INSIDE EDITION takes a look back at the headlines that defined 2014.
2014 will be remembered as the year Ebola came to America. Two American nurses contracted the disease while treating Liberian Thomas Eric Duncan in Dallas.
Other heroic medical people became the public face of Ebola on these shores, including Dr. Kent Brantly who came in contact with the disease as a missionary in Africa.
The National Football League was put on the defensive in a big way in 2014 when video surfaced of Baltimore Ravens star Ray Rice knocking out his then fiancée Janay Palmer in an elevator in Atlantic City.
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Minnesota Vikings player Adrian Peterson was indicted by a grand jury for using a tree branch to discipline his four-year-old son. Peterson was suspended from his team.
"I am not a perfect parent," he insisted, "but I am, without a doubt, not a child abuser."
The NBA was also rocked by scandal in 2014 when Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling was caught on tape making racist remarks to his personal assistant V. Stiviano.
In one of the taped conversations, Stiviano told Sterling, "I wasn't raised the way you were raised!"
He replied, "Well then, if you don't feel, don't come to my games. Don't bring black people and don't come."
She then asked, "Do you know that you have a whole team that's black, that plays for you?"
Stiviano seemed to enjoy the spotlight while Sterling was forced to sell the Clippers.
This year saw an astonishing reversal of fortune for comedian Bill Cosby as more than two dozen women came forward with claims that he sexually assaulted them years ago. Among the accusers were former supermodels Janice Dickinson and Beverly Johnson.
Johnson told INSIDE EDITION, "I felt lucky because I was drugged and wasn't raped."
Cosby has denied the accusations.
2014 will no doubt be remembered for images like protestors taking to the streets after two racially charged deaths at the hands of law enforcement.
Ferguson, Missouri, exploded in unrest after the shooting death of Michael Brown. The officer involved, Darren Wilson, was not charged.
In New York City, people took to the streets after a grand jury refused to indict the police officer in the death of street vendor Eric Garner. His dying words, “I can't breathe" became a rallying cry across the nation with scenes of civil unrest that reminded many of the 1960's.
But 2014 will also be remembered for uplifting moments.
Mo’ne Davis became a national sensation for superlative pitching at the Little League World Series.
And there was the ALC Ice Bucket Challenge. The entire nation it seemed joined in the Ice Bucket Challenge to raise money to find a cure for ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig's disease.
Stirring images showing what America is really all about.
