Photo: Yannis Behrakis / Reuters
2015 was the year Europe's refugee crisis reached its peak, the year Paris was attacked twice, and the year almost every country on Earth agreed a plan to fight climate change. It was also a year of small, unexpected tenderness: soldiers sheltering puppies in their jackets, a firefighter calming a horse trapped in mud, a father kissing his daughter as they walked through a storm toward an unknown future.
The 73 news photographs below, taken by photographers from Reuters, AP, Getty Images, AFP and others, capture both sides of that year. We have grouped them by theme and added the background behind each picture: what happened, when, and what came next. Some images are hard to look at, especially those from terror attacks and the Mediterranean crossings. They are included because they are part of the historical record, and because several of them changed how the world responded.
A few images that show partial nudity or body paint from protests and festivals are blurred; tap or click them if you wish to view them. Credits for each photographer appear under every picture.
Refugees and the Aegean crossing
More than a million refugees and migrants reached Europe by sea in 2015, most of them crossing the short but dangerous stretch of the Aegean from Turkey to Greek islands such as Lesbos and Kos. Many were fleeing the war in Syria.
A dinghy at sunset
An overcrowded rubber boat heads for the Greek coast as the sun sets over the Aegean. Greek photographer Yannis Behrakis covered the crossings for months; his Reuters team shared the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Photography for their coverage of the crisis. Behrakis died in 2019. Photo: Yannis Behrakis / Reuters
A kiss in the rain
A Syrian man holds his daughter close and kisses her as they walk through a downpour toward Greece's border with what was then called Macedonia, in September 2015. That border, near the Greek village of Idomeni, became the gateway to the so-called Balkan route north toward Germany. The picture became one of the defining images of the year. Photo: Yannis Behrakis / Reuters
Alan Kurdi
On 2 September 2015 a Turkish officer carried the body of two-year-old Alan Kurdi from the shore near Bodrum, Turkey, after the boat carrying his family toward the Greek island of Kos capsized. His mother and brother also drowned. Nilüfer Demir's photographs spread worldwide within hours, drew responses from European leaders and led to a surge in donations to refugee charities. Photo: Nilüfer Demir
On the tracks at Bicske
Hungarian police try to move a refugee family off the railway tracks at Bicske station, west of Budapest, in September 2015. Hundreds of people had boarded a train believing it would take them to Austria, only for it to stop at a reception camp. Within weeks Hungary sealed its southern border with a razor-wire fence. Photo: Laszlo Balogh / Reuters
Raghad and her balloon
Eight-year-old Raghad Faleh, exhausted after crossing to Greece in a dinghy, holds a balloon given to her by volunteers. Island volunteers handed out dry clothes, food and small comforts to thousands of new arrivals every day. AP photographer Muhammed Muheisen, a two-time Pulitzer winner, made a series of portraits of refugee children that year. Photo: Muhammed Muheisen / AP
A dolphin beside the raft
A dolphin leaps beside a refugee boat as it crosses the Aegean. It is a rare gentle image from a sea crossing that, according to the UN refugee agency, claimed thousands of lives in the Mediterranean in 2015. Photo: Yannis Behrakis / Reuters
Terror, grief and solidarity
Terror attacks struck cities and holiday resorts across several continents in 2015. Again and again, the response was the same: crowds gathering in silence, flowers, candles and messages of solidarity.
