A look at some of the people who made the headlines in 2016.
January
The Mexican authorities recapture Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, seven months after the drug lord’s escape from a high-security prison. In a bizarre twist, officials claim the actor Sean Penn unwittingly played a key role in the capture: the authorities apparently tracked Penn when he interviewed Guzmán in his jungle hideout. The world mourns David Bowie following his shock death at the age of 69. Head teacher Kate Chisholm is accused of snobbery for writing to parents at her school in County Durham suggesting they get dressed in the morning rather than dropping off their children in their pyjamas.
February
The governors of Oriel College, Oxford, announce that a statue commemorating the college’s colonial-era benefactor, Cecil Rhodes, will be left in place, despite the vocal Rhodes Must Fall campaign. England’s chief medical officer, Dame Sally Davies, calls on Britons to rethink their attitude to alcohol. “I would like people to do as I do when I reach for my glass of wine,” she says. “Think: ‘Do I want my glass of wine or do I want to raise my risk of breast cancer?’ And I take a decision each time I have a glass.” Jeb Bush quits the race for the Republican presidential nomination after coming a distant fourth in the South Carolina primary. “Shut Yer Cakehole,” says The Sun after the actress Emma Thompson remarks that it would be “mad” not to vote to stay in the EU, describing Britain as a “cake-filled, misery-laden, grey old island”. Leonardo DiCaprio and Brie Larson win the Best Actor and Best Actress awards in an Oscars ceremony overshadowed by the lack of black nominees.
March
Less than six months after their first date, 84-year-old media mogul Rupert Murdoch and 59-year-old Texan model Jerry Hall (pictured together) get married. Buckingham Palace launches an official complaint against The Sun for its front-page headline “Queen backs Brexit”. The claim is said to have been made by a “highly reliable source” – rumoured to be then Justice Secretary Michael Gove.
April
David Cameron releases a summary of his tax records for the previous six years, in an effort to draw a line under a controversy about his family’s offshore investments. His late father, Ian, had been among those whose financial dealings were laid bare in the leak of the so-called Panama Papers. The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, announces that he has discovered through a DNA test that his father was not Gavin Welby, but the late Sir Anthony Montague Browne, Winston Churchill’s last private secretary. The revelation, he says, had occasioned him no crisis: “I find who I am in Jesus Christ, not in genetics.” The Queen celebrates her 90th birthday. Culture Secretary John Whittingdale, the man responsible for overseeing press regulation, admits to having once had an affair with a professional dominatrix. Hacked Off activists accuse the tabloid press of having suppressed the story to avoid offending him. Music fans are rocked once again, by the death of Prince. Amid an ongoing row about anti-Semitism in the Labour Party, Ken Livingstone is suspended from the party over a series of provocative interviews in which he claimed that Hitler supported Zionism.
May
Ted Cruz, Donald Trump’s last serious challenger for the Republican presidential nomination, throws in the towel. Britain’s new polar research vessel, which the public had voted to call Boaty McBoatface, is instead named in honour of Sir David Attenborough, in the week he turns 90. Rodrigo Duterte, aka “Duterte Harry”, is elected president of the Philippines. He swears to kill so many criminals that fish in Manila will “grow fat” on their corpses; and later calls President Obama a “son of a whore”. Labour’s Sadiq Khan wins London’s mayoral election, defeating Zac Goldsmith. Twitter erupts with Russian rage when Ukraine’s contestant, Jamala, wins the Eurovision Song Contest with 1944, a dirge about Stalin’s deportation of the Crimean Tatars. Johnny Depp’s wife, Amber Heard, files for divorce and takes out a restraining order against the actor.
June
A 17-year-old gorilla named Harambe is shot dead at Cincinnati Zoo after a toddler falls into his enclosure; social media users accuse the boy’s mother of negligence and demand her arrest. British astronaut Tim Peake returns safely to Earth after six months on the International Space Station. Jo Cox, a 41-year-old Labour MP and mother of two, is shot and stabbed to death outside her constituency surgery by a far-right fanatic. Sir Clement Freud, described as a “national treasure” at his funeral in 2009, is exposed as a paedophile. David Cameron announces his resignation following the shock Brexit referendum.
