The retrospectives and anniversaries you’ll be reading about in 2026

Paul and Gary O'Donovan celebrate after finishing second in the Men's Lightweight Double Sculls during the 2016 Rio Summer Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Picture: Stephen McCarthy/Sportsfile

Hello and welcome to 2026! There’s not much to say about 2025 other than it’s over, so let’s crack on and hope things get better again before they get worse. But first, let’s take a glance back at how we got here.

It’s been 10 years since… 2016

David Bowie died on January 10, 2016. Picture: Masayoshi Sukita

The death of David Bowie on January 10, two days after his 69th birthday, heralds doom. As 2016 sees beloved musicians drop dead throughout the year — Prince follows Bowie in April — the political landscape lurches. Did Bowie’s departure tilt the world off its axis? Or is that just hazy cosmic jive?

In the UK on June 23, 17,410,742 people vote for Brexit, thanks in part to a fanciful slogan on the side of a campaign bus which reads: “We send the EU £350 million a week, let’s fund our NHS instead. Let’s take back control.” It turns out this figure is entirely fictional, but it’s too late – Brexit has been set in motion.

On November 8, 61.2 million Americans vote for Donald Trump in the US presidential elections, while 62.5 million vote for Hillary Clinton. Thanks to their baffling electoral system, Trump wins, taking over from Barack Obama on January 20. As if the year cannot get any worse, George Michael dies on Christmas Day, aged 53.

US Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and US Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump debate during the second presidential debate, October 9, 2016, Picture: Robyn Beck / AFP

In April, a leak of 11.5 million financial documents — dubbed the Panama Papers — reveals how politicians and business people use shell companies and tax havens to hide their wealth, launder money and evade taxes. Nothing happens. Business continues as usual.

Meanwhile, Ireland commemorates the 1916 Easter Rising centenary with parades and ceremonies overseen by President Michael D Higgins. At the Rio Olympics, 9,000km south, Gary and Paul O’Donovan win silver in the men’s rowing double sculls, following their determination to “pull like a dog”.

August 12, 2016; Paul and Gary O'Donovan celebrate after the Men's Lightweight Double Sculls, Picture:  Brendan Moran/Sportsfile

Beyoncé releases Lemonade in April, after a Black Panthers–inspired performance at the Super Bowl halftime show. Adele tours her album 25, performing to 1.47 million people across 111 dates. The musical Hamilton gets a Grammy, 11 Tonys, and a Pulitzer.

Singer, songwriter Adele performs for millions in 2016.

At the Oscars, Leonardo DiCaprio wins Best Actor for The Revenant, while people protest #OscarsSoWhite. Limerick’s Ruth Negga makes her breakthrough with the movie Loving.

JK Rowling, who has not yet gone to the Dark Side, celebrates Harry Potter & The Cursed Child opening in London’s West End, and Fantastic Beasts opening in cinemas. From the world of tech, we hear about autonomous vehicles, virtual reality, chatbots, blockchain, and drones. It all feels a bit sci-fi.

New words include Trumpism, Brexiteer, post-truth, dumpster fire, mic drop, alt-right, bigly, snowflake, hygge, and sharenting.

Books of the year include Sebastian Barry’s Days Without End, Elena Ferrante’s My Brilliant Friend, and Colson Whitehead’s Underground Railroad.

RIP Bowie, Prince, George Michael, Terry Wogan, Muhammad Ali, Gene Wilder, Nancy Reagan, Harper Lee, Carrie Fisher, Victoria Wood, Leonard Cohen, Alan Rickman.

It’s been 15 years since… 2011

Two famously peaceful places — Japan and Norway — have their peace shattered. An earthquake and tsunami cause the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan, while an armed right-wing lunatic murders 77 people in Norway.

Further south, across the Middle East and North Africa, the Arab Spring results in the overthrow of Egyptian leader Hosni Mubarak, and in Libya, deposed leader Muammar Gaddafi is killed by rebels. People assume Syria’s dictator Bashar al-Assad will be deposed, but instead civil war ignites, lasting until 2024.

In Pakistan, US military forces find and kill Osama Bin Laden; we watch footage of Obama and Hillary Clinton monitoring the operation from Washington. In New York, the Occupy Wall Street protest inspires Occupy movements internationally.

