As the year comes to a close, it's time to take a look back at some of the most memorable events and images of 2014, a particularly brutal year. Among the events covered in this essay (the second of a three-part photo summary of the year): Summer rioting in Ferguson, Missouri, the World Cup in Brazil, the flight of the Yazidis from ISIS in Iraq, the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, and the Israel-Gaza conflict.
An emotional Brazil fan reacts after his team was defeated by Germany 7-1 during the 2014 FIFA World Cup Brazil Semi Final match at Estadio Mineirao in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, on July 8, 2014. (Laurence Griffiths/Getty Images)
Tourists take a "selfie" picture as demonstrators burn a trash container during a May Day rally in Barcelona, Spain, on May 1, 2014. Tens of thousands of workers marked May Day in European cities with a mix of anger and gloom over austerity measures imposed by leaders trying to contain the eurozone's intractable debt crisis. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)
An explosion is seen during a car bomb attack at a rally by militant group, Asaib Ahl Haq (League of the Righteous), to introduce its candidates for elections at a soccer stadium in Baghdad, in this April 25, 2014 photo. Photographer Thaier al-Sudani: "After I was done taking pictures and trying to reach our driver's vehicle to return to the office a powerful blast hit an exit gate. We tried to find a place to hide because we were expecting a secondary explosion and at the same time we were keen to keep documenting the incident. Screams of the wounded, black smoke and bodies surrounded us, while security forces and militia members were shooting in the air to disperse the crowd. I tried to take cover behind anything close by. Along with Reuters cameraman Mahdi Talaat we could only hit the ground and film the event that was taking place in front of us. Then a minibus that was advancing towards the site caught our attention. The car was only a few meters away from our position and heading towards a gate when it blew up. The blazing fire, smoke and the blast's shockwave along with shrapnel raining down on us and the wailing of the wounded made us believe that we were witnessing judgment day. This incident has had a great impact on myself and resulted in raising my awareness and developing a great internal fear of street gatherings, protests and celebrations. Images of the incident are still fresh in my mind and they keep replaying in my head every time I see a large gathering of people and it even haunts me in my sleep at times". (Reuters/Thaier al-Sudani)
Tree limbs surround the World War One Canadian Memorial, also known as the 'Brooding Soldier' in St. Julien, Belgium. The statue is a memorial to the Canadian troops who died in the first gas attacks of the First World War in 1915. Throughout the year, memorials were held around the world marking the 100th anniversary of the start of World War I in 1914. (AP Photo/Geert Vanden Wijngaert)
Smoke rises from a house days after part of the ground it was resting on collapsed into Lake Whitney, Texas in this June 13, 2014 photo. Photographer Brandon Wade: "I was covering the controlled burn of a house slowly falling into Lake Whitney due to the decaying cliff underneath. Asked to take photos from an aerial perspective, an instructor and I took off from Grand Prairie Municipal Airport around 9am. The burn, scheduled to start an hour later, was delayed. I love flying, but patience proved challenging as circling for nearly three hours gets boring fast. Once the fire started we only had 15 minutes to take photos because the plane was booked at 1pm. The owners invested their retirement savings in the house and were even advised by geologists that the ground was stable. To watch your investment literally go up in flames must take its toll emotionally. The owners said they don't expect their insurance to cover the loss". (Reuters/Brandon Wade)
Elizabeth (not her real name, to protect her identity), 21, poses inside her bedroom before leaving home to join others in a Black Bloc group to a protest against the FIFA world Cup in a slum in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Elizabeth lives with her father, after her mother's death, and works as lab technician at a hospital earning 1,100 reais (482 USD) per month. (Yasuyoshi Chiba/AFP/Getty Images)
An Indian Muslim father holds the hands of his daughter in his palms and prays before breaking fast on the first day of holy month Ramadan at the Jama Mosque in New Delhi, India, on June 30, 2014. During this month the world's estimated 1.6 billion Muslims abstained from food, drink and other pleasures from sunrise to sunset. (AP Photo /Manish Swarup)
Pallbearers carry the casket of one of three Royal Canadian Mounted Police officers who were killed the previous week, during a regimental funeral in Moncton, New Brunswick, on June 10, 2014. Justin Bourque, 24, was charged with murder in the slayings of the three Royal Canadian Mounted Police officers, Constables Fabrice Georges Gevaudan, 45; David Joseph Ross, 32, and Douglas James Larche, 40, during a shooting spree in the eastern Canadian city of Moncton. The shooting spree was one of the worst of its kind in Canada, where gun laws are stricter than in the United States and deadly attacks on police are rare. (Reuters/Mark Blinch)
An image posted on a militant website on June 14, 2014, which was verified and is consistent with other AP reporting, appears to show militants from the al-Qaeda-inspired ISIS group taking aim at captured Iraqi soldiers wearing plain clothes after taking over a base in Tikrit, Iraq. (AP Photo via militant website)
