Jamrud, Khyber region, bordering Peshawar. The leader of the Tehreek-e-Taliban, known as “Saddam,” is killed by Pakistani security forces. He was believed to have instigated the attack on the army school a few days earlier, killing 132 students.
Fallujah, Iraq. Yet another act of barbarity by ISIS. The Ministry of Human Rights in Baghdad denounces the murder by ISIS of at least 150 women, most of them Yazidi, some of them pregnant, who had refused to marry the jihadists. The massacre was ordered
Strong pressure from Saudi Arabia and Egypt is pushing Qatar back in its support for Sunni jihadism.
The American probe New Horizons (aka Pluto Express) wakes up, as scheduled, 4.7 billion km and 4.5 light hours from Earth.
NASA’s new Orion system completes its maiden launch, carrying the spacecraft, capable of carrying four astronauts, to an altitude of 5,800 kilometers, before reentering the Pacific Ocean and being recovered. The rocket, manufactured by United Launch Alliance (ULA), is based on a Delta IV Heavy
Nigeria. Three bombs exploded in quick succession inside the Sanusi Mosque of rival Muslim religious leader Lamido Sanusi, killing 120 people and wounding 270. Boko Haram claimed responsibility for the attack.
Yahyakhail, Afghanistan. A suicide bomber, mingling with the crowd, sneaks into a volleyball game and then blows himself up. Forty-five people are killed and 56 are injured.
Kenya. On a road bordering Somalia, the Islamic extremist group Al Shabaab stopped a bus carrying 60 people. They were forced off the bus and separated into Somalis and non-Somalis. The non-Somalis were then asked to read verses from the Quran. Those unable to read
5:00 PM Italian time. The Philae probe of the European Rosetta spacecraft touches down on Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. The harpoons fail to activate, it bounces for hundreds of meters, and after two hours, at 5:26 PM, it touches down again, bounces again, and finally, at 5:33
In the private space launch sector, there are 39 space transport vehicles from 26 different companies (nine of which are American). Two are operational: Orbital Sciences’ Cygnus (five successful flights out of six), launched by the Antares rocket, and Space X’s Dragon (five successful flights
Kot Radha Kishan (south of Lahore), Chak Village 59, Pakistan. Two Christian spouses, 26-year-old Shahzad and 24-year-old Shama, were burned alive by a mob of Muslims from five nearby villages, accusing them of burning pages of the Quran. They were burned alive in the brick
A second American journalist held hostage by ISIS (now IS, Islamic State, or Islamic Caliphate) is beheaded and the video released. It’s Steven Sotloff. In the following days, other beheadings of British, American, and French people follow.
Northern Iraq. Airdrops of food and medicine from American, Australian, British, and French aircraft alleviate the suffering of 15,000 Turkmen besieged by the Sunni jihadists of ISIS.
Northern Iraq. American freelance journalist James Foley is beheaded by ISIS and the video is published.
Northern Iraq. Kurdish Peshmerga fighters, with USAF air support, regain control of the Mosul Dam.
Los Angeles. American actor Robin Williams is found dead in his home. He was 63 years old.
Northern Iraq. The U.S. Air Force, with F-18s and drones launched from the USS George H.W. Bush, begins striking ISIS military targets besieging Ibril in coordination with Kurdish Peshmerga fighters. Simultaneously, C-130 and C-17 cargo planes deliver supplies and water to the besieged Yazidis and
Northern Iraq. ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) militias capture Mosul and threaten Irbil. Tens of thousands of Christians and Yazidis, of Zoroastrian faith, are forced to flee. Massacres of hundreds of people are reported, at least 500 Yazidis in a single incident, who
Giglio Island. The wreck of the Costa Concordia cruise ship, already parbuckled, begins being moved to the port of Genoa, which it will reach after three days of sailing.
Malaysian Airlines Boeing 777 (flight MH17) is shot down by pro-Russian rebels in eastern Ukraine. A 6-meter-long SA11 Gadfly or SA17 Grizzly missile, equipped with a targeting radar and mounted on mobile batteries, was likely used. All 298 passengers, 193 of them Dutch, die. The
The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) declares the Caliphate of Iraq and the Levant. ISIS rebels control a vast swathe of northeastern Syria and northwestern Iraq.
The United States has 4,650 nuclear weapons, including approximately 300 assigned to strategic bombers, 500 on Minuteman III missiles, 1,150 on Trident missiles aboard nuclear submarines, and another 200 thermonuclear bombs stored in Turkey, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, and Italy for use by NATO aircraft.
