December 7, 2015 5:00 AM EST
2015 has been a year dominated by the migrant and refugee crisis in Europe, as thousands of people from Iraqi, Syria and Afghanistan, among many other nations, fled their homes. They left behind war, poverty and persecution in hope of better lives on European shores. The heart-wrenching images that emanated from Greece, Italy, Macedonia, Hungary, Croatia and France were not the only ones to convey people’s desperation in face of adversity. In Southeast Asia, Rohingya migrants were forced to drift in Thai waters in search for a nation willing to rescue them.
In the U.S., the year was marked by the #BlackLivesMatter movement, the Iran Nuclear deal, the tragic shooting at the Emanuel church in Charleston, S.C., and the early start to the 2016 presidential campaign.
Terror also came to the streets of Paris in January, when members of the Charlie Hebdo staff were brutally assassinated, and in November when eight terrorists killed 130 people in a series of coordinated attacks.
But the year also had its moments of wonder, and those were captured by photographers too—like a stunning photo of the International Space Station crew coming back to Earth and the first clear photograph of Pluto, a planet that had remained a blur, literally and scientifically, for 85 years.
In this slideshow, TIME’s photo editors present an unranked selection of the best 100 images of the year.
In this unranked gallery, TIME presents the top 100 photos of the yearA protester wears grass around his face to obscure his identity during a protest against President Pierre Nkurunziza's decision to run for a third term, in Bujumbura, Burundi. May 11, 2015. Goran Tomasevic—Reuters Performers take part in the opening ceremony of the 2015 IAAF World Championships athletics event at the "Bird's Nest" National Stadium in Beijing. Aug. 22, 2015. Fred Dufour—AFP/Getty Images United States midfielder Carli Lloyd celebrates with teammates after scoring against Japan during the first half of the final of the FIFA 2015 Women's World Cup at BC Place Stadium, Vancouver, British Columbia. July 5, 2015 Erich Schlegel—USA TODAY Sports U.S. player Serena Williams celebrates with the winner's trophy, the Venus Rosewater Dish, on the clubhouse balcony after her women's singles final victory over Spain's Garbine Muguruza on day twelve of the 2015 Wimbledon Championships at The All England Tennis Club in Wimbledon, London. July 11, 2015. Adrian Dennis—AFP Photo/Getty Images A beluga whale sprays water towards visitors during a summer attraction at the Hakkeijima Sea Paradise aquarium in Yokohama, suburban Tokyo. Tokyo's temperature climbed over 34 degree Celsius on July 20, one day after the end of the rainy season. Toshifumi Kitamura—AFP/Getty Images A young crowd takes shelter from big sea waves due to the Tropical Cyclone Marcia on the Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia. Feb. 20, 2015. Dave Hunt—EPA Ten-year-old Johanara surfs. The Bangladeshi surf girls are a group of eight outgoing and spunky girls ranging in ages 10 to 13 years old, who live and work in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh. Poverty is forcing them into an early adulthood, as they are obligated to shoulder the responsibility of earning money to help feed their families. Early each morning, rain or shine, they leave their homes and make their way to the beach, where they work selling jewelry and eggs until late into the night before returning home. Their families are unable survive without the girls' income. Allison Joyce—Redux A cloud of snow and debris triggered by an earthquake flies towards Everest Base Camp, moments ahead of flattening part of the camp in the Himalayas. Rescuers in Nepal search frantically for survivors of a huge quake that killed nearly 2,000, digging through rubble in the devastated capital Kathmandu and airlifting victims of an avalanche at Everest base camp. April 25, 2015. Roberto Schmidt—AFP/Getty Images Survivors of an avalanche wait to receive relief goods distributed by an Army helicopter in the Paryan district of Panjshir province, Afghanistan. Feb. 28, 2015. Hedayatullah Amid—EPA
