January 1: Couples kiss in New York's Times Square to ring in the new year.
Christopher Gregory/Getty Images
January 6: Ice builds up along Lake Michigan at Chicago's North Avenue Beach. Chicago hit a low temperature of 16 below zero.
Scott Olson/Getty Images
January 6: A cornfield in Karo, Indonesia, is covered with volcanic ash following the eruption of Mount Sinabung. See other recently active volcanoes
Mafa Yul Ramadani/Landov
January 6: A lamb is placed around the neck of Pope Francis as he visits a living nativity scene near Rome for the Epiphany religious holiday.
Osservatore Romano/AP
January 12: An ostrich runs by destroyed buildings in Bentiu, South Sudan, after government forces retook the provincial capital from rebel forces. After decades of war, South Sudan seceded from Sudan in 2011, making it the world's youngest nation. Since then, South Sudan has become embroiled in its own internal conflict.
Mackenzie Knowles-Coursin/AP
January 18: A large crowd in Mumbai, India, joins a funeral procession for Syedna Mohammed Burhanuddin, the head of the Dawoodi Bohra Muslim community. Police say a predawn stampede killed more than a dozen people as tens of thousands gathered to mourn the death of the Muslim spiritual leader. Burhanuddin died a day earlier at the age of 102.
Rajanish Kakade/AP
January 23: A trail of destruction is seen behind a boulder after a landslide in Ronchi di Termeno, Italy. The boulder missed the farmhouse at right but destroyed a barn before stopping in a vineyard. According to reports, the family living at the house was unharmed.
Markus HellTareom.co/AP
January 31: Refugees at the besieged al-Yarmouk camp, south of Damascus, Syria, wait to receive food distributed by the U.N. Relief and Works Agency. Millions of people have either fled Syria or become displaced because of the civil war there.
UNRWA/Reuters/Landov
February 1: Precious Adams, left, waits for her results after performing at the final of the Prix de Lausanne, an international dance competition in Lausanne, Switzerland. Adams was one of the prize winners, earning an apprenticeship with the English National Ballet.
Valentin Flauraud/Landov
February 14: A man in Aleppo, Syria, holds a baby who survived what activists say was an airstrike by forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. The United Nations estimates more than 190,000 people have been killed in Syria since an uprising in March 2011 spiraled into civil war.
Hosam Katan/Reuters/Landov
February 14: A Coton de Tulear dog is hit by strong winds on the beach in Lyme Regis, England.
Kieran Doherty/Reuters/Landov
February 17: Children learn about disaster survival at the Hongzhuan Primary School in Chongqing, China.
Chen Shichuan/Xinhua/Sipa
February 17: A baby elephant sits stuck in a ditch near railway tracks in Assam, India. A group of wild elephants was crossing the tracks when the calf got injured and fell.
Barcroft Media/Landov
February 18: Britain's Prince Charles wears a traditional Saudi uniform as he attends the Janadriyah culture festival in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
Fayez Nureldine/AP
February 20: Protesters in Kiev, Ukraine, catch fire as they stand behind burning barricades during clashes with police. Kiev's Independence Square had been the center of anti-government protests since November 2013, when President Viktor Yanukovych reversed a decision on a trade deal with the European Union and instead turned toward Russia.
Bulent Kilic/AFP/Getty Images
February 20:Pamela Rauseo performs CPR on her 5-month-old nephew, Sebastian de la Cruz, after pulling over on the side of a Miami highway. She was stuck in traffic when the infant stopped breathing. Sebastian was taken to the hospital in critical condition, but he survived.
Al Diaz/Miami Herald/AP
February 23: From left, International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev look at their watches before the closing ceremony of the Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia.
Ria Novosti/Landov
February 23: A leopard leaps near a furniture market in the Degumpur area of Meerut, India. The big cat sparked panic in the city when it strayed inside a hospital, a cinema and an apartment block, an official said.
AFP/Getty Images
February 26: Riot police in Ankara, Turkey, disperse demonstrators trying to march to Parliament to protest Turkey's ruling party. Audio recordings that sounded like Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan giving his son money-laundering tips over the phone became a social media rage that poured out into the streets. Erdogan denounced the recordings, calling them "immoral edited material."
Umit Bektas/Reuters/Landov
February 27: Protesters run from tear gas fired by the Venezuelan National Guard during an anti-government demonstration in Caracas, Venezuela. For months, protesters unhappy with Venezuela's economy and rising crime clashed with security forces.
