January 2012

Sunday 8 - John Madin, an English architect, died (aged 87). He built in 1974 the Birmingham Central Library.




Monday 9 - Alabama defeats LSU 21-0 to win the 2012 BCS National Championship, their second championship in three years, in the first shutout in BCS bowl history.



Friday 13 - The cruise ship Costa Concordia runs aground and capsizes off the coast of Tuscany, with at least eleven fatalities.

Monday 16 - The King Center publishes online 200,000 personal papers belonging to Martin Luther King, Jr. to mark his birthday.

- Martin Luther King Jr. Nobel Lecture, The Quest for Peace and Justice (December 11, 1964)
http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1964/king-lecture.html

"Violence as a way of achieving racial justice is both impractical and immoral. I am not unmindful of the fact that violence often brings about momentary results. Nations have frequently won their independence in battle. But in spite of temporary victories, violence never brings permanent peace. It solves no social problem: it merely creates new and more complicated ones. Violence is impractical because it is a descending spiral ending in destruction for all. It is immoral because it seeks to humiliate the opponent rather than win his understanding: it seeks to annihilate rather than convert. Violence is immoral because it thrives on hatred rather than love. It destroys community and makes brotherhood impossible. It leaves society in monologue rather than dialogue. Violence ends up defeating itself. It creates bitterness in the survivors and brutality in the destroyers. [...] I believe in this method [nonviolence] because I think it is the only way to reestablish a broken community. It is the method which seeks to implement the just law by appealing to the conscience of the great decent majority who through blindness, fear, pride, and irrationality have allowed their consciences to sleep."

Wednesday 18 - The English Wikipedia, along with many other websites, takes part in a 24-hour shutdown in protest against SOPA and PIPA. The same day, a number of American lawmakers, including SOPA co-sponsor Marco Rubio, withdraw their support for the SOPA proposal.



Thursday, 19 - The FBI shuts down Megaupload.