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2012
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2012 (MMXII) will be a leap year starting on Sunday. In the Gregorian calendar, it will be the 2012th year of the Common Era, or of Anno Domini; the 12th year of the 3rd millennium and of the 21st century; and the 3rd of the 2010s decade.

It has been designated Alan Turing Year, commemorating the mathematician, computer pioneer, and code-breaker on the centennial of Turing's birth.http://www.turingcentenary.eu

There are a variety of popular beliefs about the year 2012. These beliefs range from the spiritually transformative to the apocalyptic, and center upon various interpretations of the Mesoamerican Long Count calendar. Contemporary scientists have disputed the apocalyptic versions.[http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/2012.html "2012: Beginning of the End or Why the World Won't End?"]. NASA.

Predicted and scheduled events

=January

January 13–22 – The first Winter Youth Olympics will be held in Innsbruck, Austria.

January 31 – 433 Eros, the second-largest Near Earth Object on record (size 13×13×33 km) will pass Earth at . NASA studied Eros with the NEAR Shoemaker probe launched on February 17, 1996.[http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/factsheet/neofact.html Near Earth Object Fact Sheet]

=February

February 6 – Diamond Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II marking the 60th anniversary of her accession to the Thrones of the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia & New Zealand (as well as the 60th anniversary of her becoming Head of the Commonwealth).

=March

March 22 – Unless the European Council votes to extend current copyright law, The Beatles' debut album, Please Please Me, will fall out of copyright.http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/8014734.stm

=April

April 17 – The United States will cede wartime control of the military of the Republic of Korea after 50 years and dissolve the Combined Forces Command. Two distinct military commands (South Korea and the United States) will operate in Korea during wartime, rather than one unified command under the Combined Forces Command.

=May

May 20 - Annular solar eclipse. Path of annularity runs through the Pacific Ocean from northern China to California.

=June

June 6 – The second and last solar transit of Venus of the century. The next pair is predicted to occur in 2117 and 2125.

June 18 – June 23 – Turing Centenary Conference at the University of Cambridge, in honor of the mathematician, computer scientist, and cryptographer Alan Turing, the last day of the conference being the hundredth anniversary of his birth. [http://cs.swan.ac.uk/cie12]

=July

July 18–21 – The 2012 World Rowing Championships will be held at Plovdiv, Bulgaria.

July 27 – Opening ceremony of the 2012 Summer Olympics begins in London at 7:30 pm UTC, 8:30pm BST.[http://www.london2012.com/ Homepage - London 2012]

=August

August 12 – Closing ceremony of the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, a Sunday.

August 29 – Start of the 2012 Summer Paralympics.

=November

November 6 - United States presidential election, 2012

November 13 - Total solar eclipse (visible in northern Australia and the South Pacific).

=December

December 21 – 11:11 UTC. Winter Solstice in the Northern Hemisphere, Summer Solstice in the Southern Hemisphere.

December 21 – The Mesoamerican Long Count calendar, notably used by the pre-Columbian Maya civilization among others, completes a "great cycle" of thirteen b'ak'tuns (periods of 144,000 days each) since the mythical creation date of the calendar's current era.

December 31 – The Kyoto Protocol will expire.

=Unknown dates

Ireland will cease analogue television broadcasts.

China will launch the Kuafu spacecraft.

Pleiades, a proposed super computer built by Intel and SGI for NASA's Ames Research Center, will be completed, reaching a peak performance of 10 Petaflops (10 quadrillion floating point operations per second).[http://www.nas.nasa.gov/News/Releases/2008/05-07-08.html NASA, Intel, SGI Plan to 'Soup Up' Supercomputer]

Sequoia, a proposed super computer built by IBM for the National Nuclear Security Administration will be completed, reaching a peak performance of 20 Petaflops.[http://www.informationweek.com/news/hardware/supercomputers/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=213000842&subSection=News IBM Tapped For 20-Petaflop Government Supercomputer]

Start of the commercial operation of the first unit from the Novovoronezh Nuclear Power Plant II.

The Elwha Dam and Glines Canyon Dam will be removed from the Elwha River in Washington state, marking the largest dam removal project in history.

The Canberra class light aircraft carriers/large amphibious ships, the largest ships ever to be operated by the Royal Australian Navy, will be in service.

On the sun, the solar maximum of Solar Cycle 24 in the 11-year sunspot cycle is forecast to occur. Solar Cycle 24 is regarded to have commenced January 2008, and on average will reach its peak of maximal sunspot activity around 2012. The period between successive solar maxima averages 11 years (the Schwabe cycle), and the previous solar maximum of Solar Cycle 23 occurred in 2000–2002. During the solar maximum the sun's magnetic poles will reverse.

The United Kingdom will complete a 5-year process to cease analogue television broadcasts region-by-region, with Meridian Broadcasting, ITV London, Tyne Tees Television and UTV being the last areas to switch off analogue.[http://www.digitaluk.co.uk/en/when.html When is the Digital TV Switchover? The different regions and dates]

Portugal will also cease their analogue television broadcasts, after a 4-year simulcast with digital ones. After that, DVB broadcasts will be the only system to be used in television (DVB-C for cable, DVB-T for terrestrial and DVB-S for satellite). The five free-to-air channels on terrestrial network will also start broadcasting in high-definition 24-hours a day.