John Moore/Getty Images
March 2: A python begins to swallow a crocodile at Lake Moondarra in Queensland, Australia. The snake, thought to be about 10 feet long, constricted the crocodile to death before dragging it to shore and eating it whole in front of a shocked crowd of onlookers.
Marvin Muller/Barcroft Media/Landov
March 2: A baby has his hair cut in Hefei, China. Many in China believe it is good luck to have your hair cut on the second day of the second lunar month, known in Chinese as Er Yue Er, or "a time for the dragon to raise its head."
Newscom
March 2: Host Ellen DeGeneres takes a moment to orchestrate a selfie with a group of movie stars at the Academy Awards ceremony. Actor Bradley Cooper, seen in the foreground, was holding the phone at the time. "If only Bradley's arm was longer," DeGeneres tweeted. "Best photo ever." It became the most retweeted post of all time. See the year in selfies.
Ellen DeGeneres/AP
March 7: Debris covers a street in Aleppo, Syria, after a reported airstrike by Syrian government forces.
Baraa Al-Halabi/AFP/Getty Images
March 9: U.S. Army Spc. Taylor Burcham runs with a soccer ball that he gave to children near Kandahar, Afghanistan.
Scott Olson/Getty Image
March 9: The Northern Lights appear over snow-covered mountains in Iceland.
Artic-Images/Corbis
March 14: A Palestinian man and a member of Israel's security forces take pictures of each other after a demonstration in the West Bank village of Nabi Saleh.
Abbas Momani/AFP/Getty Images
March 17: Conservators at Egypt's Grand Museum, just outside of Cairo, clean a female mummy that dates to the Pharaonic Late Period between 712-323 B.C.
Amr Nabil/AP
March 18: Tibetan Buddhist monks holding ceremonial scarfs stand in line to welcome the Dalai Lama as he arrives at a monastery in Shimla, India.
Tenzin Choejor/AP
March 19: The terraced fields of southwest China's Yunnan province. UNESCO's World Heritage Committee added the Cultural Landscape of Honghe Hani Rice Terraces to the prestigious World Heritage List last year.
Gao Jing/Xinhua/Landov
March 21: A Lockheed T-33 Shooting Star flies past the Smoke-N-Thunder jet car during a race between the two at the Los Angeles County Air Show.
David McNew/Reuters/Landov
March 21: German Chancellor Angela Merkel looks through her window as she arrives at a European Union summit in Brussels, Belgium.
Francois Lenoir/Reuters/Landov
March 24: An intact house sits at the edge of a massive landslide that devastated Oso, Washington a couple of days before. The landslide crossed the North Fork of the Stillaguamish River, causing multiple deaths and massive damage.
Ted S. Warren/AP
March 24: A man reads a copy of the International New York Times at an office in Karachi, Pakistan. The New York Times said an article about Pakistan's relationship to al Qaeda was censored by its local distributor in the country, leaving a blank space on its weekend edition.
Shahzaib Akber/EPA/Landov
March 28: New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie reacts to a question during a news conference in Trenton, New Jersey. Christie announced that David Samson, the chairman of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, had resigned. The resignation was the latest fallout from the George Washington Bridge lane closures that snarled traffic on the New Jersey side and led to allegations of political retribution. Christie repeatedly cited a report he commissioned that cleared him of any role in the traffic jams.
Eduardo Munoz/Reuters/Landov
March 30: Members of the Indonesian Navy march in a parade in Batam, Indonesia.
Yuli Seperi/Getty Images
March 31: South Korean watercraft travel through smoke screens during a military exercise with U.S. forces in Pohang, South Korea.
Ahn Young-joon/AP
March 31: The shadow of a Royal New Zealand Air Force plane can be seen on low-level clouds as the plane flies over the southern Indian Ocean. Authorities combed thousands of square miles looking for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, which disappeared March 8. Its whereabouts are still unknown.
Rob Griffith/AP
April 2: Sgt. 1st Class Leroy Petry stands during the Pledge of Allegiance at a ceremony held at the Capitol in Olympia, Washington. The ceremony honored Petry and other Medal of Honor recipients from Washington state. Petry lost his hand in 2008 when he was throwing an enemy grenade away from his fellow soldiers during combat in Afghanistan.
