By Jonathan Goodison Orr ’18 and William Hayward ’18, Staff Writers

2013 was a year of dynamic change and exciting growth in both economics, politics and social traditions. We got a new Pope, the Harlem Shake and the newest addition to the British Royal Family. However, we must not forget the hardships endured during this past year, such as the Westgate mall attack and the bombings in Boston that shocked the world. Over the course of this article it is our hope that we can properly reflect on the events that shaped the year.

July:

July was a month in which the highs and lows continued. Egyptian Army Chief General Abdul Fatah al-Sisi removed Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi from power in a coup d’état on July 3rd. Morsi, who was the Muslim Brotherhood candidate for president was the first democratically elected president since Dictator Mubarak was deposed. This event casts a serious dark shadow over the future of Egyptian democracy and hopes for the future of the Egyptian Republic as once again, the military has shown they are not prepared to give up power to someone they can’t trust to bend to their will if needed. On the morning of July 13th, in a Seminole County courtroom, George Zimmerman was decided not guilty of the crimes of assaulting, shooting and killing the unarmed 17 year old Trayvon Martin. After days of proceedings and deliberation between an all-female jury (at least a quarter of which were mothers themselves) reached the verdict which caused widespread unrest across the country. The following week saw mass demonstrations calling for a retrial and this time a sentencing, but these demands came to no avail. Many demonstrators saw the verdict as a demonstration of institutionalized prejudice, and that justice was not that day. But supporters of the verdict claim that the shooting was in legitimate self-defense and that Zimmerman is a champion of the 2nd Amendment. Regardless of either sides motivations, the fact is that an unarmed 17 year old was shot and killed, and we as Americans simply cannot let this tragedy repeat itself, white, black, Asian, Latino or otherwise. July 18th the city of Detroit made the largest municipal bankruptcy in US history, estimated to be $18-20 billion dollars in debt.  That bankruptcy was not unexpected, however it was hoped that it could be avoided. Detroit was already having extreme trouble paying its debts, and what at one time was the richest city in America became a city that can hardly keep its lights on. The city’s backbone, the auto industry, has moved to cheaper business climates such as China or Japan while both American and Detroit’s industry has suffered immensely. An emergency financial controller has since been assigned to run the city until its finances come back to life. And although the people of one of Americas most resilient cities are holding strong, the road to Detroit’s future is both bright yet rough. On July 22nd, the Duchess of Cambridge, Catherine, gave birth to a baby George, who is now third in line for the throne. Needless to say, this news garnered worldwide headlines.

August:

August was a relatively quiet month, with the exception of two very tragic deaths. The first on the 21st was the death of American space pioneer and longtime astronaut C. Gordon Fullerton. Fullerton was a United States Air Force colonel, a USAF and NASA astronaut, and a research pilot at NASA’s Dryden Flight Research Facility in Edwards, California. His assignments included a variety of flight research and support activities piloting NASA’s B-52 launch aircraft, the Boeing 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft (SCA), and other multi-engine and high performance aircraft. Fullerton, who logged more than 380 hours in space flight, was a NASA astronaut from September 1969 until November 1986 when he joined the research pilot office at Dryden. In July 1988, he completed a 30-year career with the U.S. Air Force and retired as a colonel. He continued in his position of NASA research pilot as a civilian. Fullerton and his wife and their two children lived in Lancaster, California. August 31 saw the death of yet another icon this time in television icon David Frost. After graduating from Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge, Frost rose to prominence in the UK when he was chosen to host the satirical programme That Was the Week That Was in 1962. His success on this show led to work as a host on US television. He became known for his television interviews with senior political figures, among them The hugely influential Nixon Interviews with former United States President Richard Nixon in 1977, which were adapted into a stage play and film. Frost was one of the “Famous Five” who were behind the launch of ITV breakfast station TV-am in 1983. For the BBC, he hosted the Sunday morning interview programme Breakfast with Frost from 1993 to 2005. He spent two decades as host of Through the Keyhole. From 2006 to 2012 he hosted the weekly programme Frost Over the World on Al Jazeera English and from 2012, the weekly programme The Frost Interview. Frost died on 31 August 2013, aged 74, on board the cruise ship MS Queen Elizabeth, on which he had been engaged as a speaker. In the end, very few people can say they had as much influence on television medium as David Frost whose televised legacy remains to this day.

