Hosni Mubarak appears in court on a hospital bed on the first day of his trial on the capital charge of premeditated killing of peaceful protesters

NASA announces that it has photographic evidence from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter of possible liquid water on the planet in warm seasons

Standard & Poor's downgrades the USA's credit rating from AAA to AA+, further increasing the sense of gloom in stock exchanges

Juno, a solar-powered spacecraft, is launched from Cape Carnaveral on a mission to Jupiter

An Al-Qaeda suicide bomb attack, on worshippers leaving the Saints' Church in Alexandria, kills 21 Coptic Christians and injures 97 others

A second consecutive rainy season fails to materialize, causing severe drought in Ethiopia and elsewhere in east Africa

Surrealist artist Jim Nutt, a founder member of Hairy Who (or the Chicago Imagists), has a large retrospective in Chicago's Museum of Contemporary Art

In a relaxation of military rule in Burma Thein Sein is sworn in as the first civilian president

The theatre in Florence's great new cultural centre, the Parco della Cascine, is inaugurated is celebration of the 150th anniversary of the unification of Italy

The Scottish National Party wins an outright majority of seats in Holyrood enabling the First Minister, Alex Salmond, to declare that during his term there will be a referendum on Scottish independence

In response to Portugal's increasing financial crisis the European Union grants the country an emergency loan or bailout of 78 billion euros

After a civil war in Libya lasting five months Tripoli falls finally to the rebel forces, much aided by Nato air strikes throughout the campaign

Unusually heavy monsoon rains cause massive flooding in Pakistan, with some 5 million people forced to leave their homes

India and Pakistan agree to resolve their various border disputes and to set about finding the most appropriate compromise in each case

The Occupy Wall Street protest begins and its PR success prompts the Occupy movement around the world

Hamas releases the captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit in exchange for 1027 Palestinian and Israeli-Arab prisoners held in Israel

The Libyan leader Muammad Gaddafi is captured and killed in Sirte

UNESCO admits Palestine as a member after a vote with a large majority in favour

At some time during this period the world's population is estimated to have reached seven billion

Gaddafi's son Saif al-Islam is captured when attempting to flee to Niger and is held for trial

NASA launches a rocket carrying the roving science laboratory Curiosity, which is programmed to land on Mars on 6 August 2012

The USA formally declares an end to the Iraq War

NASA's Kepler mission discovers the first two earth-size planets outside our solar system

Samoa and Tokelau move themselves from east to west of the International Date Line to coincide their date with their nearest trading partners

The first programme of The Bridge, itself the first TV collaboration between Sweden and Denmark, is broadcast in Denmark at 10 pm and in Sweden an hour later