Ted S. Warren/AP
April 6: Children pray at a Catholic church in Kigali, Rwanda. Twenty years ago, mass killings began in Rwanda. An estimated 800,000 civilians, mostly from the Tutsi ethnic group, were murdered over a period of about 100 days.
Ben Curtis/AP
April 8: Lawmakers scuffle during a parliament session in Kiev, Ukraine. The fight broke out when Petr Simonenko, the leader of the Communist Party, began to say lawmakers should listen to the demands of eastern Ukraine. He defended demonstrators who seized local government buildings, saying they are not doing anything different from what the interim government had done. He also accused "nationalists" of starting the crisis in eastern Ukraine.
Vladimir Strumkovsky/AP
April 8: An artist dressed as the Hindu goddess Kali participates in a procession to celebrate the Ram Navami festival in Allahabad, India.
Sanjay Kanojia/AFP/Getty Images
April 9: Britain's Prince George looks at other babies during an event at the Government House in Wellington, New Zealand. His parents, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, were on a three-week tour of New Zealand and Australia. See Prince George's first year in pictures
Marty Melville/Pool/Getty Images
April 10: Former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton ducks after a woman hurled a shoe at her during a speech in Las Vegas. The Secret Service took the woman into custody.
Isaac Brekken/Getty Images
April 14: The door through which Oscar Pistorius fatally shot his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp, is used as evidence during his murder trial in Pretoria, South Africa. Pistorius, the first double-amputee runner to compete in the Olympics, was found guilty of culpable homicide -- the South African term for unintentionally, but unlawfully, killing a person. He was sentenced to five years in prison.
Antoine de Ras/Reuters/Landov
April 15: The parents of Abdollah Hosseinzadeh remove a noose from the neck of his convicted killer, a man identified only as Balal, before Balal was to be hanged in Noor, Iran. Balal killed Hosseinzadeh during a street fight in 2007, according to the semi-official Iranian news agency ISNA. But just seconds before Balal was to be hanged, he was forgiven by Hosseinzadeh's mother.
Arash Khamoushi/ISNA/AP
April 15: Boston University student Sebastian Filgueira-Gomez has tears in his eyes during a moment of silence for the one-year anniversary of the Boston Marathon bombings. He was standing on Boston's Boylston Street, a block from the marathon's finish line.
The Boston Globe/Getty Images
April 16: Rescue boats scramble to save passengers from the sinking ferry Sewol as it sinks into freezing waters off South Korea's southwestern coast. More than 300 people died after the ferry capsized, and the ship's captain was later sentenced to 36 years in jail.
Yonhap/AP
April 16: A veterinary staff member of the Sumatran Orangutan Conservation Program examines a 14-year-old male orangutan on Indonesia's Sumatra island. The orangutan was rescued a day earlier with air gun pellets embedded in his body. His species is considered critically endangered because of poaching and rapid destruction to its forest habitats.
Sutanta Aditya/AFP/Getty Images
April 18: A man accused of being a thief lies in pain after being attacked by a man with a machete and sticks in Bangui, Central African Republic. Foreign journalists intervened and stopped the beating as the crowd shouted, "He is a thief, he must die." Police arrived and took the man into custody. He was then taken to a hospital for treatment before being brought before a prosecuting officer.
Jerome Delay/AP
April 25: A pro-Russian rebel poses for a picture inside a regional government building in Donetsk, Ukraine, on Friday, April 25. Fighting between Ukrainian troops and pro-Russian rebels in the country has left more than 3,000 people dead since mid-April, according to the United Nations.
Marko Djurica/Reuters/Landov
April 29: Residents help firefighters put out a blaze that engulfed a neighborhood in Manila, Philippines.
Bullit Marquez/AP
May 3: Youths from the Aboure tribe perform a warrior dance as they take part in a parade on the last day of the Popo carnival in Bonoua, Ivory Coast. This year's festival promoted national reconciliation.
Sia Kambou/Getty Images
May 4: A common myna feeds her baby in a nest on a hot afternoon in Bhubaneswar, India. The common myna is native to Asia, and it is an important motif in Indian culture.
Asit Kumar/AFP/Getty Images
May 5: Rapper Jay Z, at left in the white jacket, and his sister-in-law Solange Knowles, at right in the orange dress, reportedly had an altercation at New York's Standard Hotel. Security camera footage that appeared on TMZ didn't tell the whole story, but there are plenty of pictures of the two leaving the party along with Jay Z's wife, Beyonce.
