What a decade it’s been! Reuters’ best images show joyous occasions and those that shocked us

A woman walks near a fire at the Hyppolite iron market in Port-au-Prince, Haiti on January 29, 2010. A cataclysmic magnitude 7.0 earthquake on the Caribbean island two weeks earlier killed up to 300,000 people, injured the same number and displaced 1.5 million. 

The Northern Lights are seen above the ash plume of a volcano in Eyjafjallajokull, Iceland, April 22, 2010. The eruptions caused travel chaos across Europe as air travel was disrupted on the continent for six days. Hundreds of planes were grounded due to dust and ash filling the sky and it caused the greatest air travel disruption since World War Two.

Pope Benedict XVI enters a building during his visit to Lambeth Palace in London, Britain, September 17, 2010. The Pope made history by becoming the first pontiff to step foot inside Lambeth Palace. Lambeth Palace, on the south bank of the River Thames, has been the London residence of archbishops of Canterbury since the 13th century. It acts as a home for the Archbishop and his family when in London and as the central office for his ministry.

Former conservative development minister Kostis Hatzidakis is covered with blood after leftists attacked him with stones and sticks, shouting, ‘Thieves! Shame on you!’ as he left the Parliament building in central Athens, Greece, on December 15, 2010. Amid a growing financial crisis in the country, tens of thousands of people took to the streets during a General Strike, which resulted in regular clashes with police.

Anti-government protesters celebrate inside Tahrir Square after the announcement of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak’s resignation in Cairo, Egypt, on February 11 2011. President Obama hailed the resignation of Egyptian leader Hosni Mubarak. ‘In stepping down, President Mubarak has responded to the Egyptian people’s hunger for change,’ he said. ‘Today belongs to the people of Egypt.’ Mubarak’s three decades of authoritarian rule ended when he handed power to the Egyptian military following 18 days of protests.

Rebels hold a young man at gunpoint, who they accuse of being a loyalist to Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, between the towns of Brega and Ras Lanuf, Libya, March 3, 2011. The First Libyan Civil War started in 2011 between rebels and those lawyer to Colonel Gaddafi. The conflict was part of the wider Arab Spring, anti-government protests which shook north Africa and the Middle East in the early years of the decade. The unresolved issues of the First Libyan War led to the second civil war which still grips the nation today.

A wave approaches Miyako City from the Heigawa estuary in Iwate Prefecture after a magnitude 8.9 earthquake struck the area in Miyako, Japan, March 11, 2011. It was the most powerful earthquake ever recorded in the country and the fourth most powerful to ever be recorded globally. It killed nearly 16,000 people and caused food and water shortages to hundreds of thousands in the aftermath. The tsunami precipitated the Fukushima nuclear disaster, the most severe nuclear accident since the 1986 Chernobyl disaster

Residents sift through the ruins of their houses after a fire in Makati city, Manila, Philippines. The blaze, on April 19 2011, was started by faulty wiring and quickly spread, engulfing dozens of homes. Despite the widespread devastation caused by the inferno, only nine people were injured.

Britain’s Prince William and his wife Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, kiss on the balcony at Buckingham Palace, alongside bridesmaids Grace van Cutsem (left), Margarita Armstrong-Jones and pageboy Tom Pettifer, after their wedding in Westminster Abbey in London on April 29, 2011. When the couple kissed on the balcony of Buckingham Palace before the crowd, the world gasped in delight. But William’s three-year-old goddaughter Grace stole the show in this picture, famously covering her ears during the first public kiss as the crowd cheered.

U.S. President Barack Obama (2nd L) and Vice President Joe Biden (L), along with members of the national security team, receive an update on the mission against Osama bin Laden in the Situation Room of the White House, Washington, U.S., May 1, 2011. Obama watched on a TV screen with government officials as a commando gunned down bin Laden. Via a video camera fixed to the helmet of a U.S. Navy Seal, the leader of the free world saw the terror chief shot in the left eye. The footage of the battle in Bin Laden’s Pakistani hideout was said to show one of his wives acting as a human shield to protect him as he blasted away with an AK47 assault rifle. She died, along with three other men, including one of Bin Laden’s sons. Within hours, the Al Qaeda leader’s body was buried at sea.

