2008
2008 (MMVIII) was a leap year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar, the 2008th year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 8th year of the 3rd millennium and the 21st century, and the 9th year of the 2000s decade.
The Great Recession, a worldwide recession which began in 2007, continued through the entirety of 2008.
From left, clockwise: Lehman Brothers went bankrupt following the Subprime mortgage crisis; Cyclone Nargis killed more than 138,000 in Myanmar; A scene from the opening ceremony of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing; the 2008 Sichuan earthquake kills over 87,000; a destroyed Georgian T-72 tank during the Russo-Georgian War; the Trident Hotel in Mumbai was the site of the November 2008 Mumbai attacks; a line of detritus in a backyard caused by the Kingston Fossil Plant coal fly ash slurry spill; Poster in Pristina celebrating the Independence of Kosovo from Serbia.