May 9: Doctors hold Jenna and Jillian Thistlewaite, twin girls born in Akron, Ohio. The girls were born holding hands, and they are monoamniotic or "mono mono" twins -- a pregnancy in which twins share the same placenta and amniotic sac. Researchers say "mono mono" births happen once in every 10,000 births.
Akron Children's Hospital
May 9: Valentin Gruener runs with a lioness named Sirga at a private reserve in Botswana. Gruener helped raise Sirga since she was a cub.
Jami Tarris/Corbis
May 11: Sister Maricor from the Missionaries of Charity spends a moment with John, a 1-year-old with hydrocephalus, at an orphanage in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Hydrocephalus is characterized by an excessive accumulation of fluid in the brain.
Andrew Biraj/Reuters/Landov
May 12: This image, taken from video shot by Boko Haram militants, allegedly shows the Nigerian schoolgirls that the group abducted in April. More than 200 girls were taken, sparking a global outcry. The Islamist militant group, whose name means "Western education is sin," later said it sold most of the girls into slavery.
Associated Press
May 14: Astronaut Koichi Wakata is carried to a medical tent just minutes after he and two others landed in Kazahkstan on their return to Earth. Wakata, Mikhail Tyurin and Rick Mastracchio spent more than six months aboard the International Space Station.
May 14: A woman flees a wildfire as it crosses a highway in Carlsbad, California. Wildfires forced evacuations in San Diego County after a high-pressure system brought unseasonable heat and gusty winds to the parched state.
May 19: Researcher Adrian Lister looks at Lyuba, a baby woolly mammoth considered to the most complete example of the species ever found, at the Natural History Museum in London. Lyuba, which means "love" in Russian, was found frozen in clay and mud in Siberia in 2007. She is estimated to have died about 42,000 years ago.
Matt Dunham/AP
May 19: A supercell thunderstorm is seen above Sidney, Nebraska. A supercell can produce severe winds and powerful tornadoes. It can also produce damaging hail, flash floods and unusually frequent lightning.
Daniel Shaw/Demotix
May 20: This picture, taken from security camera video, shows a knife-wielding attacker going on a rampage at a primary school in Macheng, China. Eight students were injured in the attack, according to the South China Morning Post.
AFP/Getty Images
May 20: A woman flees as a riot police officer beats her with a baton in Nairobi, Kenya. Hundreds of Nairobi University students took to the streets and faced riot police as they protested against a proposed increase in school fees.
Dai Kurokawa/EPA/Landov
May 21: Two same-sex couples -- Eliza Callard and Emily Gavin, left, and Christopher Whibley and Bill Good, right -- complete their paperwork for marriage licenses at Philadelphia City Hall. A day earlier, a federal judge struck down Pennsylvania's ban on same-sex marriage, declaring it unconstitutional.
Ed Hille/Philadelphia Inquirer
May 26: Laura Youngblood weeps over the grave of her husband, Travis L. Youngblood, at Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Virginia. It was Memorial Day in the United States.
Pete Marovich/EPA/Landov
May 26: An Asiatic cheetah hunts a rabbit at the Miandasht Wildlife Refuge in Jajarm, Iran. Iran is conducting a campaign to save the Asiatic cheetah, a species that is dwindling in the region.
Vahid Salemi/AP
May 31: U.S. President Barack Obama, center, walks with the parents of Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl after making a statement at the White House about Bergdahl's release. Bergdahl had been held captive in Afghanistan for nearly five years, and the Taliban released him in exchange for five U.S.-held prisoners.
John Harrington/DPA/Landov
June 6: Members of a hardline Sikh group clash with guards of the Golden Temple, the religion's holiest shrine, in Amritsar, India. Half a dozen people were wounded, officials said.
Prabhjot Gill/AP
June 13: Smoke rises from a house that was deliberately set on fire by building crews near Lake Whitney in Texas. The house was set on fire after part of the ground underneath it collapsed into the lake.
Brandon Wade/Reuters/Landov
June 17: Boys at a slum on the outskirts of Brasilia, Brazil, watch a World Cup soccer match between Brazil and Mexico. Brazil hosted this year's World Cup, although there were protests over whether the money spent on the tournament would have been better used elsewhere.
