Every year has many history-making events. Some years have a greater impact on history than others. By any measure, 2008 was a year full of incredible events that either will have a long-lasting effect on history or that foreshadow things to come. Here is my list of noteworthy events and why they’re important along with a few predictions.

February 19 – Fidel Castro resigns as President of Cuba. The last of the Cold-War-era communist dictators to relinquish power, his resignation marks the end of an era. Fidel is not yet in his grave, but Raúl Castro (77) has begun to open a small crack in the door to Cuba’s future. Barack Obama likely will force it open even further as Cuban-American attitudes that have dominated American politics for decades are changing. The long standoff between Cuba and the United States will soon come to an end.

March 14 – China cracks down on protests by Tibetan Monks. Despite China’s phenomenal economic growth in recent years and completion of its transition from a revolutionary to a status-quo power, China remains a land of contradictions vulnerable to turmoil and civil unrest. Tibetans protest for political autonomy and against the systematic Chinese destruction of Tibetan culture. The growing divides between rich and poor, urban and rural in China are no less explosive. China may be on its way to becoming a global political, economic, and military power, but that path is not a straight line nor will it be without domestic strife.

March 22 – The people of Taiwan elect President Ma Ying-jeou. Ma, who ran on a platform of improving relations with the People’s Republic of China, holds out the promise of ending the 60-year struggle across the Taiwan Strait. Still, fundamental political differences remain between democracies in the US and Taiwan and Communist China. Despite improvements in US-China and Taiwan-China relations, these differences can be the cause of future conflict unless China embraces greater political freedoms and a more democratic path--something it's not likely to do any time soon.

May 3-11 – Cyclone Nargis kills more than 78,000 in Myanmar. A 7.9 magnitude earthquake in Sichuan, Gansu, and Yunnan Provinces, China, kills 68,000. Natural disasters like these and the 2004 Asian Tsunami that killed 240,000 people are second only to war as the greatest threat to human life. New knowledge about the earth and the universe tells us about earth's violent past and the prospects for it's violent future. We can expect natural disasters in the coming decade will claim even more lives.

August 7-29 – Violence breaks out in Georgia-breakaway Ossetia Province and Russia invades Georgia. Russia’s invasion of Georgia was much more than the “defense of ethnic Russians.” Vladimir Putin and Russian President Dmitri Medvedev put the United States and the world on notice that they intend to throw their weight around. The invasion of Georgia, tough talk, and Russian Navy ship visits to Latin America are just the beginning of the new Russia’s challenge to American power and influence. Thirty-dollar-a-barrel oil will slow them down, temporarily, but it won't stop them.

August 8-24 – Beijing hosts the 2008 Summer Olympic Games. The games were the new China’s coming out party. The impressive opening ceremony and China’s dominance in gold medals against the backdrop of its phenomenal economic growth provide an alternative to the Western-democratic social-economic model. How China and the West come out of the global financial crisis will determine which model developing countries find more attractive. I'm still betting on democracy.

September – US financial markets collapse, a global financial crisis ensues. The global financial crisis undermines the foundation of free-market capitalism. Government intervention to stem the crisis opens the door to socialistic remedies that could further weaken and undermine it. Throwing billions at the problem may not work, and the US doesn't have unlimited resources to waste. The US faces not only an economic crisis, but a crisis of confidence that could topple it from the pinnacle of power and make a depression a self-fulfilling prophecy. The outlook is grim, but common sense and the road to recovery are two years away.

November 4 – Barack Obama is elected the 44th President of the United States. Obama’s election is historic not only because he is the first African American President, but because he represents a new generation of leaders that, for better or worse, will lead us through contemporary crises and wars into a different 21st-century world. America is increasingly less Euro-centric demographically and culturally. Science and technology are changing the world and America at an exponential pace. Still, Obama will preside over an America that remains the grand experiment our founding fathers began 230 years ago and the great cultural melting pot of the world. The struggle between secular and traditional values is far from over.

November 26-29 – Terrorist attacks in Mumbai, India kill 164 and injure 250. The attacks in Mumbai are a wake-up call. We have been free from attack in the United States since 9/11, but radical Islamic Jihadists intend to give us no quarter. Sooner or late they will strike us with hand grenades and automatic rifles, as they struck in Mumbai, or with weapons of mass destruction. Come what may, we will prevail so long as we understand that our survival depends on defeating the terrorists. The criminal justice system can not do that. Winning the hearts and minds of the Islamic world and destroying terrorist networks are not mutually exclusive.

December 9 – US attorney Patrick Fitzgerald arrests Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich on bribery and conspiracy charges. Governor Blagojevich appears to be just another corrupt politician out to enrich himself at our expense. This scandal may have no long lasting historical significance once he is tried and convicted, if indeed he is. But perhaps this time the American people with follow the example of Howard Beale (Peter Finch) in the movie Network. Perhaps now they’re mad enough at Blagojevich, idiots on Wall Street, and incompetent and corrupt people in government to stand up and shout “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it any more.”

It's been a tough year. Nevertheless, Christmas reminds us of what we believe in and our ability as human beings to love one another and do great and wonderful things. Circumstances will get worse before they get better, but they will get better. Free peoples are amazingly resilient and determined. Have a merry Christmas, a happy Hanukkah, and a happy New Year.