The pencil after Charlie Hebdo
A man holds aloft a giant pencil at the Place de la République during the Paris unity march of 11 January 2015. Four days earlier, gunmen had killed 12 people at the offices of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo. More than a million people and dozens of world leaders marched in Paris, and the pencil became a symbol of free expression. Photo: Stephane Mahe / Reuters
Ankara peace rally
A man embraces an injured woman after two suicide bombs exploded outside Ankara's central railway station on 10 October 2015. The blasts hit a "Labour, Peace and Democracy" rally calling for an end to fighting between the Turkish state and the PKK. Early counts put the dead at 97; the final toll reached 109, making it the deadliest attack in modern Turkish history. The bombing was attributed to the Islamic State group. Photo: Reuters
Germanwings Flight 9525
Rescue workers search the mountainside in the French Alps where Germanwings Flight 9525 crashed on 24 March 2015. The plane was flying from Barcelona to Düsseldorf when co-pilot Andreas Lubitz deliberately flew it into the ground, killing all 150 people on board. The crash led airlines to review cockpit rules and pilot mental-health checks. Photo: Getty Images
Eagles of Death Metal return to the Bataclan
Jesse Hughes and Julian Dorio of the American band Eagles of Death Metal pay tribute outside the Bataclan concert hall in Paris. They were on stage on 13 November 2015 when gunmen stormed the venue; 90 people were killed there. Across the city that night, coordinated attacks claimed by the Islamic State group killed 130 people in total. Photo: Charles Platiau / Reuters
A peace sign in Berlin
A woman with the peace sign and the Eiffel Tower painted on her cheek joins a minute of silence outside the French embassy in Berlin, in memory of the victims of the November Paris attacks. The combined symbol, drawn by French artist Jean Jullien, spread across social media within hours of the attacks. Photo: Markus Schreiber / AP
New York in the colours of France
One World Trade Center, built on the site of the September 11 attacks, glows blue, white and red in honour of the Paris victims. Landmarks from Rio de Janeiro to Berlin did the same in the days after 13 November. Photo: Carlo Allegri / Reuters
Sydney Opera House
On the other side of the world, the sails of the Sydney Opera House are lit in the French tricolour. The gesture became a familiar global ritual of mourning after attacks in 2015 and the years that followed. Photo: Cameron Spencer / Getty Images
Flowers on the beach at Sousse
A woman lays flowers on the beach at Port El Kantaoui, near Sousse in Tunisia, where a gunman killed 38 people at a hotel on 26 June 2015. Thirty of the victims were British tourists. The attack, coming months after the Bardo Museum shooting in Tunis, devastated Tunisia's tourism industry. Photo: Jeff J Mitchell / Getty Images
A child's shoe in the Sinai
A child's shoe lies among the wreckage of Metrojet Flight 9268, which broke apart over the Sinai Peninsula on 31 October 2015, shortly after taking off from Sharm el-Sheikh for St Petersburg. All 224 people on board, most of them Russian holidaymakers, were killed. Russian investigators concluded that a bomb brought the plane down, and the Islamic State group's Sinai branch claimed responsibility. Photo: Mohamed Abd El Ghany / Reuters
Candles in San Bernardino
Mourners hold candles at San Manuel Stadium for the victims of the 2 December 2015 attack at the Inland Regional Center in San Bernardino, California. Two attackers killed 14 people at a staff holiday event before dying in a shootout with police. Photo: Mark J. Terrill / AP
A newsroom in shock
WDBJ meteorologist Leo Hirsbrunner breaks down as anchors Kimberly McBroom and Steve Grant tell viewers that reporter Alison Parker and cameraman Adam Ward have been killed. The two were shot during a live morning broadcast in Moneta, Virginia, on 26 August 2015, by a former colleague. The woman they were interviewing, Vicki Gardner, survived. Photo: Steve Helber / AP
Stabbing at Jerusalem Pride
Bystanders restrain an attacker after he stabbed six people at the Jerusalem gay pride march on 30 July 2015. The attacker, Yishai Schlissel, had been released from prison only weeks earlier after serving time for stabbing marchers at the same parade in 2005. Sixteen-year-old Shira Banki died of her wounds, and Schlissel was later sentenced to life in prison. Photo: Amir Cohen / Reuters
Ali Dawabsheh
A relative holds a photograph of 18-month-old Ali Dawabsheh, who burned to death when his family's home in the West Bank village of Duma was firebombed on 31 July 2015. His father and mother later died of their burns; his four-year-old brother Ahmad survived with severe injuries. An Israeli extremist, Amiram Ben-Uliel, was convicted of the murders in 2020 and sentenced to three life terms. Photo: Majdi Mohammed / AP
Hebron
In this photo from the West Bank city of Hebron, a Palestinian vehicle strikes an Israeli motorist, who, according to the original Reuters caption, later died. It was taken during the wave of stabbings, car-rammings and shootings that began in autumn 2015 and claimed lives on both sides. Photo: Mussa Qawasma / Reuters
War and its long shadow
Some of the year's most moving pictures show the human cost of conflicts, from active front lines to wars that ended decades ago but are still felt today.
