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The 99 Best Things that Happened in 2017

If you’re feeling despair about the fate of humanity in the 21st century, you might want to reconsider.

In 2017, it felt like the global media picked up all of the problems, and none of the solutions. To fix that, here are 99 of the best stories from this year that you probably missed.

An incredible year for global health

1. This year, the World Health Organisation unveiled a new vaccine that’s cheap and effective enough to end cholera, one of humanity’s greatest ever killers. New York Times

2. Cancer deaths have dropped by 25% in the United States since 1991, saving more than 2 million lives. Breast cancer deaths have fallen by 39%, saving the lives of 322,600 women. Time

3. Zika all but disappeared in 2017. Cases plummeted in Latin America and the Caribbean, and most people in those places are now immune. Science Mag

4. A new report showed that the world’s assault on tropical diseases is working. A massive, five year international effort has saved millions of lives, and countries are now signing up for more. STAT

5. Soft drink sales in the United States dropped for the 12th year in a row, thanks to consumer education and new sugar taxes aimed at stemming obesity and diabetes. Reuters

6. Trachoma, the world’s leading infectious cause of blindness, was eliminated as a public health problem in Oman and Morocco, and Mexico became the first country in the Americas to eliminate it. NBC

(Click the link at the beginning of the post for 93 more things, in several more categories)
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Dave Barry's 2017 Year in Review: Did That Really Happen?

Quite a long review, click the title to read the whole thing, but here's a small excerpt:

From the beginning of the article:

Looking back on 2017 is like waking up after a party where you made some poor decisions

[...]

At first you remember nothing. But then, as your throbbing brain slowly reboots, memories of the night before, disturbing memories, begin creeping into your consciousness. As the full, hideous picture comes into focus, you curl into a ball, whimpering, asking yourself over and over: Did that really happen?

That’s how we feel about 2017. It was a year so surreal, so densely populated with strange and alarming events, that you have to seriously consider the possibility that somebody — and when we say “somebody,” we mean “Russia” — was putting LSD in our water supply. A bizarre event would occur, and it would be all over the news, but before we could wrap our minds around it, another bizarre event would occur, then another and another, coming at us faster and faster, battering the nation with a Category 5 weirdness hurricane that left us hunkering down, clinging to our sanity, no longer certain what was real.

Take “covfefe.” Remember? For a little while, it was huge. Everybody was talking about it! Covfefe! But then, just like that, it was gone. What the hell WAS it? Did it even really happen?

[...]
And were there really thousands of people marching around Washington wearing vagina hats?

And did the Secretary of State really call the President of the United States a “moron?”

And did the president (of the United States!) respond by challenging the Secretary of State to compare IQ tests?

We want to believe that we imagined these things. But we fear we did not.

[...]

And the conclusion:

Finally this hellish year, which by any standard of decency should have been canceled months ago, draws to a close.
The American people, wearied by the endless scandals and the relentless toxic spew of partisan political viciousness,
turn away from 2017 in disgust and look hopefully toward the new year, which by all indications will be calmer and saner.

We are of course joking. By all indications the nation is going to spend 2018 the same way it spent 2017, namely obsessing spitefully
over 2016. So the best we can do is enjoy the brief reprieve offered by the holidays. In the spirit of the season, let’s try, as a nation,
to forget about our differences, at least for a few days. Let’s remember that we’re all Americans, and let’s give our friends and loved ones,
whatever their political views, a big old holiday hug.

No, scratch that. No hugging! Give your friends and loved ones a formal holiday handshake, then back away slowly with your hands raised in plain view.

Then have a happy new year. Or at least try.