What we Googled in 2015

From tragedy and discovery to scandals and legends, 2015 has been a year of questions.

"How can I help the refugees?" "What does the Confederate flag stand for?" "How can we overcome prejudice?" "Why was there a Cuban embargo?" "Are you born transgender?" "What color is the dress?" "How can the world find peace?"

Those are just some of the queries highlighted in Google's 15th annual Year in Search retrospective.

Across the world, November's attacks in Paris garnered the most attention, generating more than 897 million searches in just one month.

Star Wars, Adele, the Kansas City Royals, late night TV, Caitlyn Jenner, Princess Charlotte, same-sex marriage, and the 87th Academy Awards also resulted in hundreds of millions of queries since the beginning of the year.

In the U.S., however, the top 10 searches of 2015 showcase a different agenda: NBA star Lamar Odom reached No. 1, ahead of Caitlyn Jenner (fourth place) and Ronda Rousey (fifth). Jurassic World and American Sniper snagged places two and three, while the real American sniper, Chris Kyle, landed at No. 8.

The Paris attacks, video games Agar.io and Fallout 4, and Straight Outta Compton rounded out the list.

"The 2015 Year in Search goes deeper than we've ever gone before," Amit Singhal, senior vice president of Google Search, wrote in a blog post.

"This year, we're covering hundreds of news stories, sharing interactive guides and charts, and diving into the numbers by sharing things like how many times people searched for Adele (439 million, if you want to know!)," he said.

Facebook recently revealed what people have been talking about on the social network all year, with surprisingly little overlap. The U.S. presidential race was No. 1, followed by the Paris attacks, the Syrian refugee crisis, Nepal earthquakes, and Greek debt crisis in the top five. Also flooding our News Feeds was talk of the Charlie Hebdo shootings in Paris, the Supreme Court's marriage equality vote, protests in Baltimore following Freddie Gray's death, and the Charleston church shooting and ensuing Confederate flag debate.