January
The unemployment rate plunged to 9.4 percent in December as employers added 103,000 jobs during the month - far fewer than expected, the government reported. While those numbers were somewhat disappointing, analysts said the economic recovery continues to gain steam and that 2011 looks more promising than 2010.
Rep. Gabrielle Giffords was in grave condition and in surgery at University Medical Center in Tucson, Ariz., after a shooting in a Safeway supermarket parking lot on Jan. 8, 2011. Eighteen people were shot and six people died in the attack, including a federal judge and a 9-year-old girl.
Jared Lee Loughner, 22, of Tucson, Ariz., was formally charged Jan. 9, 2011 with two federal counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of U.S. District Judge John M. Roll and an aide to U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, and three counts of attempted murder, of Giffords and two other aides who were injured. Law enforcement officials said Loughner appeared to have prepared his attack on Giffords with some care. The Democratic congresswoman had just begun one of her "Congress on Your Corner" public events outside a grocery store near his home when the shooting began. Authorities said Loughner fired 31 bullets from the weapon, hitting at least 20 people.
February
The February 2011 Christchurch earthquake was a magnitude 6.3 earthquake that struck the Canterbury region in New Zealand's South Island at on Feb. 22, 2011. The death toll from the earthquake reached 181.
DETROIT -- Borders Group Inc. filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection Feb. 16, 2011, after five years of turnaround efforts failed to return the Ann Arbor, Mich.-based bookseller to health. At first, the company announced closures of 30 percent of its stories, or about 200, however, the reorganization did not succeed, and in June, the company announced it would be liquidating its 399 stores nationwide. Books, DVDs and furniture valued at more than $700 million were sold off at deep discounts, with everything gone by September 2011. As many as 10,700 chain employees nationwide lost their jobs.
March
Elizabeth Taylor, a onetime child actress who grew into a star so radiant that her name continued to symbolize beauty, wealth, luxury and a distinctively Hollywood brand of excess even decades after her film career faded and her physical health declined, has died. She was 79. A spokeswoman for Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles said Taylor died at 1:28 a.m. Taylor had been hospitalized for about two months with heart illness. Publicist Sally Morrison confirmed Taylor's death from congestive heart failure, The Associated Press reported.
MADISON, Wis. -- Even as Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker on March 11, 2011, signed into law a bill that sharply curbs collective bargaining for most public employees, his opponents were preparing for more demonstrations, court battles and political infighting over what became a national test of labor's power. Organizers were pulling in tens of thousands protesters to the Capitol for a rally featuring the return of Democratic lawmakers who fled the state on Feb. 17 in an effort to block the measure from passing.
April
Anti-regime protests spread throughout Middle East and North African countries in what becomes known as "Arab Spring." Since December 2010, there have been revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt; a civil war in Libya; civil uprisings in Bahrain, Syria and Yemen; major protests in Algeria, Iraq, Jordan, Morocco and Oman, and minor protests in Kuwait, Lebanon, Mauritania, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, and Western Sahara. The protests have shared techniques of civil resistance in sustained campaigns involving strikes, demonstrations, marches and rallies, as well as the use of social media, such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Skype, to organize, communicate, and raise awareness in the face of state attempts at repression and internet censorship and even violent repressions from the governments and pro-government factions.
LONDON -- In a ceremony steeped in tradition and symbolism, Prince William, the second in line to the British throne, married his longtime girlfriend, Kate Middleton, on April 29, 2011, amid an outpouring of joy and patriotism in London and before a potential worldwide audience of 2 billion people who tuned in on television and the Internet. The couple exited historic Westminster Abbey as husband and wife soon after noon, following a wedding service presided over by the Archbishop of Canterbury and executed with military precision, with Middleton's grand entrance, the singing of hymns and the exchange of vows planned down to the last minute.