Puppies in Mariupol
Ukrainian servicemen keep two puppies warm inside their jackets near Mariupol in eastern Ukraine. The war with Russian-backed separatists had killed more than 5,000 people by early 2015, when the Minsk II ceasefire was signed; fighting continued at a lower level for years before Russia's full-scale invasion in 2022. Photo: Evgeniy Maloletka / AP
A wounded girl in Douma
A wounded Syrian girl stands in a makeshift hospital in Douma, a rebel-held town near Damascus that was besieged and bombed repeatedly during the Syrian civil war. Field hospitals there treated civilians with scarce supplies. Photo: Abd Doumany / AFP / Getty Images
Sleeping in the ruins
A Palestinian boy sleeps on a mattress inside what remains of his family's home. Reuters photographer Suhaib Salem works mainly in Gaza, where many homes destroyed in the 2014 war had still not been rebuilt a year later. Tensions rose again from September 2015. Photo: Suhaib Salem / Reuters
A parade in Pyongyang
Veterans in white caps turn toward North Korean leader Kim Jong Un as he speaks at a military parade in Pyongyang. The October 2015 parade marked 70 years since the founding of the ruling Workers' Party of Korea and was one of the largest the country had staged. Photo: Wong Maye-E / AP
Divided families reunited for a few days
South Korean Lee Cheon-woo weeps as he meets his North Korean relative during a rare family reunion in October 2015. Families separated by the Korean War of 1950 to 1953 can only meet in brief, government-arranged sessions; the original caption noted that more than 66,000 people were on the waiting list. Many elderly applicants die before their turn comes. Photo: The Korea Press Photographers' Association / Getty Images
Agent Orange, decades later
Tang Thi Thang bathes her disabled son outside their home in Truc Ly, Vietnam. The family links his condition to his father's exposure to Agent Orange, the dioxin-contaminated herbicide sprayed by US forces during the Vietnam War. Vietnam says millions of people were exposed, and the debate over long-term health effects and compensation continues. Photo: Damir Sagolj / Reuters
Frank Levingston at 110
Frank Levingston Jr., aged 110, greets visitors in Washington on 7 December 2015, the 74th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor. He served in the US Army in North Africa and Italy during the Second World War. The original caption called him America's oldest veteran; strictly, he was the oldest verified American WWII veteran. He died in May 2016. Photo: Andrew Harnik / AP
Rights, protest and politics
From same-sex marriage to police violence and a presidential campaign unlike any before it, 2015 was a year of fierce public argument, especially in the United States.
The White House in rainbow colours
Crowds gather outside the White House, lit in rainbow colours on the evening of 26 June 2015. That day the US Supreme Court ruled in Obergefell v. Hodges that the Constitution guarantees same-sex couples the right to marry in every state. Photo: Rex Features / AP
A licence in Rowan County
James Yates and William Smith Jr. receive their marriage licence in Rowan County, Kentucky, on 4 September 2015. County clerk Kim Davis had refused to issue licences to same-sex couples on religious grounds and was jailed for contempt of court the day before; her deputies began issuing licences in her absence. Photo: Timothy D. Easley / AP
The couple had applied several times and had sued Davis in August. Davis was released after five days, and later court cases ordered her to pay damages to another couple she had refused. Photo: Timothy D. Easley / AP
The Confederate flag comes down
Honour guards lower the Confederate battle flag from the grounds of the South Carolina State House on 10 July 2015. Lawmakers voted to remove it after a white supremacist murdered nine Black worshippers at Emanuel AME Church in Charleston on 17 June. The flag went to a museum. Photo: Jason Miczek / Reuters
Selma, 50 years on
President Barack Obama walks across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, on 7 March 2015 with Congressman John Lewis and many of the original civil rights marchers. Fifty years earlier, on "Bloody Sunday", state troopers beat Lewis and other peaceful marchers on that bridge, a turning point that led to the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Photo: Saul Loeb / AFP / Getty Images
Chicago after the Laquan McDonald video