U.S. Army soldiers from the 2nd Platoon, B battery 2-8 field artillery, fire a howitzer artillery piece at Seprwan Ghar forward fire base in Panjwai district, Kandahar province southern Afghanistan, June 12, 2011. Trump has made little secret of his desire to bring the 14,000 U.S. troops home from Afghanistan, where American troops have been deployed since a U.S.-led campaign overthrew the Taliban in 2001. But there are concerns among Afghan officials and U.S. national security aides about a U.S. withdrawal, with fears Afghanistan could be plunged into a new civil war that could herald a return of Taliban rule and allow international militants, including Islamic State, to find a refuge.

Covered corpses are seen on the shore of the small, wooded island of Utoeya, after mass killer Anders Behring Breivik killed 69 people in a ferocious attack on a youth summer camp of Norway’s ruling Labour party, and hours later detonated a bomb that killed seven in Oslo, Norway. Photo taken on July 23, 2011, a day after the attacks. Breivik was sentenced to 21 years in jail, the longest sentence Norwegian courts could impose.

Anti-Gaddafi fighters fire a multiple rocket launcher near Sirte, previously one of Muammar Gaddafi’s last remaining strongholds in Libya on September 24, 2011. Colonel Gaddafi was captured by Libyan rebels, dragged from a drain in the city of Sirte and battered mercilessly, his face bloodied for all the world to see on mobile phone footage. Gaddafi was said to have been executed by his own personal golden gun which was held up in celebration by jubilant rebels and became a symbol of their victory.

The race car of driver Will Power (left) goes airborne during the IZOD IndyCar World Championship race at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway in Las Vegas, Nevada, U.S., October 16, 2011. Dan Wheldon (whose car is not pictured) died from fatal injuries. The father-of-two was catapulted helplessly into the air at 225mph before landing on a barrier.

Men use ropes to try and right a supply truck overloaded with wheat straw, used as animal feed, along a road in Dargai, in the Malakand district, about 100 miles northwest of Pakistan’s capital Islamabad on April 13, 2012

A Yawalapiti boy dips his head into the Xingu River in the Xingu National Park, Mato Grosso State, Brazil on May 9, 2012. Every year in August the Yawalapiti tribe hold the Quarup, a ritual lasting several days to honor in death a person of great importance to them.

The full moon rises through the Olympic Rings hanging beneath Tower Bridge during the London 2012 Olympic Games in Britain, August 3, 2012. The eyes of the world were firmly fixed on London, from the hundreds of thousands of visitors from around the globe who arrived to share the Olympic experience, to the billion plus people who tuned in to watch events unfold on TV. And they saw a united London, a city that rose to the occasion and has basked in the spotlight.

An aerial view shows a house blown into marshland by Hurricane Sandy, which hit the northeastern USA in 2012. This image was taken on November 28 2012, almost a month after the storm , in the devastated Oakwood neighbourhood of New York’s Staten Island

Lynn and Christopher McDonnell, the parents of seven-year-old Grace McDonnell, grieve near Sandy Hook Elementary after learning their daughter was one of 20 school children and six adults killed after a gunman opened fire inside the school in Newtown, Connecticut, U.S., December 14, 2012. Adam Lanza killed his mother then shot his way into the Newtown school before committing suicide. Lanza’s obsessions with firearms, death and mass shootings have been documented by police files, and investigators previously concluded the motive for the shootings may never be known.

Syrian rebels dodge debris after the wall which they were taking cover behind is hit by a shell fired from a government controlled checkpoint during fighting in the Ain Tarma neighbourhood of Damascus in Syria on January 30, 2013

A man runs up the ‘gostra’, a pole covered in grease, during the religious feast of St Julian, patron saint of the town of St Julian’s, outside Valletta, Malta, on August 25, 2013. The idea is to grab the flag at the end of the pole, but many try and only a few succeed. On the day of the feast, there is a procession around town carrying a statue of St. Julian followed by brass band music, before the gostra contest rounds off festivities.

An aerial view of the Costa Concordia cruise liner, which capsized off Giglio Island in Italy, seen on August 26 2013. A total of 32 people were killed when the 144,500-tonne ship hit rocks and listed, trapping people inside, making it Italy’s worst maritime disaster since the Second World War. Francesco Schettino, dubbed ‘Captain Coward’ after he fled the ship before its 4,200 passengers were safely ashore, was sentenced to 16 years in jail for manslaughter. The 54-year-old was given ten years for manslaughter, five for causing a shipwreck, one for abandoning ship, and a further month for giving false information to port authorities.

