Ten years of terror and tragedy: A look at the events that defined a decade – Metro.co.uk

Emergency services at Manchester Arena (Picture: PA)

It was a turbulent 10 years packed with political turmoil, terror and tragedy.

The public went to the polls in four general elections and a referendum that divided the nation and shaped the decades later years.

But it was the dozens of lives lost in the Manchester Arena bombing, the Grenfell Tower blaze and a series of violent attacks across the capital that saw a decade defined by terror and tragedy.

The shocking deaths of MP Jo Cox stabbed to death by Neo-Nazi Thomas Mair in her constituency in 2016 and Fusilier Lee Rigby rammed with a car before being hacked to death in 2013 horrified the nation.

Seventy two people died when flames engulfed Grenfell Tower in Londons deadliest fire since the Second World War.

One of the most shocking images of the decade was that of three-year-old Aylan Kurdi, the Syrian toddler whose body washed up on a Turkish beach.

Politically, the biggest talking point in the UK was undoubtedly Brexit as over half of the country voting to leave the UK in 2016.

Its a scene that few people barely thought possible but, in 2017, Donald Trump was elected 45th president of the USA.

The world started waking up to the realities of the climate crisis, and the UK experienced extreme weather with severe flooding and the Beast from the East in 2018.

WikiLeaks co-founder Julian Assange, who spent seven years of the decade seeking asylum in the Ecuadorean embassy in London, was finally removed in April 2019.

Mark Duggan was shot dead by the police which sparked nationwide riots in 2011, while questions were also asked of the authorities after child sexual exploitation scandals in Rochdale and Rotherham.

After five-year-old April Jones and Tia Sharp, 12, were murdered in 2012, police forces were back in the spotlight after a spike in knife crime.

The Iraq War was still in the public eye thanks to the Chilcot Inquiry while the press itself came under scrutiny with the closure of the News of the World and Leveson Inquiry.

The year 2012 will be remembered for the Queens Diamond Jubilee ahead of the Olympic and Paralympic Games which saw Her Majesty make her acting debut along with James Bond.

Interest in the royal family peaked in 2011, when a 28-year-old Prince William married Kate Middleton, and in 2013, when future king Prince George was born. Last year, there was a second Royal wedding when Prince Harry married Meghan Markle.

One of the countrys best-known landmarks stopped chiming in 2017 when repair work started on Big Ben, while the hundredth anniversary of the end of the First World War and the 70th anniversary of D Day were also remembered.

The decade also saw devastating terror attacks across the world including the senseless murder of 77 people in Norway in 2011 by Anders Brevik while Paris was also stunned by two attacks in 2015 after gunmen stormed Charlie Hebdo and targeted the Bataclan concert hall.

In the same year Britain joined air strikes on IS targets before 12 months later more than 80 people were killed in terror attacks on Brussels and a similar number in Nice when a lone terrorist drove a lorry into crowds celebrating Bastille Day.

In a decade rocked by scandals over sexual harassment and the #MeToo movement, entertainer Jimmy Savile was exposed as a child sex abuser in 2012 and Operation Yewtree saw a widespread investigation launched.

Allegations against movie mogul Harvey Weinstein began to emerge in October 2017 and the story developed with dozens of victims coming forward.

As we go into 2020, attention will turn back to Brexit with all eyes on Boris Johnsons pledge to finally take the UK out the European Union by January 31.

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Ten years of terror and tragedy: A look at the events that defined a decade - Metro.co.uk