From left, clockwise: the passenger cruise shipCosta Concordia Costa Concordia disasterCasino Pier inSeaside Heights, New Jersey as a result ofHurricane Sandy ; people gather ata Mayan temple to commemorate the end of 13th bʼakʼtun in the Mayan calendar onDecember 21 , when itwas predicted a doomsday event would occur ;NASA 'sCuriosity RoverMars ; theSandy Hook Elementary School shooting caused turmoil across theUnited States ;K-pop artistPsy performs his hit single "Gangnam Style ", which became a cultural phenomenon in 2012; theelementary particle , theHiggs boson , dubbed "The God Particle", is discovered byCERN and revolutionizesquantum physics ; the2012 Summer Olympics are held inLondon ,United Kingdom
Calendar year
2012 (MMXII ) was aleap year starting on Sunday of theGregorian calendar , the 2012th year of theCommon Era (CE) andAnno Domini 3rd millennium and the21st century , and the 3rd year of the2010s decade.
Calendar year
2012 was designated as:
May 2 – Apastel version ofThe Scream Edvard Munch , sells for US$120 million in a New York City auction, setting a new world record for an auctioned work of art.[ 22] [ 23] May 6 –Legislative elections are held inGreece to elect all 300 members of theHellenic Parliament and theNew Democracy party led byAntonis Samaras , comes out as the largest party winning 108 out of 300 seats.[ 24] [ 25] May 12 –August 12 – The2012 World Expo takes place inYeosu , South Korea.[ 26] May 19 – Chelsea wins the2011-12 UEFA Champions League held inMunich ,Germany by beating the home sideBayern Munich in the final.[ 27] May 20 – An annular solar eclipse visible from Asia and North America is the 58th solar eclipse from 73 solar eclipses ofSolar Saros 128 .May 22 –Tokyo Skytree , thetallest self-supporting tower in the world at 634 metres high, is opened to the public.[ 28] May 22 –26 – TheEurovision Song Contest 2012 takes place inBaku ,Azerbaijan , and is won bySwedish entrantLoreen with the song "Euphoria ".May 25 –Houla massacre takes place, perpetrated by theSyrian Arab Army , with 108 being killed.June 3 –Dana Air Flight 0992 , on a flight from Abuja to Lagos, Nigeria, suffered a dual-engine failure during its approach to Lagos where it crashed onto buildings, killing all 153 people on board and six on the ground.June 5 –6 – Thecentury's second and last solartransit of Venus occurs. The next pair are predicted to occur in 2117 and 2125.[ 29] June 6 –2012 Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus outbreak first identified.June 7 –Morley andDianella inPerth , Western Australia, have a once in a decade tornado.June 8 –UEFA Euro 2012 , hosted byPoland andUkraine , begins inWarsaw , with a match betweenPoland andGreece , which ends 1-1.June 17 –Snap legislative elections are held inGreece , following failure to form a government, to elect all 300 members of theHellenic Parliament and theNew Democracy party, led byAntonis Samaras , comes out as the largest party winning 129 out of 300 seats.[ 30] [ 31] June 18 –Shenzhou 9 spacecraft carrying three Chinese astronauts, including the first-ever female, docks manually withorbiting module Tiangong-1 , making this the third country, after the United States and Russia, successfully to perform the mission.[ 32] June 21 – TheCongress of Paraguay approves the impeachment of presidentFernando Lugo .June 22 –Fernando Lugo is removed from power. Vice PresidentFederico Franco becomes the new president of Paraguay.June 24 –Lonesome George , the last known individual of thePinta Island tortoise subspecies, dies inGalápagos National Park , thus making the subspeciesextinct .[ 33] June 30 –Mohamed Morsi , a member of theMuslim Brotherhood , is elected 5th President ofEgypt , the first elected democratically by the Egyptian people, sparking mixed reactions and protests throughout the country.[ 34] July 1 – The final match of theUEFA Euro 2012 takes place inKyiv betweenSpain andItaly . Spain wins 4–0, achieving victorious from the third international tournament in a row, after winningUEFA Euro 2008 and the2010 FIFA World Cup .July 4 July 20 –2012 Aurora, Colorado shooting : 12 people are killed and 58 are injured in amass shooting at a movie theater inAurora, Colorado . The shooter, James Holmes, opens fire on a crowd during a screening ofThe Dark Knight Rises [ 40] July 21 – Turkish adventurerErden Eruç becomes the first person in history to complete a solo human-poweredcircumnavigation of the Earth.July 23 – TheSolar storm of 2012 is an unusually largecoronal mass ejection emitted by theSun which barely misses theEarth by nine days. If it had hit, it would have caused up to US$2.6 trillion in damages to electrical equipment worldwide.[ 41] July 27 –August 12 – The2012 Summer Olympics are held in London, England, United Kingdom.[ 42] July 30 –31 – In the worst power outage in world history, the2012 India blackouts leave 620 million people without power.[ 43] [ 44] [ 45] December 6 – The U.S. state ofWashington becomes the first jurisdiction in the modern world to officially legalize the possession ofcannabis for personal use.[ 76] December 6–16 – The2012 FIFA Club World Cup is held in Japan andwon bySport Club Corinthians Paulista . December 8 – TheUN Climate Change Conference inQatar agrees to extend theKyoto Protocol until 2020.[ 77] December 10 –The Séléka overthrows the government of theCentral African Republic which leads to the outbreak of aCivil war .December 12 North Korea successfully launches satelliteKwangmyongsong-3 Unit 2 .[ 78] December 12 is the last time in the 21st century that the month, day and final two digits of the year are the exact same (12/12/12). The next time this will happen will be on New Year's Day in 2101 (01/01/01).December 14 –Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting :Adam Lanza kills his mother before shooting and killing twenty students and six teachers, as well as himself, at Sandy Hook Elementary inNewtown, Connecticut . It becomes the deadliestschool shooting at aK-12 school in U.S. history.December 17 – Spanish bank Grupo Santander announces the acquisition of the remaining 10% ofBanesto it did not yet own, effectively absorbing it intoBanco Santander .[ 79] December 18 – At least 55 people drown after anovercrowded boat capsizes off the coast ofSomalia .[ 80] December 21 –2012 phenomenon : End of 13th b'ak'tun in theMayan calendar , supposed end of the world according to new age beliefs. Festivities took place to commemorate the event in the countries that were part of theMaya civilization (Mexico ,Guatemala ,Honduras , andEl Salvador ), with main events atChichén Itzá in Mexico andTikal in Guatemala.[ 81] [ 82] [ 83] ^ "2012 - International Year of Cooperatives" .United Nations .Archived from the original on November 10, 2011. RetrievedApril 14, 2015 .^ "2012 - International Year of Sustainable Energy for All" .United Nations .Archived from the original on November 2, 2011. 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