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Starting on this date, armed commandos in India will be ordered to protect endangered Tigers, from poachers.
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The European Union adopts an embargo against Iran, in protest of that nation's continued efforts to enrich uranium.
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A series of co-ordinated bombing attacks in Kano, Nigeria, which has been going on since 20 January, results in 185 deaths. The attacks are blamed on the radical Islamist group Boko Haram, 11 members of which are killed in a shoot-out in the northeastern Nigerian city of Maiduguri, on 28 January, 2012.
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The 60th Anniversary of her being crowned as the Queen of England, and as well as the Commonwealth.
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A fire at a prison in Comayagua, Honduras kills 360 people.
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Iran suspends oil exports to Britain and France, following sanctions put into place by the European Union and the United States in January.
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Greek Government Debt Crisis: Eurozone finance ministers reach an agreement on a second, 130-billion Euro Greek Bail-out.
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Arab Spring: As a result of ongoing potests, Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh resigns, and is succeeded by his Vice President, Abd Rabbuh Mansur Al-Hadi.
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A series of explosions are reported at a munitions dump in Brazzaville, the capital of the Republic of the Congo, with at least 250 people dead.
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After 244 years since its first publication, the Encyclopaedia Britannica discontinues its print edition.
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Pope Shenouda III of Alexandria, the leader of the Coptic Orthodox Church, died on 17 March, 2012, at the age of 88.
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The President of Mali, Amadou Toumani Toure, is ousted in a coup d'etat, after mutinous soldiers attack government offices.
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The National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad unilaterally declares the independence of Azawad, from Mali.
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Mutinous soldiers in Guinea-Bissau stage a coup-d'etat, and take control of the capital city, Bissau. They arrest interim President Raimundo Pereira and leading presidential candidate Carlos Gomez Junior, in the midst of a presidential election campaign.
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Kwangmyongsong-3, a North Korean Earth-observation satellite, explodes shortly after launch. The United States and other countries had called the impending launch a violation of United Nations Security Council demands. The launch was planned to mark the centenary of the birth of Kim Il-sung, the founder of the republic.
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Former Liberian President Charles Taylor is found guilty on 11 counts of aiding and abetting war crimes and crimes against humanity, during the Sierra Leone Civil War.
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A pastel version of The Scream, by Norwegian painter Edvard Munch, sells for US$120-million in a New York City auction, therefore setting a new world record for an auctioned work of art.
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The 2012 World Expo begins, in Yeosu, South Korea. It is scheduled to end on August 12, 2012.
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Tokyo Skytree, the tallest self-supporting tower in the world, at 634 meters high, is opened to the public.
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The world's stock markets plunge, hitting their lowest levels, since the beginning of the year.
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An Egyptian court sentences former President Hosni Mubarak to life in prison, due to his role in the killing of protesters, during the uprising, that eventually toppled his regime, in February 2011.
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The century's second and last solar transit of Venus occurs. The transit continued until the next day, June 6. The next pair are predicted to occur in December 2117, and December 2125.
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Lonesome George, the last known individual of the Pinta Island Tortoise, died in the Galapagos, on this date. This makes his entire species now extinct.
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Shenzhou 9, a Chinese spacecraft carrying 3 Chinese astronauts, including the first-ever female one, docked manually with an orbiting module Tiangong 1, first time as the country, making them as the third country, after the United States and Russia, to successfully perform the mission.
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An extra second, 23:59:60, is added at the end of the day, in order to keep the atomic clocks in sync with the Earth's rotation.
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Mohammed Morsi was sworn in as the 5th President of Egypt, on June 30th, 2012, after being declared the winner of the country's first-ever free presidential election, on 24 June.
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CERN announces the discovery of a new particle with properties consistent with the then-hypothetical Higgs boson, after experiments at the Large Hadron Collider.
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12 people are killed, and numerous more are injured, when a gunman opens fire at a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado. This movie theatre massacre is the worst mass shooting in U.S. history.
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The 2012 Summer Olympics begin, on this date.
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In the worst power outage in world history, the 2012 India black-outs leave 620 million people without power.
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The Mars Science Laboratoy exploration rover Curiosity lands on Mars, and begins to explore the Martian landscape.
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The 2012 Summer Olympics ended on this date, and the Closing Ceremony was then held, in London.
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The 2012 World Expo, which began on May 12, ends in Yeosu, South Korea.
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Researchers successfully perform the first implantation of an early prototype bionic eye with 24 electrodes.
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Armenia severs diplomatic relations with Hungary, following the extradition to Azerbaijan and subsequent pardoning of Ramil Safarov, who was convicted of killing an Armenian soldier in Hungary in 2004. The move is also met with fierce criticism from other countries.
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Canada officially cuts diplomatic ties with Iran, by closing its embassy in Tehran, and ordering the expulsion of Iranian diplomats from Ottawa. This was done due to Iran's support for Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, their nuclear plans, and human rights abuses by the Iranian regime.
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On the 11th anniversary of the September 11 attacks, violent protests against the anti-Islamic film Innocence of Muslims erupt, all over the Muslim world. In Cairo, Egypt, protesters tore down the flag at the American Embassy, and replaced it with an Islamist flag. Armed terrorists, meanwhile, attacked the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, on Sept, 12th, killing Ambassador Chris Stevens and 3 other Americans, in the process. The protests and unrest in the Middle East continued until Sept. 27.
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Austrian skydiver Felix Baumgartner becomes the first person in history to break the sound barrier without any machine assistance during a record space dive out of the Red Bull Stratos helium-filled balloon from 24 miles (39 kilometers) over Roswell, New Mexico, in the United States.
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From October 24th to October 31st, Hurricane Sandy kills at least 209 people in the Caribbean, Bahamas, United States, and Canada. Considerable storm surge damage causes major disruption to the eastern seaboard of the United States.
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On Election Day, November 6, 2012, Americans went to the polls to vote in the 57th quadrennial presidential election in U.S. history. Barack Obama won the election, beating his challenger Mitt Romney with 332 electoral votes, compared to Romney's 206. Obama also got about 2 to 3 million more popular votes, than Romney.
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On this day, Israel assassinated a major Hamas leader, with a rocket strike. This was in retaliation to sporadic attacks from the Gaza Strip, recently. This then sparked a war between the 2 countries, which would continue until November 21.
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Israel and Palestine had begun fighting on November 14, when a top Hamas leader was assassinated in a rocket attack by Israel. Afterwards, war ensued, with both sides hitting rockets at each other. The fighting finally ended on November 21, when Egypt helped mediate a cease-fire, after which, the 2 sides both stopped fighting.
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The U.N. General Assembly approves a motion granting Palestine non-member observer state status.