Ice floes are viewed along the Hudson River in Manhattan on a frigidly cold day. New York. Feb. 20, 2015. Much of the East Coast and Western United States experienced unusually cold weather during the winter of 2015, with temperatures in the teens and the wind chill factor making it feel well below zero. Spencer Platt—Getty Images A view of a kindergarten that was shelled in Debaltseve, Donetsk area, Ukraine. Jan. 22, 2015. Anastasia Vlasova—EPA Yulia Novomlynets, 18, waits in a line to receive the humanitarian aid in the local Palace of Culture which is used as a bomb shelter in Mironovka village, near Debaltseve, Ukraine. Feb. 17, 2015. Anastasia Vlasova—EPA Mourners gather around a coffin bearing Artiam, 4, who was killed in a Ukrainian army artillery strike, during his funeral in Kuivisevsky district on the outskirts of Donetsk, eastern Ukraine. Jan. 20, 2015. Manu Brabo—AP Ukrainian soldiers conduct operations along the road leading to the embattled town of Debaltseve in Artemivsk, Ukraine. A ceasefire began at midnight between Pro-Russian Separatists and the Ukrainian forces brokered by the EU, Russia and Ukraine. Debaltseve has become the focal point with reportedly 8000 Ukrainian forces trapped in a bottleneck inside the city. Feb. 15, 2015. Ross McDonnell Musa, a 25-year-old Kurdish marksman, stands atop a building as he looks at the destroyed Syrian town of Kobane, also known as Ain al-Arab, on January 30, 2015. Kurdish forces recaptured the town on the Turkish frontier on January 26, in a symbolic blow to the jihadists who have seized large swathes of territory in their onslaught across Syria and Iraq. Bulent Kilic—AFP/Getty Images A young boy walks past a makeshift barricade made of wreckages of buses to obstruct the view of regime snipers and to keep people safe, in the rebel-held side of the northern Syrian city of Aleppo. March 14, 2015. Karam Al-Masri—AFP/Getty Images Syrian rescue workers and citizens evacuate people from a building following a reported barrel bomb attack by Syrian government forces on the central al-Fardous rebel-held neighborhood in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo. June 9, 2015. Karam Al-Masri—AFP/Getty Images A wounded Syrian girl stands in a makeshift hospital in the rebel-held area of Douma, east of Syria’s capital of Damascus, following shelling and air raids by Syrian government forces. Aug. 22, 2015. Abd Doumany—AFP/Getty Images Nazreen Khatoon winces in pain as she lies gravely ill, suffering from severe postpartum anemia at the Tezpur Civil Hospital in Tezpur, Assam, India. April 2015. Assam has the highest rate of women dying in chidbirth and from pregnancy-related causes in all of India, where roughly 50,000 women die annually in childbirth across the country. Many families in Assam work on the tea plantations, where there is a high rate of pregnant and lactating women who are severely anemic due to poor diets and little to no prenatal care, leading to a high number of pregnancy complications. Lynsey Addario—Getty Images Reportage Gul Ahmad, an infant boy suffering from acute malnutrition, is covered by his mother's scarf while being treated in the therapeutic feeding center ward at the Doctors Without Borders (MSF) administered Boost Hospital in Lashkar Gah, Helmand province, Afghanistan. April 6, 2015. Andrew Quilty—Oculi A general view of Chilean Calbuco volcano from Puerto Montt, located approximately 1,000 km (620 miles) southern of Santiago de Chile, Chile. April 22, 2015. Due to the eruption of the volcano, authorities declared a red alert and ordered the evacuation of inhabitants of Ensenada, Alerce, Colonia RÌo Sur and Correntoso towns. Alex Vidal Breca—EPA Employees from a disinfection service company sanitize the interior of a theater in Seoul, South Korea. June 18, 2015. Kim Hong-Ji—Reuters Syrian migrants scramble aboard a Greek coast guard vessel from the rubber motorboat they were using to cross from Turkey to the Greek islands. The coast guards have orders to rescue any migrant boats they find during night patrols of the Aegean Sea and bring them to Greece for processing and registration. Sept. 7, 2015. Yuri Kozyrev—NOOR for TIME A cell inmate in the district of Soyapango, municipality in San Salvador, where police conducted a night raid in search of Mara Salvatrucha gang’s members. Alleged gang members are handcuffed, identified, and then put into the barltolina, an overcrowded temporary cell at police headquarters. Patrick Tombola People rowing boats enjoy night view of cherry blossoms in full bloom on Chidorigafuchi moat in Tokyo, Japan. March 30, 2015. Kimimasa Mayama—EPA German chancellor Angela Merkel speaks with U.S. president Barack Obama at Schloss Elmau hotel near Garmisch-Partenkirchen, southern Germany, during the G-7 summit. June 8, 2015. Michael Kappeler—Pool Photo/AP Tulips blooming in fields between Amsterdam and Leiden, the Netherlands. George Steinmetz Migrants cross into Hungary as they walk over railroad tracks at the Serbian border with Hungary. Horgas, Serbia. Sept. 7, 2015.