President Michael D Higgins reviewing the guard of honour by the 1st Brigade at the National Famine Commemoration at Kilrush, Co Clare. Picture: Eamon Ward

Amid an austerity budget, poet and academic Michael D. Higgins is elected President of Ireland, and Queen Elizabeth comes for a visit — the first British royal to do so since Irish independence. Everyone seems to enjoy themselves.

Queen Elizabeth II meeting fishmonger Pat O'Connell at The English Market in Cork City on her State Visit to Ireland, May 20, 2011. Picture: Maxwells/PA Wire

Across the sea, the Queen’s grandson William marries his university girlfriend, Kate Middleton.

Prince William and his wife Kate Middleton kiss on the balcony of Buckingham Palace, London, following their wedding at Westminster Abbey on April 29, 2011. Picture: Chris Ison/PA Wire

In Ireland, civil partnerships for same-sex couples become legal from January 1, although couples have to wait another four years for equal marriage rights.

Game of Thrones makes its debut in 2016.

Game of Thrones, aka dragon porn, makes its small-screen debut, while bestseller of the year is the atrocious Fifty Shades of Grey, aka mommy porn. Adele fever grips the world with Someone Like You, and Beyoncé announces her first pregnancy with Jay-Z, causing Twitter convulsions. Charlie Sheen has a series of drug-induced public meltdowns. Oprah presents her last talk show after 25 years. In London, 27-year-old virtuoso Amy Winehouse is found dead in her Camden house from alcohol poisoning, leaving a legacy of just two studio albums.

Word of the year is “occupy”. Other new words include hashtag, FOMO, obvs, bunga bunga, humblebrag, gamification, sexting, tiger mother.

RIP Steve Jobs, Elizabeth Taylor, Betty Ford, Amy Winehouse, Gerry Rafferty, Kim Jong-il, Peter Falk, Jeff Conaway, Václav Havel.

Amy Winehouse performs during the Oxegen Festival 2008 at the Punchestown Racecourse, Naas, Co Kildare.

It’s been 20 years since… 2006

Another despot is executed — this time Saddam Hussein in Iraq — and in Saudi Arabia, 362 people die in a Hajj stampede. In Ireland, Charlie Haughey is given a State funeral, and the planet Pluto is reclassified as a dwarf planet. Russia denies poisoning Putin-critic Alexander Litvinenko with polonium. Nobody believes them. He dies in London.

Twitter is invented as a fun, non-toxic microblogging site and we all love the novelty of keeping it within 140 characters. Google buys YouTube for $1.65bn, and Facebook allows anyone over the age of 13 with an email address to sign up. Nintendo launches its Wii fitness thingy, and Sony releases PlayStation 3. Somebody buys a Jackson Pollock for $140m, making it the most expensive painting to date.

In 2011, the year’s best-selling album is High School Musical.

As Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt have their first biological baby — a daughter, Shiloh — Britney and Kevin Federline, soon to be known as FedEx, part company. As do Jennifer Aniston and Vince Vaughn.

Lily Allen, Amy Winehouse and Beth Ditto are riding high musically, although the year’s best-selling album is High School Musical. Justin Timberlake releases SexyBack. At the cinema, we’re watching Pirates of the Caribbean 2, The Da Vinci Code, and Borat, while on TV we are seeing Dexter, Ugly Betty, and meeting Miley Cyrus as Hannah Montana for the first time.

Oprah is furious with author James Frey when it turns out chunks of his memoir A Million Little Pieces are made up, and Rosie O’Donnell and Donald Trump begin their long-term feud when she criticises his serial adultery. Mel Gibson, arrested for drink driving, reveals himself as a massive racist.

We are reading Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion, Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner, and Audrey Niffenegger’s The Time Traveller’s Wife.

Words of the year include crowdfunding, mumblecore, bucket list, celebutard, and season creep.

RIP naturalist Steve Irwin, killed by a stingray. Also James Brown, Wilson Pickett, Syd Barrett, Betty Friedan, Coretta Scott King, Robert Altman, Shelley Winters, Chris Penn, Gerald Ford, Glenn Ford, John Profumo, and Ivy from Coronation Street.

