2009 In Photos (Part 1)

The year of 2009 is gone, and lets us take some time to look back over the past 12 months through photographs. Historic elections were held in Iran, India and the United States, some wars wound down while others escalated, China turned 60, and the Berlin Wall was remembered 20 years after it came down. Each photo tells its own tale, weaving together into the larger story of 2009.

Barack Obama as the 44th U.S. president swears on the Bible, which holds his wife, Michelle Obama, at the Capitol on Jan. 20, 2009 in Washington, DC. Nearby are their daughters, Malia and Sasha Obama.

Vertie Hodge, 74, weeps during an Inauguration Day party near Martin Luther King, Jr. Blvd. in Houston on Tuesday, Jan. 20, 2009 after President Barack Obama delivered his speech after taking the oath of office, becoming the first black president in the United States.


A group of Common Cranes gather in dawn light, on their night-roost on a lake in the German state of Brandenburg, close to Berlin September 26, 2009. From September to November tens of thousands of Cranes use the rural area close to the German Capital for a stopover during their migration from Scandinavia and Eastern Europe to their wintering quarters in Spain.

Soldiers from the U.S. Army First Battalion, 26th Infantry take defensive positions at firebase Restrepo after receiving fire from Taliban positions in the Korengal Valley of Afghanistan' s Kunar Province, in this May 11, 2009 file photo. Spc. Zachery Boyd of Fort Worth, TX, far left was wearing "I love NY" boxer shorts after rushing from his sleeping quarters to join his fellow platoon members. From far right is Spc. Cecil Montgomery of Many, LA and Jordan Custer of Spokane, WA, center.

Airline passengers wait to be rescued on the wings of a US Airways Airbus 320 jetliner that safely ditched in the frigid waters of the Hudson River in New York, after a flock of birds knocked out both its engines on January 15, 2009.

A student receives a H1N1 vaccine injection at a hospital in Suining, Sichuan province November 11, 2009.

A Iranian riot-police officer sprays tear-gas at a supporter of defeated Iranian presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi attacking him with a police stick during riots in Tehran on June 13, 2009.

A frame grab from YouTube shows a woman identified as Neda Agha-Soltan lying on the ground after being shot in the chest in Tehran, Iran June 20, 2009. Iranians on social networking sites called for mourning for "Neda", a young woman shot dead.

Fishermen row a boat in the algae-filled Chaohu Lake in Hefei, Anhui province, China on June 19, 2009. China invested 51 billion yuan ($7.4 billion) towards the construction of 2,712 projects for the treatment of eight rivers and lakes in 2009, Xinhua News Agency reported.

The moon passes between the sun and the earth, nearing a total solar eclipse, as seen in Changsha, Hunan province, China on July 22, 2009.

A girl displaced from her home by a huge tidal wave caused by Cyclone Aila, stands in front of her temporary shelter on a river dam in Satkhira in southwestern Bangladesh June 2, 2009.

A cone of moisture surrounds part of the Ares I-X rocket during lift off Wednesday, Oct. 28, 2009, on a sub-orbital test flight from the Kennedy Space Center's Launch Pad 39-B in Cape Canaveral, Fla.

Riot police contain supporters of Mozambique's national soccer team after their World Cup 2010 qualifying soccer match against Kenya in Maputo, September 6, 2009.

Chicago White Sox pitcher Scott Linebrink delivers a pitch against the Chicago Cubs during the fifth inning of a spring training baseball game in Las Vegas, in this March 5, 2009 photo.

A man walks his dog through Observatory Hill near Sydney on September 23, 2009 as Australia's biggest city is shrouded in an eerie blanket of red dust. Sydney's cars and buildings turned orange as strong winds blew desert dust across the city, snarling commuter and air transport and prompting a warning for children and the elderly to stay indoors.

Claire Williams, right, and Cori Giroux kiss as they wed at the stroke of midnight in South Burlington, Vermont, on September 1, 2009 - the first day that Vermont's marriage equality law went into effect.

Brazilian Formula One driver Felipe Massa of Scuderia Ferrari is carried from his car after being struck in the head by a piece of bodywork that fell from another car during the qualifying session at the Hungaroring race track in Mogyorod near Budapest on July 25, 2009. Massa was airlifted to hospital and underwent surgery on his fractured skull.

French aerobatic team "Cartouche Dore" flies in formation near Aix-en-Provence, southern France.

The sun shines on the skin of a hippo in its enclosure in the Zoo in Berlin, Friday, April 3, 2009.

AP photographer Emilio Morenatti takes pictures as he is carried on a stretcher out of the University of Maryland Medical Center's R Adams Cowley Shock Trauma Center to be transferred to the Kernan Orthopaedics and Rehabilitation Hospital in Baltimore, Tuesday Aug. 25, 2009. Morenatti, whose left foot was amputated after a bomb blast in Afghanistan, was transferred Tuesday to a rehabilitation hospital in Baltimore, where he will be fitted for a prosthesis.

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