A photographic retrospective of the moments that have defined the first quarter of the twenty-first century, we quite enjoyed this feature from The Guardian’s Jonathan Freedland taking up the mantle of chronicler of those who have encapsulated, bookended the history of the previously century and those saying we’ve reached the end of it. 
A challenge no doubt to distill the past-present down to a few dozen watershed events, illustrated by arresting and indelible images, this survey meets the task—from the representative picture captured by Susan Meiselas in Liberty Plaza’s Zuccotti park Manhattan as debris from the Twin Towers was raining down with the life-sized bronze of a business man (sculptor John Seward Johnson’s 1892 commission Double Check of a well-appointed executive taking stock of the contents of his briefcase before going to the office) sitting sedately amid the fear and chaos. Meiselas did not know at first whether this still figure was a person or a statue and since became a makeshift memorial for the office workers lost during 9/11. The anthology, year by year, covers the Iraq war, the rise of social media, natural disasters, the Great Recession, mass-migration, Brexit, COVID, Trump, etc. And so it goes.
synchronoptica
one year ago: a starquake (with synchronopticรฆ), the mathematical properties of the year plus the life and career of Anna Banana
twelve years ago: Russian discontents plus historic maps of the Americas
thirteen years ago: privacy screens for traffic accidents to prevent rubbernecking
fourteen years ago: Samoa adjusts its timezone
seventeen years ago: Hey Ya and the Peanuts