Ueslei Marcelino/Reuters/Landov
June 19: Members of Iraq's Special Operations Forces take their positions during clashes with the ISIS militant group Thursday, June 19, in Ramadi, Iraq. ISIS has been advancing in Iraq and Syria as it seeks to create an Islamic caliphate in the region.
Reuters/Landov
June 24: NASA releases a selfie of the Mars rover Curiosity. The selfie, a composite of dozens of images captured in April and May, celebrated a full Martian year -- 687 days -- since the rover's touchdown on the Red Planet.
NASA
June 30: Members of the New York City Police Academy embrace during their graduation ceremony.
Shannon Stapleton/Reuters/Landov
July 6: Two horses fight during the Rapa das Bestas, or shearing of the beasts, in Sabucedo, Spain. During the four-day festival, wild horses are rounded up and wrestled to the ground to have their manes and tails sheared.
Miguel Vidal/Reuters/Landov
July 12: Central American migrants climb on a train in Ixtepec, Mexico, during their journey toward the U.S.-Mexico border. Days later, Texas Gov. Rick Perry announced that he would deploy up to 1,000 National Guard troops to the border, where tens of thousands of unaccompanied minors have crossed into the United States this year.
Eduardo Verdugo/AP
July 12: People run for shelter during a hailstorm at the Ob River in Novosibirsk, Russia.
Nikita Dudnik/AP
July 17: A New York City police officer, Daniel Pantaleo, puts Eric Garner in a chokehold for allegedly selling cigarettes illegally. During the encounter, which was caught on video, Garner is heard telling police he could not breathe. Garner, a 43-year-old asthmatic, died en route to the hospital. After a grand jury decided in December not to indict the police officer, protests erupted in several major U.S. cities.
Daily News/Getty Images
July 18: A rose lies on a plastic sheet covering a victim of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, which was shot down over war-torn eastern Ukraine. All 298 people aboard the flight were killed. Several Western nations and the Ukrainian government have accused pro-Russian rebels of shooting down the plane with a missile. Rebel leaders and the Russian government have disputed the claims.
MAXIM ZMEYEV/Reuters/Landov
July 20: Mourners in Eynesbury, Australia, attend a memorial service for a family of five killed aboard Malaysia Airlines Flight 17. Johannes van den Hende, Shalize Zain Dewa and their children -- Piers, Marnix and Margaux -- were on the passenger plane when it was shot down.
Paul Jeffers/Getty Images
July 21: People climb onto window ledges to try to avoid a bull during the Toro de Cuerda festival in Grazalema, Spain. During the festival, a long rope restrains the bull as it runs through the village's streets.
Jorge Guerrero/AFP/Getty Images
July 25: Zhang Hangjun, 20, drinks water from a bowl as he has a meal in Shenyang, China. Zhang and his twin brother were diagnosed with cerebral palsy after they were born. Zhang, who weighs about 550 pounds, spends most of his time in bed as the family is unable to afford medical treatment, local media reported.
Sheng Li/Reuters/Landov
July 29: Smoke rises in Gaza City after Israeli airstrikes. Israel launched a ground operation in Gaza after a 10-day campaign of airstrikes failed to halt relentless Hamas rocket fire on Israeli cities. After more than seven weeks of heavy fighting, Israel and Hamas agreed to an open-ended ceasefire that put off dealing with core long-term issues.
Mohammed Saber/EPA/Landov
August 3: Three men found guilty by a Somali military court of killing civilians and masterminding an attack on the presidential palace are tied to poles shortly before they were executed by a firing squad in Mogadishu, Somalia. The three were members of the militant group Al-Shabaab.
Feisal Omar/Reuters/Landov
August 5:North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, right, inspects the Chonji Lubricant Factory in this undated picture released by North Korea's state-run news agency.
KCNA/AFP/Getty Images
August 6: Dozens of commuters in Perth, Australia, work to rescue a man who got his leg trapped between a train and the platform. The passenger was able to wriggle free with their help.
Renae Bryant
August 6: An elephant relieves an itch on a small car in South Africa's Pilanesberg National Park. The two passengers in the car were shaken up but not injured.
Armand Grobler/Barcroft Media/Landov
August 6: After monsoon rains, farmers replant paddy samplings at a rice field on the outskirts of Bhubaneswar, India.
Biswaranjan Rout/AP
August 11: Police wearing riot gear confront a man during protests in Ferguson, Missouri. Some protests in the city turned into clashes between angry citizens and police after Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager, was killed by Darren Wilson, a white police officer, on August 9.