Since the beginning of 2015 the number of migrants using the so-called “Balkans route” has exploded with migrants arriving in Greece from Turkey and then travelling on through Macedonia and Serbia before entering the EU via Hungary. The number of people leaving their homes in war torn countries such as Syria, marks the largest migration of people since World War II.
Dan Kitwood—Getty Images Syrian migrants cross under a razor-wire fence as they enter Hungary at the border with Serbia, near Roszke, Hungary. Aug. 27, 2015. Bernadett Szabo—Reuters A group of migrants wait at a makeshift detention camp for Hungarian authorities in Roszke, Hungary, to register their arrival in the European Union. Aug. 29, 2015. Yuri Kozyrev—NOOR for TIME A migrant holds his child during a clash with Hungarian riot police at the Horgos border crossing in Serbia. Hungary's decision to seal its border rippled across Europe and other migrants scrambled to find alternative routes in an effort, in most cases, to reach Germany. Sept. 16, 2015. Sergey Ponomarev—The New York Times/Redux Children cry as migrants waiting on the Greek side of the border break through a cordon of Macedonian special police forces to cross into Macedonia, near the southern city of Gevgelija, The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. Aug. 21, 2015. Georgi Licovski—EPA Gendarmerie attempt to prevent people from entering the Eurotunnel terminal in Coquelles in Calais, France. Hundreds of migrants were trying to enter the Channel Tunnel and onto trains heading to the United Kingdom. July 30, 2015. Rob Stothard—Getty Images A body discovered by the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Air and Marine while on patrol near the Texas-Mexico border floats in the Rio Grande, in Rio Grande City, Texas. Feb. 24, 2015. Eric Gay—AP Residents wait for rescue helicopters at a flooded residential area as the Kinugawa river burst their banks, caused by typhoon Etau, in Joso, Ibaraki prefecture, Japan. Sept. 10, 2015. Kyodo—Reuters A young Israeli settler snorkels as sheep belonging to a Palestinian shepherd drink water from a spring located in the Jordan Valley near the Palestinian village of Uja, near the West Bank town of Jericho. April 8, 2015. Abir Sultan—EPA Shejaiya, the destroyed neighborhood abutting the border fence with Israel in Gaza City, Gaza Strip. Aug. 1, 2015. Tomas Munita—The New York Times/Redux Mourners gather during the funeral service for seven children from the Sassoon family, who died in a house fire in Brooklyn, NY, before their burial in Jerusalem. March 23, 2015. Baz Ratner—Reuters Palestinian school girls walk in line past the Dome of the Rock at the Al-Aqsa mosque compound in Jerusalem's Old City. