Rome: final act of the Berlusconi government: the Stability Law is voted on for exceptional measures to balance the budget, as requested by the European Central Bank and loudly requested by French Prime Minister Sarkozy and German Chancellor Merkel.

At the Hannover Messe, Industry 4.0, the Fourth Industrial Revolution based on the Internet of Things and Big Data, was mentioned for the first time. The German government will soon launch a program based on this vision, and the U.S. government will follow suit soon after.

Pakistan: Libyan Atiyah Abd al-Rahman, deputy to the new al-Qaeda leader, Ayman al-Zawahri, was reportedly killed in a US drone attack on a vehicle carrying four people in the Norwak area of Mir Ali district. Al-Rahman was 35-40 years old and had a $1 million bounty on his head.

Afghanistan, Wardak region west of Kabul. The Taliban shot down an American Chinook helicopter carrying 38 soldiers, including 24 Navy Seals. There were no survivors. The helicopter was returning from a mission in which eight Taliban fighters were killed.

Global Financial Crisis. United States debt is downgraded from AAA to AA+ by one of the major rating agencies, Standard & Poor’s. This is the first time in US history. The decision follows weeks of discussions in Washington between Democrats and Republicans to raise the debt ceiling and avoid state bankruptcy, which conclude with a last-gasp agreement on Sunday before a possible default, which would have occurred on Tuesday. The uncertain situation causes a debacle across global markets. In particular, Italian government bonds (BTPs) are being sold by the German central bank, further widening the spread between BTPs and German Bunds to nearly 400 basis points (4%).

Syria. In the days immediately preceding and immediately following Ramadan, the Sunni city of Hama was attacked by tanks. The victims numbered hundreds. Twenty-nine years earlier, the father of the previous president (Hafez al-Assad, an ethnic Alawite Shiite) had ordered a similar massacre, also in Hama. The victims then numbered several thousand.

Norway. Under the government headquarters in Oslo and at a summer retreat for young Labour Party members on the island of Utøya, a far-right terrorist causes a massacre: 76 dead (8 in Oslo, 68 on Utøya) and dozens injured. Police arrest 32-year-old Anders Behrig Breivik. The Utøya attack is the largest mass shooting ever committed by a single terrorist.

The War on Terror launched by the United States after September 11, 2001, caused 225,000 deaths, 365,000 injuries, and a cost of $4.4 trillion between 2001 and 2011. The spending figure includes the costs of counterterrorism on US soil and reimbursements and social services for veterans and war invalids through 2051, which represent approximately two-thirds of the total costs. The study, conducted by Brown University, includes the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Yemen. A total of 31,741 soldiers were killed, including 6,000 Americans, 1,200 allies, 9,900 Iraqis, 8,800 Afghans, 3,500 Pakistanis, and 2,300 US private security contractors. The civilians killed are 172,000: 125,000 Iraqis, 35,000 Pakistanis, and 12,000 Afghans. The insurgents killed are estimated between 20,000 and 51,000. The journalists killed are 168 and the humanitarian workers 266. There are approximately 7.8 million war refugees, mostly in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Space Shuttle Mission STS134 returns from the ISS. This is the final mission of Space Shuttle Endeavour.

Libya: Italian, Canadian, Spanish, Norwegian, and Danish aircraft join the no-fly zone operation.

3:30 PM: At the end of the EU-US-Arab League summit, a military intervention in Libya is decided to enforce the no-fly zone and protect the civilian population. French President Nicolas Sarkozy announces the move at 3:30 PM, adding that French planes are already over Benghazi.

At 11:00 am, the systematic violation of the ceasefire by government militias is confirmed, as they attempt to enter western Benghazi with tanks and retake Misrata.

Libya: The UN approves Resolution 1973 for the use of force to protect civilians in Libya. Soon after, Gaddafi announces a ceasefire.

Fukushima, Japan: Reactor 3 also exploded, devastating the containment structure, again due to accumulated hydrogen. The core casing held firm. Reactor 3 is the only one that uses plutonium in its fuel mix.

Fukushima, Japan: Reactor 1 explodes, caused by hydrogen buildup. The outer concrete casing is torn open. The steel casing protecting the core holds firm. Radioactivity near the plant peaks at 1,204 microsieverts per hour, about double the limit set by Japanese law.