Women carrying children run for safety as armed police hunt gunmen who went on a shooting spree in Westgate shopping centre in Nairobi, Kenya, September 21, 2013. By the time the chaos subsides three days later, most of the mall had collapsed and more than 60 civilians were dead.

An aerial view of a coastal town devastated by super Typhoon Haiyan in Samar province, Philippines on November 11, 2013. The immense storm killed an estimated 10,000 people and a tenth of the nation’s population, around 9.5 million people, were affected by the disaster in some way.

Indians who are considered uncontacted by anthropologists, react to a plane flying over their community in the Amazon basin near the Xinane river in Brazil’s Acre State, Brazil, March 25, 2014. Leaders of the Ashaninka tribe, which shared territory with the tribe and other uncontacted ones, had asked the government and NGOs for help in controlling what they considered the encroachment of these tribes on their own area, stating that the movement of other tribes is caused by pressure from illegal logging across the border in Peru

Residents react as Government forces enter the Mare slums in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, as part of a ‘pacification’ program to clear the area of criminals and drug dealers. The raid, on March 26 2014, came ahead of the city hosting football’s World Cup and to years before the Olympics arrived there. Mare is home to around 130,000 people and the pacification program had been running for six years at that point.

ISIS fighters take part in a military parade along the streets of northern Raqqa province, Syria, June 30, 2014. ISIS took over the city, making it the capital of their so-called caliphate, until they were forced out by a US-led coalition in 2017. For three years, Raqqa saw some of ISIS’s worst abuses and grew into one of its main governance hubs, a centre for both its potent propaganda machine and its unprecedented experiment in jihadist statehood.

Displaced people from the minority Yazidi sect, fleeing violence from forces loyal to the Islamic State in Sinjar town in Iraq, walk towards the Syrian border, on the outskirts of Sinjar mountain, on August 11, 2014. In the preceding days ISIS jihadis carried out a massacre of Yazidis, leading to the deaths of around 3,000 people and the displacement of half a million more.

Everyone loves a cat picture so what about a Cat Island? The felines here, seen on February 25 2015, crowd the harbour of Aoshima in southern Japan, which earned the nickname due to being home to up to 150 strays, considerably more than there are humans there.

British comedian known as Lee Nelson (unseen) throws banknotes at FIFA President Sepp Blatter as he arrives for a news conference after the Extraordinary FIFA Executive Committee Meeting at the FIFA headquarters in Zurich, Switzerland on July 20, 2015. The incident took place at the first meeting of the world governing body’s executive committee since its corruption crisis exploded. The meeting in Zurich had been called to allocate the date for a special Congress to elect a new president after Blatter’s announcement that he would step down. That decision followed mounting pressure on FIFA following a series of arrests, including seven FIFA officials in Zurich, following an FBI investigation and separate probes by Swiss authorities into the bidding for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups.

A world away from Sepp Blatter but on the same day, July 20 2015, an Afghan boy plays on a roundabout in a ruined former hilltop park in the nation’s capital Kabul as the war continues there.

A migrant carrying a child falls after being tripped by TV camerawoman Petra Laszlo while trying to escape from a collection point in Roszke village, Hungary on September 8, 2015. Laszlo was filmed tripping up children and a Syrian father carrying a crying child as they attempted to flee across a field on the Hungarian-Serbian border. She later apologised for her actions – and denied accusations of racism, claiming she thought she was being attacked at the time.

The Zika virus led to a spate of babies being born with microcephaly across regions affected by the mosquito-borne illness. Here in an image from February 11 2016 in Olinda, near Recife, Brazil, Jackeline Vieira de Souza, 26, holds her four-month-old son Daniel who was born with the condition after she was infected while pregnant. 

Air Force One carrying U.S. President Barack Obama and his family flies over a neighbourhood of Havana as it approaches the runway to land at Havana’s international airport, Cuba, March 20, 2016. Obama was the first sitting president in nearly 90 years to visit the island, in a trip that the White House said would ‘deepen’ America’s relationship with the authoritarian government following more than half a century of tension.

Paralympic gold medallist Oscar Pistorius walks across the courtroom without his prosthetic legs during the third day of the re-sentencing hearing for the 2013 murder of his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp, at Pretoria High Court, South Africa on June 15, 2016. Pistorius shot dead Steenkamp in the early hours of Valentine’s Day in 2013 when he fired four times through the locked door of his bedroom toilet, later saying that he thought she was an intruder.

