Year 2012
Events
January
January 7 – A hot air balloon crashes near Carterton, New Zealand,
killing all 11 people on board.
January 10 – A bombing in Khyber Agency, Pakistan, kills at least 30
people and 78 others injured.
January 12 – Violent protests occur in Bucharest, Romania, as
two-day-old demonstrations continue against President Traian Băsescu's
economic austerity measures. Clashes are reported in numerous Romanian
cities between protesters and law enforcement officers.
January 13 – The passenger cruise ship Costa Concordia sinks off the
coast of Italy due to the captain Francesco Schettino's negligence and
irresponsibility. There are 32 confirmed deaths.
January 19 – The Hong Kong-based file-sharing website Megaupload is shut
down by the FBI.
January 23 – Iran–European Union relations: the European Union adopts an
embargo against Iran in protest of its continued effort to enrich
uranium.
February
February 6 – The Diamond Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II marks the 60th
anniversary of her accession to the thrones of the United Kingdom,
Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, and the 60th anniversary of her
becoming Head of the Commonwealth.
February 19 – Iran suspends oil exports to Britain and France, following
sanctions put in place by the European Union and the United States in
January.
February 21 – Greek government-debt crisis: Eurozone finance ministers
reach an agreement on a second, €130-billion Greek bailout.
March
March 13 – After 246 years since its first publication, the Encyclopædia
Britannica discontinues its print edition.
March 22 – The President of Mali, Amadou Toumani Touré, is ousted in a
coup d'état after mutinous soldiers attack government offices.
April
April 6 – The National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad
unilaterally declares the independence of Azawad from Mali.
April 12 – Mutinous soldiers in Guinea-Bissau stage a coup d'état and
take control of the capital city, Bissau. They arrest interim President
Raimundo Pereira and leading presidential candidate Carlos Gomes Júnior
in the midst of a presidential election campaign.
April 13 – Kwangmyongsong-3, a North Korean Earth observation satellite,
explodes shortly after launch. The United States and other countries had
called the impending launch a violation of United Nations Security
Council demands. The launch was planned to mark the centenary of the
birth of Kim Il-sung, the founder of the republic.
April 26 – Former Liberian President Charles Taylor is found guilty on
11 counts of aiding and abetting war crimes and crimes against humanity
during the Sierra Leone Civil War.
May
May 2 – A pastel version of The Scream, by the Norwegian painter Edvard
Munch, sells for US$120 million in a New York City auction, setting a
new world record for an auctioned work of art.
May 7 – Vladimir Putin is elected President of Russia.
May 12 – August 12 – The 2012 World Expo takes place in Yeosu, South
Korea.
May 20 – An annular solar eclipse was visible from Asia and North
America, and was the 58th solar eclipse from 73 solar eclipses of Solar
Saros 128.
May 22 – Tokyo Skytree, the tallest self-supporting tower in the world
at 634 metres high, is opened to the public.
June
June 5–6 – The century's second and last solar transit of Venus occurs.
The next pair are predicted to occur in 2117 and 2125.
June 8 – July 1 – Poland and Ukraine jointly host the UEFA Euro 2012
football tournament, which is won by Spain.
June 18 – Shenzhou 9, a Chinese spacecraft carrying three Chinese
astronauts, including the first-ever female, docks manually with
orbiting module Tiangong-1, making them the third country, after the
United States and Russia, to successfully perform the mission.
June 24 – Lonesome George, the last known individual of the Pinta Island
tortoise subspecies, dies in Galápagos National Park, thus making the
subspecies extinct.
June 30 – Mohamed Morsi, a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, is elected
5th President of Egypt, sparking mixed reactions and protests throughout
the country.
July
July 4 – CERN announces the discovery of a new particle with properties
consistent with the Higgs boson after experiments at the Large Hadron
Collider.
July 20 – 2012 Aurora shooting: Twelve people die and 58 are injured in
a mass shooting at a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado. The shooter,
James Holmes, opens fire on a crowd during a screening of The Dark
Knight Rises. He is found behind the theater claiming to be "The Joker".
July 21 – Turkish adventurer Erden Eruç becomes the first person in
history to complete a solo human-powered circumnavigation of the Earth.
July 27 – August 12 – The 2012 Summer Olympics are held in London,
England, United Kingdom.
July 30–31 – In the worst power outage in world history, the 2012 India
blackouts leave 620 million people without power.
August
August 6 – Curiosity, the Mars Science Laboratory mission's rover,
successfully lands on Mars.
August 31 – Armenia severs diplomatic relations with Hungary, following
the extradition to Azerbaijan and subsequent pardoning of Ramil Safarov,
who was convicted of killing an Armenian soldier in Hungary in 2004. The
move is also met with fierce criticism from other countries.
September
September 7 – Canada officially cuts diplomatic ties with Iran by
closing its embassy in Tehran, and orders the expulsion of Iranian
diplomats from Ottawa, over support for Syria, nuclear plans and human
rights abuses.
September 11–27 – A series of terrorist attacks are directed against
United States diplomatic missions worldwide, as well as diplomatic
missions of Germany, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. In the US,
opinions are divided over whether the attacks are a reaction to a
YouTube trailer for the film Innocence of Muslims. In Libya, among the
dead is US ambassador J. Christopher Stevens.
October
October 14 – Austrian skydiver Felix Baumgartner becomes the first
person to break the sound barrier without any machine assistance during
a record space dive out of the Red Bull Stratos helium-filled balloon
from 128,000 ft equaling 24 miles (39 km) over Roswell, New Mexico in
the United States.
October 16 – Seven paintings worth $25 million are stolen from the
Kunsthal in Rotterdam, the Netherlands.
November
November 6 – Barack Obama is reelected President of the United States.
November 13 – A total solar eclipse occurred in parts of Australia and
the South Pacific. It was the 45th of 72 solar eclipses of Solar Saros
133.
November 14–21 – Israel launches Operation Pillar of Defense against the
Palestinian-governed Gaza Strip, killing Hamas military chief Ahmed
Jabari. In the following week 140 Palestinians and five Israelis are
killed in an ensuing cycle of violence. A ceasefire between Israel and
Hamas is announced by Egyptian Foreign Minister Mohamed Kamel Amr and US
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton after the week-long escalation in
hostilities in Southern Israel and the Gaza Strip.
November 25–December 9 – Typhoon Bopha, known as "Pablo" in the
Philippines, kills at least 1,067 with around 838 people still missing.
The typhoon causes considerable damage in the island of Mindanao.
November 29 – The UN General Assembly approves a motion granting
Palestine non-member observer state status.
December
December 8 – In Qatar, the UN Climate Change Conference agrees to extend
the Kyoto Protocol until 2020.
December 14 – Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting: Twenty-eight
people, including the gunman, are killed in Sandy Hook, Connecticut.
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