Thread by @washingtonpost

The images of 2021 tell a complex yet dramatic story, Marc Fisher writes.

There was fire and there was rain; the West burned and New York flooded. The Earth itself seemed to confront people with one test after another. wapo.st/3oOPBd4

There was, perhaps above all, the terror of lethal disease, a second year of a virus that unraveled the fabric of daily life and managed to set people against each other in ways that defied reason. wapo.st/3oOPBd4

It was a year when Americans hopped up on rage and fueled by distortions breached barricades and shattered glass, rebelling against their own country’s most solemn symbol of peaceful change. wapo.st/3oOPBd4

But it was also a year of carefully considered verdicts and hurriedly ended war, of mass migration and candlelight vigils. wapo.st/3oOPBd4

There seemed to be an overabundance of man-made anguish: A condo building in South Florida disintegrated in seconds. Thousands died in gun violence of the kind that’s so common, it’s barely noticed beyond the place where it happens. wapo.st/3oOPBd4

Halfway across the world, in Afghanistan, a place where turmoil is a constant, Americans mired in a decades-old conflict finally went home, and even that long-sought, long-awaited relief turned chaotic, divisive and deadly. wapo.st/3oOPBd4

Yet through it all, the people on this planet did wondrously good things, too.

Scientists concocted almost magical elixirs, vaccines and treatments that allowed many to edge back into lives they’d put on a maddeningly long hold. wapo.st/3oOPBd4

The finest athletes on the planet gathered despite the pandemic and demonstrated what people can do when they press themselves to the max.

Exceedingly adventuresome souls launched themselves into space. wapo.st/3oOPBd4

Experience the most memorable photos of the year with audio interviews from our photojournalists who covered the events: wapo.st/3oOPBd4