This is the front page of the final edition of The Times for 2009. Read our editorial on the decade that shook the world below:

Today we publish a special edition that looks back over the last 10 incredible years. The somewhat cheesy banner, “Ten Years that Shook the World” was chosen because of three major events – one seismic and earth-shattering, the second slow and not very newsworthy, and the third a powerful systemic wrench that has changed our daily lives.
The first event was the destruction of the World Trade Centre in New York by terrorists using passenger planes.
Broadcast live to a global television audience, it forever changed the way the world perceived its sole superpower, the US.
It ignited two massive wars that continue in Iraq and Afghanistan and made security a major public concern across the globe.
The second was more subtle, but no less important. It was the recognition that the planet is in danger due to global warming. At the turn of the century, this was a concern among environmentalists.
By this year it had become the business of everyone on the planet, and all our lives changed as we sought ways to prevent harm to the next generation.
The third was the economic meltdown following the bursting of the US housing bubble. Paper stopped chasing paper in secondary financial markets, and suddenly the global economy took a sucker punch after decades of stability.
At the end of this first decade of the 21st century, we are a people more socially connected and aware. We face more threats and challenges than any previous generation.
We need fortitude, discipline, single-mindedness and the ability to act decisively in the face of these challenges.
The world has become a dangerous place, but we do not have to become a dangerous people.

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