What happened in 2012

“Call Me Maybe”

Carly Rae Jepsen · 9 weeks at #1 in 2012

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Spotify ↗Apple Music ↗YouTube ↗

1. Jan 7Sexy And I Know ItLMFAO2 wks
2. Jan 21We Found LoveRihanna Featuring Calvin Harris2 wks
3. Feb 4Set Fire To The RainAdele2 wks
4. Feb 18Stronger (What Doesn't Kill You)Kelly Clarkson3 wks
5. Mar 3Part Of MeKaty Perry1 wk
6. Mar 17We Are Youngfun. Featuring Janelle Monae6 wks
7. Apr 28Somebody That I Used To KnowGotye Featuring Kimbra8 wks
8. Jun 23Call Me MaybeCarly Rae Jepsen9 wks
9. Aug 25WhistleFlo Rida2 wks
10. Sep 1We Are Never Ever Getting Back TogetherTaylor Swift3 wks
11. Sep 29One More NightMaroon 59 wks
12. Dec 1DiamondsRihanna3 wks
13. Dec 22Locked Out Of HeavenBruno Mars2 wks

Dates are the first chart week at #1 in 2012; weeks count only those in 2012.Find the #1 song on your birthday →

1. Feb 26African-American teenager Trayvon Martin was killed by neighborhood-watch coordinator George Zimmerman in Sanford, Florida, prompting a nationwide controversy.
2. Jun 29A derecho sweeps across the eastern United States, leaving at least 22 people dead and millions without power.
3. Jul 4The discovery of particles consistent with the Higgs boson at the Large Hadron Collider is announced at CERN.
4. Jul 15South Korean rapper Psy released his hit single "Gangnam Style".
5. Jul 20A gunman carried out a mass shooting at a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado, killing 12 people and injuring 58 others.
6. Aug 5An American white supremacist carried out a mass shooting at a Sikh temple in Oak Creek, Wisconsin, killing six people and wounding four others.
7. Aug 6NASA's Curiosity rover lands on the surface of Mars.
8. Aug 25The NASA space probe Voyager 1 became the first man-made object to enter interstellar space.
9. Sep 11The American consulate and CIA annex in Libya were attacked by a heavily armed group, resulting in the deaths of U.S. ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three others.
10. Oct 29Hurricane Sandy, the largest Atlantic hurricane on record, made landfall in New Jersey and caused nearly $75 billion in damages, becoming the second-most destructive storm in U.S. history.
11. Nov 6Tammy Baldwin became the first openly gay politician to be elected to the United States Senate.
12. Nov 15Xi Jinping replaced Hu Jintao as General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, succeeding as the paramount leader of China.
13. Dec 16A woman was gang-raped and fatally assaulted on a bus in Delhi, generating protests across India against inadequate security for women.
14. Dec 21Countries that were part of the Maya civilization celebrated the end-date of a 5,126-year-long cycle in the Mesoamerican Long Count calendar.

Event summaries from Wikipedia’s “On this day”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Each links to its article.

• U.S. President

  Barack Obama

• UK Prime Minister

  David Cameron

• Prime Minister of Canada

  Stephen Harper

• President of France

  Nicolas Sarkozy → François Hollande

• German Chancellor

  Angela Merkel

• Prime Minister of Japan

  Yoshihiko Noda → Shinzō Abe

• President of Russia

  Dmitry Medvedev → Vladimir Putin

Everyone who held the office at some point in 2012, from Wikidata.

A selection of the best-documented titles on Wikidata, by first release year; not a box-office ranking.

• Blue Ivy CarterAmerican singer and actress · Jan 7
• Artem KotenkoUkrainian singer · Jan 12
• Princess Athena of DenmarkJan 24
• Doug the PugAmerican celebrity dog · May 20

From Wikipedia’s “On this day”, CC BY-SA 4.0.