Fukushima, Japan: The six reactors automatically shut down at the onset of the 9.0 Richter earthquake. However, they were seriously damaged by the subsequent tsunami, which compromised the automatic cooling system.

An Italian team led by Marco Peresani of the University of Ferrara published an article in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, providing evidence of Neanderthal hunting of various bird species, as well as the use, processing, and modification of bird bones for non-food purposes. The birds in question are ravens, vultures (bearded vulture, cinereous vulture), and golden eagles. The evidence comes from finds in the Riparo Fumane cave. The following year, Clyve Finlayson also published an article linking Neanderthals to birds of prey and ravens, based on finds in the Neanderthal caves of Gibraltar: Gorham and Vanguard.

Libya: Gaddafi’s militias, superior in equipment, firepower, and training, are driving rebels to flight in several cities. The Arab League supports a no-fly zone over Libya.

Richard Hoover, an astrobiologist working for NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, discovers potentially tiny fossil life forms on several rare meteorites, called CI1 carbonaceous chondrites. Some of the fossils uncovered resemble bacteria known on Earth as Velox Titanospirillum. Others, however, are completely unknown, potentially alien.

Space Shuttle Discovery completed its final mission, STS133 (the 39th), to the International Space Station (ISS), delivering the Permanent Multipurpose Module, Express Logistics Carrier 4, and the Italian Leonardo module. This was followed by a mission of Endeavour (the 25th), one of Atlantis (the 33rd), and then, in July 2011, the Space Shuttle (STS) program concluded. The other shuttles that flew were Enterprise (test vehicle: 5 flights), Columbia (28 flights), and Challenger (10 flights), for a total of 135 flights (including the very first, in-atmosphere flights).

Libya: The crackdown by military forces and militias loyal to the Gaddafi regime results in thousands of deaths from sniper fire and even airstrikes. The eastern part of the country (Misrata, Benghazi, Tobruk) falls into rebel hands from the very first days.

Bahrain: The popular uprising of the Shiite majority against the Sunni prince is initially repressed with force (10 deaths) but then the military leaves the Pearl Roundabout in Manama to the demonstrators.

Libya: Unprecedented street protests, especially in Benghazi, demand democratic reforms from Gaddafi, who has been in power for 42 years. The repression, carried out by militiamen hired by the regime, leaves more than 180 dead in two days. When snipers open fire on the crowd gathered for the funeral of those killed the day before, 15 people die within minutes.

Iran. Day of Rage. Thousands of supporters of opposition candidate Mir-Hossein Mousavi take to the streets of Tehran to protest against Ahmadinejad and celebrate the Arab Spring.

Iran. The British Embassy is attacked and ransacked by protesters who burn its archives.

Egyptian President Mubarak resigns, yielding to pressure from popular protests, handing over power to the army. This is almost a first for the Islamic Middle East (the previous cases being Ataturk’s Turkey and, indeed, Tunisia, which sparked the Egyptian uprising).

Evvia, a Greek restaurant in Palo Alto, California. Dinner hosted by Apple’s Steve Jobs, with guests including President Barack Obama, Google’s Eric Schmidt, Yahoo’s Carol Bartz, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, Cisco’s John Chambers, Oracle’s Larry Ellison, Genentech’s Art Levinson, and Netflix’s Reed Hastings.

Yemen: Popular protests call for the overthrow of Ali Abdullah Saleh’s 32-year government.

The American probe Stardust-NEST (New Exploration of Tempel 1, an extension of the Stardust mission), after a flyby of asteroid 5535 Annefrank and collecting cometary samples from the still-unsatisfied comet Wild 2, is diverted to reach comet Tempel 1, which was struck by a heavy projectile (372 kg) by the other American probe, Deep Impact. This allows Stardust to take clear, precise images of the impact crater: 250 m in diameter and 50 m deep. This is the first double encounter with a comet. In this case, the celestial body had time to pass perihelion around the Sun before the second encounter.

NASA’s Kepler satellite has identified the Kepler 11 planetary system with six planets orbiting a yellow dwarf, some of which are comparable in size to Earth. The Kepler satellite continues to perform its job admirably, discovering new exoplanets every week, bringing the total count to over 500 confirmed exoplanets and 1,500 candidates. Kepler 11 is located in the constellation Cygnus, 2,150 light-years from Earth. It is among the most compact and flat planetary systems ever discovered, but more importantly, it is the first with six planets:

A suicide bomber from the Caucasus region of Russia blew himself up in the arrivals area of Moscow’s Domodedovo International Airport, killing 35 and wounding 168.

