Later on in August, the Queen was involved in a constitutional crisis when Prime Minister Boris Johnson advised her to prorogue Parliament, a recommendation which was later ruled unlawful by the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom.
Prince Andrew gave a universally-criticised BBC Newsnight interview about his relationship with convicted child-sex offender Jeffrey Epstein,[5] and there was increased tabloid scrutiny regarding rifts between the Cambridge and Sussex households.
[9] He also spoke of upheaval and violence in Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Iraq, Palestine, and Sudan; the ongoing process of UN internal reform; and "persistent...criticism against the UN" and himself personally.
[10] The year 2020 was widely remarked as being an annus horribilis for the entire world in general, most notably due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which began in late 2019 and rapidly spread worldwide throughout 2020.
Journalist David Leonhardt of the New York Times described 2024 as an annus horribilis for the Iranian government, citing the failed outcome of the strikes against Israel in April, the death of president Ebrahim Raisi in May, the death of the core leadership of the Iranian-backed Hamas and Hezbollah during their respective wars against Israel (including the assassination of Hamas's Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran on July), the election of Donald Trump in November, and the collapse of the Assad regime in Syria in December.