WASHINGTON -- The White House released President Obama's long-form birth certificate to reporters on April 27, 2011, an extraordinary step in reaction to renewed questions from critics about whether he was born in Hawaii. The document also was posted on the White House website. President Obama spoke on the subject from the White House briefing room, effectively killing years of conspiracy theories about his citizenship, and high-profile "birther" Donald Trump's bid for the Republican nomination.
May
A U.S. special forces team killed Osama bin Laden on May 1, 2011, at a compound inside Pakistan and recovered his body, bringing a close to the world's highest-profile manhunt after a decade-long search, President Barack Obama announced to the world. "Justice has been done," the president said solemnly in a hastily arranged late-night televised address from the East Room of the White House.
Ashton Kutcher stepped in with grace to a tense situation when he was hired to fill the hole left by Charlie Sheen when he was fired earlier in the year from the lucrative and popular comedy "Two and a Half Men." Capping a series of headline-grabbing stunts, Charlie Sheen -- who spent most of February 2011 in an unusual home-based rehab program -- called his boss, producer Chuck Lorre, "a clown" and a "little maggot," disparaged his talent and referred to him in a way that many viewed as anti-Semitic. Within hours, CBS and Warner Bros., the studio that makes the series, announced they would cancel production for at least the rest of the season. He was later let go and the fans became concerned if the very popular show would continue without its central bad boy. "It's been the most successful sitcom in recent syndication," said Bill Carroll of the New York firm Katz Media, which represents and advises local TV stations. "It continues to be No. 1 among syndicated sitcoms in every rating period since it's been on the air." The show continued to do extremely well after its fall premiere, which brought in record viewers.
June
Declaring that the "tide of war is receding," President Barack Obama on June 22, 2011, ordered a rapid withdrawal of the 33,000 "surge" troops he sent to Afghanistan and charted a path toward ending large-scale U.S. combat operations in Central Asia.
Bowing to intense political pressure amid a humiliating sexting scandal, Rep. Anthony Weiner, D-N.Y., on June 16, 2011, announced he was resigning from Congress. In a short statement interrupted by a heckler at a raucous news conference at the Council Center for Senior Citizens in Brooklyn, Weiner ended a political career as a brash and outspoken seven-term New York congressman who had set his sights set on becoming New York's mayor.
July
There were the usual wedding-day jitters, tears and hiccups. One groom's leg twitched nervously. Rings had to be squeezed onto fingers swollen to sausage-like proportions from the heat and humidity. Hundreds of other couples stood three deep July 24, 2011, in a line that stretched down a New York City block, waiting their turn inside the marble-floored lobby of the clerk's office in Manhattan. Altogether, the city issued 659 marriage licenses in all five boroughs, officials said. The New York Senate passed the same-sex marriage bill on June 24, 2011.
The final Harry Potter film, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2" opened to record numbers on July 15, 2011. It grossed a record $483.2 million worldwide on its opening weekend. By August 2011, it had made an estimated worldwide total of $1,215,137,355. The film is currently the third highest-grossing movie of all time worldwide behind "Titanic" and "Avatar," the highest-grossing 2011 film, the highest-grossing non-Cameron film worldwide and the highest-grossing film in the Harry Potter franchise and the highest-grossing novel adaptation worldwide.
Former first lady Betty Ford, who captivated the nation with her unabashed candor and forthright discussion of her personal battles with breast cancer, prescription drug addiction and alcoholism, died July 8, 2011. She was 93. Ford died Friday at the Eisenhower Medical Center in Rancho Mirage, Calif., according to Barbara Lewandroski, a family representative.
Norway was rocked on July 22, 2011, when 77 people were killed. Sixty-nine victims were mostly young people killed at a youth camp of the ruling Labor Party on Utoya Island, and eight in a massive bomb blast that occurred shortly beforehand in the center of Oslo. Police said the gunman, Anders Behring Breivik, described as a Christian fundamentalist with extreme right-wing views, was dressed as a police officer as he walked around the island and calmly shot every person he could find for almost an hour before police arrived.
