2012

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For other uses, see 2012 (disambiguation).

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 videoLiterature (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 – CanadaChina – Denmark – European Union – France – Germany – India – Iraq – Ireland – Italy – Japan – Kenya – Luxembourg – Malaysia – Mexico – New Zealand – Norway – Pakistan – Philippines – Singapore – South Africa – 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
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 of the Gregorian calendar.

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 that are generally considered to be non-scientific.

Contents [hide] 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.^[2]

February

• February 5 – Super Bowl XLVI will be played at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis, Indiana.
• 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), if she's alive and Monarch at the time.

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.^[3]

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, a Sunday. 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 9 – July 1 – The UEFA Euro 2012 will be played in Poland and Ukraine.
• 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.^[4]

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, Senate, and House of Representatives elections.
• 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 SolsticeSouthern Hemisphere.^[5] in the
• 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.^[6] On this day the Long Count date at creation—written 13.0.0.0.0 in modern notation, equivalent to August 11, 3114 BC in the proleptic Gregorian calendar—is repeated for the first time in a span of a little over 5,125 solar years.^[7] The completion of this cycle and the repetition of the previous Creation's Long Count ending date have been central to the 2012 phenomenon. Academic researchers have not concluded that the ancient Maya themselves attached similar significance to this point in time.^[8]
• December 23 – An alternative date for the completion of the thirteenth B'ak'tun in the Long Count calendar, calculated using another version of the GMT correlation^[9] which is supported by a few Mayanist researchers.^[10]
• 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).^[11]
• Sequoia, a proposed super computer built by IBM for the National Nuclear Security Administration will be completed, reaching a peak performance of 20 Petaflops.^[12]
• 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.^[13] During the solar maximum the sun's magnetic poles will reverse.^[14]
• 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.^[15]
• 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]}
• The Ryungyong Hotel in Pyongyang is said to be finally finished. ^[16]

2012 in fiction

Main article: 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
• 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

1. ^ http://www.turingcentenary.eu
2. ^ Near Earth Object Fact Sheet
3. ^ http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/8014734.stm
4. ^ Homepage - London 2012
5. ^ United States Naval Observatory (2007-01-28). "Earth's Seasons: Equinoxes, Solstices, Perihelion, and Aphelion, 2000-2020". http://aa.usno.navy.mil/data/docs/EarthSeasons.php.
6. ^ Calculated using a version of the Goodman-Martinez-Thompson (GMT) correlation between the Long Count and Western calendars, in which this mythical Creation date corresponds with a Julian Day Number (JDN) = 584283. Since its refinement in the 1930s the GMT correlation has become the one favoured by most Mayanist scholars. See Houston et al. (2001, p.234)
7. ^ See Finley (2002), Houston (1989, pp.49–51), Miller and Taube (1993, pp.50–52), Voss (2006, p.138), Wagner (2006, pp.281–283). Note that Houston 1989 mistakenly has "3113 BC", instead of either "3114 BC" or "-3113" (astronomical year numbering). Miller and Taube 1993's mention of "2 August" is a (presumed) erratum.
8. ^ Schele & Freidel (1990)
9. ^ In this version, known variously as the GMT+2, Thompson, astronomical, or Lounsbury correlation, the Long Count's zero or base date is set at JDN = 584285.
10. ^ After a modified proposal championed by Floyd Lounsbury; sources that have used this correlation include Houston (1989, p.51), and in particular Schele & Freidel (1990, pp.430 et seq.).
11. ^ NASA, Intel, SGI Plan to 'Soup Up' Supercomputer
12. ^ IBM Tapped For 20-Petaflop Government Supercomputer
13. ^ Phillips, Tony (10 January 2008). "Solar Cycle 24 Begins". Science@NASA. NASA. http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2008/10jan_solarcycle24.htm. Retrieved 2009-04-06.
14. ^ "The Sun Does a Flip". Science@NASA. NASA. 15 February 2001. http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2001/ast15feb_1.htm. Retrieved 2009-04-06.
15. ^ When is the Digital TV Switchover? The different regions and dates
16. ^ "North Korea in the midst of mysterious building boom". Los Angeles Times. 2008-09-27. http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-boom27-2008sep27,0,7763249.story?page=2&track=rss. Retrieved 2008-12-14