The stabbing of a young pregnant mother in what has been dubbed by the police as the safest county of Britain shocked the nation.
The wide-spread devastation and loss of life following the catastrophic earthquake in south Asia last year was enormous.
When Little Britain comedian David Walliams said he was going to swim the Channel most people thought he was having a laugh.
Most youngsters with dreams of being spacemen forget them as they grow up but not Piers Sellers, who this year broke the British record for the longest amount of time space-walking.
When Beverley De-Gale's son Daniel was diagnosed with leukaemia for the second time in 1995, a bone marrow transplant was his only chance.
PC Mark Plant caught and arrested a robber by stepping in front his car and clinging onto the roof as it swerved through rush-hour traffic at up to 50mph.
No high street is complete without a charity shop. But such a phenomenon could never have been achieved had it not been for the energy and enterprise of one man.
At only five years old Samantha Block's childhood was robbed from her after she was abused and put into care.
When their mother died suddenly, Stacey Heywood and her brother and sister were sent to different care homes. But thanks to Stacey's incredible sacrifice the family are now back together.
One headteacher has made going to school an out-of-this world experience for the children - literally.
