All Events
The Taliban response to the murder of villagers is to suspend peace talks with the US and the Karzai government
Aung San Suu Kyi and her party win almost all the 45 available seats in Burma's nation-wide by-elections
The rocket Kwangmyongsong-3 breaks up less than two minutes after its launch, in North Korea's third attempt to put a satellite into space
In a historic visit to Northern Ireland the British Queen makes a profound gesture of reconciliation, shaking hands with former IRA commander Martin McGuinness
François Hollande defeats Nicolas Sarkozy and becomes president of France
The largest US bank, JPMorgan Chase, announces losses of two billion dollars
A pastel version of Edvard Munch's The Scream sells in Sotheby's New York for US $120 million, by far the record for any work of art
An Egyptian court sentences former president Hosni Mubarak to life imprisonment
The UN declares that the violence in Syria has become civil war
The founder of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, breaks bail and seeks asylum in the Equadorian embassy in London
Mohamed Morsi, a leading figure in the Muslim Brotherhood, becomes Egypt's first democratically elected president
The death of Lonesome George, a giant tortoise in the Galapagos Islands, means that his subspecies becomes extinct
CERN announces the discovery in the Large Hadron Collider of a new particle, possibly the much anticipated Higgs boson
In Libya's first democratic election the National Forces Alliance, led by Mahmoud Jibril, wins the largest number of seats
Russia and China again veto a UN Security Council attempt to apply economic sanctions on Syria
The US swimmer Michael Phelps wins his 19th Olympic medal to become the most successful competitor in the history of the games
Curiosity, NASA's roving science laboratory, lands successfully on Mars after a 354 million-mile journey through space
Mitt Romney selects Paul Ryan, a more hardline Republican, as his vice-presidential candidate
In an unwelcome shock to the Anglican church in England, a measure debated in the synod to allow women bishops is supported by the Bishops and Clergy but defeated by the Laity
Mitt Romney is formally nominated, at the Republican convention in Tampa, as the party's presidential candidate
Mohamed Morsi issues a declaration giving himself virtually unlimited powers, leading to violent protests in Cairo's Tahrir Square
Enrique Peña Nieto succeeds Felipe Calderón as president of Mexico
North Korea successfully launches a powerful rocket, alarming the world with a new sign of military potential
An excerpt of an anti-Islamic film made in the USA, Innocence of Muslims, is broadcast in Egypt on a Muslim TV channel
Violent protests against the film Innocence of Muslims break out in Egypt and soon spread to other Muslim countries