September:

September certainly generated plenty of news over the course of the month, and not all of it was good. The first big news story came on the 21st, when unidentified gunmen attacked the upscale Westgate shopping mall in Nairobi, Kenya. The attack, which lasted until September 24th, resulted in at least 72 deaths, including 61 civilians, 6 Kenyan soldiers, and 5 attackers. Over 200 people were reportedly wounded in the mass shooting, with all of the gunmen reported killed. The Islamist group al-Shabaab claimed responsibility for the incident, which it characterized as retribution for the Kenyan military‘s deployment in Somalia. Many media outlets also suspected the insurgent group’s involvement in the attack based on earlier reprisal warnings it had issued in the wake of Operation Linda Nchi from 2011 to 2012. Kenyan authorities arrested dozens of people in the aftermath of the attack, but had not announced any suspects directly related to the siege. On 4 November 2013, a Kenyan court charged four Somali nationals with harboring the slain gunman in their homes, with each pleading not guilty. The next large event came on the 30th, with the beginning of the U.S Government Shutdown in response to indecision about funding for The Affordable Care Act, commonly known as Obamacare. All federal employees were furloughed but funding was agreed to by the President and Congress for active military pay and backwages for furloughed employees. In addition, the House offered very small funding measures for a few, high-profile functions, which the Senate and White House rejected as “game-playing” while the Senate offered bills that did not include language to defund or delay the PPACA, but the House rejected them. On October 16, Senate Democrats and Republicans agreed to a deal that extended funding for government services until January 15, making only minor adjustments to the PPACA and other funding. This resolution was quickly adopted by both houses in bipartisan numbers, and was signed early next morning by President Obama.

October:

October was the quietest of all of the months last year with only one very important news story. On October 10, another American astronaut legend passed away, this time Scott Carpenter, the second American in orbit. Carpenter was one of the original seven astronauts selected for NASA‘s Project Mercury in April 1959. Born in Boulder, Colorado, Carpenter moved to New York City with his parents Marion Scott Carpenter and Florence Carpenter for the first two years of his life. His father had been awarded a postdoctoral research post at Columbia University. Upon graduation, he was accepted into the V-12 Navy College Training Program as an aviation cadet (V-12a), where he trained until the end of World War II. The war ended before he was able to finish training and receive an overseas assignment, so the Navy released him from active duty. He returned to Boulder in November 1945 to study aeronautical engineering at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Carpenter was then appointed to the United States Naval Test Pilot School, class 13, at NAS Patuxent River, Maryland in 1954. He continued at Patuxent until 1957, working as a test pilot in the Electronics Test Division; his next tour of duty was spent in Monterey, California, at the Navy Line School. In 1958, Carpenter was named Air Intelligence Officer for the USS Hornet. After being chosen for Project Mercury in 1959, Carpenter served as backup pilot for John Glenn, who flew the first U.S. orbital mission aboard Friendship 7 in February 1962. After another successful 10 years with both the Navy and NASA, Carpenter Retired from Space travel to engage in oceanography projects and spend more time with his family. Truly a pioneer, we owe an awful lot to Carpenter for have helping shaped modern space travel.

November:

November saw triumph and hardship through two major news stories beginning on November 8th with Class 5 Super Typhoon Haiyan making landfall in the Philippines. Typhoon Haiyan, called typhoon “Yolanda” in the Philippines, caused catastrophic damage throughout much of the islands of Leyte, where cities and towns were largely destroyed. As of 6:00 a.m. local time on January 14, the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC) confirmed 6,201 fatalities across the country, 5,803 of those taking place in the Eastern Visayas. The actual death toll remains unclear, with the total loss of life estimated as low as 2,500 by President Benigno Aquino III. As of November 13, Red Cross estimated that 22,000 people were missing while approximately 65,500 people were listed as such through Google Person Finder. There was widespread devastation from the storm surge in Tacloban City especially in San Jose, with many buildings being destroyed, trees knocked over or broken, and cars piled up. The low-lying areas on the eastern side of Tacloban city were hardest hit, with some areas completely washed away. Flooding also extended for 1 km (0.62 mi) inland on the east coast of the province. Many describe the devastation felt across the nation as devastating and even apocalyptic. The global community was quick to dispatch any aid the could spare to help the recovery effort, but many predict that it could be years before these areas could begin to resemble what they once were. On November 13 another great tragedy unraveled as it was revealed that Syrian Forces loyal to Assad deployed chemical weapons against their own people in order to quell the revolutionary dissidents in the south of the country. The act of utilizing chemical weapons under any circumstance has been taboo since they were first introduced in World War 1. The United States considered intervening in Syria to avoid more attacks of this kind but Russia, a powerful ally of the Syrians had other plans. After intense few days of “Should we? and “Should we not?” U.S Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov convened in Bern, Switzerland and ultimately agreed that in turn for U.S nonintervention, the two nations would work together in setting a deadline for Syria to destroy its chemical arsenal or face the consequences. Assad, not wanting or needing any more attention on its brutal civil war hesitantly agreed on the terms, and is working with the U.N on destroying the weapons. Let’s hope its the last time as well.

