What just happened? Google has released its annual list of top trending searches from the last 12 months, and the recurring theme for 2018 was celebrity deaths. But the top subject on both the global and US search lists was for the 2018 soccer World Cup tournament that took place in Russia.

Topics are ranked based on their increase in searches compared to last year, rather than sheer volume. The World Cup came out top overall, but much of the list is made up of celebrities who died this year: Avicii, Mac Miller, Stan Lee, Anthony Bourdain, XXXTentacion, Stephen Hawking, and Kate Spade.

The US trending searches were mostly similar to the global list, with Hurricane Florence, Mega Millions Results, Demi Lovato, and Election Results some of the America-specific terms.

The People category is an interesting one, with American actress Meghan Markle's marriage to Prince Harry making her the most trending person on the global list. In the US, that honor goes to singer and actress Demi Lovato. US president Donald Trump doesn't appear as his searches haven't spiked this year, though Stormy Daniels does. Brett Kavanaugh's name is an expected entry, but Sylvester Stallone? Presumably, that's related to Creed II and the upcoming Rambo V: Last Blood. He also tops the actor category ahead of Logan Paul, whose classification as an 'actor' comes as a surprise to me.

The excellent Altered Carbon is one of the top trending global TV show searches---beaten only by Roseanne in the US---while the video game category is led by Fortnite, with Red Dead Redemption 2, Fallout 76, Far Cry 5, and God of War in its wake.

Check out Google's full year in search right here.

Here are some of the US category results.

Searches

1. World Cup

2. Hurricane Florence

3. Mac Miller

4. Kate Spade

5. Anthony Bourdain

6. Black Panther

7. Mega Millions Results

8. Stan Lee

9. Demi Lovato

10. Election Results

News

1. World Cup

2. Hurricane Florence

3. Mega Millions

4. Election Results

5. Hurricane Michael

6. Kavanaugh Confirmation

7. Florida Shooting

8. Royal Wedding

9. Olympic Medal Count

10. Government Shutdown

People (not including deaths)

1. Demi Lovato

2. Meghan Markle

3. Brett Kavanaugh

4. Logan Paul

5. Khloe Kardashian

6. Eminem

7. Urban Meyer

8. Ariana Grande

9. Rick Ross

10. Cardi B