Good morning. Today’s the day for The Times’s annual look at The Year in Pictures. |
 | | The city of Wuhan, China, home to the first documented coronavirus cases, became one of the first cities to shut down. To contain the coronavirus outbreak, the government banned most public transportation and private cars from its streets.Getty Images |
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Dean Baquet, The Times’s executive editor, believes that 2020 will go down as a signature year in history, alongside years like 1968, 1945 and 1865. “It will long be remembered and studied as a time when more than 1.5 million people globally died during a pandemic, racial unrest gripped the world, and democracy itself faced extraordinary tests,” he writes. |
Those words come from Dean’s introduction to The Times’s annual Year in Pictures feature. Here, my colleagues on The Morning and I have chosen a dozen of those pictures that we think best summarize 2020. But we obviously have room here for only a fraction of the year’s photographs — so I encourage you to check out the full selection. |
As you do, ask yourself which pictures you would have selected if you had to pick only 12 to sum up 2020. |
 | | Early in the year, the virus hit Western Europe harder than any other place in the world. In March, a coronavirus patient was examined at his home in Cenate Sotto, Italy.Fabio Bucciarelli for The New York Times |
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 | | The pandemic forced people to find new ways to socialize. Circles painted on the grass at Domino Park in Brooklyn helped people spend time safely outdoors in May.Hilary Swift for The New York Times |
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 | | Donald Trump became only the fourth elected president in the last century not to win re-election, joining Herbert Hoover, Jimmy Carter and George H.W. Bush. Trump departed Air Force One in August after returning from a campaign rally.Doug Mills/The New York Times |
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 | | Joe Biden struggled badly early in the Democratic primaries, only to rally to win the nomination and the presidency. He prayed at the Corinthian Baptist Church in Des Moines in January.Brittainy Newman/The New York Times |
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 | | Climate change wrought destruction on the planet in multiple ways during 2020. In Azusa, Calif., a wildfire burned more than 4,200 acres during the most active wildfire year on record for the West Coast.Meeridith Kohut for The New York Times |
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 | | The killing of George Floyd in May inspired mass demonstrations against police brutality across the country. In Minneapolis, officers confronted protesters on May 31.Victor J. Blue for The New York Times |
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 | | Protesters marched in New York in June as anger spread across the country.Demetrius Freeman for The New York Times |
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 | | Around the world, people spent far more time at home this year than usual. In São Paulo, Brazil, residents gathered at their windows in March to protest the government’s pandemic response.Victor Moriyama for The New York Times |
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 | | The pandemic led to a sharp economic downturn in much of the world. In May, people lined up for food distribution at a church in Brooklyn.Yunghi Kim/Contact Press Images |
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 | | More than 1.5 million people around the world have died from Covid complications. Mourners gathered in April at a cemetery in Brazil where workers were busy digging lines of open graves.Victor Moriyama for The New York Times |
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 | | Amid illness, death and separation in 2020, people also experienced great joys — even if they sometimes required adaptation. In April, Precious Anderson, a Covid-19 patient, was shown her newborn baby for the first time with the help of a live video feed at a hospital in Brooklyn.Victor J. Blue for The New York Times |
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- Britain administered the first doses of Pfizer’s coronavirus vaccine to thousands of people yesterday, kicking off a mass vaccination campaign that will soon spread to North America. One of the first people to get a shot was a resident of Warwickshire named William Shakespeare.
- A vaccine from the Chinese state-owned drugmaker Sinopharm is 86 percent effective, according to testing data from the United Arab Emirates. China has three other vaccines in late-stage trials.
- President-elect Joe Biden pledged to get “at least 100 million Covid vaccine shots into the arms of the American people” during his first 100 days in office. He also said he would make mask-wearing mandatory on planes, trains and buses that cross state lines, as well as in federal buildings.
- More than a third of Americans live in areas where hospitals are running critically short of intensive care beds, a Times analysis found.
- The University of Michigan canceled its upcoming game against Ohio State because of an outbreak. The two rivals have played each other every year since 1918.
