Senseless telling you it’s been a huge year – you know that already. And today we bring it all back to you. In pictures.

Enjoy.

Mark Zuckerberg is named Time Man of the Year

An 8.8-magnitude earthquake occurs in Chile, triggering a tsunami over the Pacific and killing 497. The earthquake is one of the largest in recorded history

Fires trigger one of Russia's worst heatwaves

The Deepwater Horizon oil platform explodes in the Gulf of Mexico, killing eleven workers.

The resulting oil spill, one of the largest in history, spreads for several months

A laughing gull mired in oil from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill struggles against the tide on East Grand Terre Island, LA, six weeks after the rig collapsed in April.

Crude oil from the Deepwater Horizon spill floats on the surface of the water in the Gulf of Mexico in June.

Magnitude 7.1 quake hits Yushu county in north-west province of Qinghai

The Haiti earthquake affects an estimated three million people

Flooding that began in Pakistan spreads south washing out millions of acres of farmland.

Survivors of the floods in Pakistan reach for food bags dropped by an army helicopter in Lal Pir on August 7.

Air India Express Flight 812 overshoots the runway at Mangalore International Airport in India, killing 158 and leaving 8 survivors

Indonesia's most dangerous volcano Mount Merapi erupts in Hargobinangun, Yogyakarta

The ash spewed by the Icelandic volcano on Eyjafjallajö kull glacier clouds the skies over the U.K. and western Europe, shutting down air travel for six days

The International Space Station surpasses the record for the longest continuous human occupation of space, having been continuously inhabited since November 2, 2000 (3641 days)

A giant sinkhole swallows a three-storey building in Guatemala

The Chilean miners are rescued after being trapped underground for 69 days.

Miner Osman Araya hugs his wife after ascending to the surface. He and the other 32 miners survived.

The Pike River Mining disaster in New Zealand kills 29.

Protests in Bangkok, Thailand end with a bloody military crackdown, killing 91 and injuring more than 2,100

North Korea attacks South Korea in its first artillery strike on South Korean soil since 1953.

A boat carrying asylum seekers crashes off the coast of Christmas Island. 28 women, men and children are confirmed dead with 45 surviving the crash.

A toxic mixture of muddy water and mining waste floods a series of villages in Hungary.

Aung San Suu Kyi is released from house arrest where she was held for 21 years.

The Hadron Collider captures anti matter for the first time

The iPad is released

A Spanish farmer given the world's first full facial transplant appeared in public for the first time