A protester faces a police officer in Chicago after a court forced the release of video showing officer Jason Van Dyke shooting 17-year-old Laquan McDonald 16 times in October 2014. The footage came out on 24 November 2015, the same day Van Dyke was charged with murder. He was convicted of second-degree murder in 2018. Photo: Andrew Nelles / Reuters
Baltimore
Demonstrators climb on a wrecked police car in Baltimore on 27 April 2015, the day of Freddie Gray's funeral. Gray, 25, died from a spinal injury suffered in a police van. Six officers were charged, but none was convicted. Photo: Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images
Remembering Michael Brown
Protesters lie on a highway to mark one year since the police shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, in August 2014. His death helped spark the Black Lives Matter movement. Photo: Scott Olson / Getty Images
Peace signs on police shields in Managua
Peace signs appear on riot shields as police face protesters in Managua, Nicaragua, who were demanding fair and transparent elections. Opposition groups held regular protests against the electoral authorities during Daniel Ortega's presidency. Photo: Oswaldo Rivas / Reuters
Students strike in Madrid
A student shouts slogans during a strike in Madrid. Spanish students marched repeatedly in these years against education cuts and reforms introduced after the financial crisis. Photo: Andres Kudacki / AP
Protest at a Trump rally
A protester with "Legal Immigrant" and "Offense taken" painted on her body stands among supporters at a Donald Trump rally in Norcross, Georgia, in October 2015. Trump had launched his campaign in June with remarks about Mexican immigrants that drew widespread criticism. Photo: Tami Chappell / Reuters
A viral fan in Mobile
An enthusiastic supporter greets Donald Trump at his August 2015 rally in Mobile, Alabama, one of the largest of his early campaign. The photo spread widely online. A year later, Trump won the presidency. Photo: Mark Wallheiser / Getty Images
Topless march in New York
A masked woman poses beside a New York police officer before a topless march in Manhattan. The annual event campaigns for women's right to go topless wherever men can; in New York State, a 1992 court ruling already allows this. Photo: Eduardo Munoz / Reuters
The saddest bride
Fifteen-year-old Nasoin Akhter sits beside her new husband, 32-year-old Mohammad Hasamur Rahman, in Manikganj, Bangladesh. Photographer Allison Joyce called her the saddest bride she had ever seen. Bangladesh has one of the highest rates of child marriage in the world, even though the legal minimum age for women is 18. Photo: Allison Joyce / Getty Images
Ahmed Mohamed and the clock
Fourteen-year-old Ahmed Mohamed meets the press after he was handcuffed at his school in Irving, Texas, on 14 September 2015, when a teacher mistook a clock he had built for a bomb. He was not charged. The incident sparked a national debate about profiling, and he was invited to the White House Astronomy Night, where he met President Obama. Photo: LM Otero / AP
John Boehner's tears
House Speaker John Boehner, a devout Catholic, wipes his eyes as Pope Francis becomes the first pope to address a joint meeting of the US Congress on 24 September 2015. Vice President Joe Biden sits beside him. The next day, Boehner announced he would resign. Photo: Pablo Martinez Monsivais / AP
Banknotes for Sepp Blatter
A British comedian showers FIFA president Sepp Blatter with fake banknotes at a press conference in Zurich in July 2015. Weeks earlier, US and Swiss authorities had arrested several football officials on corruption charges. Blatter announced he would step down, and in December he was banned from football by FIFA's ethics committee. Photo: Arnd Wiegmann / Reuters
"Pharma bro" arrested
Martin Shkreli is escorted by FBI agents after his arrest on 17 December 2015. In September his company had raised the price of the decades-old drug Daraprim from $13.50 to $750 a pill, sparking outrage, although his arrest was for securities fraud. He was convicted in 2017 and sentenced to seven years in prison. Photo: Andrew Burton / Getty Images
Chewbacca detained in Odessa
Ukrainian police lead away a man dressed as Chewbacca in Odessa during the October 2015 local elections. According to reports at the time, he had been campaigning for a "Darth Vader" candidate of the satirical Internet Party, which was not allowed on election day. Photo: Stringer
Disasters and a changing climate
In December 2015, 195 countries and the European Union adopted the Paris Agreement, pledging to keep global warming "well below 2°C". The year's floods, droughts and earthquakes were a reminder of what was at stake.