Remaining hopeful? A pro-EU demonstrator attends a rally in London on June 28 2016 showing support for and solidarity with the European Union in the aftermath of the referendum that saw Britain vote to leave the bloc. A week earlier 17.4m Britons chose to leave, however Remainers continued to protest, including here in Trafalgar Square, and the issue still dominates UK politics three years later.

Doaa Elghobashy of Egypt and Kira Walkenhorst of Germany compete in the 2016 Rio Olympics Beach Volleyball Women’s Preliminary in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, August 8, 2016. The outfit of Elghobashy, who was covered from her head to her ankles, was in stark contrast to her German rival Walkenhorst who stuck to the sport’s traditional two-piece outfit for the clash. Although the International Volleyball Federation used to have standards regulating the size of uniforms, those were loosened heading into the London 2012 Olympics to allow full sleeves and leggings.

Usain Bolt of Jamaica looks at Andre De Grasse of Canada as they compete in the 2016 Rio Olympics, Men’s 100m Semifinals at the Olympic Stadium in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil on August 14, 2016. Bolt had a predictably terrible start but came from behind to run it in in 9.81 seconds, overhauling drugs cheat Justin Gatlin, of the USA, who clocked 9.89, in the dying metres. Canada’s Andre de Grasse clinched the bronze medal in a personal best 9.91.

A demonstrator glares furiously at a riot policeman after two of her friends were arrested during a protest in Santiago marking Chile’s 1973 military coup. Other pictures of the woman, also taken on September 11, 2016, show her making obscene gestures to police. The photographer said he regretted not asking her name, but said: ‘The situation was tense.’

Migrants try to stay afloat after falling off their rubber dinghy during a rescue operation by the Malta-based NGO Migrant Offshore Aid Station ship in the central Mediterranean in international waters some 15 nautical miles off the coast of Zawiya in Libya, April 14, 2017. ‘They were three days of suffering, death and, most importantly, hope,’ said Reuters’ Darrin Zammit Lupi who captured the scene. ‘From Good Friday to Easter Sunday, I experienced those raw emotions aboard a migrant rescue ship. We saved thousands of migrants, counted the dead, and covered the shivering.’

Residents view the first iceberg of the season as it passes the South Shore, also known as “Iceberg Alley”, near Ferryland, Newfoundland, Canada, April 16, 2017. At 150ft high, this would have dwarfed the one that sank the Titanic by 50ft. ‘It’s the biggest one I have ever seen around here,’ Ferryland mayor Aidan Kavanagh said. Typically 90 per cent of an iceberg is underwater.

U.S. President Donald Trump welcomes 11-year-old Frank Giaccio as he cuts the Rose Garden grass at the White House in Washington, U.S., September 15, 2017. When Trump walked out to meet the Virginia boy, Giaccio didn’t stop. He kept his safety goggles on and earplugs in, and kept pushing the Honda mower. ‘Wow! Great job, Frank! Great job!’ Trump said. Photographers and video camera operators laughed as Giaccio kept going and Trump was forced to walk alongside him – pronouncing his lawn-cutting ‘perfect’ and asking: ‘Have you done this before?’ Giaccio had written to the president and told him it would be his honour to mow the lawn.

Students from the General Yermolov Cadet School attend a military tactical exercise on the ground, which includes entrenchment training, forest survival studies and other activities, outside the southern Russian city of Stavropol on October 21, 2017. Military education is part of the school system in Russia where youngsters study Russian history and train at patriotic clubs.

White House Communications Director Hope Hicks leaves the U.S. Capitol after attending the House Intelligence Committee closed door meeting in Washington, U.S., February 27, 2018. President Donald Trump’s longtime aide Hicks declined to answer questions about her time in the White House during a nine-hour, closed-door interview with the House intelligence committee, saying she was advised not to. The panel was probing Russian interference in the 2016 election and any contacts between Trump’s campaign and Russia. Hicks was his spokeswoman during the 2016 presidential campaign and is now White House communications director.

A child sleeps in a bag in the village of Beit Sawa, eastern Ghouta, Syria during an exodus of refugees on March 15, 2018. In the previous four weeks more than 1,220 civilians had been killed in the area leading to an enormous humanitarian crisis as Syrian government forces battled to enter the rebel-held region.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel waits at the chancellery in Berlin, Germany on March 20, 2018 ahead of the visit to the German capital of Irish premier Leo Varadkar. Britain and the EU had earlier agreed a Brexit transition deal, however Mrs Merkel predicted that there would still be many challenges to overcome.