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu scrambled to contain inflammatory rhetoric from his government over the holy site, which is sacred to both Muslims and Jews, at the heart of a wave of deadly Palestinian unrest. Oct. 27, 2015. Ahmad Gharabli—AFP/Getty Images Muslim pilgrims circle the Kaaba, the cube-shaped building at the Grand Mosque in the Muslim holy city of Mecca, while performing Tawaf, an anti-clockwise movement around the Kaaba and one of the main rites of the annual pilgrimage, known as Hajj. Mecca, Saudi Arabia. Sept. 21, 2015. Mosa'ab Elshamy—AP Afghan policemen display their skills at a police training center in Nangarhar Province, in the eastern part of Afghanistan. March 9, 2015. Parwiz—Reuters Border Patrol Agents apprehend migrants hiding in sand dunes in Riviera, Texas. These migrants were avoiding the interior checkpoint located in Sarita, Texas, on Rt. 77 North to San Antonio. Interior checkpoints are located on northbound highways 60 miles north of the Rio Grande River in Texas. This is the nation's busiest corridor for human smuggling and migrants must circumvent authorities by traversing private ranches on foot. Feb. 2015. Kirsten Luce for TIME Properties surrounded by desert in Rancho Mirage, Calif. The state's history as a frontier of prosperity and glamour faces an uncertain future as the fourth year of severe water shortages has prompted Gov. Jerry Brown to mandate a 25 percent reduction in non-agricultural water use. April 3, 2015. Damon Winter—The New York Times/Redux The arrival of Pope Francis at Joint Base Andrews, Md. Sept. 22, 2015. Tobias Hutzler for TIME Pope Francis arrives for a special audience with members of the dioceses of Cassano allo Ionio, from southern Italy, at the Vatican. Feb. 21, 2015. L' Osservatore Romano, pool—AP A view from a plane during the so-called "Eclipse Flight" from the Russian city of Murmansk to observe the solar eclipse above the neutral waters of the Norwegian Sea. March 20, 2015. Sergei Karpukhin—Reuters Pluto as seen in an image taken by the Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) aboard NASA's New Horizons spacecraft, when the spacecraft was 476,000 miles (768,000 kilometers) from the surface. July 13, 2015.
NASA/APL/SwRI/Corbis A large plume of smoke rises from the Rocky Fire near Clearlake, Calif. Over 1,900 firefighters are battling the Rocky Fire that burned over 22,000 acres since it started earlier that week. The fire has destroyed at least 14 homes. Aug. 1, 2015. Justin Sullivan—Getty Images A Syrian government soldier fires a heavy machine gun at ISIS positions on the other side of a street in Deir-ez Zor. May 18, 2015. Contact Press Images An unidentified dead man hangs from his waist under an overpass in the southern part of Mexico City, Mexico. The man was found wrapped in white bandages and a cap was covering his head. This is the first time a body appears on a bridge or overpass in Mexico City, a common practice among criminal gangs fighting for control of turf in other regions of Mexico. Mexico City authorities repeatedly stated that the capital is safe from the wave of violence that continues to affect many parts of the country. Oct. 19, 2015. Jair Cabrera—AP A man carries two children as panic broke out among mourners who payed their respect at the terroristic attacks sites at restaurant Le Petit Cambodge and the Carillon Hotel in Paris. Nov. 15, 2015. Peter Dejong—AP A victim under a blanket lays dead outside the Bataclan theater in Paris, France. Nov. 13, 2015.
