In 2014, President Obama announced sweeping legislation reform and the reestablishment of diplomatic relations with Cuba, Sony backpedaled after a hack exposed some less-than-flattering emails from company executives and came under more scrutiny after they chose to pull their Christmas Day release of The Interview due to threats of violence at theaters that showed the film, Republicans took control of both houses of Congress in the midterm elections, and protests erupted across the country after grand juries did not indict the police officers involved in the deaths of Michael Brown in Missouri and Eric Garner in New York. And that is just in the last two months of the year.
2014 also saw the advent of legal pot use after four states and Washington D.C. voted to allow marijuana to be used recreationally, a deadly outbreak of Ebola in West Africa that led to a couple of cases in the U.S., the shocking deaths of celebrities like Robin Williams and Philip Seymour Hoffman, and the still-unsolved disappearance of a massive commercial airliner carrying more than 200 people aboard.
What do you think was the biggest story of 2014? Be sure to vote in our poll below and add a story if you think we missed one!
Ranker - Lists About Everything
Guests:
Jim Fallows, national correspondent for The Atlantic magazine and the author of ten books, most recently China Airborne (Vintage, 2013). He was also once the chief speechwriter for President Jimmy Carter.
Bob Thompson, professor of television, radio, and film in the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communication at Syracuse University.