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Top Song(s)
• Avicii - Wake Me Up
• Lorde - Royals
• Katy Perry - Roar
• Miley Cyrus - Wrecking Ball
• Passenger - Let Her Go
Top Film(s)
• Her
• The Wolf of Wall Street
• Before Midnight
• Prisoners
• Inside Llewyn Davis
Best Selling Book(s)
• Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix - J.K. Rowling
• The da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
• The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
• The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time - Mark Haddon
• The Time Traveler’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
Famous Deaths
• January 26 - Hiroshi Nakajima, Japanese physician and medical researcher (WHO Director-General, 1988-98)
• February 25 - C Everett Koop, American pediatric surgeon, health administrator and 13th US Surgeon General
• March 5 - Hugo Chávez, President of Venezuela (1998-2013)
• April 8 - Margaret Thatcher, British Prime Minister (Conservative: 1979-90)
• May 6 - Giulio Andreotti, Italian Prime Minister
• June 7 - Pierre Mauroy, Prime Minister of France (1981-84)
• August 21 - C. Gordon Fullerton, American USMC Colonel, and NASA astronaut (STS-3; STS-51-F)
• September 2 - Ronald Coase, British economist (Nobel Prize in Economics 1991)
• October 28 - Tadeusz Mazowiecki, 1st Prime Minister of Poland (1989-90)
• December 2 - Vernon Shaw, President of Dominica (1998-2003)
Medical/Science/Technology
• LG Electronics releases the first commercial OLED television.
• American researchers state that a gene associated with active personality traits is also linked to increased longevity.
• British researchers successfully cure blindness in mice using an injection of photosensitive cells.
• Remarkably well-preserved zinc pills are discovered aboard a 2,000-year-old Roman shipwreck.
• Medical researchers state that sickle cells can be induced to attack treatment-resistant tumors by starving them of blood.
• British and Canadian researchers create a tablet computer which is as thin as paper and also flexible.
• Scientists develop a Breathalyzer-like breath test that could be used to quickly and accurately diagnose lung infections.
• American researchers develop a new molecular therapy which can cross the blood–brain barrier to deliver medicines to the brain.
• British dental researchers grow viable teeth from a combination of gingival cells and stem cells.
• A breakthrough is achieved in the production of hydrogen fuel, allowing large quantities to be extracted from any plant.
Political
• January 2 – President Barack Obama signs the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012.
• January 4 – Congress officially declares President Obama the winner of the 2012 presidential election.
• January 14 – Mike Pence is sworn in as the 50th governor of Indiana, replacing Mitch Daniels.
• January 15 - New York becomes the first state to pass a law relating to guns since the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting.
• January 20 – President Barack Obama begins his second term, being sworn in to office in the Blue Room of the White House.
• January 24 - Defense Secretary Leon Panetta lifts the ban upon women serving in combat.
• February 1 – Secretary of State Hillary Clinton submits her resignation.
• March 11 – Former Mayor of Detroit Kwame Kilpatrick is convicted on corruption charges.
• March 23 – The Senate approves its first budget in four years by a margin of 50–49.
• June 13 - The Supreme Court rules that naturally occurring human genes may not be patented.
National
• January 3 – Subaru issues a recall for nearly 634,000 vehicles in the U.S. due to a lighting problem.
• February 4 – Seven people are killed and thirty others are injured after a bus is struck by two vehicles and flips over in Yucaipa, California.
• February 6 - The United States Postal Service announces that it will no longer deliver first-class mail on Saturdays as of August 5.
• February 23 - The Air Force grounds its entire $400 billion fleet of 51 F-35 jets due to a major engine technical issue.
• April 2 - Tonya S. Bundick is charged in connection with 70 arsons in Virginia.
• May 1 – Boston Police state that three more individuals are arrested in connection with the Boston Marathon bombing.
• June 5 – An abandoned building in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, collapses onto a thrift store, killing six people and injuring 14 others.
• July 18 – The city of Detroit, Michigan, files for Chapter 9 bankruptcy protection against debts of $18.5 billion.
• August 19 – A B-1B Lancer with the United States Air Force's 28th Bomb Wing crashes near Broadus, Montana, during a routine training mission.
• September 9–16 – In Colorado at least eight people are dead,[231] 648 unaccounted for, and $2 billion in property losses from flooding.
Worldwide
• January 10 – At least 130 people are killed and 270 are injured in several bomb blasts in Pakistan.
• February 12 – North Korea conducts its third underground nuclear test.
• April 24 – The 2013 Savar building collapse, one of the worst industrial disasters in the world, kills 1,134 people in Bangladesh.
• June 12 – Jiroemon Kimura, the verified oldest man to have ever lived, dies at 116 years and 54 days.
• July 6 - A runaway train carrying crude oil derails in Lac-Megantic, Quebec, catching fire and exploding, killing 47.
• August 21 – 1,429 are killed in the Ghouta chemical attack during the Syrian Civil War.
• September 21 – al-Shabaab militants attack the Westgate shopping mall in Nairobi, Kenya, killing at least 62 civilians and wounding over 170.
• October 15 – A magnitude 7.2 earthquake struck Bohol, Philippines, leaving 222 dead, 8 missing, and 976 people injured.
• November 17 - Fifty people are killed when Tatarstan Airlines Flight 363 crashes at Kazan Airport, Russia.
• December 3 – Analog television ends in Australia and is replaced by digital television.