I doubt it's the greatest given all that's happened in the past year. But it's certainly up there, no pun intended.

It's hard to say how much it contributed to the pre-eminence of modern-day China. But overall the rise of China surely dominates anything that's happened in the last year. No other nation even comes close to vying for hegemony with the US. We could have another full-on Vietnam-esque quagmire in Iran and it wouldn't even be a blip in comparison.