When I won 16 and 14, they were almost like disaster years.
After a life riddled with disaster – years spent homeless on the streets of New York as a teenager and the murder of his brother are just the tip of the iceberg – he was discovered singing James Brown covers in Brooklyn, and, one film and one album later, is finally having his story and music heard.
This is a reflection of the sales disaster years of the Great Recession and the fact that carmakers hope to pound every last penny out of current technology before bringing out higher-mileage, cleaner and safer vehicles.
(It's important to point out that earthquakes and volcanic eruptions - for example, the earthquake in Haiti -- helped make 2010 one of the world's worst disaster years, but they have not been linked with climate change.
"This is going to be the second-biggest shipping year ever, even though it might feel like the biggest disaster year ever," Mr. Myers said.
"It's been a disaster year, but you know I've been praying and I have my family and I love tennis, and to be able to come back at Wimbledon is pretty awesome," Williams said.
Insurers around the world were hit by claims of $108bn£68bnbn) following an unprecedented run of catastrophes, including Japan's earthquake in March 2011, in what was the second-costliest natural disaster year on record.
In this so-called disaster year (rampjaar), French troops, under the command of Louis XIV, invaded the United Provinces, capturing a number of Dutch cities (Nadler 1999, 305).
"It's been a disaster year, but I've been praying," Williams said.
For the Dutch Republic, 1672 proved calamitous, becoming known as the "disaster year" (Dutch: rampjaar) because of the Franco-Dutch War and the Third Anglo-Dutch War in which the Netherlands were invaded by France under Louis XIV, England, Münster, and Cologne.
GDP growth: 1.2% GDP per head: $45,680 (PPP: $37,430) Inflation: -0.1% Budget balance: (% GDP) -8.2 Population: 125.7mWith the mini-boom of post-tsunami reconstruction fading, the country will return to the low-growth, deflationary environment of the pre-disaster years.