Afghan journalists are seen after a bomb exploded in Kabul, Afghanistan on April 30, 2018. The blast was the second in quick succession, targeting journalists and officials who had arrived to cover and deal with the initial explosion. Nine journalists were killed in what was described as ‘the deadliest day in Afghan media history’, by The Afghanistan Federation of Journalists

Britain’s Prince Harry gestures next to his wife Meghan as they ride a horse-drawn carriage after their wedding ceremony at St George’s Chapel in Windsor Castle in Windsor, Britain, May 19, 2018. Bride Meghan made her entrance in a stunning, elegant wedding gown by Clare Waight Keller for Givenchy as she arrived to marry Harry. Harry appeared to wait nervously at the altar of the church and could be seen mouthing to Meghan ‘You look amazing’ as they met at the altar, to which the bride replied ‘thank you.’

Film producer Harvey Weinstein arrives at Manhattan Criminal Court in New York, U.S., May 25, 2018. The 67-year-old mogul was charged with two counts of rape, a count of criminal sex act and two counts of predatory sexual assault for allegedly raping a woman in 2013 and sexually assaulting another in 2006. Weinstein’s case was seen as a watershed moment and followed from the Times Up and #MeToo movements which drew attention to powerful men abusing their positions with women

A lone tree, seen on July 20, 2018, still stands after some of the harshest few years of Australian history. Jimmie and May McKeown’s property is located on the outskirts of town in Walgett, rural New South Wales. All possible tracks lead to the single water trough, almost creating an abstract star around the lone provider of life.

Migrants rescued by NGO Proactiva Open Arms rescue boat in central Mediterranean Sea stand on board before arriving at the port of Algeciras in San Roque, southern Spain, August 9, 2018. By that point in that year, more than 20,000 people had already been resuced by craft such as the Proactiva Open Arms as they attempted the perilous journey from north Africa to Europe.

A 5.3lb chicken is pictured next to 14,600,000 bolivars, its price and the equivalent of US$2.22, at a mini-market in Caracas, Venezuela, on August 16, 2018. Venezuela had been thrown into chaos by a socialist government under Nicolas Maduro which has introduced a controversial tranche of fiscal policies. Unbridled hyperinflation saw the bolivar devalued to a point where workers needed wheelbarrows to carry enough cash for a weekly shop.

Britain’s Prime Minister Theresa May stands out from the crowd as she arrives for a family photo during the European Union leaders informal summit in Salzburg, Austria, September 20, 2018. Mrs May’s faltering Brexit negotiations with the Bloc appeared to be exposed by her frequently stilted interactions with her counterparts during her tenure. To many it symbolised the EU’s attitude towards Britain following the decision to leave the EU in June.

Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro arrives at an inauguration ceremony of the new president of the Parliamentary Agricultural Front (FPA) in Brasilia, Brazil, February 19, 2019

Off to jail: Wikileaks founder Julian Assange is driven away by Metropolitan Police officers on April 11 2019 after being arrested inside London’s Ecuadorean Embassy where he had been camped for six years as he attempted to avoid extradition to face sex crime charges in Sweden.

Smoke billows as fire engulfs the spire of Notre Dame Cathedral shortly before its collapse in Paris, France on April 15, 2019. There was an outpouring of sympathy from around the world when much of the 850-year-old Cathedral has been ripped apart by the blaze. The Queen said she and Prince Philip were ‘deeply saddened’ to see the images of the flames bursting out of the Gothic building in a message to French President Emmanuel Macron. Macron for his part declared that he would rebuild the structure

US President Donald Trump meets with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un at the demilitarised zone separating the two Koreas, in Panmunjom, South Korea on June 30, 2019. ‘You’re the first U.S. president to cross this line,’ Kim told him, moments after Trump became the first American president to venture into North Korean territory. Trump announced after the meeting that in the ‘near future’ the two sides would be able to ‘get some good results after concrete negotiations’ – but with nothing tangible other than the commitment to resume talks.

A tree in the Amazon jungle burns as it is cleared by farmers in Rio Pardo, Rondonia, Brazil on September 15, 2019. The controversial clearances – which make way for farm land – attracted worldwide condemnation as huge areas of jungle and rainforest were lost to the flames.