It’s almost time to say farewell to 2008, an extraordinary year by any standards. In the past 12 months we’ve seen a memorable Olympics, armed conflict in Europe, the birth of several new countries, scientific and medical breakthroughs, and a financial crisis that has sent shock waves around the world. RT looks back at the events that defined 2008 and looks forward to the likely legacy of the past 12 months.

2008 will be remembered as the year the global financial system came within a whisker of total collapse, triggering a worldwide economic recession that could last for years.

In Europe, Kosovo declared independence from Serbia, winning international recognition from the US and many EU states, but not Russia.

It was also the year Abkhazia and South Ossetia announced their independence from Georgia – shortly after Tbilisi launched a military offensive to take Ossetia by force. Russia and Nicaragua have so far recognised the newly independent states in the Caucasus.

In the summer, China staged the most expensive and perhaps the most impressive Olympics ever held. But the Beijing games were tainted by an organised global campaign in support of Tibetan independence.

This in turn was overshadowed by the conflict in South Ossetia between Georgia and Russia, which later exposed the hypocrisy of many media organisations. Indeed, it was a year of short conflicts whose political consequences could last for years.

The scientific community hit the headlines with the Large Hadron Collider, a billion-dollar experiment that promised so much but delivered so little. Technicians insist the machine that could reveal the secrets of the universe can be fixed. We wait in anticipation.

At home, Russia said farewell to some of her most prominent cultural and religious leaders, including the great dissident writer Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, a fierce critic of communism who brought the horror of the gulags to an international audience. Russia also lost Alexy II, the man who re-united the Russian Orthodox Church after a schism lasting almost a century.

It was also a year when new leaders emerged from the wings onto the world stage, both in Russia and the US. They offer the possibility of new policies and a new direction, promising prosperity, opportunity, understanding and peace.

While 2008 delivered artistic, sporting, medical and scientific breakthroughs, it will be remembered as a year of dashed expectations. As the worst recession in generations gathers pace, millions around the globe will begin 2009 jobless, bankrupt and fearful of what the future holds.

On the political front, dozens of ethnic and separatist conflicts remain unresolved; many are prone to erupting into violence and bloodshed at the slightest provocation. We need look no further than Palestine, Sudan, Colombia, Somalia, Sri Lanka, Iraq or Afghanistan to see the consequences of failed political plans.

On global warming, the world came no closer to finding workable solutions to the great silent threat stalking planet Earth.

RT looks back at the events and the people who shaped 2008 and are likely to define the coming year.