2012: Year in review

February 1 – At least 79 people were killed and more than 1,000 were injured after a football match in Port Said, Egypt.

February 11 – Whitney Houston, American singer and actress, died from accidental drowing at age 48.

February 15 – A fire at a prison in Comayagua, Honduras kills 360.

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.

February 29 – Davy Jones, British singer and actor of the Monkees died of a heart attack at age 66.

March 4 – A series of explosions are reported at a munitions dump in Brazzaville, the capital of the Republic of the Congo, with at least 250 people dead.

March 13 – After 244 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 6 – The National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad unilaterally declares the independence of Azawad from Mali.

April 7 – Mike Wallace, American journalist, correspondent for CBS' 60 Minutes, died at age 93.

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 – 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. The launch was planned to mark the centenary of the birth of Kim Il-sung (April 15, 1912), the founder of the republic.

April 18 – Dick Clark, American television host and producer appeared on American Bandstand and Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve, died of a heart attack at age 82.

April 21 – Charles Colson, American evangelist and founder of Prison Fellowship, died of a brain hemorrhage at age 80.

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 2 – A pastel version of The Scream, by 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 8 – Maurice Sendak, American author of "Where the Wild Things Are", died from a stroke at age 83.

May 9 – Vidal Sassoon, British hairdresser, died of leukemia at age 84.

May 20 – Robin Gibb, British-Australian musician of the Bee Gees, died from colorectal cancer at age 62.

May 22 – Tokyo Skytree, the tallest self-supporting tower in the world at 634 metres high, is opened to public.

June 5 – Ray Bradbury, American author died at age 91.

June 16 – Nayef bin Abdul-Aziz Al Saud, Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, died from cardiac problems at age 77.

June 17 – Rodney King, American robber who became famous after his beating by police was caught on film, died from accidental drowning at age 47.

June 24 – Shenzhou 9, a Chinese spacecraft carrying three Chinese astronauts, including the first-ever female one, docked manually with an orbiting module Tiangong 1, first time as the country, making them as 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 at a Galapagos National Park, thus making the subspecies extinct.

June 26 – Nora Ephron, American film director and screenwriter, died from pneumonia at age 71.

July 1 – Alan G. Poindexter, American astronaut died after a personal watercraft accident at age 50.

July 3 - Andy Griffith, American actor, died from a heart attack at age 86.

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 13 – Richard D. Zanuck, American film producer, died of a heart attack at age 77.

July 16 - Stephen Covey, American author of "The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People" died after complications from a fall off his bicycle, at age 79.

July 23 – Sally Ride, American astronaut and physicist, died from pancreatic cancer at age 61.

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.

July 31 – Gore Vidal, American author, playwright, screenwriter, political activist, and lifelong Democrat, died of pneumonia at age 86.

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

August 19 – Tony Scott, British film director, committed suicide by jumping off the Vincent Thomas Bridge at age 68.

August 20 - Phyllis Diller, American comedian, died at age 95.

August 25 – Neil Armstrong, American astronaut, died from bypass surgery complications at age 82.

August 31 – Researchers successfully perform the first implantation of an early prototype bionic eye with 24 electrodes.

September 3 - Michael Clarke Duncan, American actor, died after a heart attack at age 54.

September 3 - Sun Myung Moon, Korean religious leader of the Unification Church who claimed that he was a messiah, died of pneumonia at age 92.

September 7 – Canada officially cuts diplomatic ties with Iran by closing its embassy in Tehran and ordered the expulsion of Iranian diplomats from Ottawa, over support for Syria, nuclear plans and human rights abuses.

September 11 – Garment factory fires in the Pakistani cities of Karachi and Lahore kill 315 and seriously injure more than 250.

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 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 24 miles (39 kilometers) over Roswell, New Mexico in the United States.

October 14 – Arlen Specter, American Senator from Pennsylvania, died from non-Hodgkin's lymphoma at age 82.

October 21 - George McGovern, American politician, historian and author, U.S. Representative, U.S. Senator, and the Democratic Party presidential nominee in the 1972 presidential election, died at age 90.

October 24 – 30 – Hurricane Sandy kills at least 209 people in the Caribbean, Bahamas, United States and Canada. Considerable storm surge damage causes major disruption to the eastern seaboard of the United States.

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 caused considerable damage in the island of Mindanao.

November 29 – The UN General Assembly approves a motion granting Palestine non-member observer state status.

December 17 – Daniel Inouye, American Senator from Hawaii the Democratic Party, died of respiratory complications at age 88.

December 27 – Norman Schwarzkopf, Jr., American general who was commander of coalition forces in the Persian Gulf War, died from pneumonia at age 78.