Whitney Curtis/The New York Times
August 12: Following the death of actor Robin Williams, people photograph his handprints and footprints at TCL Chinese Theater in Los Angeles. Williams, a brilliant shapeshifter who could channel his frenetic energy into delightful comic characters like "Mrs. Doubtfire" or harness it into richly nuanced work like his Oscar-winning turn in "Good Will Hunting," committed suicide at his home in the San Francisco Bay Area. He was 63.
LUCY NICHOLSON/Reuters/Landov
August 13: People run as a high wave hits the Qiantang River bank in Hangzhou, China.
Barcroft Media /Landov
August 14: A Ryanair commercial jet takes off from East Midlands Airport in Derby, England, as a tornado funnel forms nearby.
Alamy Pictures
August 17: People in Jakarta, Indonesia, struggle to climb greased poles during a competition that was part of the country's Independence Day celebrations.
Dita Alangkara/AP
August 19: Workers clean the south face of Big Ben, the famous landmark at London's Palace of Westminster.
September 8: Former U.S. Presidents Bill Clinton, left, and George W. Bush laugh on stage during an event at the Newseum in Washington. The event was for a new leadership program they were launching, but they also joked with and about each other, told stories about their relationship and even offered commentary about the number of selfies each is asked to take.
Jonathan Ernst/Landov
September 9: A couple kiss during a perigee moon, also known as a "supermoon," as it rises in the sky in Sydney. The phenomenon occurs when the moon becomes full on the same day as its perigee -- the point in the moon's orbit when it is closest to Earth.
Craig Greenhill/Newspix/Getty Images
September 15: A doctor in Zhumadian, China, performs surgery on a man who had part of an aluminum-alloy fence pierce his body during a car accident. The man survived after the piece of fence was surgically removed.
Reuters/Landov
September 15: Tourists sit in a stairwell of a Los Cabos, Mexico, resort after the resort's designated shelter was damaged by Hurricane Odile.
Victor R. Caivano/AP
September 17: Firefighters take pictures with their cell phones as they monitor a backfire in Fresh Pond, California. California Gov. Jerry Brown declared a state of emergency where wildfires torched tens of thousands of acres.
Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
September 19: A U.S. Secret Service agent hurries people to evacuate the White House complex moments after a security breach. President Barack Obama and his family were not at home when an intruder scaled the fence and entered the White House, but a congressional inquiry uncovered other security lapses this year and led to the resignation of Secret Service Director Julia Pierson.
Larry Downing/Reuters/Landov
September 22: Amid the Ebola scare in West Africa, a school official in Lagos, Nigeria, takes a student's temperature with an infrared laser thermometer. Health officials say the Ebola outbreak in West Africa is the deadliest ever. More than 5,600 people have died there, according to the World Health Organization.
AKINTUNDE AKINLEYE/Reuters/Landov
September 26: Actor George Clooney, right, and his fiancee, lawyer Amal Alamuddin, arrive in Venice, Italy, on Friday, September 26. The two were married that weekend in a private ceremony attended by some of their celebrity friends. At left is Rande Gerber, husband of model Cindy Crawford.
Getty Images
September 28: Firefighters and members of Japan's military conduct a rescue operation at a cabin near the peak of Mount Ontake. Dozens of people were killed when the volcano erupted.
Kyodo News/AP
September 28: Riot police use pepper spray as they clash with pro-democracy protesters outside the government headquarters in Hong Kong. Demonstrations began in response to China's decision to allow only Beijing-vetted candidates to stand in the city's 2017 election for chief executive. Protesters say Beijing has gone back on its pledge to allow universal suffrage in Hong Kong, which was promised "a high degree of autonomy" when it was handed back to China by Britain in 1997. The umbrella has become the defining image of the protest movement, used to shield protesters from tear gas and the elements.
Bobby Yip/Reuters/Landov
October 2: Ultra-Orthodox Jews of the Hasidic sect Vizhnitz gather on a hill overlooking the Mediterranean Sea as they participate in a Tashlich ceremony in Herzliya, Israel. Tashlich, which means "to cast away" in Hebrew, is the practice by which Jews go to a large flowing body of water and symbolically "throw away" their sins by throwing a piece of bread, or similar food, into the water before the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur.
