2024's anniversaries: A sneak preview of the new year's nostalgia

It’s 15 years since Obama became president and five decades since Watergate. Wondering what other retrospectives and anniversaries you’ll be reading about this year? Suzanne Harrington takes a look

Friends, ABBA and Frozen: nostalgia isn't what it used to be

Hello and welcome to 2024! In this perma-cycle of doom, where each year seems to exceed the one before it in terms of awfulness – did it all begin to disintegrate when David Bowie left the planet in 2016? – let us look mistily backward towards more innocent times, with Vaseline rubbed thickly on the lens, while consigning 2023 to the dustbin and hoping that 2024 brings more peace to the world. 

Got your rose-tinted glasses handy? Wipe them off and put them on, and let’s pretend everything was great in the past too.

Frozen fever gripped the world in 2009.

It’s been 10 years since... 2014

President Obama makes peace with Cuba, but according to the UN, Israel kills more Palestinians (2,300) than anytime since 1967.

The Winter Olympics happen in Sochi, becoming a barometer for LGBTQ+ rights, but Russia is too busy invading Crimea to care.

Narendra Modi, the son of a tea vendor, is elected president of India for the Hindu nationalist BJP party.

Donald Trump hints to the BBC that he is interested in the White House, having trademarked a slogan - Make American Great Again - two years earlier. Obviously nobody takes him seriously.

Trump’s future friend Kanye West marries reality person Kim Kardashian, whose bum breaks the internet a few months later.

Ebola breaks out in West Africa.

Chris Martin and Gwyneth Paltrow consciously uncouple and everyone is mean about them.

Other nuptials include George Clooney and human rights lawyer Amal Alamuddin and future divorcees Brangelina.

The UK legalises equal marriage.

Germany win the World Cup in Brazil.

Everyone uploads themselves doing the Ice Bucket Challenge.

Disney goes feminist with Frozen and Maleficent, the film adaptation of Gone Girl sees Rosamund Pike and Ben Affleck slugging it out, and Renee Zellweger gets a new face. Beyonce’s sister Solange thumps Jay-Z in a lift.

Malaysia Airlines has a terrible year, as two of its planes vanish from the sky – one mysteriously in March, the other shot down over Ukraine in July.

2.6 billion people are online, a figure that keeps growing. Facebook is still the main social site. Influencers and Instagram are on the rise, and we are using annoying words like synergy and chatvertise.

The Late Late Toy Show is 2014’s most-watched programme in Ireland. In the UK, everyone is watching The Great British Bake Off.

• RIP Robin Williams, Joan Rivers and Philip Seymour Hoffman.

Donald Trump walks on to a rally in his name in 2023, as he bids for a second term as US President - scarcely imaginable in 2009. Pic: Jeff Swensen/Getty Images

It’s been 15 years since... 2009

Obama is sworn in as US president number 44, and we all cry watching his inauguration.

Donald Trump sues a journalist for calling him a millionaire rather than a billionaire. He loses.

Iceland elects its first prime female minister, Bitcoin is invented, and the H1N1 flu virus is declared a global pandemic. A future virus is overheard saying, ‘Hold my beer’.

Beyonce releases Single Ladies from her album I  Am…Sasha Fierce. A young classical flautist will later name her flute Sasha Flute, when she grows up to be Lizzo.

Kayne West interrupts the acceptance speech of Taylor Swift at the VMA awards, and Michael Jackson dies aged 50 from a fentanyl overdose.

A pilot called Chesley Sullenberger, who will later be played by Tom Hanks, lands a plane carrying 155 passengers on the Hudson River without killing anyone.

The first episode of Modern Family is aired, and at the cinema,  Avatar becomes the highest-grossing film ever.

Neymar makes his debut aged 17 for Santos, as Messi wins 2009 FIFA player of the year, a year after Ronaldo.

Navigation becomes available on phones, and Netbooks are popular. Cruising is made easier by the invention of Grindr.

Courteney Cox Arquette as Monica Geller, Matthew Perry as Chandler Bing, Jennifer Aniston as Rachel Green, David Schwimmer as Ross Geller, Lisa Kudrow as Phoebe Buffay, Matt LeBlanc as Joey Tribbiani: the protagonists of Friends, who all finally left their apartments in 2004.

It’s been 20 years since... 2004

On December 26, an earthquake and tsunami in the Indian Ocean leaves 230,000 people dead.

A probe lands on Mars, but no life is found.

