Google launches Android, and Amazon releases the first Kindle.Steve Jobs launches the Apple iPhone, which cost $150 million to develop.So does Lonesome George, aka Solitario Jorge, the last male tortoise of his kind, on the Galapagos Islands, aged 102.Whitney Houston, BeeGee Robin Gibb, Beastie Boy Adam Yauch, writers Nora Ephron, Gore Vidal and Maeve Binchy all leave us.Over in Switzerland, the Higgs Bosun particle is discovered via experiments involving the Large Hadron Collider. India suffers the worst power cut in human history, leaving 620 million people without electricity.Vladimir Putin is elected President of Russia. The Encyclopaedia Britannica goes out of print after 246 years.The Olympics, with an opening ceremony orchestrated by film director Danny Boyle, happen in London.Denmark legalises same-sex marriage, as ‘mommy porn’ engulfs the heterosexual world after the publication of EL James’ Fifty Shades Of Grey, which outsells Harry Potter.The first child of American royalty Beyonce and Jay-Z is born – a daughter, Blue Ivy Carter, described by Time as “the most famous baby in the world.”.Queen Elizabeth has been on the throne for 60 years, as her grandson William and his missus announce a pregnancy.The captain of the Costa Concordia cruise ship steers too close to land, causing the deaths of 32 people in Italy.The Mayan end of the world prophecy fails to come true, and the world carries on as normal.
Doesn’t that make you feel old? And yet already it’s been……īeyonce Knowles and Blue Ivy Carter are seen in Midtown on Novemin New York City.