At least 129 people were killed in a series of shooting and explosions. French President Francois Hollande declared a state of emergency and announced that he was closing the country's borders. Jerome Delay—AP People gather to pay respect for the victims of a terror attack against satirical weekly magazine, Charlie Hebdo in Paris. Jan. 7, 2015. Thibault Camus—AP People gather outside of Notre Dame cathedral ahead of a ceremony in memory of the victims of the terrorist attacks in Paris, France. Nov. 15, 2015. Jerome Sessini—Magnum A man and two boys stand on a hillside, waiting for Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders to address supporters during a campaign rally at Prince William Fairground in Manassas, Va. Sept. 14, 2015. Cliff Owen—AP The Soyuz TMA-14M spacecraft is seen as it lands with Expedition 42 commander Barry Wilmore of NASA, Alexander Samokutyaev of the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) and Elena Serova of Roscosmos near the town of Zhezkazgan, Kazakhstan. NASA Astronaut Wilmore, Russian Cosmonauts Samokutyaev and Serova are returning after almost six months onboard the International Space Station where they served as members of the Expedition 41 and 42 crews. March 12, 2015. Bill Ingalls— NASA/AFP Photos/Getty Images Members of the rebel group, the Sudan Liberation Army led by Abdul Wahid (SLA-AW), climb towards the front lines in Jebel Marra, Central Darfur, Sudan. The mountainous area has been a stronghold of the SLA-AW since the conflict between the neglected population and the Sudanese government broke out in 2003. March 4, 2015. Adriane Ohanesian Syrian refugee girl, Zubaida Faisal, 10, skips a rope while she and other children play near their tents at an informal tented settlement near the Syrian border on the outskirts of Mafraq, Jordan. July 19, 2015. Muhammed Muheisen—AP North Korean children perform at the Pyongyang Kyongsang Kindergarten. David Guttenfelder—The New York Times/National Geographic Creative President Barack Obama, Amelia Boynton, right, Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) and the first family lead a march toward the Edmund Pettus bridge, 50 years to the day after Bloody Sunday in Selma, Ala. In an address, Obama rejected the notion that race relations have not improved in the years since—as well as the notion that racism has been defeated. March 7, 2015. Doug Mills—The New York Times/Redux The mother of two men killed in a double homicide in eastern New Orleans reacts after confirmation of their identities came from police. New Orleans, La. May 25, 2015. Kathleen Flynn—The Times-Picayune/Landov Officers Paul Watson, right, and his partner Officer Richard O'Brien make a traffic stop in Philadelphia, PA., as neighbors look on. After the police searched his car, the man was released. July 29, 2015. Natalie Keyssar for TIME Visitors pay their respects during an open viewing for Rev. Clementa Pinckney at the South Carolina State House. Columbia, S.C. June 24, 2015.
Pinckney was one of nine people killed during a Bible study inside Emanuel AME church in Charleston. Win McNamee—2015 Getty Images Dylann Roof appears via a jailhouse videolink at the Centralized Bond Hearing Court in North Charleston, S.C. June 19, 2015. Roof was charged with nine counts of murder and firearms charges in the shooting at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in downtown Charleston, S.C. Grace Beahm—POOL/EPA Holly Holm of the U.S. (pictured right) lands a kick to the neck to knock out compatriot Ronda Rousey and wins the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) title fight in Melbourne, Australia. Nov. 15, 2015. Paul Crock—AFP/Getty Images Riot Police remove housing rights activists as they try to stop Luisa Gracia Gonzalez and her family's eviction and the demolition of their house by a forced expropriation in Madrid. Feb. 2015. Andres Kudacki—AP Chinese actors playing Japanese soldiers are blown off a wall in an explosion during the filming of the series "The Last Noble," set during the second Sino-Japanese War on in Fangyan, China. Seventy years after the end of World War II, there is still widespread resentment across China toward Japan and its wartime misdeeds. It is estimated that hundreds of films depicting China's victory over Japan in 1945 are produced on the mainland every year and the genre remains one of the country's most popular entertainment draws. Aug. 13, 2015. Kevin Frayer—Getty Images Supporters of the presidential candidate Muhammadu Buhari and his All Progressive Congress hit another supporter with a motorbike during celebrations in Kano. Nigeria's opposition APC declared an election victory for former military ruler Buhari and said Africa's most populous nation was witnessing history with its first democratic transfer of power. March 31, 2015. Goran Tomasevic—Reuters Jean Claude Niyonzima, a suspected member of the ruling party's Imbonerakure youth militia, pleads with soldiers to protect him from a mob of demonstrators after he emerged from hiding in a sewer in the Cibitoke district of Bujumbura, Burundi. Niyonzima escaped the lynching by running into the sewer. May 7, 2015. Jerome Delay—AP Ebola survivor and nurse's aid Benetha Coleman comforts an infant girl with Ebola symptoms in the high-risk area of the Doctors Without Borders (MSF), Ebola Treatment Unit (ETU), Paynesville, Liberia. Jan. 26, 2015. John Moore—Getty Images People stand near a burning pile of 15 tons of elephant ivory seized in Nairobi National Park in Nairobi, Kenya. Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta set fire to a giant pile of elephant ivory, vowing to destroy the country's entire stockpile of illegal tusks by the year's end. The 15 tons destroyed was worth some $30 million on the black market and represented up to 1,500 slaughtered elephants. It dwarfs the ivory burned by previous Kenyan leaders. March 3, 2015. Carl de Souza—AFP/Getty Images A runaway hippo on the loose in the streets of Tbilisi, Georgia. June, 14 2015. Portions of the Tbilisi's zoo were destroyed, due to severe flooding in the capital,
allowing many animals - including six tigers, six lions and eight bears - to break free of their enclosures and roam the streets.
