2012

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2012 (MMXII) is a leap year that started on a Sunday in the Gregorian calendar, and it is the current year. It is the 2012th year in the Common Era (or Anno Domini) and the 12th year of the 3rd millennium and 21st century.

The year 2012 is the International Year of Cooperatives and the Alan Turing Year.

Events

January

The Costa Concordia on its side after the accident

• January 1 – Start of Denmark's Presidency of the European Union
• January 5 – Portia Simpson-Miller becomes Prime Minister of Jamaica for a second time.
• January 6 – New Mexico celebrates the 100th anniversary of its statehood.
• January 9 – President of Guinea-Bissau Malam Bacai Sanha dies in office, raising fears over a power struggle.
• January 10 – The Doomsday Clock is set to five minutes before midnight, after the nuclear disaster at Fukushima in Japan in 2011, and the nuclear threat level.
• January 13–22 – The first Winter Youth Olympics are held in Innsbruck, Austria.
• January 14 – The cruise ship Costa Concordia runs aground off the Tuscan coast, at the island of Giglio, and partially sinks. Out of more than 4000 people on board, at least 17 are killed and around 20 are missing.
• January 18 – The English language Wikipedia blacks out for 24 hours in protest against the internet laws SOPA and PIPA proposed by the United States Congress.
• January 20 – 185 people are killed in a series of coordinated bombings in Kano, Nigeria, carried out by the Islamist extremist group Boko Haram.
• January 23 – The EU adopts an embargo against Iran over its uranium enrichment.
• January 30 – Following this date, cold weather in Europe causes several deaths, due to the low temperatures.
• January 31 – 433 Eros, the second-largest Near Earth Object on record (size 13×13×33 km) passes Earth at. NASA studied Eros with the NEAR Shoemaker probe launched on February 17, 1996.

February

German President Christian Wulff who resigned on February 17

• February 1 – Violence erupts at the end of a football match in Port Said, Egypt, killing 74 people.
• February 2 – The ferry MV Rabaul Queen sinks off the north coast of Papua New Guinea, with at least 230 people being rescued, and several missing.
• February 6 – Diamond Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II marking the 60th anniversary of her accession to the Thrones of the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia & New Zealand (as well as the 60th anniversary of her becoming Head of the Commonwealth).
• February 7 - President of the Maldives Mohamed Nasheed announces his resignation. Mohammed Waheed Hassan takes over from him.
• February 11 - American singer and actress Whitney Houston is found dead at her hotel in Los Angeles.
• February 12 - The Zambia national football team wins the African Cup of Nations, defeating the Ivory Coast.
• February 15 - A fire at a prison in Honduras kills at least 357 people.
• February 17 - President of Germany Christian Wulff announces his resignation following a home-loan scandal. He is the shortest-serving President in the history of the Federal Republic of Germany. Horst Seehofer becomes interim-President.
• February 19 - Iran suspends oil exports to France and the United Kingdom, after sanctions were imposed by the EU and the United States.
• February 21 - EU finance ministers reach an agreement on a 130 billion-Euro bailout for Greece.
• February 25 - Abd Rabbuh Mansur Al-Hadi succeeds Ali Abdullah Saleh as President of Yemen.

March

Tornado damage in West Liberty, Kentucky.

• March 2 - A tornado outbreak in Alabama, Kentucky, Ohio and Indiana kills 39 people.
• March 4 - Several munitions dump explosions in Brazzaville, Republic of the Congo, kill over 250 people.
• March 4 - Vladimir Putin declares victory in the Russian Presidential Election, returning him to the Presidency.
• March 13 - It is announced that, after 244 years, the Encyclopedia Britannica is to stop its print edition to focus on its online version.
• March 13 - A coach crash in Switzerland kills 28 people, including 22 children, who were returning to Belgium.
• March 17 - Coptic church leader Pope Shenouda III of Alexandria dies aged 88.
• March 18 - King of Tonga George Tupou V dies in Hong Kong, having been King since 2006.
• March 18 - Joachim Gauck is chosen to succeed Christian Wulff as President of Germany. He becomes President immediately.
• March 19 - Four people are killed in a shooting attack at a Jewish school in Toulouse, France. The gunman, Mohammed Merah, is killed three days later after a siege.
• March 22 - Ahmed Toumani Toure, President of Mali, is ousted in a coup after armed soldiers attack government offices.
• March 25 - Macky Sall is elected President of Senegal, succeeding Abdoulaye Wade.

April

• April 1 - Aung San Suu Kyi wins a seat in the Burmese parliament.
• April 2 - President of Hungary Pal Schmitt resigns following a plagiarism scandal.
• April 6 - The National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad declares an independent state, Azawad, in northern Mali, which is not recognised internationally.
• April 11 - Two strong earthquakes strike off the Indian Ocean coast of Sumatra, causing widespread panic and tsunami alerts all around the Indian Ocean.
• April 12 - A coup takes place in Guinea-Bissau as mutinous soldiers arrest interim President Raimundo Pereira and Presidential candidate Carlos Gomes Junior, as they take control of the capital, Bissau.
• April 16 - The trial of Anders Behring Breivik, perpetrator of the 2011 Norway attacks, begins in Oslo.
• April 22 - Francois Hollande defeats Nicolas Sarkozy in the first round of the French Presidential election. They both go through to the second round, as National Front leader Marine Le Pen comes third.
• April 26 - Former President of Liberia Charles Taylor is found guilty of war crimes, committed during the Sierra Leone Civil War.