December:

December was a turbulent end to the year, beginning on the 5th with the tragic death of the legendary Nelson Mandela, the man who so humbly and nearly single-handedly abolished the infamous policies of South African apartheid, whose tenants include segregation and institutionalized racism across the board. If this was not enough, Nelson Mandela was the first truly democratically elected President of South Africa and managed to completely transform the then struggling South Africa into the economic powerhouse in Africa and the staple of what true national unity can build. Over his one 5-year term, Mandela oversaw the construction of schools, hospitals, roads and even entire cities. Mandela was born in a tribal community in 1915 and over the years rose in prominence as a voice for the anti-apartheid cause, despite allegations of him taking part in the South African Communist Party, whose militant wing was known to violently attack apartheid officials.  He was jailed for conspiracy in 1963 and served over 27 years in prison, initially on Robben Island, and later in Pollsmoor Prison and Victor Verster Prison. An international campaign lobbied for his release. He was released in 1990, during a time of escalating civil strife. Mandela joined negotiations with President F. W. de Klerk to abolish apartheid and establish multiracial elections in 1994, in which he led the ANC to victory and became South Africa’s first black president. He published his autobiography in 1995. During his tenure in the Government of National Unity he invited several other political parties to join the cabinet. As agreed to during the negotiations to end apartheid in South Africa, he promulgated a new constitution. He also created the Truth and Reconciliation Commission to investigate past human rights abuses. While continuing the former government’s liberal economic policy, his administration also introduced measures to encourage land reform, combat poverty, and expand healthcare services. Internationally, he acted as mediator between Libya and the United Kingdom in the Pan Am Flight 103 bombing trial, and oversaw military intervention in Lesotho. He declined to run for a second term, and was succeeded by his deputy, Thabo Mbeki. Mandela became an elder statesman, focusing on charitable work in combating poverty and HIV/AIDS through the Nelson Mandela Foundation. Although, we would need an entire second article on just how much he accomplished, this short description showcases just a few highlights of his life. Tragic death continued on the 14th, when film legend Peter O’Toole passed away. O’Toole dominated the screen in the 60’s with such epics as  T. E. Lawrence in Lawrence of Arabia (1962) for which he received his first Academy Award nomination. He received seven further Oscar nominations – for Becket (1964), The Lion in Winter (1968), Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1969), The Ruling Class (1972), The Stunt Man (1980), My Favorite Year (1982) and Venus (2006) – and holds the record for the most Academy Award acting nominations without a win. He won four Golden Globes, a BAFTA and an Emmy, and was the recipient of an Honorary Academy Award in 2003. He single handedly embodied the power of what the storytelling can be when married to the screen, and his legacy more than lives on today. In fact, his Lawrence of Arabia is consistently listed on film critics best films of all time. The year’s news finally concluded on the 15th, with the beginning of the tragic budding civil war in South Sudan. The Sudan People’s Liberation Army began an alleged mutiny in South Sudan, and President Salva Kiir called it a coup attempt and announced that it had been put down the next day, but fighting again erupted on 16 December and spread beyond the capital, Juba, to the region around Jonglei which is prone to instability, largely along ethnic lines. At least 1,000 people were reported to have been killed and over 800 other people were injured. former Vice President Riek Machar is blamed for instigating the “coup” but denies any knowledge of it and instead blames Kiir for playing power politics. Bor was seized by the South Sudan Liberation Army on 19 December. On the same day, a UN compound was stormed in Akobo, Jonglei, resulting in the deaths of two Indian UN MISS peacekeepers. We can only hope resolution quickly comes to the conflict.