It’s been 25 years since… 2001

The world-changing event of the year happens on September 11 when two passenger jets are flown into New York City’s Twin Towers by Saudi terrorists, killing 2,976 people. The US declares a War on Terror and invades Afghanistan. The Taliban blow up the giant 6th-century stone Bamiyan Buddhas.

In Gujarat, the Bhuj earthquake kills 20,000 people. In Nepal, the Crown Prince kills 11 members of his family, including the King and Queen, and in the UK, a GP, Harold Shipman, is revealed to have killed about 250 patients over three decades. The human genome is sequenced.

The Enron accountancy scandal unfolds, Wikipedia is launched, and Steve Jobs announces the iPod and iTunes will change forever how we listen to music.

Ozzy, Sharon, Jack, and Kelly Osbourne in 'The Osbournes'.

The Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings film franchises release their first instalments, while Renée Zellweger astonishes us with her perfect British accent in Bridget Jones’s Diary. Baz Luhrmann directs a technicolour Moulin Rouge, while small children enjoy Shrek and are terrified by Monsters, Inc.

On TV, we meet a real-life Addams Family — The Osbournes — and Sex & The City wins an Emmy. Ricky Gervais’s squirmy David Brent debuts in The Office, and someone shoots Phil Mitchell on EastEnders. A coughing scandal rocks Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?

Emerging musical talents include Eminem and Beyoncé. Dido and Westlife are also chart-toppers, David Beckham is BBC Sports Personality of the Year, and Ian McEwan publishes Atonement.

Words of the year include 9/11, Ground Zero, box cutter, “let’s roll,” and also e-book and e-ticket.

RIP George Harrison, John Lee Hooker, Joey Ramone, Aaliyah, Desmond Tutu, Perry Como, Douglas Adams, Nigel Hawthorne.

It’s been 50 years since… 1976

As the US celebrates 200 years since the Declaration of Independence, China is rocked by the Tangshan earthquake and the death of Chairman Mao. NASA lands something on Mars, and in South Africa, Soweto rises up. Jimmy Carter beats Gerald Ford to become US President.

While the Troubles rage in the North, Máiread Corrigan and Betty Williams win the Nobel Peace Prize, and Ireland gets a new President, Patrick Hillery, after the resignation of Cearbhall ‘Thundering Disgrace’ Ó Dálaigh.

Ireland’s first mosque is built in Dublin.

On RTÉ, we watch The Riordans, Quicksilver (“stop the lights!”) and Wanderly Wagon. Luckily, there is also cinema, showing Rocky, Taxi Driver, The Omen (initially banned in Ireland), and Carrie. David Bowie makes his acting debut in cult sci-fi movie The Man Who Fell To Earth.

A heatwave — top temperatures of 32.5C in Ireland and 35.9C in the UK — causes widespread meltdown, along with a new youth movement called punk. The first punk single, New Rose by The Damned, is released soon after the first punk event at London’s 100 Club, and the Sex Pistols swear on live telly, goaded by a drunk presenter. Memorable tabloid headlines include “The Filth And The Fury!”

In a Dublin secondary school, some middle-class kids form a band called U2.

In total contrast, Stevie Wonder releases Songs in the Key of Life.

In the US, Steve Jobs and two others launch Apple Computers. Concorde starts flying commercially, and the VHS tape is about to change home viewing habits.

TD Gene Fitzgerald unveiling a plaque to officially open the new Apple Computer Ltd plant at Hollyhill Cork, on November 24, 1980

In the US, Roots, Alex Haley’s landmark book on the enslavement of African Americans, is published. So is Anne Rice’s Interview With a Vampire, Leon Uris’s Trinity, and Manuel Puig’s Kiss of the Spiderwoman.

New words include wuss, couch potato, pooper scooper, direct debit, asset stripping, butterfly effect, bean counter, athleisure, idiot-proof, digital camera, Ebola virus, wannabe.

Births: A hat-trick of Irish acting talent — Cillian Murphy, Colin Farrell, Andrew Scott — are joined by Benedict Cumberbatch, Reese Witherspoon, Alicia Silverstone, Ryan Reynolds, and Baby Spice.

Actor Cillian Murphy was born 50 years ago, in 1976.