The consultation launched by FIAT CEO Marchionne for the new Mirafiori contract in Turin ended with a 54% “yes” vote. The agreement reduces the number of breaks, increases salaries by approximately €3,600 per year, provides for monitoring absenteeism, waives the first day of sick leave around holidays, and mandates mandatory training courses—all aimed at producing 280,000 cars per year at Mirafiori, including Jeep (Chrysler) and Alfa Romeo.

Professor Sergio Focardi and engineer Andrea Rossi demonstrate an energy production process in a laboratory on Via dell’Elettricista in Bologna that could be cold fusion between nickel and hydrogen atoms. The energy produced is 15 times greater than the input. The process is unclear, but one interpretation is that nickel and hydrogen, heated to a certain temperature with a standard resistor, reach the ignition temperature and begin the energy production process thanks to the hydrogen atoms that somehow penetrate the nickel and transform it into copper.

There have been 110 attacks carried out by UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) drones in the seven tribal regions of Waziristan, in West Pakistan, bordering Afghanistan. In 2009, there were 52. These are generally MQ-1 Predator or MQ-9 Reaper drones armed with AGM-114 Hellfire missiles and guided from Creech Air Force Base in Nevada. The number of casualties in 2010 is estimated at between 571 and 950, while since the beginning of the “Drone War” from 2004 to 2010, the total number of casualties has ranged from 1,333 to 2,064.

The US Senate ratifies the START treaty, which limits the United States and Russia to a maximum of 1,550 nuclear warheads and 700 launchers each.

Swedish scientist Paabo publishes in Nature the discovery of a now extinct human genus, which he calls Denisovan, also crossbred with Homo sapiens: the inhabitants of New Guinea have up to 6% of the genes of Denisovan Homo (which flourished mainly in Siberia, but whose genes evidently came to New Guinea for migratory reasons).

NASA-funded research at MonLake demonstrates the ability of life to thrive even in abundant arsenic, which, in the bacterium GFAJ-1, incredibly replaces phosphorus as the basic building block of life. Arsenic was previously considered a poison to life because, with properties very similar to phosphorus, it interacts destructively with it. However, subsequent independent studies published in 2012 found no detectable arsenate in GFAJ-1’s DNA, refuting this claim and demonstrating that GFAJ-1 is simply a phosphate-dependent organism resistant to arsenate.

Egypt. The ScanPyramid project, which involves the use of muon detectors to map the interior of the solid part of the Egyptian pyramids, is being launched (almost literally). The idea originated half a century earlier, with American physicist Luis Alvarez, a former member of the Manhattan Project, later founder and director of CERN, and also the discoverer, with his son, of the iridium layer (detected in Gubbio, Italy), the smoking gun of the Chixculub impact that killed the dinosaurs. This muon tomography (or muography) reveals a surprise in incredible detail: a huge chamber hidden just above the main corridor, with no access to other chambers or corridors, completely enclosed and isolated. The technique had already been used in Japan to create 3D maps of the interior of the magma chambers of Mount Asama and will also be used in Italy for Vesuvius and Etna.

The WikiLeaks organization publishes millions of confidential, and sometimes compromising, emails and documents from the American administration and other nations.

Washington, D.C. – Italian Federico Faggin, along with Americans Marcian E. Hoff Jr. and Stanley Mazor, received the National Medal of Technology and Innovation directly from the hands of US President Barack Obama for the invention of the microprocessor. Federico Faggin moved from Italy to Silicon Valley in 1968 to work at Fairchild Semiconductors, where he developed the MOS technology that made microprocessors, dynamic memory (RAM), non-volatile memory (ROM), and CCDs for digital cameras possible. In 1970, he moved to Intel, where, with Hoff and Mazor, he designed the Intel 4004, the first microprocessor. In 1975, Faggin founded Zilog, the first company dedicated entirely to microprocessors. Zilog’s first microprocessor, the Z80, quickly became widely used throughout the world (I used it extensively in the distant 1980s, at the Enrico Fermi Industrial Technical Institute in Modena).

NASA’s Direct Launcher launch system, derived from the STS (Space Transportation System, aka Space Shuttle), is approved by President Obama and becomes law.