British singer-songwriter Amy Winehouse was a phenomenon: a Jewish girl from a London suburb with a retro beehive, a devil-may-care attitude and a voice that channeled Aretha Franklin and Ruth Brown. Less than a decade after the release of her breakout album, "Back to Black," she died, and is now more likely to be mentioned in the company of pop music's tragedies than its stars. Winehouse was found dead on July 23, 2011, at her home in London. Her death remained unexplained after an autopsy, but many drew conclusions after Winehouse canceled a concert tour in the months before her death and years of abuse of drugs and alcohol.
Atlantis lifted off for the final time Friday, marking the end of the nation's space program and a way of life in a town where shuttles soared from shore to stars for 30 years. With a thunderous roar and plume of smoke, Atlantis - also known as STS-135 - ended a nail-biting countdown and took off at 11:29 a.m. EDT, just over two minutes late.
Florida mother Casey Anthony was found not guilty in connection with the death of her child, Caylee Anthony, who was almost 3 years old at the time of her death in 2008. On July 5, 2011, the jury found Anthony not guilty of murder, aggravated child abuse, and aggravated manslaughter of a child, but guilty of four misdemeanor counts of providing false information to a law enforcement officer. Anthony received consecutive sentences of one year in jail and a $1,000 fine for each count, the maximum punishment possible.
August
Bedridden and dressed in prison whites, gray hair poking through his familiar jet-black dye job, the 83-year-old ousted president of Egypt, Hosni Mubarak, made a stunning court appearance here Wednesday to answer charges of corruption and plotting to kill protesters who demanded his resignation. "I totally deny all charges," Mubarak said through a microphone.
Thirty U.S. troops were killed Aug. 6, 2011, when their Chinook helicopter was shot down in western Afghanistan _ many of them Navy SEALs. It was the worst single-day toll for American forces in Afghanistan since U.S. troops entered that country nearly 10 years ago, and one of the largest tolls in a single incident of either the Afghan war or the fighting in Iraq. Another seven Afghan troops also died in the crash. An interpreter was also killed; in all 38 people and a SEAL dog died in the crash.
Syrian armed forces pushed against several opposition stongholds on Aug. 15, 2011, in a bid to crush a five-month antigovernment uprising that has alarmed the region and is mushrooming into a pressing international concern. The city of Hama has been under an eight-day siege that left scores dead.
With the deadline for raising the nation's debt ceiling only hours away, President Barack Obama signed a historic deficit-reduction package into law Tuesday that aims to cut trillions of dollars from federal spending while increasing the debt limit immediately. Obama acted just hours after the Senate passed the bill on a bipartisan 74-26 vote.
September
SHANKSVILLE, Pa. -- Former Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush praised the 40 passengers and crew of United Flight 93 and their families Saturday, dedicating a memorial to the only hijacked aircraft that didn't reach its intended target on Sept. 11, 2001. Clinton also announced a fundraising effort to help complete the $62 million project, which still lacks a visitor center and 40 planned memorial tree groves, one for each passenger and crewmember who died.
NEW YORK -- Adding the first details to what had been a sketchy picture of their Iranian detention, Americans Joshua Fattal and Shane Bauer spoke on Sept. 25, 2011, of being blindfolded whenever they left their 8-by-13-foot cell, fasting for days to force delivery of letters from their families, hearing the screams of beaten prisoners, and of the 781 days they spent "in a world of lies and false hope." Iran's border guards arrested Sarah Shourd, with Fattal and Bauer, on July 31, 2009. The three, who met as students at the University of California at Berkeley, say they were hiking on a one-week vacation in a tourist region of northern Iraqi Kurdistan and that if they crossed Iran's unmarked border it was by accident. Held for 410 days in solitary confinement, Shourd reportedly fell ill and was let go last September after bail of $500,000, also mediated by Oman, was paid.
