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.[3]

February
Edit

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.[4][5]
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.[6]
February 21 – Greek government-debt crisis: Eurozone finance ministers reach an
agreement on a second, €130-billion Greek bailout.[7]

March
Edit

March 13 – After 246 years since its first publication, the Encyclopædia
Britannica discontinues its print edition.[8]
March 22 – The President of Mali, Amadou Toumani Touré, is ousted in a coup
d'état after mutinous soldiers attack government offices.[9]

April
Edit

April 6 – The National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad unilaterally

declares the independence of Azawad from Mali.[10]
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.[11]
April 13 – Kwangmyŏngsŏng-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.[12] The
launch was planned to mark the centenary of the birth of Kim Il-sung, the founder
of the republic.[12]
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.[13]

May
Edit

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.[14][15]
May 7 – Vladimir Putin is elected President of Russia.
May 12 – August 12 – The 2012 World Expo takes place in Yeosu, South Korea.[16]
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.[17]

June
Edit

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.[18]
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.[19]
June 24 – Lonesome George, the last known individual of the Pinta Island
tortoise subspecies, dies in Galápagos National Park, thus making the subspecies
extinct.[20]
June 30 – Mohamed Morsi, a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, is elected 5th
President of Egypt, sparking mixed reactions and protests throughout the country.
[21]

July
Edit

July 4 – CERN announces the discovery of a new particle with properties

consistent with the Higgs boson after experiments at the Large Hadron Collider.[22]
[23][24][25][26]
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".[27]
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.[28]
July 30–31 – In the worst power outage in world history, the 2012 India
blackouts leave 620 million people without power.[29][30][31]

August
Edit

August 6 – Curiosity, the Mars Science Laboratory mission's rover, successfully

lands on Mars.[32]
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.[33]

September
Edit

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.[34]
 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.[35][36][37][38]
[39]

October
Edit

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.[40][41][42]
October 16 – Seven paintings worth $25 million are stolen from the Kunsthal in
Rotterdam, the Netherlands.[43][44][45][46]

November
Edit

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.[47][48]
[49][50][51]
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.[52][53][54]
November 29 – The UN General Assembly approves a motion granting Palestine non-
member observer state status.[55]

December
Edit

December 8 – In Qatar, the UN Climate Change Conference agrees to extend the

Kyoto Protocol until 2020.[56]
December 14 – Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting: Twenty-eight people,
including the gunman, are killed in Sandy Hook, Connecticut.