COMPLETE, COMPREHENSIVE, AUTHORITATIVEPacked with information and completely updated to cover the key events and people of 2009, this handy one-volume almanac is an essential tool for understanding your world. Join students, academics, journalists, and professionals around the globe in making the TIME Almanac an indispensable part of your life ... for work, for school, for reference ... and just for fun. Here's what's inside:THE PEOPLEBrief biographies of the year's most influential figures ... the TIME 100, 2009 ... TIME's complete Person the Year list ... Obituaries, 2009 ... complete Oscar, Nobel, and Pulitzer prizewinners ... Olympic champions ... and more.THE PLACESCountries of the World offers hundreds of pages of international coverage ... extremes of world geography ... a complete World Atlas ... flags of the world's nations in full color ... and more.THE EVENTSThe Year in Pictures: 16 full-color pages of photos of the key events of 2009 ... The Year in Review: month-by-month news headlines of 2009 ... plus comprehensive sports records for the year ... and more.THE CONTEXTArticles from TIME and Encyclopedia Britannica explore the key trends of the year, from the new US military commitment in Afghanistan to the effects of the recession on US consumers to the significance of Twitter ... and more.THE BACKGROUNDIncludes the founding documents of US life and government ... mankind's greatest civilizations ... history's greatest natural disasters ... and more.THE FACTS2010 calendar and key holidays ... zip-code maps and US telephone area codes ... nutritional value of selected foods ... the world's greatest religions ... and more.