May

The solar eclipse as seen from San Juan Capistrano, California

• May 2 – Edvard Munch's The Scream sells for 120 million US dollars, a record price for a work of art at auction.
• May 6 – Second round of the French Presidential Election: Francois Hollande is elected President of France, defeating Nicolas Sarkozy.
• May 6 – The Parliamentary election in Greece ends in an inconclusive result. A re-run is scheduled for June 17.
• May 7 – Vladimir Putin becomes President of Russia for a second time, swapping places with Dmitry Medvedev, who becomes Prime Minister.
• May 12 – The 2012 World Expo begins in Yeosu, South Korea. It is due to last until August 12.
• May 15 – Francois Hollande becomes President of France.
• May 18-20 – The G8 Summit is held at Camp David, near Washington, DC.
• May 20 – Taur Matan Ruak becomes President of East Timor.
• May 20 – A magnitude 6 earthquake strikes northern Italy, killing at least 7 people and destroying many historic buildings.
• May 20 – Annular solar eclipse: Path of annularity runs through the Pacific Ocean from East Asia to the Western and Midwestern United States.
• May 26 – Final of the Eurovision Song Contest 2012 in Baku, Azerbaijan, which is won for Sweden by Loreen.

Predicted and scheduled events

June

• June 4 - partial lunar eclipse
• June 6 – The second and last solar transit of Venus of the century. The next pair is predicted to occur in 2117 and 2125.
• June 9 – July 1 – The UEFA Euro 2012 will be played in Poland and Ukraine.
• June 17 - Parliamentary election in Greece
• June 18 – June 23 – Turing Centenary Conference at the University of Cambridge, in honor of the mathematician, computer scientist, and cryptographer Alan Turing, the last day of the conference being the hundredth anniversary of his birth.

July

• July 1 - Start of Cyprus' Presidency of the European Union
• July 1 - Presidential election in Mexico
• July 18–21 – The 2012 World Rowing Championships will be held at Plovdiv, Bulgaria.
• July 27 – Opening ceremony of the 2012 Summer Olympics begins in London at 7:30 pm UTC, 8:30pm BST.

August

• August 12 – Closing ceremony of the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, a Sunday.
• August 29 – Start of the 2012 Summer Paralympics.

October

• October 24 - Ireland will cease analog television broadcasts.

November

• November 6 – United States presidential election, 2012
• November 13 – Total solar eclipse (visible in northern Australia and the South Pacific).
• November 28 – Penumbral lunar eclipse.

December

• December 3 – Jupiter in opposition.
• December 17 – Members of the Electoral College meet in each U.S. state.
• December 21 – 11:11 UTC. Winter Solstice in the Northern Hemisphere, Summer Solstice in the Southern Hemisphere.
• December 21 – The Mesoamerican Long Count calendar, notably used by the pre-Columbian Maya civilization among others, completes a "great cycle" of thirteen baktuns. Some people believe that the end of this cycle will be the end of the world.
• December 31 – The Kyoto Protocol will expire.

Unknown dates

• China will launch the Kuafu spacecraft.
• Pleiades, a proposed super computer built by Intel and SGI for NASA's Ames Research Center, will be completed, reaching a peak performance of 10 Petaflops (10 quadrillion floating point operations per second).
• Sequoia, a proposed super computer built by IBM for the National Nuclear Security Administration will be completed, reaching a peak performance of 20 Petaflops.
• Start of the commercial operation of the first unit from the Novovoronezh Nuclear Power Plant II.
• The 108 ft (33 m) Elwha Dam and 210 ft (64 m) Glines Canyon Dam will be removed from the Elwha River in Washington state, marking the largest dam removal project in history.
• The Canberra class light aircraft carriers/large amphibious ships, the largest ships ever to be operated by the Royal Australian Navy, will be in service.
• On the sun, the solar maximum of Solar Cycle 24 in the 11-year sunspot cycle is forecast to occur. Solar Cycle 24 is regarded to have commenced January 2008, and on average will reach its peak of maximal sunspot activity around 2012. The period between successive solar maxima averages 11 years (the Schwabe cycle), and the previous solar maximum of Solar Cycle 23 occurred in 2000–2002. During the solar maximum the sun's magnetic poles will reverse.
• The United Kingdom will complete a 5-year process to cease analogue television broadcasts region-by-region, with Meridian Broadcasting, ITV London, Tyne Tees Television and UTV being the last areas to switch off analogue.
• Portugal will also cease their analogue television broadcasts, after a 4-year simulcast with digital ones. After that, DVB broadcasts will be the only system to be used in television (DVB-C for cable, DVB-T for terrestrial and DVB-S for satellite). The five free-to-air channels on terrestrial network will also start broadcasting in high-definition 24-hours a day.
• The Ryungyong Hotel in Pyongyang is said to be finally finished.

Deaths

Main page: Deaths in 2012

Hit Songs

• Give Me All Your Luvin'-Madonna and M.I.A. and Nicki Minaj
• Ours-Taylor Swift
• Good Girl-Carrie Underwood
• Banjo-Rascal Flatts
• Don't Stop (Color On The Walls)-Foster The People
• Glad You Came-The Wanted
• Talk That Talk-Rihanna and Jay-Z
• Dance-Big Sean

References

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