Historical Events for Year 2012 (From Jan-Feb)
Jan 7th - Hot air balloon crashes in Carterton, New Zealand, killing 11
Jan 13th - Cruise ship, Costa Concordia, runs aground at Isola de Giglio, Italy, with at least 15 deaths
Jan 14th - Suicide bomber kills 53 and injures 130 in Basra, Iraq
- Ma Ying-jeou wins re-election as President of the Republic of China with 51% of the vote
Jan 18th - Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) blackout becomes the largest protest in the history of the internet
Jan 19th - FBI shuts down Megaupload.com for alleged copyright infringement, hacker group Anonymous responds by attacking government and entertainment industry websites
Jan 23rd - European Union agrees to embargo Iranian oil in protest against Iran's alleged nuclear weapons program
Jan 28th - Death toll from coordinated bombing attacks in Kano, Nigeria, reaches 185
Feb 1st - At least 73 people are killed in the Egyptian football riots in Port Said
Feb 2nd - Cold snap across Europe kills more than 100 people (over 400 people by 08-02)
- MV Rabaul Queen sinks off the coast of Papa New Guinea with 246 people saved and 126 missing (100 of these estimated to be trapped inside)
- NHL player Sam Gagner becomes the first player to scores eight points in one game for the Edmonton Oilers against the Chicago Blackhawks since 1989
Feb 4th - Tens of thousands of people are stranded by floods in the Australian states of New South Wales and Queensland
Feb 5th - Quarterback Eli Manning wins his second Superbowl Most Valuable Player Award after leading the New York Giants to a 21-17 victory over the New England Patriots in Superbowl XLVI
Feb 6th - 6.9 magnitude quake hits near the central Philipines with 43 confirmed deaths
- Queen Elizabeth II marks her 60th anniversary of becoming Britain's Monarch becoming only the second to do so
Feb 11th - Israel Air Force conducts four air strikes in Gaza Strip
Feb 12th - Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow is re-elected president of Turkmenistan with 97% of the vote
- Zambia defeat Ivory Coast 8-7 on penalties in the Africa Cup of Nations
Feb 15th - United Kingdom unemployment rate reaches 17 year high of 8.4%
- Fire at Comayagua prison, Honduras, kills 358
Feb 17th - The President of Germany, Christian Wulff, resigns over a corruption scandal
- Approximately 70 ancient Olympic artifacts are stolen from the Archaeological Museum of Greece
Feb 18th - Kateri Tekakwitha canonized as the first native American saint
Feb 19th - 44 people killed in prison brawl in Apocada, Mexico, between two rival drug cartels
Feb 20th - Scientists successfully regenerate Silene stenophylla from a 31,800 year old piece of fruit, greatly surpassing the previous record of 2,000 years
- South Korea angers North Korea as it proceeds with live fire drills in disputed Korean sea borders
Feb 21st - Yemen voters go to the polls for a presidential election where the only candidate on the ballot paper is vice-president Abd Rabbuh Mansur al-Hadi
Feb 22nd - Train crash in Buenos Aires, Argentina, kills 50 and injures hundreds
Feb 23rd - A series of bomb attacks across 12 Iraqi cities kills 60 and injures 200
Feb 25th - Syrian Army kills 100 civilians in artillery shelling of Homs and Hama
- Al Qaeda suicide bombing kills at least 26 people in Mukalla, Yemen
- World Health Organization removes India from the list of polio endemic countries
- Louisiana Red, American blues musician, dies from stroke at 79
Feb 26th - The film The Artist wins five Academy Awards and becomes the first silent film to win since 1927
- Bus plunges off a cliff in Shanxi, China causing 15 deaths
- Train derailment kills 3 and injures 45 in Burlington, Ontario
Feb 27th - Wikileaks begins disclosing 5 million emails from private intelligence company Stratfor
Feb 28th - Occupy London protesters evicted from St Paul's Cathedral
- Discovery of the largest prehistoric penguin, Kairuku grebneffi, at nearly 5ft tall