January 18: The cruise ship Costa Concordia lays on its side off the tiny Tuscan island of Giglio, Italy, after striking a rock.  At least 30 people were killed and the ship's captain was charged with manslaughter and abandoning the ship.

February 12: Singer Adele holds her six Grammy Awards at the 54th annual Grammy Awards in Los Angeles, California.

February 26: Actress Angelina Jolie poses at the 84th Academy Awards in Hollywood, California.

March 9: A boy who fled a war across the border in Sudan's Blue Nile state waits outside a clinic in Doro refugee camp, South Sudan.

March 15: Britain's Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge plays hockey with the Team GB hockey teams at Riverside Arena in the Olympic Park in London.

March 26: Tibetan exile Jamphel Yeshi screams as he runs after setting himself on fire at a protest in New Delhi, India.

March 29: Mireia Arnau sits behind the broken glass of her shop which was stormed by demonstrators during a general strike in Barcelona to protest Spanish labor reforms.

April 8: A soldier stands guard in front of the Unha-3 rocket sitting on a launch pad at the West Sea Satellite Launch Site, northwest of Pyongyang, North Korea.

April 11: North Korean leader Kim Jong Un waves during the Fourth Conference of the Workers' Party of Korea (WPK) in Pyongyang. 

April 12: George Zimmerman, charged with second-degree murder in the shooting death of the 17-year-old Trayvon Martin, is directed by a Seminole County Deputy and his attorney Mark O'Mara during a court hearing in Sanford, Florida.

April 13: A child looks up during the Bisket festival at the ancient city of Bhaktapur near Kathmandu. The nine-day festival takes place over the Nepalese New Year.

April 17: The Space Shuttle Discovery cruised over the U.S. Capitol in Washington as a part of its tour before being retired to the Smithsonian's Udvar-Hazy center in Virginia. (Alison Klein for VOA)

April 28: A Nuba woman, wounded during a raid by Sudan's air force, sits in a makeshift hospital in South Kordofan, Sudan.

May 24: Chen Guangcheng, the blind Chinese dissident and legal advocate who was granted visiting scholar status in the United States, gives an interview in New York.

May 30: A Syrian woman cries as she carries her son who was shot in the hand by a Syrian border guard when they were crossing a river from Syria to Lebanon, at the northern border town of Wadi Khaled, north Lebanon.

May 31: Jake Beaudoin, a U.S. Army Private, takes cover during a controlled detonation in Kandahar province, southern Afghanistan.

June 2: Britain's Queen Elizabeth after the Derby horse race in Epsom, England during her Diamond Jubilee celebrations.

June 5: Revelers in London watch Britain's Queen Elizabeth appear on the Buckingham Palace balcony as part of Diamond Jubilee celebrations to mark the 60th anniversary of her accession to the throne.

June 10: An ethnic Rakhine man with homemade weapons walks in front of houses that were set on fire during fighting between Buddhist Rakhine and Muslim Rohingya communities in Sittwe, Burma.

June 26: The Waldo Canyon wildfire burns as it moved into subdivisions and destroyed homes in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

July 23: James E. Holmes appears at a Colorado court.  He was charged with 24 counts of first-degree murder  in connection with the shooting rampage at a theater showing the latest Batman movie.

August 3: Pussy Riot members, from left, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, Yekaterina Samutsevich and Maria Alekhina sit in a glass cage at a court room in Moscow, Russia.

August 3: Runners pass by the Olympics flame on the first day of the athletics in the Olympic Stadium at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London.

August 5: Jamaica's Usain Bolt crosses the finish line to win gold in the men's 100-meter final during the 2012 Summer Olympics in London.

August 5: McKayla Maroney of the U.S. with her silver medal in the women's vault victory ceremony during the London 2012 Olympic Games.

August 6: U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton meets with Nelson Mandela, 94, former president of South Africa, at his home in Qunu, South Africa.

August 7: A Free Syrian Army fighter takes cover during clashes with the Syrian Army in central Aleppo, Syria.

August 15: Activists holding Chinese and Taiwanese flags are arrested by Japanese police officers after landing on Uotsuri Island, one of the islands claimed by both China and Japan.

August 24: German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras before talks in Berlin to discuss Greece's fiscal crisis.

August 29: Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney watches the Republican National Convention with his grandchildren from his hotel room in Tampa, Florida.

August 30: Actor Clint Eastwood speaks to an empty chair on the final night of the Republican National Convention.

September 18: Aung San Suu Kyi visits the Voice of America in Washington, D.C. as part of her tour of the United States. (Alison Klein for VOA)

October 9: Former Penn State University assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky, center, is taken from court after being sentenced to at least 30 years in prison for child sexual abuse.

October 12: The Space Shuttle Endeavour is transported from Los Angeles International Airport to its retirement home at the California Science Center in Exposition Park in Los Angeles, California.

October 14: Felix Baumgartner of Austria jumps out of a capsule more than 38 kilometers above the Earth during the final manned flight for Red Bull Stratos.

October 16: Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, left, and President Barack Obama spar during the second presidential debate, Hofstra University in Hempstead, New York.

October 29: Sea water floods the Ground Zero construction site in New York. Superstorm Sandy forced the shutdown of mass transit, schools and financial markets and sent coastal residents fleeing.

October 30: A parking lot full of yellow cabs is flooded as a result of superstorm Sandy in Hoboken, New Jersey.

November 1: The remnants of a roller coaster sits in the surf three days after Hurricane Sandy came ashore in Seaside Heights, New Jersey.

November 6: U.S. President Barack Obama celebrates with first lady Michelle Obama and their daughters Malia (R) and Sasha at an election night victory rally in Chicago, Illinois.

November 9: Paula Broadwell was reported to have been involved in an extramarital affair with General David Petraeus, which triggered his resignation as Director of the Central Intelligence Agency when it was discovered by the FBI.

November 19: U.S. President Barack Obama embraces Aung San Suu Kyi after addressing members of the media at her residence in Burma. Obama became the first U.S. president to visit Burma.

December 1: Actress Meryl Streep uses her iPhone to get a photo of her and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton following the Kennedy Center Honors gala in Washington.

December 16: David Freedman, right, kneels with his son Zachary, 9, as they visit a sidewalk memorial for the 26 people, including 20 children, who were killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.