As a student in AP US History, I am enveloped by the past as we remember it in hindsight. After reading about the War of Jenkin’s Ear — an incident inflaming relations between the English and the Spanish, where a Spanish privateer cut off Robert Jenkins’ ear for his role in raiding ships — I became lost in reflection. My thoughts first began with who named the War of Jenkins Ear? Eventually, I fell down a wormhole of deeper questions that I have yet to solve. Who names events and eras? What will our era be called? What events are essential to the narrative of 2010? What will be forgotten? What will I remember?

Creating a timeline felt like the first step in unraveling these questions. As I plotted out the last ten years of my life in current events, I found myself reminiscing happily on some incidents while others brought me back to the anxiety I experienced at the time. 

For instance, reading about the great clown panic of 2016 left me rolling in laughter as I remembered clowns announcing they would be at one of the Middleton High School football games during my freshman year. This was both the first and last football game I was adamant about attending. To my disappointment, they did not show up.

As I read about the legalization of same-sex marriage, I sat back from my computer in disbelief. Same-sex marriage has only been legal for four years. 

Looking back at the truly terrible events that unfolded, I felt a sense of sadness while remembering the shooting at Sandy Hook. I was in sixth grade, and my innocence was shattered when I learned that humans are capable of such evils. I had nightmares every night for three months straight.

If you forget what happened during the last ten years of your life, look no further. While everyone has experienced the decade differently, the following is a list of the events that stand out in my mind as the ones that will be remembered.

Timeline of the 2010s

2010

• April –  BP Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill 
• September – Lady Gaga wears a meat dress to the MTV Video Music Awards.
• October – Instagram is founded.

2011

• February – Justin Bieber and Selena Gomez officially become a couple.
• May – Death of Osama Bin Laden 
• June – Apple iPhone 4 is released.
• July – Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part II is released in theaters.
• July – Captain America: The First Avenger is released. 
• July – Spotify arrives in America.
• September – “Friday” by Rebecca Black is released on YouTube.
• October – Steve Jobs passes away.

2012

• January – The book The Fault in Our Stars by John Green is published.
• February – “What Makes You Beautiful” by One Direction airs on the radio launching the band into stardom.
• March – The Hunger Games is released in theaters.
• July – “Gangnam Style” blows up on the radio. 
• September – Four Americans are killed in Benghazi after trying to ease the Libyan Uprising. This comes after exactly 11 years after 9/11. 
• September – “Call Me Maybe” by Carly Rae Jepsen is released.
• November – Selena Gomez and Justin Bieber break up – for the first time.
• December – Shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary takes 26 lives. 

2013

• The Black Lives Matter movement surfaces.
• Candy Crush becomes the most played game.
• January – Barack Obama is inaugurated for a second term. 
• January – Vine is founded.
• February – Dennis Rodman along with three Harlem Globetrotters visit Kim Jong-un and the event is soon called “basketball diplomacy.” 
• March – “Harlem Shake” by DJ Baauer hits No.1 on Billboard’s Hot 100.
• April – Boston Marathon bombing takes three lives.
• May – Geico’s “Hump Day” camel commercial airs. 
• October – The Jonas Brothers band breaks up. 
• November – Disney’s Frozen is released in theaters. 
• November – The Xbox One is launched.
• December – Breach at Target: Hackers steal data from 40 million debit and credit cards.

2014

• January – Colorado legalizes marijuana. 
• January – The Affordable Care Act goes into effect.
• March – The “Oscar Selfie” taken by Ellen DeGeneres becomes the most retweeted picture of all time.
• April – Flint’s water is switched off of the Detroit system and to the Flint River causing health issues, but a poor government response. This event is later called The Flint Water Crisis.
• July- August – The ALS Ice Bucket Challenge blows up on social media.
• August – Michael Brown, unarmed, is fatally shot-creating unrest in Ferguson and the whole country.
• August – Robin William, the comedian and actor, takes his life at the age of 63 years old.
• October – The first person diagnosed with Ebola in the US dies. 
• November – In the midterm, Republicans win the majority of seats in both the House and the Senate. 

2015

• The majority of the US is no longer in the middle class. 
• Millennials become the most populous generation. 
• January – The musical Hamilton premiers on Broadway.
• May – 8 are killed in Amtrak Train Crash caused by the train taking a turn in the tracks at 102 miles per hour.
• June – Supreme Court rules that Same-sex marriage is legal in the United States.
• August – During a live broadcast on WDBJ in Roanoke Virginia, an ex-broadcaster guns down his former two coworkers. 
• October – Kanye West announces his run for the 2020 presidency at the VMAs.
• December – Star Wars: The Force Awakens is released bringing in 2.066 billion USD.
• December – One Direction breaks up.

2016

• January – The World Health Organization declares the Zika virus an epidemic.
• November – The Chicago Cubs win the World Series for the first time in 108 years 
• March – Barack Obama visits Cuba – marking the first visit by a US president in 88 years. 
• May – Harambe, the gorilla, is killed. 
• June – The Pulse Nightclub Shooting in Orlando takes 49 lives. 
• June – Construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline begins, raising mass protest from the Standing Rock Sioux tribe.
• July – Pokemon Go is released.
• August – “The great clown panic of 2016.” 
• August – “Lochegate” – Ryan Lochte makes false robbery report at the Rio de Janeiro Olympics, embarrassing the country. 
• September – Kaepernick, the previous quarterback for the 49ers, takes a knee during the National Anthem to draw attention to racial inequality and police brutality.
• December – Donald Trump wins the presidency. 
• December – Neil Armstrong, the first man to walk on the moon, passes away at the age of 82 years old due to complications from a heart bypass surgery.
• December – Carry Fisher passes away at the age of 60 years old because of a heart attack on a plane. 

