You know what's funny? If you told me about what happens in 2021 back in 2019, I'd call it crazy. Compared to 2020 though, it seemed pretty average (or at least as average as you can get in the middle of a global pandemic). 2020 has really set the bar high for what I consider a "crazy" year.
the idea that the British public were being 'freed' from some cruel imposed despotism, rather than just being allowed to do things that weren't actually safe at that stage of the pandemic
You're thinking of the cargo ship Ever Given or maybe the shipping company Evergreen that operates it. I'm gonna assume you didn't get the question about Evergrande correct.
I didn't do too well on these, but I thought Haiti would be higher, that was a huge deal I remember and got way more attention than a lot of these events
Only face masks in shops and public transport again, just before Christmas. If you never stopped wearing them, or never use public transport, you might hardly have noticed.
'Freedom day' was not a UK wide thing, it only happened in England at that time; Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland operate their own health services, guidance etc, and restrictions were not eased until a later date. Even then, there were still some measures kept in place e.g. mandatory face masks
I feel like the Israeli election that ejected Netanyahu is a significant oversight that really ought to have been on this list. It's certainly more geopolitically important than El Salvador and bitcoin, and is deeply significant to Middle Eastern and world politics. Maybe recency bias has made things from back in March seem obscure, but I think it's a glaring omission.
I know that formally Lukashenko is "president" - but there were no elections, the true elected president had to escape the country. Call him what he truly is - a tyrant
July 19 was the day restrictions were removed in England, not the UK. Restrictions did not return in any material way (apart from mask-wearing and vaccine passports briefly) after this date. It is therefore slightly disingenuous to say that the UK celebrated freedom day on July 19, only for restrictions to return at a later day.
You better run, better run, faster than my bullets"
(Kim Jong-Un, discoverer of COVID-19 cure)