Senator Barack Obama began the year on the campaign trail, 12 months later he was president elect of the United States of America.
In the Rift Valley town of Nakuru, Kenya, political and ethnic violence in the wake of a disputed presidential election left at least 10 people dead and hundreds injured.
An indigenous woman resists the advance of Amazonas state policemen who eventually expelled 200 members of the Landless Movement from a privately-owned tract of land on the outskirts of Manaus, in the heart of the Brazilian Amazon.
[img]http://news.bbc.co.uk/nol/shared/spl/hi/pop_ups/08/in_pictures_year_in_pictures_2008/img/3.jpg
[/img]
More than 55,000 people are known to have died in an earthquake that struck south-west China on 12 May. This woman was searching for her daughter and husband in Beichuan.
A US Marine comes under fire from Taleban fighters near Garmser in Afghanistan's Helmland Province in May. He was not injured. The end of 2008 saw both the US and UK consider sending more troops to the country.
Palestinian protesters take cover as they get caught in a barrage of tear gas canisters fired by Israeli troops during a demonstration in the West Bank village of Nilin, near Modin.
Rising food prices made basic staples like rice, corn and cooking oil unaffordable for many people all over the world. Fears of a global food shortage saw some rioting and unrest. Here in Lahore, Pakistan, people struggle in an attempt to get bread.
Heavy rainfall led to severe flooding in the US state of Iowa which killed at least 24 and forced 35,000 people to evacuate their homes.
The Beijing 2008 Olympic Games saw more than 10,000 athletes compete for nearly 1,000 medals. Two names stood out, sprinter Usain Bolt who claimed three world records and swimmer Michael Phelps who won a staggering eight gold medals in the pool.
Thousands of civilians were caught up in fighting in and around South Ossetia, which began on 7 August when Georgia tried to retake the region by force after a series of lower-level clashes with Russian-backed rebels.
Four children died and more than 50,000 were made ill by contaminated milk powder in China. The problem was revealed when milk powder from the Sanlu Group was found to contain melamine, an industrial chemical. But the problem spread as other companies become involved.
A global crisis in the world’s financial markets led to huge losses on stock exchanges, cuts in interest rates and massive government bailouts to keep some banks afloat.
Protesters hold signs behind Richard Fuld the head of failed US investment bank Lehman Brothers. The fourth-largest investment bank in the US filed for bankruptcy after it was hit by the credit crunch and could not be rescued.
UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown announced that the British mission in Iraq will end no later than 31 May, 2009, but US forces look set to stay until 2011. Here two US soldiers help a man who was wounded when he ran from a patrol in Baghdad.
US Republican Senator John McCain pulls a face having turned the wrong way to leave the stage after shaking hands with Obama at the end of the final presidential debate in New York.
As US President George W Bush prepared to leave office he told ABC News: "I hope they feel that this is a guy that came, didn't sell his soul for politics, had to make some tough decisions, and did so in a principled way."
An estimated 250,000 civilians in the Democratic Republic of Congo fled their homes and are living in desperate conditions following an outbreak of violence in the eastern part of the country.
From the BBC picture library
Happy New Year