King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia surprised his ultraconservative nation Sunday by announcing bold reforms that for the first time give women the right to vote, run for local office and serve on the Shura Council, the king's advisory board. The measures by an aging monarch who has battled Islamic hard-liners for years will marginally improve the standing of women in a country that still forbids them from driving or leaving the house without their faces covered.
NEW YORK -- Novak Djokovic on Sept. 12, 2011, proceeded with his 2011 tennis theme, storming the ramparts and wrecking more furniture in the castle of recent ruler Rafael Nadal with a howling, four-set victory in the U.S. Open final. It was Djokovic's third major-tournament title this year, duplicating Nadal's 2010 season, and came right on the heels of his displacement of Nadal as Wimbledon champion and top-ranked player earlier this summer. Though trailing Nadal in career head-to-head meetings, 16-13, it was Djokovic's sixth straight win over the Spaniard and lifted Djokovic's 2011 record to a staggering 64-2.
HOUSTON -- The Texas Forest Service says wildfires that burned for more than two weeks in Bastrop County were contained with the help of rain and cooler temperatures. Weekend weather helped improve firefighting in the area about 30 miles east of Austin, officials said. The fire killed two people and destroyed 1,554 homes, a record number for a single fire. The northeast fire near the Louisiana border that had burned 52,951 acres was also fully contained, Renteria said.
October
NEW YORK _ Wild bears and other beasts from an exotic-animal farm were still roaming free in a rural area of eastern Ohio on Wednesday morning, and people were being told to stay indoors, according to news reports. Armed officers have already killed 31 of 48 animals that escaped from the wild-animal preserve near Zanesville, Ohio, and were hunting for the others, officials said. Classes were canceled in four area school districts, Columbus station WBNS-TV (10TV News) reported.
WASHINGTON _ The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. wasn't a big guy _ but he cast a long shadow. The nation's first black president dedicated the civil rights leader's granite memorial on the National Mall Sunday, along with King's children and friends. They spoke of King's vision, his courage, and his fight for racial and economic justice. And one of those friends, colleague Andrew Young, also spoke of King's stature. "He was only about 5 feet 7," Young said. "He was always upset about all the tall people looking down on him. Well, now he's 30 feet tall!"
TRIPOLI, Libya _ The spectacle of Moammar Gadhafi's capture at the mouth of a drain pipe and death in the custody of those he long oppressed thrilled Libyans but left a sense of unease about the nation's ability to emerge from his violent legacy. Gadhafi's death Thursday in his hometown, the coastal city of Sirte, spared Libyans the prospect that the only leader most had ever known would continue exhorting die-hard followers to fight.
WASHINGTON _ President Barack Obama announced Friday that he is bringing all U.S. troops home from Iraq at year's end, closing out a war that has lasted almost nine years and killed nearly 4,500 Americans. The announcement of a complete withdrawal came after the White House and the Iraqi government failed to reach an agreement that would have left some U.S. forces in Iraq to provide security and function as trainers. The White House said that all of the approximately 40,000 troops now serving in Iraq will come home by the end of 2011. Only a "normal embassy presence" will remain, a White House official said.
LOS ANGELES _ It took only a dozen years for humanity to add another billion people to the planet, reaching the milestone of 7 billion Monday _ give or take a few months. Demographers at the United Nations Population Division set Oct. 31, 2011, as the "symbolic" date for hitting 7 billion, while acknowledging that it's impossible to know for sure the specific time or day. Using slightly different calculations, the U.S. Census Bureau estimates the 7 billion threshold will not be reached until March.
LOS ANGELES _ There was hardly time for the reruns of the wedding on the E channel before reality TV star Kim Kardasharian, citing irreconcilable differences, filed for divorce Monday from pro basketball player Kris Humphries. Kardashian, 31, filed papers in a downtown Los Angeles court just 72 days after her much-hyped marriage. The couple's Aug. 20 mega-wedding in Montecito, Calif., was featured in the reality show "Keeping Up with the Kardashians."
