Lazyant

Actually this works for basically any year.

• There will be some big disaster caused by Nature (earthquakes, hurricane, volcanos etc)
• There will be some big disaster in transportation: airplane or train crash. Of course if the train crash is in some distant place then we’ll know only if there are hundreds of victims.
• Yet more compelling evidence of evolution will be discovered, yet the creationist will dismiss them based on a collection of stories written by cattle herders hundreds of years ago.
• New intriguing evidences regarding the role of virus in life will be discovered. Actually I’l go out on a limb and drop in here my hypothesis that the beginning of life wasn’t a ‘miracle’ (as in a very improbable occurrence) but actually given sufficient initial conditions for life, life will occur inevitably (this will also mean we’re not alone in the universe). More and more extremophiles are being found, if life hangs on to anything perhaps it also just starts unavoidably.
• Palestinian terrorists will kill x innocent Israelis, in retaliation Israeli terrorists defence forces with better weapons will kill about three times x innocent Palestinians. European countries will protest meekly without doing anything and the US will express once more their commitment to Israel and their right to self-defence.
• Some loon in the US will open fire in a crowded place. Guns don’t kill people, people with guns kill people and a law-abiding citizen can be very law-abiding until he starts gunning people down. There will be again the eternal discussion between gun-control and pro-gun people when actually both of them can be wrong (or right); given the amount of armed people it may not make a lot of difference one way or the other. The outcome of a dangerous situation involving guns is unpredictable, so we don’t know if in the USA it’s better to have students with guns in classrooms (they can fend off an attacker but they can also kill somebody by mistake or someone may snap etc) or just ban guns in the campus. In Europe the decision is easier; since there are way less guns and they are controlled is better to stay that way.
• Some “pro-family” (homophobic) Republican or pastor in the US who is a staunch defender of the “sanctity of marriage” (whatever that is, since they don’t oppose divorce) will be caught having a sexual relationship with another man.
• More discoveries in the brain will support the idea that we have less free will (or none at all) that we think.
• In summary, the world will accommodate my world view.