2012

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Century:	20th century - 21st century - 22nd century
Decade:	1980s  1990s  2000s  - 2010s -  2020s  2030s  2040s
Year:	2002    2003    2004     2005     2006    2007    2008 2009 2010 2011 - 2012 - 2013 2014 2015 2016    2017    2018     2019     2020    2021    2022

2012 by topic:

News by month

Jan – Feb – Mar – Apr – May – Jun Jul – Aug – Sep – Oct – Nov – Dec

Arts

Architecture – Art – Film – Home video – Literature (Poetry) – Music (Country, Metal, UK) – Radio – Television

Politics

Elections – Int'l leaders – Politics – State leaders – Sovereign states

Science and technology

Archaeology – Aviation – Birding/Ornithology – Meteorology – Rail transport – Science – Spaceflight

Sports

Sport – Athletics (Track and Field) – Australian Football League – Baseball – Football (soccer) – Ice Hockey – Motorsport – Tennis – National Rugby League

By place

Algeria – Argentina – Australia – Canada – China – Denmark – European Union – France – Germany – India – Iraq – Ireland – Italy – Japan – Kenya – Luxembourg – Malaysia – Mexico – New Zealand – Norway – Pakistan – Philippines – Singapore – South Africa – South Korea - Sri Lanka – United Kingdom – United States – Zimbabwe

Other topics

Awards – Games – Law – Religious leaders – Video gaming

Birth and death categories

Births – Deaths

Establishments and disestablishments categories

Establishments – Disestablishments

Works and introductions categories

Works – Introductions v • d • e

2012 in other calendars

Gregorian calendar	2012 MMXII
Ab urbe condita	2765
Armenian calendar	1461 ԹՎ ՌՆԿԱ
Bahá'í calendar	168 – 169
Bengali calendar	1419
Berber calendar	2962
Buddhist calendar	2556
Burmese calendar	1374
Byzantine calendar	7520 – 7521
Chinese calendar	辛卯年十二月初八日 (4648/4708-12-8) — to — 壬辰年十一月十九日 (4649/4709-11-19)
Coptic calendar	1728 – 1729
Ethiopian calendar	2004 – 2005
Hebrew calendar	5772 – 5773
Hindu calendars
- Vikram Samvat	2067 – 2068
- Shaka Samvat	1934 – 1935
- Kali Yuga	5113 – 5114
Holocene calendar	12012
Iranian calendar	1390 – 1391
Islamic calendar	1433 – 1434
Japanese calendar	Heisei 24 (平成24年)
Korean calendar	4345
Thai solar calendar	2555
Unix time	1325376000 – 1356998399
v • d • e

2012 (MMXII) will be a leap year starting on Sunday. In the Gregorian calendar, it will be the 2012th year of the Common Era, or of Anno Domini; the 12th year of the 3rd millennium and of the 21st century; and the 3rd of the 2010s decade.

It has been designated Alan Turing Year, commemorating the mathematician, computer pioneer, and code-breaker on the centennial of Turing's birth.^[1]

There are a variety of popular beliefs about the year 2012. These beliefs range from the spiritually transformative to the apocalyptic, and center upon various interpretations of the Mesoamerican Long Count calendar. Contemporary scientists have disputed the apocalyptic versions.^[2]

Contents 1 Predicted and scheduled events 1.1 January 1.2 February 1.3 March 1.4 April 1.5 May 1.6 June 1.7 July 1.8 August 1.9 November 1.10 December 1.11 Unknown dates 2 2012 in fiction 3 Major religious holidays 4 Notes 5 References

Predicted and scheduled events

January

• January 13–22 – The first Winter Youth Olympics will be held in Innsbruck, Austria.
• January 31 – 433 Eros, the second-largest Near Earth Object on record (size 13×13×33 km) will pass Earth at 0.1790 astronomical units (26,778,019 km; 16,639,090 mi). NASA studied Eros with the NEAR Shoemaker probe launched on February 17, 1996.^[3]

February

• 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).

March

• March 22 – Unless the European Council votes to extend current copyright law, The Beatles' debut album, Please Please Me, will fall out of copyright.^[4]

April

• April 17 – The United States will cede wartime control of the military of the Republic of Korea after 50 years and dissolve the Combined Forces Command. Two distinct military commands (South Korea and the United States) will operate in Korea during wartime, rather than one unified command under the Combined Forces Command.^{[citation needed]}

May

• May 20 - Annular solar eclipse. Path of annularity runs through the Pacific Ocean from northern China to California.

