By Ben Riggleman

We can all agree that 2016 sucked. The year began with David Bowie’s passing; it ended with the deaths of Carrie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds. In between, we lost Prince, Alan Rickman, Phife Dawg, Muhammad Ali, Gene Wilder, Leonard Cohen, Merle Haggard, John Glenn and George Michael. (And of course Harambe.)

Meanwhile, as the year ground on, the whole world seemed to be spinning out of control. Zika. Brexit. Istanbul. Aleppo. Flint, Michigan. Our news feeds were held hostage by a gruesome litany of terrorist attacks and an unsavory presidential campaign. And whatever one’s political outlook, it’s clear that 2016 left America divided and uneasy.

So, 2016: good riddance. You won’t be missed.

With that said, some indisputably good things happened last year, and they’re worth remembering. I’m not talking fluffy “human interest” stories either, but real news and trends. I’ve collected some here, grouping them in broad categories. (A slew of online listicles have already done this and I drew on ones by the Washington Post, Wired UK, PBS NewsHour and Quartz.)

Health and Welfare

In September 2016, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared all of the Americas to be measles-free. (In 1994, the countries of the Americas began a coordinated vaccination campaign to fight measles. It has paid off: there has not been a native outbreak here since 2002.)

Progress is also being made on malaria. According to the WHO, deaths from malaria are down 60 percent from the year 2000.

Due in part to malaria reduction and — more importantly — AIDS reduction, the average life expectancy across Africa has increased by over nine years during the same time span.

2016 also saw progress towards a cure for AIDS: an experimental British treatment appeared to have eliminated the HIV virus, precursor to AIDS, from a trial patient.

A gene responsible for the degenerative disease ALS was identified, thanks to funds raised during the “Ice Bucket Challenge.” (A cure has not yet been found.)

Ebola no longer an epidemic. In January 2016, the WHO declared the West African outbreak to be officially over.

The Zika virus was downgraded in November from a “global health emergency” to a “chronic threat.”

The Pan-African Parliament resolved in August to work toward ending female genital mutilation and child marriage. (The Parliament is the legislative wing of the African Union.) This is a political first.

Diplomacy

In Colombia, the national government and the FARC rebel group agreed to a peace treaty after over fifty years of civil war. (The situation on the ground is still shaky; sporadic violence continues.)

On March 20, Barack Obama made the first presidential visit to Cuba since Calvin Coolidge in 1928. 2016 also saw the lifting of commercial and travel restrictions on Cuba and several related milestones.

Environment

The Paris Agreement on climate change came into effect on November 4, with an aim to keep the average global temperature within two degrees Celsius of pre-industrial levels. As of right now, 125 countries have ratified the agreement, including the U.S., China, India, Russia, and the E.U. It will be up to national governments to set their own emissions targets, but they must report on their progress. As noted in the Guardian, the Paris Agreement “[marks] the first time that governments have agreed legally binding limits to global temperature rises.” It’s a definite step in the right direction.

Carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels did not increase in 2016 — reflecting a three-year downward trend. China, which has made a push away from coal, is considered largely responsible for the cutback. However, the U.S. is (or perhaps was) also making progress; American emissions hit a 25-year low in the first half of 2016.

There’s hope yet for some endangered species. The tiger population is increasing for the first time in a century. Giant pandas were taken off the endangered species list in September, the result of conservation efforts in China.

And, in early October, delegates of 182 countries met for the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species. As a National Geographic blogger commented, “This particular meeting has, arguably, been one of the more successful in terms of species protection.” Scores of species, from the porpoise to the pangolin to the palisander tree, stand to benefit.

Numbers on the Home Front

In the U.S., 2016 brought some surprisingly good statistics. Unemployment slipped to its lowest since August 2007, before the recession. Homelessness among veterans dropped by nearly 50 percent since 2010 — the result of coordinated programs by several federal agencies. Smoking rates are way down: they’ve fallen by 8.6 million since 2005, according to the CDC. According to the same source, the birth-rate among American teens hit an all-time low in 2016.

More students graduated from high school than ever before, at a rate of 83 percent; 2016 was the fifth year in a row that broke graduation records.