2023 was another unprecedented year — from a former US president being criminally indicted to a Speaker of the House of Representatives being removed — both for the first time in the country’s nearly 250-year history.
Beyond politics, the US and Canada witnessed a suspected Chinese spy balloon float across North America; the world watched, listened and waited for any sign from the ill-fated Titan submersible on its voyage to the Titanic wreckage site; and every nation lived through increasingly extraordinary weather related to global climate change.
Notable occurrences include India surpassing China as the world’s most populous country, Henry Kissinger’s death and the Hamas-Israel conflict.
Here’s a recap of all major world events in 2023:
Hamas’ attack on Israel
Palestinian militant group Hamas executed a significant attack on Israel in the early hours of October 7. The attack, which came at the 50th anniversary of the Yom Kippur War, is regarded as one of the worst Israeli intelligence failures since its creation in 1948.
According to the Israeli government, more than 1,200 people have lost their lives in Israel with 6,900 others injured. The Israeli Defence Force (IDF) said 383 soldiers have been killed since the October 7 raid. Israeli authorities also say that Palestinian groups also took more than 240 people captive during the attack, some of which have been released in truce deals later.
“Hamas’s attack on Israel on October 7 is the third-deadliest terrorist attack since data collection began in 1970, based on the number of fatalities, with the 9/11 attacks representing the worst mass fatality terrorist attack,” Australian think tank CSIS observed.
Russian Mutiny
The chief of Russia’s Wagner Private Military Company, Yevgeny Prigozhin, staged a short-lived mutiny on June 24 this year. His act pushed the Vladimir Putin regime into an unprecedented internal security crisis. Leading a convoy of armed men and armoured vehicles towards Moscow, he demanded the ouster of Russia’s top defence brass.
His move created alarm elsewhere after news of the takeover of Russia’s Southern Military District headquarters in Rostov-on-Don, the largest city in southern Russia, surfaced.
However, Prigozhin abruptly ended his so-called “march of justice” after Belarus’s Alexander Lukashenko brokered a deal to allow him and his forces to come to his country. Prigozhin was later killed in August in a plane explosion in Russia.
Henry Kissinger’s death
2023 witnessed the deaths of many key global figures, from Pakistan’s last dictator President Pervez Musharraf to former Chinese Premier Li Leqiang. One among this list included the former US Secretary of State and National Security Adviser (NSA) Henry Kissinger.
The scholar-turned-diplomat presided over several historic events during his tenure including engineering the United States’ opening to China, negotiating the US exit from Vietnam, and detente with the Soviet Union at the height of the Cold War. With his shuttle diplomacy, he edged Moscow out of its standing as a major power in the Middle East.
BRICS Summit
The BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) bloc met for its annual leader’s summit in Johannesburg on August 22–24. The BRICS summit is seen as one of India’s biggest geopolitical wins of 2023. India was one of the key players in the admission of six new member countries: Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates (UAE). These global South countries will officially join the group in January 2024.
Iran-Saudi détente
There was another key development that dominated the news cycle for weeks before the Israel-Hamas war dominated news cycle coming out of West Asia.
China managed to broker a surprise detente between Iran and Saudi Arabia in March. The duo have a history of centuries-old rivalry originating out of the sects of religion they represent.
The bitter rivalry between Sunni Saudi and Shia Iran has destabilized several Middle Eastern countries, including Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen and Bahrain.
Turkey and Syria Earthquake
In February, West Asian nations Turkey and Syria experienced powerful earthquakes. measuring 7.8 magnitude, followed by a second one of 7.5 magnitude. The strong earthquakes were accompanied by numerous strong aftershocks that led to building collapses.
The first earthquake in Turkey was the strongest in more than 20 years and was as strong as one in 1939, the most powerful recorded there. It was centered near Gaziantep in south-central Turkey.
Chinese spy balloon
A Chinese spy balloon traversing the United States for a week in February 2023 dominated global headlines for several days. The balloon, detected over Alaska on January 28, crossed over some of the critical military facilities of the World’s most powerful military including the Malmstrom Air Force base in Montana, a location housing nuclear assets.
The controversy resulting from this incident ultimately forced the USAF to dispatch a fifth-generation F-22 fighter armed with an AIM-9X Sidewinder missile to intercept the balloon over water.
Titan Submersible incident
On June 18, 2023, the submersible named Titan disappeared in international waters in the North Atlantic Ocean near the coast of Newfoundland, Canada. It had five people onboard.
The US Coastal Guard later confirmed that all five passengers onboard had died as the vessel was subject to “catastrophic implosion”. The debris of the submersible has been found around 500 meters away from the bow of the Titanic.
