Barack Obama works on the speech that we would deliver after his strong showing on Super Tuesday in February.
John McCain gets patted down before boarding a plane in March, after a campaign stop in San Antonio, Texas.
McCain takes a break from campaigning to make a call to his son, who was stationed in Iraq.
U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates shakes hands with a reporter before a television interview in Baghdad, Iraq.
A list of names of high school students who survived the massive earthquake that struck Sichuan, China in May is scanned at a stadium housing people made homeless by the tragedy.
In pursuit of his seventh gold medal, US Swimmer Michael Phelps (left) races Serbian Milorad Cavic in the 100M Butterfly. Phelps would push past his opponent in the final meter of the race, miraculously beating him by .01 second.
The border fence between the United States and Mexico stretches across the Arizona desert, part of a US project to slow illegal immigration.
A man watches the financial news at NASDAQ’s studio on Times Square in New York
Investor Warren Buffett checks his watch while waiting for members of the media at the Berkshire Hathaway annual shareholders’ conference.
Pope Benedict XVI arrives for a general audience on St. Peter’s Square in November.
A Pakistani lawyer runs away from tear gas fired by police officers during a protest in front of the residence of the country’s deposed chief justice, Iftikhar Mahmood Chaudhry.
Protesters set the U.S. embassy in Belgrade on fire in February.
A Georgian man cries as he holds the body of his relative after a bombardment in Gori, near South Ossetia, Georgia. Five people were killed in the attack.
Coffins belonging to Georgian soldiers lie in a field awaiting burial.
Parents hold portraits of their children, killed by the collapse of a primary school in the May 12 earthquake in Sichuan, China.
The face of CBS anchor Katie Couric appears on television monitors set up at the Democratic National Convention in August.
Actors playing the horror icon Chucky are unleashed in New York City to celebrate the release of Child’s Play, Chucky’s 20th Birthday Edition on DVD.
Much of the operations of NORAD, the North American Aerospace Defense Command, will be relocated from Cheyenne Mountain, above, in Colorado Springs, Colorado, to nearby Peterson Air Force Base.
Technicians gather around the re-entry module holding three Chinese astronauts after its return from space. During their mission, the astronauts carried out China’s first-ever spacewalk.
Women and children walk past a Shi’ite shrine in Baghdad’s Karrada District. In 2008, life in many parts of Iraq regained a semblance of normality.
His holiness the Dalai Lama prostrates himself before a statue of Buddha at his residence in Dharamsala, India.
Tibetan Buddhist monks are detained by Nepali police during a protest outside the Chinese consulate in Kathmandu, Nepal. Pro-Tibetain protests gathered intensity in the spring as the Beijing Summer Olympics grew near.
Athletes competing in the men’s road cycling event race past Tiananmen Square on the first day of the Summer Olympic Games in Beijing
Barack Obama is joined by his wife Michelle and aide Valerie Jarrett, among others, as he makes his way to a victory speech St. Paul, Minnesota. The speech would be his first after clinching his party’s nomination in June.
Hillary Clinton departs the David Letterman show in February.
John and Cindy McCain, joined by Florida Governor Charlie Crist (in the yellow shirt) get a tour of Everglades Safari Park in June
GOP supporters wait for a chance to get John McCain’s autograph at a rally in Columbus in May.
A video of departing President George W. Bush plays at the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minnesota.
Laid off from his job at Wachovia Bank in March, Gregory Gochtovtt, 30, of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, decided to enlist in the National Guard. He shipped out to Iraq in December.
Congolese government forces stand guard along a road in the eastern Congo during renewed fighting in November.
A drunk Russian soldier emerges from a building in a village near Tskhinvali, the capital of South Ossetia, during fighting in August.
A tire burns atop a truck used as a makeshift roadblock in Kisumu, Kenya, after the town had been cleared of ethnic Kikuyus by armed mobs in January.
A house is engulfed in flames as floodwaters and crashing waves inundate beach homes on Galveston Island as Hurricane Ike approaches the Texas Gulf Coast.
Boathouses borne by rising floodwaters collide with a railroad bridge in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, in June.
Emergency workers carry a wounded man out of a collapsed building in Mianyang, China, after it was destroyed by an earthquake in May.
A woman with drug resistant tuberculosis is comforted by her mother inside their home in Ngcina, Swaziland.
Siamoy, an Afghan woman from remote Badakhshan province in Afghanistan, feeds her one-month old baby. The remote, mountain region has the highest maternity mortality rate in the world.
Teresa Jeffs, 16, a daughter of Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints founder Warren Jeffs, shows off some of her best trampoline moves. In April, Texas authorities raided the Yearning for Zion Ranch, home to several hundred members of the FLDS, on the basis of a phone “tip” that suggested that some of the children living on the compound were the victims of sexual abuse. While the courts struggled to determine the best way to sort out the complex legal issues presented by the case, some of the families resided at this house in New Braunfels.
British artist Damien Hirst is elevated above his workspace in Stroud, England. In September, an auction devoted exclusively to his work earned $198 million.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad dons 3-D glasses to watch a program about an Iranian rocket during a visit to Iran’s space control center in Tehran.
Pope Benedict’s Mass at Yankee Stadium is broadcast on a television in a bar in the Bronx.
Cardboard cutouts of John McCain and his running mate Sarah Palin stand near the press section of the Straight Talk Air campaign plane.
Hillary Clinton departs a campaign event in Nashua, New Hampshire.
Not to be outdone by two aides who each did a pair of pull-ups, Obama does three before stepping out to address a crowd at the University of Montana.
A young supporter of the GOP ticket arrives at a campaign event on Halloween Day dressed as vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin
Cindy McCain waits while her husband works goes over a speech in a hotel room in Dallas.
Barack Obama works the phones during a campaign stop in Providence, Rhode Island.
Obama and his wife Michelle depart the stage in Grant Park after winning the Presidential election on November 4, 2008.
Micah Weber of Western New York, purchases a new vehicle that is appropriate for his age of 28.