A version of this story appeared in CNN's What Matters newsletter. To get it in your inbox, sign up for free here.

The year started with the threat of war between the US and Iran and a historic impeachment trial. Those seem like sideshows as we enter the second half of the year.

We've lived through a global pandemic and an unprecedented shutdown of the economy and almost all aspects of contemporary life, from air travel to the regular routines of work and school. But the suspension of normalcy created space for a vast reconsideration of race, class and history not just in the US but around the world.

In some ways the first half of 2020 lasted forever and in other ways it's gone by in a flash, with none of the typical markers of holidays, celebrations, travel, friends and family.

Zoom funerals would have been unthinkable six months ago. Now they are the norm.

Nuclear chain reactions don't just happen

The coronavirus simultaneously jeopardized the conveniences and social contracts that hold up modern society.

But it's also exposed the social and racial walls that make modern society so painfully unequal. The pandemic caused economic calamity, which helped spark massive social justice protests in the space of six months.

It's no longer possible to ignore that it's harder to be Black in America. It's no longer possible to pretend that doesn't need to change.

Millions remain out of work, and may be for a long time.

And it all came in an unexpected avalanche. History feels like it's happening at warp freaking speed.

No one knows what's coming next. But none of this happened overnight.

We could have seen it all coming

We could have seen the pandemic coming, because pandemics happen and scientists and good government types have been warning for a long time that the big one was just around the corner.

"Of course, the thing that people ask: 'What keeps you most up at night in the biodefense world?' Pandemic flu, of course," Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said, prophetically, in April of 2019, at a biodefense summit, as CNN's KFile reported.

He wasn't alone. Two years earlier, during a 2017 speech at Georgetown, Dr. Anthony Fauci issued a stark warning that some disease would strike in a major way, and soon.

"History tells us that we will definitely get surprised in the next few years," he said, warning policymakers to pay attention to the global nature of disease, which doesn't respect borders.

Will this time be different?

We could have already had a national reckoning on race because there have been opportunities every day, not just every few years. We could have had it with Trayvon Martin before Eric Garner, before Michael Brown, before Tamir Rice, before Walter Scott, before Freddie Gray, before Sandra Bland, before Philando Castile, before Botham Jean, before Atatiana Jefferson, before Breonna Taylor, before George Floyd (and countless other people).

We've had national reckonings on

BlackFacts Details

The one movie that changed everything for Halle Berry

Science Facts

New York City Facts

Women Facts

Barack Obama Facts