In the article “A semi-synthetic organism with an expanded genetic alphabet,” published in Nature, researchers Denis A. Malyshev, Kirandeep Dhami, Thomas Lavergne, Tingjian Chen, Nan Dai, Jeremy M. Foster, Ivan R. Corrêa, and Floyd E. Romesberg of The Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California,
Boeing delivers the eight thousandth Boeing 737. It has been in production since 1967, and there are another 3,700 pending orders.
India. The general elections saw a record turnout, stripping the Congress Party, which had governed almost continuously since 1947, of its majority and handing power to the right-wing nationalist BJP party led by Narendra Modi.
The worst Ebola epidemic since the virus was discovered in 1976 has broken out in West Africa. In four months, it has caused over a thousand deaths and is spreading to other continents.
Antarctica. The American BICEP2 experiment appears to experimentally confirm both inflation in the early moments of the Universe after the Big Bang and gravitational waves of relativistic origin. The experiment is a collaboration of the Harvard-Smithsonian CfA (Centre for Astrophysics), Caltech, Stanford, and the University
Moscow. At the request of President Putin, the Russian parliament approved the deployment of Red Army soldiers to Ukraine at the request of (former) President Yanukovych.
Crimea, Ukraine. Hundreds of soldiers belonging to pro-Russian militias occupy two airports and strategic points on the peninsula.
Johannesburg, South Africa. Nelson Mandela dies at the age of 95.
Kiev, Ukraine. Pro-Russian President Yanukovych dispatches riot police and the hated Berkut, Ukraine’s special forces, to disperse protesters gathered in Maidan Square. Dozens of injured people end up in the hospital. It’s a grave mistake: two days later, on December 1st, 200,000 people defy the
Even the last remains of comet ISON are dispersed in the solar wind.
Baghdad and Mosul, Iraq. Ten car bombs explode almost simultaneously, targeting places frequented by Shiites. Approximately fifty people die. From April 2013 to the end of October 2013, more than four thousand people died in violence between Sunnis and Shiites.
Libya. Anas al-Libi, a close associate of Bin Laden and the planner of the 1998 attacks in Kenya and Tanzania, has been captured. The operation appears to have been coordinated by the CIA, FBI, and Pentagon, and al-Libi was immediately evacuated from Libya.
Silvio Berlusconi, after being convicted of tax evasion, was excluded from parliamentary activity through a vote of forfeiture in the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies.
The Washington Post was purchased by Jeff Bezos, founder and owner of Amazon, for $250 million.
In the United States alone, there are six companies actively involved in the spaceflight sector: Stratolaunch Systems, Planetary Resources, Blue Origin, Virgin Galactic, SpaceX, and Bigelow Aerospace. Investors include Paul Allen, Larry Page, Eric E. Schmidt, Ram Shriram, Charles Simony, Ross Perot Jr., Jeff Bezos,
Luigi Preiti opened fire in front of Palazzo Chigi, where the new Letta government was meeting, wounding two police officers, one seriously in the neck.
The CIA captures one of bin Laden’s sons-in-law, Sulaiman Abu Ghaith, in Jordan, accused of being an active member of al-Qaeda. He is extradited to the United States and will appear in federal court in New York two days later.
Mokhtar Belmokhtar, a prominent al-Qaeda figure considered the mastermind of the hijacking of the In Amenas oil facility in Algeria, is killed in Mali by Chadian soldiers.
Italy. The general election leaves the country virtually ungovernable under the old system, divided between the Democratic Party-led coalition, the Freedom Party-led coalition, and the Five Star Movement. No one has a majority in both chambers.
Chelyabinsk, Russia. A meteorite weighing approximately 10,000 tons and 15 meters in diameter hurtles through the atmosphere, leaving a bright vapor trail and illuminating everything brighter than the sun for a few seconds before disintegrating. It’s a fireball that entered the atmosphere at the incredible
Mali. French and Chadian troops occupy Tessalit, in the north of the country, on the border with Algeria, where the last remaining airport still held by the Islamists is located. The French, supported with troops and logistics by several African (including Nigeria and Chad) and
The world’s first artificial hamburger is produced and eaten. No cows were killed or slaughtered for this: it’s grown from specially engineered cells. The first artificial steak cost $330,000. After four years of research and development, the price dropped to $11. It’s expected that within
Google is making an initial release, limited to developers, of Google Glasses, a wearable computer that enables augmented reality.
