(CNN)You know it's been a remarkable year when a devastating global pandemic isn't the only major story capturing people's attention.
In a look at CNN's most-read digital stories of 2020, November's historic US presidential election looms large. But the intensity of the year is reflected in the wide range of stories that captured the world's interest.
From the very start of 2020, users flocked to CNN for news on the airstrikes in Iraq, the impeachment and Kobe Bryant's tragic death.
March and April saw record global interest in the coronavirus, with people all over the planet turning to CNN for information. Throughout the year, readers wanted to know the basics: How many people were infected, when their stimulus checks were going to arrive, and what they could do to stay safe.
During the tense days following the election, people were glued to vote counts and projections. They experimented with electoral maps. They refreshed and reloaded as the latest results crept in.
Joining these overarching narratives are stories of the racial unrest that swept across the world over the summer, and the fallout from the explosion that rocked Lebanon's capital city of Beirut.
In between it all, we said goodbye to beloved stars and mourned each new and terrible coronavirus milestone.
Looking back, the story coming in at #100 on this list, published in March, is a glimpse into an almost alien past: "Here's what we know about the 100 people who've died in the US from coronavirus."
Months later, as this dark year draws to a close, more than 100 people now die of Covid-19 in the US in a single hour. Across the globe, more than 1.7 million people have lost their lives; 317,000 and counting in the US alone.
The world we knew at the beginning of 2020 is gone.
Hopefully, in 2021, the stories we tell will be of a better one.
President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris greet each other on stage in Wilmington, Delaware, where they delivered their victory speeches on November 7.
1. Live story: Election 2020 presidential results
2. Live story: 2020 presidential election eve
3. Live story: The morning after the presidential elections 2020
4. Live story: Where the race to 270 electoral votes stand
5. Live story: Joe Biden is elected president
6. Interactive: The road to 270
7. Interactive: Tracking Covid-19 cases in the US
10. Live story: Kobe Bryant dies at 41
A giant mural of NBA legend Kobe Bryant and his 13-year-old daughter, Gianna, is seen on a basketball court in Taguig, Philippines, on January 28. It was painted two days earlier, just hours after the Bryants and seven other people were killed in a helicopter crash in California.
11. Live story: Beirut explosion rocks Lebanon's capital city
13. Live story: George Floyd protests spread nationwide
15. Live story: Iran attacks bases housing US troops
Emergency medical workers intubate a coronavirus patient at a home in Yonkers, New York, on April 6. The 92-year-old man was later put on a ventilator at the hospital, and he died two weeks later, his family said.
22. Infected people without symptoms might be driving the spread of coronavirus more than we realized
27. Live story: Trump's Covid diagnosis