Uggs, Botox and fake tan are popular, and ‘blogging’ is word of the year. Google and eBay set up HQs in Ireland.

Janet Jackson pops out at the Superbowl, prompting a cultural event known as Nipplegate. Martha Stewart is jailed for insider trading.

Ten new countries join the EU, bringing the total number to 25.

In Norway, thieves steal Edvard Munch’s ‘The Scream’ at gunpoint, its second theft in a decade. It remains missing for two years.

A social network called The Facebook is launched in February, followed by Gmail in April. Skype has also arrived, as 14% of the global population is now online. iPods are having a moment.

Smoking indoors in public places is banned in Ireland, prompting ferry trips to Wales where smoking in pubs is still legal.

We watch the final episodes of Frasier, Sex & The City, and Friends.

Animation dominates at the cinema with The Incredibles, SpongeBob, and Shrek 2. Charlize Theron wins an Oscar for her portrayal of serial killer Aileen Wuornos in Monster.

• RIP Ronald Reagan, Estee Lauder, Marlon Brando, Christopher Reeve.

The Sopranos: it's been 25 years since gangster Tony Soprano checked into therapy

It’s been 25 years since… 1999

Bill Clinton is impeached despite insisting he “did not have relations” with a 21 year old intern who bore the brunt of her boss’s actions via global slut-shaming.

The Euro is launched on New Year’s Day as a common currency for 300 million people but not Britain, who prefer pounds.

On telly, The Sopranos debuts on HBO, West Wing on NBC, and Family Guy on Fox. Eminem releases The Slim Shady album, and Fatboy Slim’s ‘Praise You’ reaches No 1.

The mighty Serena Williams wins her first Grand Slam.

The Matrix makes a megastar of Keanu Reeves, its ‘red pill, blue bill’ trope the future fodder of conspiracy theorists everywhere.

Two armed students murder 13 others in an Ohio school, in what becomes known as the Columbine Massacre.

Quality films like American Beauty, Fight Club and Being John Malkovich looked conventional compared with the phenomenon of The Blair Witch Project, marketed as ‘found footage’. Was it though?

A former KGB agent, Vladimir Putin, steps in when Russian president Boris Yeltsin unexpectedly
resigns. He proves popular.

Star Wars: The Phantom Menace proves more anti-climactic than the Millennium Bug, which turns out to be not a thing, despite a full year of Y2K hysteria and a full solar eclipse in August. Nothing happens.

The sixth billionth human is born, including hoards of future TikTok and YouTube stars you’ve never heard of.

Swedish pop group Abba performs their song Waterloo during the Eurovision Song Contest in Brighton on 09 February 1974. Pic: Olle Lindeborg/Scanpix Sweden

It’s been 50 years since... 1974

Richard Nixon is forced to resign over Watergate, the first ever President to do so. A New York landlord, Donald Trump, is being sued by the Justice Department for racial discrimination – his refusal to rent property to black tenants.

A young author, Stephen King, aged 26, publishes his first novel, Carrie.

A humanoid skeleton, ‘Lucy’, estimated to be 3.2 million years old, is found in Ethiopia. Creationists are not happy.

The first barcode is scanned in an Ohio shop, on a packet of Wrigley’s Juicy Fruit. The HP-35 pocket calculator becomes a thing, as does the ‘micro computer’, the Altair 8800, which is actually enormous and takes up most of the desk.

A Hungarian architect invents the Rubik's Cube. Baileys Cream Liqueur and Kinder Surprise are also invented. Heiress Patty Hearst is kidnapped, and later joins in a robbery with her kidnappers.

Women’s Aid was founded in May, and opens the first women’s refuge in Ireland.

Argentina’s Isabel Peron becomes the first female president in the world.

Abba win the Eurovision in Brighton with Waterloo, and at the cinema, Blazing Saddles and Towering Inferno win the box office.

A naked man interrupts David Niven’s speech at the 46th Academy Awards, where The Sting wins seven Oscars.

West Germany wins the World Cup, and Muhammad Ali beats George Foreman at the Rumble In The Jungle in Kinshasa. Inflation in the UK is 17.2%. In Ireland, a pint of Guinness costs 19p in new money.

Leonardo DiCaprio is born decades ahead of all his future partners.

Liposuction is invented in Rome. Pet Rocks are a thing. The Doomsday Clock moves to three minutes to midnight – we are still worried about nuclear destruction rather than climate breakdown. Innocent times.