As we look back at the last 12 months, we can see a year that we hope to never witness again in our lifetime. The year brought uncertainty, perturbation and a near-apocalyptic world which we thought we wouldn't see outside of the big screen. But as the curtain starts to descend on 2020, The Bridge Chronicle takes a look at the power of hope and determination that resides in all humans.
Here's a look at 2020's most defining and memorable moments through the lens.
A firefighter walks past burning trees during combat against bushfires around the town of Nowra in the Australian state of New South Wales on December 31, 2019. Thousands of holidaymakers and locals were forced to flee to beaches in fire-ravaged southeast Australia on December 31, as blazes ripped through popular tourist areas leaving no escape by land.
Aerial view of empty Kennedy Avenue in Santiago, Chile, on March 27, 2020. That day, more than 1.3 million people, seven of the main communes of Santiago, entered into total quarantine for a week. Following this, suspension of classes due to the coronavirus epidemic left 1,610 confirmed cases and four deceased.
A nurse cleans a patient with COVID-19 on a ventilator at a Stamford Hospital Intensive Care Unit on April 24, 2020 in Stamford, Connecticut. The hospital opened additional ICUs to deal the the vast number of people suffering from the coronavirus pandemic, and roughly half of the patients at the hospital were COVID-19 positive. Stamford, with it's close proximity to New York City, has the highest number of COVID-19 patients in the state.
May 30, 2020: Police hold batons as they stand guard near the 5th police precinct during a demonstration to call for justice for George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The Minneapolis city council voted to slash nearly $8 million from its police budget on December 10, 2020, as it seeked to overhaul its force in the wake of the killing of George Floyd, US media reported.
June 15, 2020: A man waves a rainbow flag in front of the US Supreme Court that released a decision that said federal law protects LGBTQ workers from discrimination in Washington,DC. The US Supreme Court on December 7, 2020 upheld a policy in Oregon public schools that allowed transgender students to use the bathrooms and locker rooms matching their gender identity.
July 24, 2020: Orthodox faithful attended a special service at Athens Metropolitan Church. Simultaneously, Orthodox believers protested against turning the historic Hagia Sophia in Istanbul to a mosque, after serving for more than 80 years as museum.
August 14, 2020: Candles and flowers decorated a makeshift memorial for US Army Specialist Vanessa Guillen at Power House Gym in Houston, Texas. She was murdered on April 22, 2020 by another enlisted soldier at Fort Hood, Texas which has been dubbed as the US military's "most crime-ridden post".
A boy carries a child in his arms as migrants flee the Moria camp after a fire broke out, on the island of Lesbos on September 9, 2020. Thousands of asylum seekers on the Greek island of Lesbos fled for their lives as a huge fire ripped through the country's largest and most notorious migrant facility.
Palestinians gathered to protest against the French president, in the al-Aqsa mosque compound, in the Old City of Jerusalem on October 30, 2020. President Emmanuel Macron criticised Islamists and vowed not to "give up cartoons" depicting the Prophet Mohammed. Macron's comments came in response to the beheading of a teacher, Samuel Paty, outside his school in a suburb outside Paris. He had shown cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed during a class on free speech.
November 3, 2020: A Donald Trump supporter clashed with a demonstrator at Black Lives Matter plaza across from the White House on Election Day in Washington, DC.
A resident of the Domenico Sartor nursing home in Castelfranco Veneto, near Venice, hugging her visiting daughter on November 11, 2020 through a plastic screen in a so-called "Hug Room" amid the new coronavirus pandemic.
Father-daughter mourn at a gathering in Obelisk to pay homage to Argentinian football legend Diego Maradona. The legendary footballer died in Buenos Aires, on November 25, 2020.
December 2, 2020: A pro-democracy supporter showed a sign for pro-democracy activists Agnes Chow, Ivan Lam and Joshua Wong outside teh court in Hong Kong. The three were sentenced after pleading guilty to inciting a rally during pro-democracy protests in 2019, that deepned the crackdown against Beijing's critics.
Indian farmers shouting slogans during a nationwide general strike to protest against the recent agricultural reforms at the Delhi-Haryana state border in Singhu on December 8, 2020.