Beso Gulashvili/Georgian Prime Minister Service/Handout/EPA An orangutan with her baby are rescued by a team from International Animal Rescue after they were attacked by villagers in the Kuala Satong in Indonesia. Isnaini Nurdin—International Animal Rescue Oma Salema, 12, holds her undernourished brother Ayub Khan, 1, at a camp for Rohingya in Sittwe, Myanmar. The government of Myanmar says it is determined to stop the departures of migrants fleeing religious persecution in places like Sittwe, but it will not budge in its refusal to address the conditions driving the exodus across the sea. June 5, 2015. Tomas Munita—The New York Times/Redux Rohingya migrants pass food supplies dropped by a Thai army helicopter to others aboard a boat drifting in Thai waters off the southern island of Koh Lipe in the Andaman sea. A boat crammed with scores of Rohingya migrants—including many young children—was found drifting in Thai waters, with passengers saying several people had died over the last few days. May 14, 2015. Christophe Archambault—AFP/Getty Images Bishnu Gurung sobs after her 3-year-old daughter, Rejina Gurung, was found buried in the rubble in the village of Gumda in Gorkha district, near the epicenter of last month's Nepal earthquake. May 8, 2015. James Nachtwey for TIME Tran Thien Nhan, with severely malformed head and diminutive body, is an Agent Orange victim in Danang, Vietnam. His mother, Ngo Thi Tinh, and grandmother, The Thi Dao, care for him. James Nachtwey Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton waits to be introduced before speaking about rural issues at the Des Moines Area Community College, in Ankeny, Iowa. Aug. 26, 2015. Charlie Neibergall—AP U.S. Secret Service Agents stand guard as Marine One, with U.S. President Barack Obama on board, prepares to land at the Downtown Manhattan Heliport in New York, N.Y. President Obama is traveling to attend Democratic fundraisers. Nov. 2, 2015. Saul Loeb—AFP/Getty Images U.S. President Barack Obama extends his hand to Russian President Vladimir Putin during their meeting at the United Nations General Assembly in New York, N.Y. Sept. 28, 2015. Kevin Lamarque—Reuters Former Republican Speaker of the House John Boehner kisses Democratic House minority leader Nancy Pelosi after Boehner was re-elected as Speaker of the House on the floor of the House of Representatives in the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. Jan. 6, 2015. Jim Lo Scalzo—EPA A Jeb Bush supporter is seen at the “Growth and Opportunity Party” In Des Moines, Iowa. Nov. 7, 2015. Christopher Morris—VII for TIME American businessman Donald Trump at the #FITN Republican Leadership Summit in Nashua, N.H. April 18, 2015. Mark Peterson—Redux Naomi Scott, center, of McMinnville, Ore., takes a picture with Democratic presidential candidate Senator Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., at a rally at the Moda Center in Portland, Ore. Aug. 9, 2015. Troy Wayrynen—AP Texas senator and Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz smokes a cigar after speaking at an event called "Smoke a cigar with Ted Cruz" at a house party at the home of Linda and Steven Goddu in Salem, N.H. M. Scott Brauer Democratic presidential candidate, former First Lady and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton speaks to a crowd at a rally in Portsmouth, N.H. At the rally, New Hampshire senator Jeanne Shaheen endorsed Clinton. M. Scott Brauer 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, July 20, 2015. Arnd Wiegmann—Reuters A boat with refugees in the Mediterranean Sea. April 12, 2015. Opielok Offshore Carriers—EPA A paramilitary police officer investigates the scene before carrying the lifeless body of Alan Kurdi, 3, after a number of migrants died and others were reported missing when boats carrying them to the Greek island of Kos capsized near the Turkish resort of Bodrum on Sept. 2, 2015. Nilufer Demir / DHA—AP The figure of an 8-year-old boy is seen inside a suitcase on a Spanish civil guard scanner screen, at the border between Morocco and Spain's North African enclave Ceuta, Spain. May 8, 2015.