ERCIS, Turkey _ The death toll in southeastern Turkey rose to 459 on Tuesday, two days after a 7.2-magnitude earthquake devastated the region. More than 1,300 people were also injured, according to the government's crisis response unit. In a glimmer of hope, rescue workers found a newborn baby girl among the rubble of a collapsed house in the worst-affected city of Ercis.
November
Andy Rooney, CBS News' longtime resident curmudgeon whose whimsical and acerbic essays on "60 Minutes" turned the rumpled writer into an unlikely _ and reluctant _ TV celebrity, died Friday night, only weeks after retiring from the show. He was 92.
WASHINGTON _ An attorney for a former employee of the National Restaurant Association affirmed Friday his client filed a written complaint against Herman Cain in 1999 for "a series of inappropriate behaviors and unwanted advances."
WASHINGTON _ Public acceptance of same-sex marriage has grown at an accelerating pace, with approval jumping by nine percentage points in the past two years and the nation now evenly divided on the issue, according to a new Pew Research Center survey released Thursday.
LOS ANGELES _ As demonstrations against the unequal distribution of wealth in the United States ratchet up, research provides a statistical look at that distribution: The number of people living in poverty has increased; where the poor live is changing; and even the faces of those struggling to make ends meet are becoming more Latino, elderly and working-class.
OAKLAND, Calif. _ Riot police from a number of Bay Area departments fired tear gas and other projectiles early Thursday and arrested dozens of demonstrators to break up Occupy Oakland protests that had drawn thousands of participants Wednesday.
LOS ANGELES _ The business of predicting the end of the world is a lot like baseball: Three strikes and you're out. At least that's according to The Christian Post, which reports that controversial Christian leader Harold Camping has retired after three failed doomsday predictions. The self-styled Biblical scholar based in Oakland, Calif., has thrice predicted the world's end. First, in 1994. Then, on May 21 of this year. And again on Oct. 21. It is estimated by Camping's own staff that more than $100 million has been spent trying to wake the world up to his biblical predictions.
BANGKOK _ The twin threat of Bangkok being inundated by floodwaters from the north and seawater from the south has eased, the government said Tuesday. "Now the gulf's high tide has peaked, I believe the situation in Bangkok will improve," said Science and Technology Minister Plodprasop Suraswadi. "The flood is now not as worrying as the stagnant water," said Plodprasop, who also heads the government's Flood Relief Operation Command. The Gulf of Thailand's next peak high tide is Nov. 15.
December
Rod Blagojevich, Illinois' 40th governor, was sentenced to 14 years in prison Wednesday for the attempted sale of a U.S. Senate seat, illegal shakedowns for campaign cash and lying to federal Blagojevich will have to serve just under 12 years under federal rules that say defendants must complete 85 percent of their sentence. Blagojevich doesn't have to report to federal prison until Feb. 16.
The U.S. Postal Service said a plan to save $2.1 billion a year and fend off possible bankruptcy would effectively put an end to almost all overnight delivery of first-class letters and postcards. Delivery would take at least two to three business days. The Postal Service's decision to relax delivery standards for first-class mail follows its determination in September to close 252 mail processing plants, about half its total.
His popularity sinking and his credibility under attack, on Dec. 3, Herman Cain suspended his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination in a defiant, unapologetic blaze of glory. For all practical purposes, Cain's suspension means he has dropped out, ending his quest for the White House because of the political damage caused by allegations of sexual harassment and marital infidelity.
After nearly nine years of war, the loss of more than 100,000 lives and hundreds of billions of dollars spent, the U.S. military mission in Iraq has formally ended. Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta and other top U.S. officials conducted a low-key ceremony on a military base at the Baghdad airport Dec. 15, furling the flag to signal the official conclusion of one of most divisive wars in American history, while violence continues to roil the Mideast nation.