2017

• January – 3 million women across the nation participate in the Woman’ March to protest the Trump administration. 
• February – Hazing death of Tim Piazza at Penn State draws attention to the sometimes deadly tradition carried out at many fraternities and sororities.
• April – Fyre Festival, advertising as a luxurious music festival, lures in thousands of wealthy fans and celebrities to a disaster on Bahamian Island.
• May – FBI Director James Comey is fired by President Trump.
• May – Robert Mueller is appointed to Russia investigation.
• June – The Trump administration withdraws the United States from the Paris Climate Agreement.
• June – DC’s Wonder Woman hits theaters and brings in 821.8 million USD.
• July – Fortnite by Epic Games is released to the public.
• August – Hurricane Harvey touches down in Texas and Louisiana. 
• August – Riot in Charlottesville ensues as white nationalists and counter-protesters clash in the street. A car operated by one of the neo-Nazis drives into a group of people killing Heather Heyer.
• August – Total Solar Eclipse occurs for the first time since 1979. 
• August – Hurricane Irma, the strongest Atlantic hurricane in history, strikes many islands, Florida, Georgia, and most notably takes out the power in much of Puerto Rico. 
• September – Hurricane Maria further destabilizes Puerto Rico. Government aid is excruciatingly slow and sparse. This caused outrage from US citizens as well as other countries. 
• October – Harvey Weinstein is exposed for sexual misconduct.

2018

• January – Women wear black to the Golden Globes to stand in solidarity with women who face sexual assault and/or abuse. The plethora of public allegations of sexual misconduct revitalizes the #MeToo movement which started in 2006.
• January – A Super Blue Blood Moon – three consecutive lunar events – grace the sky for the first time since 1866. 
• February – 17 are dead in shooting at Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland Florida.
• February – Marvel’s Black Panther enters theaters.
• March – The US-China Trade War begins.
• March – In March for Our Lives thousands walkout to protest the inaction of the government in regards to gun control.
• March – Jeff Bezos, founder of the company Amazon, becomes the richest man in the world. 
• April – Donald Trump’s “zero-tolerance” policy goes into effect, separating immigrant parents from their children and then detaining them.
• April – Marvel’s Infinity War enters theatres and brings in 2.048 billion USD.
• May – The royal wedding of Meghan Markle and Prince Harry challenges the social norms. Meghan is mixed race, a divorcee, and an American. 
• August – Crazy Rich Asians hits theaters marking a victory for Asian representation in Hollywood. 
• August – John McCain – politicians, military officer, and senator for Arizona – passes away from brain cancer at the age of 81 years old.
• August – Tik Tok emerges.
• September – The Kavanaugh Hearings.
• October – Jamal Khashoggi, a journalist for the Washington Post, is assassinated in the consulate of Saudi Arabia in Turkey.
• November – Democrats retake the House in the midterm and the number of women in Congress hits a record number.
• November – George H.W. Bush, the 41st president of the US, passes away from vascular parkinsonism at the age of 94 years old. 
• November – Stan Lee, the creator of Marvel Comics, passes away at the age of 95 years old. 
• November – Michael Cohen, the former lawyer to Donald Trump, is sentenced to three years in prison for lying to Senate. 

2019

• US copyrights begin to expire for works from 1923. Pieces like The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie and The Ego and the Id by Sigmund Freud will be available to public domains.
• January – The longest government shutdown in American history – 35 days – takes place over funding. 
• March – College Admission Cheating Scandal
• March – The Jonas Brothers reunite after going separate ways in 2013.
• March – Greta Thunberg, a climate activist from Sweden, is nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize. 
• March – More than 2 million students across 135 countries take part in climate strikes. 
• April – The Mueller Report is released to the public 
• April – Microsoft joins both Apple and Amazon as reaching trillion dollar valuations.
• April – Marvel’s Endgame hits theaters and wrangles in 2.798 billion USD.
• May – Alabama passes an anti-abortion bill, igniting a storm of controversy.
• July – Jeffrey Epstein is charged for sex trafficking 
• July – Disney Channel star Cameron Boyce passes away unexpectedly from epilepsy at the age of 20 years old.
• August – Toni Morrison, novelist and essayist, passes away from pneumonia at the age of 88 years old. 
• August – The first reported death from vaping occurs. 
• August – Greta Thunberg sails to  New York to urge swift action against climate change.
• September – The Anti-Vaccine movement is gaining momentum. 
• September – Approximately 3,000 people plan a raid on Area 51. 
• November – The Donald Trump impeachment hearings begin.
• November – Taylor Swift becomes the most awarded musician of all time at the American Music Awards.
• November – Disney Plus becomes available for streaming.
• November – Greta Thunberg is named TIME magazine’s youngest Person of the Year.
• December – Donald Trump is impeached on the grounds of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.