2012

2012 ill be a leap year starting on a 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.

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

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 0.1790 astronomical units (26,778,019 km; 16,639,090 mi). NASA studied Eros with the NEAR Shoemaker probe launched on February 17, 1996.

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).

April

* April 1 - The 1940 United States Census will be available for public viewing.
* 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.[citation needed]

May

* 12 May – 12 August – The 2012 World Expo is to be held in Yeosu, South Korea.
* 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.


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 19:30 UTC, 20:30 BST.

August

* August 12 – Closing ceremony of the 2012 Summer Olympics in London.
* August 29 – Opening ceremony of the 2012 Summer Paralympics begins in London.


September

* September 9 – Closing ceremony of the 2012 Summer Paralympics in London.

November

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

December

* December 21 – 11:12 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 first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol ends.

Unknown dates

* 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).
* Sequoia, a proposed super computer built by IBM for the National Nuclear Security Administration will be completed, reaching a peak performance of 20 Petaflops.
* 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