Reuters—Ministerio Del Interior/Handout Via Reuters A Colombian police officer carries a pack of marijuana seized in Cali, Colombia. Colombian narcotics police seized 4.1 tons of marijuana from drug trafficking gangs in two houses in Corinto, Cauca, according to authorities. March 30, 2015. Jaime Saldarriaga—Reuters U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry walks as he takes a break for the lunch time after a bilateral meeting with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif (not pictured) for a new round of Nuclear Iran Talks, in Montreux, Switzerland. March, 3 2015.
Jean-Christophe Bott—EPA Visitors look out over city streets from the One World Observatory at One World Trade Center, in New York. May 29, 2015. Justin Lane—EPA In this aerial photo, people prepare to launch a canoe from a flooded parking lot near Bear Creek Park in Houston, Texas. The Colorado River in Wharton and the Brazos and San Jacinto rivers near Houston are the main focus of concern as floodwaters moved from North and Central Texas downstream toward the Gulf of Mexico. May 30, 2015. David J. Phillip—AP A migrant walks towards shore in Lesbos, Greece, after swimming from the inflatable boat he had taken in the crossing from Turkey.
Refugees from Syria, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia cross the sea between Turkey and to the island of Lesbos, as the first step in making their way across Europe. Sept. 27, 2015.
James Nachtwey for TIME A police officer screams at refugees as they attempt to board a train in Tovarnik, Croatia, close to the border with Serbia.
From Tovarnik, refugees boarded trains and buses to be transported to either Hungary or Slovenia, then to be taken to border with Austria and onward.
Sept. 17, 2015. James Nachtwey for TIME A man walks with his son behind him as they make their way to the train station in Tovarnik, Croatia, on the border with Serbia. In the Balkans, many migrants traveled by foot, echoing more ancient journeys. Sept. 17, 2015. James Nachtwey for TIME Security forces and rescue teams examine the wreckage of an Indonesian military C-130 Hercules transport plane after it crashed into a residential area in the North Sumatra city of Medan, Indonesia. June 30, 2015. At least 30 people were killed when the military transport plane crashed into a residential area two minutes after take-off in northern Indonesia, putting a fresh spotlight on the country's woeful air safety record. Roni Bintang—Reuters An aerial picture of the site of explosions at the Binhai new district, Tianjin, China. The blasts devastated a large industrial site and nearby residential areas, forcing the evacuation of thousands of people after toxic chemicals were detected in the air. Aug. 16, 2015. China Stringer Network—Reuters Young Buddhist monks gaze out of a helicopter as they are evacuated by the Indian army from a monastery in the Himalayas. May 2, 2015. James Nachtwey for TIME More Must-Reads from TIME How Donald Trump Won The Best Inventions of 2024 Why Sleep Is the Key to Living Longer Robert Zemeckis Just Wants to Move You How to Break 8 Toxic Communication Habits Nicola Coughlan Bet on Herself—And Won Why Vinegar Is So Good for You Meet TIME's Newest Class of Next Generation Leaders