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- The Supreme Court rejected a last-ditch request from Pennsylvania Republicans to overturn the state’s election results. Separately, Senator Pat Toomey, Republican of Pennsylvania, called President Trump’s efforts to overturn the election “completely unacceptable.”
- Biden plans to nominate Representative Marcia Fudge of Ohio to head the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Biden also picked Tom Vilsack, who led the Department of Agriculture during the Obama administration, to lead the department again.
- Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin proposed a $916 billion relief package in conversations with Speaker Nancy Pelosi. That’s almost identical in size to a package backed by a bipartisan group in Congress, though the White House plan would cut unemployment benefits in favor of a direct check to Americans.
- The House passed a defense bill that requires removing the names of former Confederate leaders from military bases, with a large bipartisan majority. The Senate is expected to pass the bill this week, and Trump has threatened to veto it.
- Terry McAuliffe, a Democratic former governor of Virginia, will run again for the job next year. In Virginia, governors cannot serve consecutive terms.
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- The continued warming of the Arctic contributed to wildfires, shrinking snow cover and thawing permafrost in 2020, according to an annual report by climate researchers.
- The Army is firing or suspending more than a dozen officials after an investigation into Fort Hood, a Texas base, found that commanders had created an environment “permissive of sexual harassment and sexual assault.”
- The fund to compensate victims of Jeffrey Epstein’s sexual exploitation has already received more than 100 claims and paid out tens of millions of dollars.
- Olivia Jade Giannulli, the daughter of the actress Lori Loughlin and the designer Mossimo Giannulli, spoke out for the first time on last year’s college admissions bribery scandal. “I don’t deserve pity,” she said. “We messed up.”
- Mount Everest got a boost when China and Nepal announced a new measurement of the world’s tallest mountain: 29,031.7 feet, about three feet taller than previously thought.
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Buried Treasure: Last summer, a man found a hidden treasure chest in the Rocky Mountains that had tantalized fortune seekers for a decade. Now, the identity of the treasure finder has been revealed. |
From Opinion: The Senate should pass a bill to shield the personal information of federal judges, argues Esther Salas, a federal judge whose son, Daniel, was killed at her home in July. The bill is named for him. |
Lives Lived: William Aronwald, a noted prosecutor and defense lawyer, was inadvertently a central figure in one of the stranger tales from a brazen period of organized crime in New York. In 1987, hit men dispatched by a mobster to kill Aronwald mistakenly tracked and killed his father instead. Aronwald died at 79. |
The great performers of 2020 |
Everywhere you looked online in 2020, you could find entertainers discovering new ways to perform. There were the internet comedians perfecting their art, often using nothing but camera phones and household objects. There were innovative theater productions designed for virtual formats. And there were writer-actors who created TV that was introspective and unique. |
This week’s issue of The New York Times Magazine is dedicated to this year’s influential performers, both storied and new. |
The Times’s A.O. Scott wrote about how the short comedic clip became an art form on TikTok and Twitter this past year. The actress Viola Davis spoke about how she creates fully realized characters, most recently in “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom,” a film adaptation of August Wilson’s play. And Wesley Morris of The Times wrote about a cohort of women who are elevating the biopic genre, “pursuing truth writ small”: Their ranks include Michaela Coel, who created and starred in one of the year’s best TV shows, “I May Destroy You.” |
Because this was also a year when people often retreated to comfort viewing, the writer Caity Weaver profiled Cher, whose classic 1987 film “Moonstruck” had a resurgence this year. |
 | | Christopher Testani for The New York Times |
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From Pac-Man’s bonus fruits to Mario’s magical mushrooms, read about the fascinating role depictions of food play in the video game industry. |
The pangrams from yesterday’s Spelling Bee were handling and highland. Today’s puzzle is above — or you can play online if you have a Games subscription. |
Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow. — David |
You can see today’s print front page here. |
Today’s episode of “The Daily” is about Britain’s first coronavirus vaccinations. |
Claire Moses, Ian Prasad Philbrick and Sanam Yar contributed to The Morning. You can reach the team at themorning@nytimes.com. |
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