Empty shoes at the Place de la République
Thousands of pairs of shoes cover the Place de la République in Paris on 29 November 2015. A planned climate march before the COP21 summit was banned for security reasons after the November attacks, so people left their shoes as a silent protest; Pope Francis and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon reportedly sent pairs too. The summit ended on 12 December with the Paris Agreement. Photo: Patrick Aventurier / Getty Images
Drought in Palm Springs
A tractor collects golf balls on a parched driving range in Palm Springs, California. In April 2015, during one of the worst droughts in the state's recorded history, Governor Jerry Brown ordered the first mandatory statewide urban water cuts. Photo: Lucy Nicholson / Reuters
Nepal remembers
A Nepalese boy prepares to dance at a rally for the victims of the earthquakes of 2015. The magnitude 7.8 quake of 25 April and its aftershocks, including a 7.3 tremor on 12 May, killed close to 9,000 people and flattened historic temples in the Kathmandu valley. Photo: Niranjan Shrestha / AP
Two million pilgrims in Mecca
Pilgrims fill the roads near Mecca during the annual Hajj. On 24 September 2015 a crush in Mina, on the way to the symbolic stoning of the devil, caused the deadliest disaster in the pilgrimage's history. Saudi authorities reported 769 deaths, but counts compiled by the Associated Press from other countries' figures exceeded 2,400. Photo: Ahmad Masood / Reuters
Typhoon Koppu
A man floats a pig to safety in Sta. Rosa in the Philippines after Typhoon Koppu, known locally as Lando, made landfall on Luzon on 18 October 2015. The slow-moving storm dumped huge amounts of rain and killed 62 people. Photo: Bullit Marquez / AP
Lake Nakuru floods
A park ranger surveys flooded land at Lake Nakuru National Park in Kenya, where dead trees stand in rising water. The original caption blamed deforestation; scientists also point to heavier rainfall and sediment as reasons the Rift Valley lakes have been rising. Photo: Joe Penney / Reuters
Earthquake in Pakistan
A Pakistani woman who lost two grandsons mourns in the rubble of her home after a powerful earthquake struck the Hindu Kush region on 26 October 2015. Hundreds of people were killed in Pakistan and Afghanistan; the original caption gave a toll of more than 380 at the time. Photo: Anjum Naveed / AP
Saving a horse in Mariana
A rescue worker comforts a horse stuck in toxic mud after a mining dam owned by Samarco, a joint venture of Vale and BHP, collapsed near Mariana, Brazil, on 5 November 2015. The flood of mining waste killed 19 people, buried the village of Bento Rodrigues and poisoned the Doce River all the way to the Atlantic. Photo: Ricardo Moraes / Reuters
Chennai under water
A man carries a dalmatian through a flooded street in Chennai, India. Record rains in November and December 2015 caused the worst flooding in the city in a century and killed hundreds of people across Tamil Nadu. Photo: Anindito Mukherjee / Reuters
Animals in the headlines
Animals made some of 2015's biggest stories, from a lion whose death caused global outrage to a hippo wandering the streets of a capital city.
Paraplegic dogs on the beach
Dogs in wheelchairs from a local shelter play on Pescadores beach in Chorrillos, Lima, Peru. Rescue groups use simple carts to give paralysed dogs back their mobility. Photo: Mariana Bazo / Reuters
An orangutan going home
Thai veterinarians check and photograph a young orangutan seized from a private owner. According to the original caption, 14 orangutans were being prepared for return to Indonesia, their country of origin. Orangutans are critically endangered, and the illegal pet trade is one of the threats they face. Photo: Athit Perawongmetha / Reuters
Kazakh eagle hunters
Ethnic Kazakh hunters ride with golden eagles during a local festival in China's Xinjiang region. Hunting with eagles is a centuries-old tradition among Kazakh herders, and festivals help keep the skill alive. Photo: Kevin Frayer / Getty Images
Cows and the barn cat
Dairy cows lean down to nuzzle a barn cat as they wait for milking on a farm in Granby, Quebec. Sometimes a single quiet moment says more than a headline. Photo: Christinne Muschi / Reuters
Protest for Cecil the lion
Protesters gather outside the dental clinic of Walter Palmer in Bloomington, Minnesota. Palmer, an American dentist and trophy hunter, killed Cecil, a well-known lion that was being studied by researchers, on a farm next to Zimbabwe's Hwange National Park in July 2015. He was not charged, but the case fuelled a global debate about trophy hunting. Photo: Adam Bettcher / Getty Images
Cockatoos in plastic bottles
An Indonesian police officer shows a yellow-crested cockatoo stuffed into a plastic water bottle by smugglers, seized in Surabaya in May 2015. The species is critically endangered, and the images prompted protests and a social-media campaign against the wildlife trade. Photo: Antara Photo Agency / Reuters
A hippo in the streets of Tbilisi
A hippopotamus walks through a flooded street in Tbilisi, Georgia, after a flash flood on the night of 13 to 14 June 2015 wrecked the city zoo. At least 20 people died, more than 300 zoo animals were lost, and escaped lions, tigers, bears and wolves roamed the city. The hippo was eventually subdued with a tranquilliser dart. Photo: Beso Gulashvili / Reuters
Protest against the bull runs
Animal rights activists, painted red, lie on the ground in Pamplona to protest against the bull runs of the San Fermín festival, held every July. The festival's runs and the bullfights that follow have drawn growing opposition in Spain and abroad. Photo: Alvaro Barrientos / AP
"Human meat" in Lyon
Two activists from the animal rights movement 269 Life, splattered with red paint, lie in a giant meat tray labelled "human meat" in Lyon, France. The group takes its name from the ear-tag number of a calf. The stunt was meant to make passers-by think about how meat is produced and sold. Photo: Jean-Philippe Ksiazek / AFP / Getty Images
Riding "Big Precious"
Farmer Zhang Xianping rides his huge pet pig, reported to weigh about 1,300 pounds, in Zhangjiakou, China. Pictures of the pig, nicknamed "Big Precious", travelled around the world. Photo: China Stringer Network
Jose and Luis in Trinidad, Cuba
A man named Jose poses with his rooster Luis on his hat for tourists in Trinidad, Cuba. Tourism to Cuba grew after the United States and Cuba restored diplomatic relations; the US embassy in Havana reopened in July 2015, 54 years after ties were cut. Photo: Ramon Espinosa / AP
Celebrations, sport and faith
Alongside the hard news, 2015 had moments of joy, endurance and devotion.