June

• 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 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. [1]

July

• 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.^[5]

August

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

November

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

December

• December 21 – 11:11 UTC. Winter Solstice in the Northern Hemisphere, Summer Solstice in the Southern Hemisphere.^[6]
• December 21 – The Mesoamerican Long Count calendar, notably used by the pre-Columbian Maya civilization among others, completes a "great cycle" of thirteen b'ak'tuns (periods of 144,000 days each) since the mythical creation date of the calendar's current era.
• December 31 – The Kyoto Protocol will expire.

Unknown dates

• Ireland will cease analogue television broadcasts.
• 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).^[7]
• Sequoia, a proposed super computer built by IBM for the National Nuclear Security Administration will be completed, reaching a peak performance of 20 Petaflops.^[8]
• 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.^[9] During the solar maximum the sun's magnetic poles will reverse.^[10]
• 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.^[11]
• 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.^{[citation needed]}

2012 in fiction

Major religious holidays

• January 7 – Christmas Day by Julian Calendar (Celebrated by Eastern Orthodox Christians)
• February 1 – Imbolc, a Cross-quarter day (Celebrated on February 2 in some places)
• February 5 – Mawlid an Nabi – Islam
• February 22 - Ash Wednesday - Western Christianity
• March 8 – Purim – Judaism
• March 8 – Holi – Hinduism
• March 20 – Spring Equinox, Persian New Year (Nouruz), also known as Ostara
• April 1 – Ramanavami – Hinduism
• April 6 – Hanuman Jayanti – Hinduism
• April 7 – Passover – Judaism
• April 8 – Easter – Western Christianity
• April 15 – Easter – Eastern Christianity
• May 1 – Beltane, a Cross-quarter day
• May 27 – Shavuot – Judaism
• June 17 – Lailat al Miraj – Islam
• June 20 – Summer solstice, also known as Midsummer
• July 20 – Ramadan Begins – Islam
• August 1 – Lammas, a Cross-quarter day
• August 2 – Raksha Bandhan – Hinduism
• August 10 – Janmashtami – Hinduism
• August 19 – Eid al Fitr – Islam
• September 17 – Rosh Hashanah – Judaism
• September 21 – Fall Equinox, also known as Mabon
• October 1 – Sukkot – Judaism
• October 2 – Mehregan – Zoroastrianism and Persian Culture
• October 24 – Vijaya Dashami/Dusshera – Hinduism
• October 26 – Eid al-Adha, a religious festival in Islam
• November 1 – Samhain, a Cross-quarter day, Neopagan new year and Christian All Saints' Day
• November 13 – Diwali – Hinduism
• November 15 – Islamic New Year
• December 9 – Hanukkah – Judaism
• December 21 – Winter solstice, also known as Yule
• December 25 – Christmas – Western Christianity

Notes

References

• Finley, Michael (2002). "The Correlation Question". The Real Maya Prophecies: Astronomy in the Inscriptions and Codices. Maya Astronomy. http://members.shaw.ca/mjfinley/corr.html. Retrieved 2007-06-04. 
• Houston, Stephen D. (1989). Reading the Past: Maya Glyphs. London: British Museum Publications. ISBN 0-7141-8069-6. OCLC 18814390. 
• Houston, Stephen D.; Oswaldo Fernando Chinchilla Mazariegos, and David Stuart (eds.) (2001). The Decipherment of Ancient Maya Writing. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press. ISBN 0-8061-3204-3. OCLC 44133070. 
• Miller, Mary; and Karl Taube (1993). The Gods and Symbols of Ancient Mexico and the Maya: An Illustrated Dictionary of Mesoamerican Religion. London: Thames & Hudson. ISBN 0-500-05068-6. OCLC 27667317. 
• Schele, Linda; and David Freidel (1990). A Forest of Kings: The Untold Story of the Ancient Maya. New York: William Morrow. ISBN 0-688-07456-1. OCLC 21295769. 
• Voss, Alexander (2006). "Astronomy and Mathematics". in Nikolai Grube (ed.). Maya: Divine Kings of the Rain Forest. Eva Eggebrecht and Matthias Seidel (assistant eds.). Cologne: Könemann. pp. 130–143. ISBN 3-8331-1957-8. OCLC 71165439. 
• Wagner, Elizabeth (2006). "Maya Creation Myths and Cosmography". in Nikolai Grube (ed.). Maya: Divine Kings of the Rain Forest. Eva Eggebrecht and Matthias Seidel (Assistant eds.). Cologne: Könemann. pp. 280–293. ISBN 3-8331-1957-8. OCLC 71165439.