2023

Catastrophic natural disasters in 2023 included the 5th-deadliest earthquake of the 21st century striking Turkey and Syria, leaving up to 62,000 people dead; Cyclone Freddy, the longest-lasting recorded tropical cyclone in history in the Indian Ocean, which led to over 1,400 deaths in Malawi and Mozambique; Storm Daniel, which became the deadliest cyclone worldwide since Cyclone Nargis after killing at least 11,000 people in Libya; a major 6.8 magnitude earthquake striking western Morocco, killing 2,960 people; and a 6.3 magnitude quadruple earthquake striking western Afghanistan, killing over 1,400 people.

In Armenia and Azerbaijan, the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict ended after over 100,000 Armenians fled the region after an Azeri military invasion.

A major escalation of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict occurred in October when Hamas, the governing body of the Gaza Strip, led a major attack on Israel, leading the latter to both declare war on Hamas and invade the Gaza Strip; the Israeli aerial bombardment campaign killed 20,000 Palestinians within two months and caused a humanitarian crisis, leading to allegations of genocide that formed the basis of an ICJ case brought by South Africa that December.

In the realm of technology, 2023 saw the continued rise of generative AI models, with increasing applications across various industries.

These models, leveraging advancements in machine learning and natural language processing, had become capable of creating realistic and coherent text, music, and images.