Princess Charlotte
Prince William and Catherine present their newborn daughter, Princess Charlotte, outside St Mary's Hospital in London on 2 May 2015, just hours after her birth. Photo: Kirsty Wigglesworth / AP
Krige Schabort in Rio
Paratriathlete Krige Schabort of the United States is carried from the water during the Paralympic triathlon test event in Rio de Janeiro, a year before the 2016 Games. Schabort, who reportedly lost both legs while serving in the South African army, has competed at several Paralympics. Photo: Felipe Dana / AP
Lanterns in Taunggyi
People release homemade paper lanterns during the Tazaungdaing festival in Taunggyi, Myanmar. Held at the full moon of the Burmese month of Tazaungmon, usually in November, the festival is famous for its hot-air balloons and fireworks. Photo: Soe Zeya Tun / Reuters
La Tomatina
Two women lie in a river of squashed tomatoes during La Tomatina in Buñol, Spain. Held on the last Wednesday of August, the festival sees thousands of people throw tonnes of overripe tomatoes at one another for one hour. Photo: Alberto Saiz / AP
Phuket Vegetarian Festival
A devotee of the Bang Neow shrine pierces his cheeks with electrical wire during the annual Vegetarian Festival in Phuket, Thailand. The festival, rooted in the Chinese Taoist tradition of the Nine Emperor Gods, is known for its spirit mediums who pierce their faces; the ritual is said to purify participants and bring good luck to the community. Photo: Nicolas Asfouri / AFP / Getty Images
Ashura in Baghdad
Iraqi Shiite Muslims cut themselves with knives and razors during Ashura in Baghdad. The day mourns the killing of Imam Hussein, grandson of the Prophet Muhammad, at the Battle of Karbala in 680 CE. The bloodletting ritual is practised by some communities but discouraged by many senior Shiite clerics, who encourage blood donation instead. Photo: Ahmed Saad / Reuters
Why these photographs still matter
A decade later, many of these pictures read like the opening chapters of stories that are still unfolding: Europe's arguments over migration, the long fight over policing and race in the United States, Russia's war in Ukraine, and the slow work of meeting the Paris climate goals. Some, like the image of Alan Kurdi, changed public opinion almost overnight. Others simply preserved a moment of kindness that might otherwise have been forgotten.
Press photographers often work at real personal risk to document these events. If an image here moved you, look up the photographer's name: many of them have gone on to cover the stories that followed, and their wider work gives each single frame its proper context.
Sources: Photographs by the credited photographers and agencies (Reuters, AP, Getty Images, AFP and others). Background: Death of Alan Kurdi; 2015 Ankara bombings; Germanwings Flight 9525; November 2015 Paris attacks; 2015 Sousse attacks; Metrojet Flight 9268; 2015 San Bernardino attack; Murders of Alison Parker and Adam Ward; Shira Banki; Duma arson attack; Frank Levingston; Kim Davis; Charleston church shooting; Killing of Laquan McDonald; Death of Freddie Gray; Ahmed Mohamed clock incident; Martin Shkreli; Paris Agreement; April 2015 Nepal earthquake; 2015 Mina stampede; Typhoon Koppu; Mariana dam disaster; 2015 South India floods; Killing of Cecil the lion; 2015 Tbilisi flood.
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