Algeria. Amenas oil extraction facility, on the border with Libya. A group of Islamic extremists affiliated with Al Qaeda kidnaps a thousand workers, including several Westerners, in response to French intervention in northern Mali. The Algerian government decides to intervene on January 20, without coordinating
End of the First Great Mayan Cycle. In practice, the 13th baktun ends; according to some Mayan writings, it is an “important” period. The baktun is a cycle of 144,000 days (a little more than 394 years). The first baktun began on August 11, 3114
Barack Obama is re-elected President of the United States of America. He defeats Mormon Mitt Romney after a heated campaign. The favorable vote in several swing states, particularly Ohio, proves crucial.
Space X CRS-1 Cargo Mission: The privately owned two-stage Falcon 9 launcher docks with the International Space Station (ISS) for the second time. One of the nine first-stage engines shuts down almost immediately after launch, but the other eight are automatically managed to burn longer
The Stuttgart prosecutor’s office has closed the case of the Sant’Anna di Stazzema massacre, carried out during World War II by the Waffen SS. This despite the testimony of Ludwig Göring, who voluntarily admitted to emptying an entire cartridge belt into a group of 25
A convolutional neural network (CNN) called AlexNet wins the ImageNet Large Scale Visual Recognition Challenge.
Southern Somalia: Kenyan marines, in an amphibious operation, capture the city of Kismayo and drive out the al-Qaeda-linked Shebab, Islamic extremists. Kismayo and its port were the main source of income for the Somali Islamists.
Somalia. The new Somali president, Hassan Sheikh Mohammud, recently elected by parliament, and the Kenyan foreign minister escaped unscathed from an attack involving two explosions, killing only the suicide bomber.
Melbourne, Australia. International Conference on High Energy Physics. Representatives of two LHC experiments, American Joseph Incandela for CMS and Italian Fabiola Giannotti for ATLAS, introduce themselves to the audience and begin with “WE HAVE A DISCOVERY.” This is the official announcement of the discovery of
Mohammed Morsi, a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, wins Egypt’s elections and becomes the country’s new president with 52% of the vote. An engineer trained in the United States, Mohammed Morsi has been a member of Parliament since 2005 as a formally independent MP and
Global Financial Crisis. The European Central Bank is lending Spain €100 billion on very favorable terms due to the dire straits of Spanish banks.
Pakistan. Abu Yahia al-Libi, al-Qaeda’s number two, is killed in a drone strike in a tribal area of Pakistan. Al-Libi had taken over as al-Qaeda’s number two when Egyptian Ayman al-Zawahri became leader after the killing of Osama bin Laden.
Emilia. 9:03 p.m. Another earthquake measuring 5.1 on the Richter scale shakes the Modena lowlands again.
Finale Emilia, Bassa Modenese. Half of the Clock Tower collapses. The photo of the clock broken in half becomes the symbol of the earthquake. The tower collapses a few hours later, in the afternoon.
Myanmar (formerly Burma or Burma). Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi and her party, the National League for Democracy, return to parliament after twenty years of struggle and 15 years in prison and house arrest. International isolation is easing, and foreign investment is
James Cameron, the 57-year-old director of Titanic, Avatar, and The Abyss, is the first man to reach the deepest point on Earth, the Mariana Trench, 10,898 meters below sea level, aboard a special submarine. With the Deepsea Challenge mission, organized with the support of National
Toulouse, France. After a 32-hour siege, the Toulouse serial killer is killed. He is Mohammed Merah, 23, of Algerian origin, who claims to have links to Al Qaeda. In the past two weeks, he had killed three special forces soldiers in Toulouse and Montauban, and
Shenouda III, the Pope of the Copts, dies at 88. Elected primate in 1971, he was the 117th successor to the evangelist St. Mark, who founded the Coptic Church in Egypt.
Kandahar, Afghanistan. 3:00 a.m. An American sergeant leaves his base, enters three homes in two villages, Alkozai and Balandi, in the Panjwai district, and begins shooting. In the first home, located about 450 meters from the US base, he kills 11 people, including women and
For the first time, physicists have measured the minuscule amount of heat released when a single bit of data is erased. Although the value was first predicted more than 50 years ago, it is so small that measuring it has proven impossible—until now. The experiment,
Cambodia. The sentence for Duch, a Khmer Rouge leader who led the S-21 camp where 14,000 prisoners died, has been commuted to life imprisonment.
Homs, Syria. Government repression continues in the country. A mortar attack on civilian homes by the army has killed 337 people.