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\f0\fs24 \cf0 2014: The highs and lows of a tumultous year\
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January\
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6 Temperatures in parts of Canada and the U.S. plunge as low as -38C as an extreme cold front sweeps south from the Arctic\
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February\
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7 The Winter Olympics begin in Sochi, Russia. At $50bn, they are the costliest ever Games\
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21 Following violent protests, Ukraine\'92s President Viktor Yanukovich flees to Russia\
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March\
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8 Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, carrying 239 people from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, disappears from radar screens. The search for the plane, thought to have ditched far off course in the southern Indian Ocean, is still ongoing\
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18 Russia formally annexes Crimea after nearly 97% of Crimean voters choose to secede from Ukraine\
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23 An outbreak of the Ebola virus is confirmed in the West African nation of Guinea\
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April\
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14 More than 270 girls are abducted from a school in north eastern Nigeria by the Islamist terrorist group Boko Haram\
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16 Over 300 people, mostly teenage students, die when the Sewol ferry sinks off the southern coast of South Korea\
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May\
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2 Ukraine launches an offensive on pro-Russian separatists in the east of the country\
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12 Narendra Modi becomes prime minister of India after the BJP wins a decisive election victory\
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22 Thailand\'92s second military coup in eight years ousts the interim government\
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29 Abdel Fattah al-Sisi former general who led the ousting of Egypt\'92s President Mohamed Morsi in 2013, is elected as president\
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June\
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2 Felipe VI  becomes King of Spain following the abdication of his father, King Juan Carlos, after 39 years on the throne\
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30 The militant group ISIS (Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant) renames itself the Islamic State and declares a caliphate in the territory under its control in Syria and Iraq\
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July\
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8 Israel launches an offensive on the Gaza Strip to stop rocket fire into Israel. The seven-week conflict kills over 2,000 Palestinians, many of them children\
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13 Germany beats Argentina by 1-0 in the final of the FIFA World Cup in Brazil\
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17 All 298 people on board Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur die when it crashes in Eastern Ukraine. Satellite images indicate it was shot down by a Russian-made surface-to-air missile in a region where separatists are battling government forces\
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August\
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7 The U.S. launches limited air strikes on IS militant strongholds following the seizure of the Iraqi city of Mosul\
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9 An unarmed black teenager is shot dead by a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, sparking outrage across the U.S.\
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10 Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan secures a historic win in Turkey\'92s first  direct presidential election\
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19 IS militants behead U.S. photojournalist James Foley, the first of five western hostages to suffer the same fate\
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September\
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12 South African athlete Oscar Pistorius is found guilty of culpable homicide over the shooting death of his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp\
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18 Scotland votes to remain part of the United Kingdom in a referendum on independence\
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26 Protests erupt in Mexico after 43 students are abducted after clashing with police. It is  believed they were turned over to a drugs gang and killed\
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27 Hollywood star George Clooney marries Lebanese-British lawyer Amal Alamuddin in a lavish ceremony in Venice\
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29 Ashraf Ghani is sworn in as Afghanistan\'92s new president in the first democratic transfer of power since the Taliban were toppled in 2001\
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October\
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1 Hong Kong stages huge pro-democracy rallies, demanding that Beijing withdraw plans to vet candidates for Hong Kong\'92s leadership election in 2017\
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21 Dilma Rousseff is narrowly re-elected as President of Brazil\
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31 The Virgin Galactic space plane,SpaceShipTwo, breaks up soon after takeoff. One of the two pilots is killed\
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November\
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3 One World Trade Centre opens in New York 13 years after the original twin towers were destroyed in the attacks of September 11, 2001 \
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3 The U.S. midterm elections see the Republicans regain control of the Senate and increase their majority in the House of Representatives\
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12 The Rosetta mission\'92s Philae probe becomes the first ever spacecraft to land on a comet\
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23 Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton wins the Formula 1 championship for the second time in his career\
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December\
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1 The death toll in the world\'92s worst Ebola outbreak tops 6,000, the worst affected countries being Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone\
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10 Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani schoolgirl shot by the Taliban for demanding education for girls, becomes the youngest ever recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize\
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Pictures: Associated Press, Getty Images\
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words 750\
}