Oded Balilty/AP
October 5: People form a human tower called a castell during a biannual competition in Tarragona, Spain. The formation of human towers is a tradition in Spain's Catalonia region.
Albert Gea/Reuters/Landov
October 7: A tank from the Indonesian Marine Corps fires projectiles in Surabaya, Indonesia, for the military's 69th anniversary.
Robertus Pudyanto/Getty Images
October 10: Actress Angelina Jolie, right, is presented with an honorary damehood by Britain's Queen Elizabeth II at London's Buckingham Palace. Jolie was recognized for her campaign to end sexual violence in war zones. See more photos of Jolie's life and career
Anthony Devlin/Pool/AP
October 17: People peer into a bedroom as an Ebola victim's body awaits a burial team in Monrovia, Liberia.
John Moore/Getty Image
October 19: Pyotr Pavlensky cuts off a part of his earlobe while sitting on a wall enclosing the Serbsky Center, a psychiatric hospital in Moscow. Pavlensky was protesting what he said was the use of forensic psychiatry for politically motivated purposes. He said he cut off part of his earlobe to demonstrate how authorities could "cut off" an unwanted individual from society.
Maxim Zmeyev/Reuters/Landov
October 21: An aerial view from a hot-air balloon shows camels walking in Margham, United Arab Emirates.
Kamran Jebreili/AP
October 22: In this photo provided by Canadian politician Nina Grewal, members of Canada's Parliament barricade themselves in a meeting room after shots were fired on Parliament Hill in Ottawa. A Canadian soldier was fatally shot at the National War Memorial nearby, police said, and the alleged gunman was killed.
Nina Grewal/The Canadian Press/AP
October 22: A golfer hits a tee shot as African migrants sit atop a border fence dividing Morocco and the Spanish enclave of Melilla.
Reuters/Landov
October 23: ISIS militants stand near the site of an airstrike near the Turkey-Syria border. The United States and several Arab nations have been bombing ISIS targets to take out the group's ability to command, train and resupply its fighters.
BULENT KILIC/AFP/Getty Images
October 26: Students grieve during a gathering at Marysville-Pilchuck High School in Marysville, Washington. Law enforcement officials say Jaylen Fryberg, a popular freshman at the school, shot five fellow students before committing suicide on October 24.
David Ryder/Getty Images
October 28: People who came to Wallops Island, Virginia, to watch the launch of a NASA-contracted rocket walk away after the unmanned spacecraft, owned by Orbital Sciences Corp., exploded. The cargo module was carrying 5,000 pounds of supplies and experiments meant for the International Space Station. No one was injured in the explosion, and the cause is under investigation.
Steve Alexander/AFP/Getty Images
October 28: Dust rises as camels arrive for the annual cattle fair in Pushkar, India.
Deepak Sharma/AP
October 28: Lava from the Kilauea volcano pours past a boundary fence in Pahoa, Hawaii. The flow was picking up speed, prompting emergency officials to close part of the main road through town and tell residents to be prepared to evacuate.
U.S. Geological Survey/AP
October 29: Young activist Malala Yousafsai attends an award ceremony in Stockholm, Sweden, before receiving the World's Children Prize for the Rights of the Child. Yousafzai, 17, also received the Nobel Peace Prize this year. Two years ago, she was shot in the head by the Taliban for her efforts to promote education for girls in Pakistan. Since then, after recovering from surgery, she has taken her campaign to the world stage.
Jonathan Nackstrand/AFP/Getty Images
October 30: Kaci Hickox leaves her home in Fort Kent, Maine, to take a bike ride with her boyfriend. State authorities wanted Hickox, a nurse who treated Ebola victims in West Africa, to avoid public places for 21 days -- the virus' incubation period. But Hickox, who twice tested negative for Ebola, said she would defy efforts to keep her quarantined at home.
Robert F. Bukaty/AP
October 30: Singer Taylor Swift performs in Times Square to promote her new album "1989" on ABC's "Good Morning America."
Kevin Mazur/WireImage/Getty Images
October 31:Eric Matthew Frein exits the Pike County Courthouse after his arraignment in Milford, Pennsylvania. Frein, who is accused of killing a Pennsylvania state trooper and wounding another, was found at an abandoned airport near Tannersville, Pennsylvania, authorities said. He had been on the run for nearly two months.