The wreck of the Costa Concordia cruise ship in front of the harbor of Isola del Giglio, Italy, after it was refloated using air tanks attached to its sides, on July 23, 2014. The Costa Concordia was towed away from the spot where it crashed on the night of January 13, 2012 in a disaster that killed 32 people. (Reuters/ Alessandro Bianchi)
A rocket launched from the Gaza Strip toward Israel, intercepted by the Iron Dome anti-missile system, above the Israeli town of Sderot, on July 21, 2014. Tensions over the killing of three Israeli teenagers and the apparent revenge killing of a Palestinian teenager led to increased missile attacks, which prompted Israel to mount "Operation Protective Edge", bombing targets across the Gaza Strip for weeks. (Reuters/Baz Ratner)
An employee of the Russian Space Training Center hangs out space suits to dry of Russian cosmonaut Anatoly Ivanishin, NASA's U.S. flight engineer Kathleen Rubins and Japanese space agency's flight engineer Takuya Onishi after their undergoing training near in Noginsk, 60 km (38 miles) east of Moscow, Russia, on July 2, 2014. The training was intended to simulate the capsule landing on water. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko)
A body lies in a wheat field, still strapped to a seat, at the site of the crash of a Malaysia Airlines plane carrying 298 people from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur in Grabove, in rebel-held east Ukraine, on July 19, 2014. Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 fell from the sky in pieces, presumably shot down/ All 298 passengers and crew were killed, as debris scattered across a rural area controlled by pro-Russian separatists. Western intelligence sources claim the aircraft was shot down by a Buk surface-to-air missile, operated by separatists, and provided by Russia. Russian sources blame the Ukrainian government. An investigation is still ongoing, a report expected next summer. (Alexander Khudoteply/AFP/Getty Images)
In this picture taken on August 3, 2014 by Rosetta's OSIRIS narrow-angle camera, Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko is pictured from a distance of 285 km. A mission to orbit and land the first space probe on a comet reached a major milestone when the unmanned Rosetta spacecraft finally caught up with its quarry on August 6, 2014. Rosetta later successfully landed a probe on the comet's surface. (AP Photo/ESA/Rosetta/MPS for OSIRIS Team)
A burial team from the Liberian health department sprays disinfectant over the body of a woman suspected of dying of the Ebola virus on August 14, 2014 in Monrovia, Liberia. Nearly 18,000 cases of Ebola were reported in the 2014 outbreak in Western Africa, with more than 6,300 of the victims dying from the disease. Governments and health care workers are still struggling to contain and control the deadly outbreak (John Moore/Getty Images)
Displaced people from the minority Yazidi sect flee from ISIS forces in Sinjar town, walking towards the Syrian border on the outskirts of Sinjar mountain on August 10, 2014. ISIS occupied and terrorized large swaths of Syria and Iraq in 2014, leaving reports of widespread atrocities in their wake. The populations of entire villages were driven out, occupied, or destroyed. (Reuters/Rodi Said)
Oklahoma City police officer Sgt. Ryan Stark, center, leans over the casket of his canine partner, K-9 Kye, following funeral services for the dog in Oklahoma City on August 28, 2014. K-9 Kye, a three year old Belgian German Shepard, died August 25 after being stabbed by a burglary suspect on August 24. Sgt. Stark tried to separate the dog and the suspect before fatally shooting the suspect. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki)
A man watches as police walk through a cloud of smoke during a clash with protesters on August 13, 2014, in Ferguson, Missouri. Protests in the St. Louis suburb rocked by racial unrest since a white police officer shot an unarmed black teenager to death turned violent, with people lobbing Molotov cocktails at police who responded with smoke bombs and tear gas to disperse the crowd. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson)
A man is doused with milk and sprayed with mist after being hit by an eye irritant from security forces trying to disperse demonstrators protesting against the shooting of unarmed black teen Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, on August 20, 2014. Police in riot gear ordered dozens of lingering demonstrators in Ferguson, Missouri, to disperse and charged into the crowd to make arrests as relative calm dissolved amid protests. (Reuters/Adrees Latif)
An Afghan resident points his weapon at the dead body of an unidentified militant, as a way of showing his hatred for insurgents, after an attack on Kabul airport in this July 17, 2014 photo. Photographer Omar Sobhani: "Militants armed with rocket-propelled grenades attacked Kabul International Airport from the roof of a building just to its north. Such attacks are not uncommon in Kabul and I have photographed quite a number of these incidents. After four or five hours of fighting between Taliban and Afghan security forces, all insurgents were killed and curious locals and media were allowed to enter the site. A group of unidentified men armed with guns were looking around the bodies of the dead Taliban, some of them were kicking the bodies, some cursing. One of them pointed his gun at the body of the Taliban fighter who was lying at the scene. I shot the frames quickly and moved back thinking he might fire and the impact could get to me. He did not fire". (Reuters/Omar Sobhani)
A Pro-Russian separatist stands near a damaged war memorial at Savur-Mohyla, a hill east of the city of Donetsk, on August 28, 2014. Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said that day that Russian forces had entered his country and the military conflict was worsening after Russian-backed separatists swept into a key town in the east. (Reuters/Maxim Shemetov)