July
The Tories conduct a short and bloody leadership race. Boris Johnson’s hopes are dashed when his campaign mastermind, Michael Gove, sensationally withdraws his support and enters the race himself. Gove then falls by the wayside, followed by Andrea Leadsom, who put backs up by implying that being a mother made her better suited to be PM than Theresa May (pictured), the eventual winner. May surprises everyone by appointing Johnson Foreign Secretary. Chris Evans announces that he is standing down as the host of Top Gear after just one, ill-fated series. Bernie Sanders finally endorses Hillary Clinton, his rival for the Democratic presidential nomination. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey launches a massive purge of soldiers and civil servants in the wake of a failed coup. Sir John Chilcot delivers his long-awaited report on the 2003 invasion of Iraq: it condemns the way Tony Blair justified the war and planned for its aftermath. In the latest of a string of Islamist atrocities to hit Europe, an elderly French priest, Father Jacques Hamel, is murdered in his church in Normandy.
August
The Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse loses its third chairwoman when New Zealand judge Dame Lowell Goddard stands down. She is later accused of incompetence and racism, and a number of lawyers to the inquiry are forced out, or quit. Gary Lineker presents Match of the Day in his pants, honouring his pledge to do the show “in just my undies” in the very unlikely event that his favourite team, Leicester City, won the Premier League. Judge Patricia Lynch, QC, shocks some, and delights others, by engaging in a four-letter fracas with a racist who swore at her in court. “You’re a bit of a c*** yourself,” she told him, as she sent him down. Cyclist Laura Trott helps lead Britain to glory in the Rio Olympics.
September
Two months after a Home Affairs Committee report recommended the legalisation of prostitution, its chairman, Keith Vaz, is revealed to have paid male escorts for sex, posing as “Jim”, a washing machine salesman. Vaz steps down as chair, but soon bounces back to join the Commons’ Justice Committee. The whirlwind romance between British actor Tom Hiddleston and US pop star Taylor Swift comes to an end – as does, later in the month, the marriage of Hollywood couple Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt. David Cameron, already under fire for showering gongs on members of his “chumocracy”, faces further criticism when he abruptly resigns as an MP. The nation grieves following the news that its favourite TV show, The Great British Bake Off, is switching from BBC1 to Channel 4 – without presenters Mary Berry, Mel Giedroyc and Sue Perkins. Jeremy Corbyn wins a decisive victory over his challenger, Owen Smith, in Labour’s leadership election.
October
England’s football manager, Sam Allardyce – aka “Big Sam” – is sacked after undercover reporters film him offering advice on how to sidestep FA rules. The 61-year-old admits to “an error of judgement”, but says he was a victim of entrapment. Nigel Farage returns for a third stint as UKIP leader when his most recent replacement, Diane James, resigns after just 18 days, citing a lack of support. The party eventually elects Paul Nuttall as leader. An Italian journalist reveals the true identity of Elena Ferrante, the pseudonymous author of the celebrated quartet of Neapolitan novels, much to the disgust of the writer’s fans. The reality TV star Kim Kardashian is robbed at gunpoint in Paris, losing a £3.5m ring given to her by her husband, the rapper Kanye West. Bob Dylan wins the Nobel Prize in Literature. MPs call for Sir Philip Green, former owner of the defunct retail chain BHS, to be stripped of his knighthood, denouncing him as a “spiv”.
November
The U2 singer Bono becomes the first male winner of one of Glamour magazine’s Women of the Year awards, on the basis of his “wonderful” campaigns on behalf of women in poverty. Donald Trump defies the pollsters by winning the US election; he is subsequently named Time magazine’s Person of the Year. Andy Murray overtakes Novak Djokovic to become the top-ranked tennis player in the world. Prince Harry confirms that he has a new girlfriend – the American TV actress Meghan Markle (pictured) – and condemns what he calls a “wave of abuse and harassment” directed at her. French politics is thrown into confusion when former prime minister François Fillon defies the odds to win the centre-right’s presidential primary; he is now likely to be the main challenger to the far-right leader Marine Le Pen in next year’s election. Cuban revolutionary leader Fidel Castro dies aged 90. After delighting viewers for weeks with his unconventional routines, Ed Balls is voted off Strictly Come Dancing.
December
Matteo Renzi, the Italian PM, becomes the latest victim of the global backlash against the political establishment when he loses a referendum on constitutional change, and resigns. Liberal Democrat Sarah Olney unseats Zac Goldsmith in a spectacular by-election victory in Richmond Park. Boris Johnson incurs the ire of Downing Street by criticising Saudi Arabia for fighting “proxy wars” in the Middle East. Mick Jagger, 73, celebrates the birth of his eighth child, a boy.