Mark Makela/Reuters/Landov
November 2: Sheriff's deputies near Cantil, California, look at the wreckage of Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo. The space plane disintegrated in the air just two minutes after it separated from the jet-powered aircraft that carried it aloft. The accident killed co-pilot Michael Tyner Alsbury and injured co-pilot Peter Siebold, who managed to parachute to the ground.
David McNew/Reuters /Landov
November 4: A woman in National City, California, votes inside a grocery store during U.S. midterm elections. See more of the places America votes
Mike Blake/Reuters/Landov
November 6: Starlings fly near the town of Gretna, Scotland. The birds visit the area twice a year, in February and November.
Owen Humphreys/PA Wire/ZUMAPRESS.com
November 7: Visitors view the ceramic poppy installation at the Tower of London. Thousands of ceramic poppies were installed in the dry moat surrounding the tower to mark the 100th anniversary of World War I. There were 888,246 poppies, one for each British military member that died during the war. The installation, called "Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red," was created by artist Paul Cummins.
Dan Kitwood/Getty Images
November 11: Bill Cosby speaks during a Veterans Day ceremony in Philadelphia. For more than 50 years, Cosby has been one of America's leading entertainers: a noted comedian, an Emmy-winning actor and an innovative producer. However, his reputation has been tarnished after a least 17 women have publicly accused Cosby of sexual misconduct. Cosby's attorney, Martin D. Singer, has repeatedly denied the claims. Singer said in a statement to CNN that it defies common sense that "so many people would have said nothing, done nothing, and made no reports to law enforcement or asserted civil claims if they thought they had been assaulted over a span of so many years."
November 13: A handout photo provided by the European Space Agency shows the surface of the 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko comet as seen from the Philae lander that landed on the comet's surface. Philae became the first manmade craft to ever land on a comet. It is a miniature laboratory that will gather data on the comet, which is about 310 million miles from Earth.
ESA/Getty Images
November 13: Chandra Bahadur Dangi, the shortest adult ever verified by Guinness World Records, poses with the world's tallest man, Sultan Kosen, in London. Dangi is 21 ½ inches tall, while Kosen is 8 feet, 3 inches tall.
Andrew Cowie/AFP/Getty Images
November 14: U.S. Army Spc. Sabryna Schlagetter kisses her wife, Cheyenne, after returning home to Fort Carson, Colorado, with other members of the 4th Infantry Brigade Combat Team. The couple married on Valentine's Day this year before Sabryna deployed to Afghanistan.
November 19: A vehicle with a large chunk of snow on its roof drives along Route 20 after a massive snowfall in Lancaster, New York. A ferocious storm dumped large piles of snow on parts of upstate New York, trapping residents in their homes and stranding motorists on roadways.
Gary Wiepert/AP
November 20: U.S. President Barack Obama announces executive actions on the country's immigration policy during a nationally televised address at the White House. Obama is ordering the most sweeping overhaul of the immigration system in decades, despite Republican claims he is acting illegally by moving unilaterally to shield 5 million undocumented immigrants. Obama rejected accusations by conservatives that he is offering a free pass to undocumented immigrants and warned in a prime-time address that he would bolster border security and make it harder for unauthorized outsiders to get into the country.
Jim BourgPool/Getty Images
November 24: A protester in Ferguson, Missouri, stands in front of police vehicles with his hands up. A grand jury's decision not to indict police officer Darren Wilson for the killing of Michael Brown prompted new waves of protests in Ferguson and across the country.
Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
November 25: Afghan security personnel arrest a suspect after a bomb explosion in Kabul, Afghanistan.
Rahmat Gul/AP
November 25: Police Sgt. Bret Barnum hugs 12-year-old Devonte Hart at a Portland, Oregon, rally showing support for the protesters in Ferguson, Missouri.
Johnny Nguyen/Chambers Visuals
November 30: From left, St. Louis Rams Stedman Bailey, Tavon Austin, Jared Cook, Chris Givens and Kenny Britt put their hands up before playing the Oakland Raiders in St. Louis. The gesture was meant to show support for Michael Brown, the teenager who was killed in the St. Louis suburb of Ferguson.
Jeff Curry/USA Today Sports
December 3: Demonstrators march past New York's Radio City Music Hall to protest a grand jury's decision not to bring criminal charges against New York City police officer Daniel Pantaleo. Pantaleo was the officer who put Eric Garner in a chokehold in July for allegedly selling cigarettes illegally. Garner, a 43-year-old asthmatic, died en route to the hospital.
