens of the Netherlands, died in the explosion.

On August 9, 2014, police officer Darren Wilson shoots and kills Michael Brown, an unarmed Black teenager, in Ferguson, Missouri, a suburb of St. Louis. Protests and riots ensue in Ferguson and soon spread across the country.

Robin Williams, the prolific Oscar-winning actor and comedian, dies by suicide on August 11, 2014. He was 63.

On August 12, 2014, smoky-voiced actress Lauren Bacall dies at her New York City home at age 89. Having shot to fame in her debut film To Have and Have Not (1944), in which she appeared opposite Humphrey Bogart, with whom she would have a legendary romance, Bacall forged a lasting career that spanned nearly 70 years and more than 40 films, including The Big Sleep, (1946) How to Marry a Millionaire (1953) and The Mirror Has Two Faces (1996).

On September 4, 2014, Joan Rivers, one of the best-known comedians of her era, dies at age 81 in a New York City hospital, a week after she went into cardiac arrest while undergoing a medical procedure on her vocal cords at a Manhattan clinic. During a showbiz career that spanned more than five decades, Rivers blazed a trail for women in stand-up comedy and turned “Can we talk?” into a national catchphrase. No topic was taboo for the irreverent, sharp-tongued performer, who poked fun at her personal life and affinity for plastic surgery, skewered Hollywood celebrities and once said, “I succeeded by saying what everyone else is thinking.”

On September 12, 2014, South African track star Oscar Pistorius is found guilty of culpable homicide—a charge comparable to manslaughter—for killing his girlfriend, model and reality television star Reeva Steenkamp. 

The podcast Serial, a spinoff of the long-running radio program This American Life, debuts on October 3, 2014, and quickly becomes a smash hit.

On October 8, 2014, Thomas Eric Duncan, the first person diagnosed with a case of the Ebola Virus Disease in the U.S., dies at age 42 at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas. Shortly before his death, Duncan, who lived in Liberia, had traveled to America from West Africa, which was in the throes of the largest outbreak of the often-fatal disease since its discovery in 1976. After Duncan passed away, two nurses who’d cared for him at the Dallas hospital contracted Ebola; however, both recovered.

On October 10, 2014, activist Malala Yousafzai, age 17, wins the Nobel Peace Prize. A fierce advocate for girls' education, in her native Pakistan and around the world, she is the youngest-ever Nobel laureate.

One World Trade Center officially opens in Manhattan on November 3, 2014. The new tower, along with the rest of the World Trade Center complex, replaced the Twin Towers and surrounding complex, which were destroyed by terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001.

On November 22, 2014, 12-year-old Tamir Rice is shot dead by police officers in Cleveland, Ohio. Rice, who was carrying a realistic-looking toy gun at the time, was one of several African Americans killed by American law enforcement at the time whose deaths garnered national attention, making him a martyr of the burgeoning Black Lives Matter movement.