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TOP TEN LISTS

World's Most Dangerous Animals

Deadliest animals in the world ranked by estimated number of human fatalities per year

Best Selling Musicians

Top selling musicians of all time ranked by estimated number of albums sold

Best Selling Books of All-Time

Best selling novels worldwide ranked by estimated number of copies sold

Fastest Manned Aircraft in the World

Fastest manned aircraft (excluding spacecraft) ranked by top speed

World's Most Practiced Religions

Major religions of the world ranked by estimated number of followers

Worst Genocides of the Twentieth Century

The ten worst genocides of the 20th century listed by dictators responsible; ranked by number of deaths

World's Fastest Land Animals

The fastest land animals in the world ranked by maximum speed

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Today in History

Tuesday, 12 May 2026

2010

An Afriqiyah Airways Flight crashes and kills everyone but one person on board.

2008

An earthquake (measuring around 8.0 magnitude) occurs in Sichuan, China, killing over 69,000 people.

2007

Riots in which over 50 people are killed and over 100 are injured take place in Karachi upon the arrival in town of the Chief Justice of Pakistan Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry.

2006

Mass unrest by the Primeiro Comando da Capital begins in São Paulo (Brazil), leaving at least 150 dead.

2003

The Riyadh compound bombings, carried out by Al Qaeda, kill 26 people.

Fifty-nine Democratic lawmakers bring the Texas Legislature to a standstill by going into hiding in a dispute over a Republican congressional redistricting plan.

2002

Former US President Jimmy Carter arrives in Cuba for a five-day visit with Fidel Castro becoming the first President of the United States, in or out of office, to visit the island since Castro's 1959 revolution.

1982

During a procession outside the shrine of the Virgin Mary in Fátima, Portugal, security guards overpower Juan Fernandez Krohn before he can attack Pope John Paul II with a bayonet. Krohn, an ultraconservative Spanish priest opposed to the Vatican II reforms, believed that the Pope had to be killed for being an "agent of Moscow".

1981

Francis Hughes starves to death in the Maze Prison in a Republican campaign for political prisoner status to be granted to Provisional IRA prisoners.

1978

In Zaire, rebels occupy the city of Kolwezi, the mining center of the province of Shaba (now known as Katanga). The local government asks the U.S.A., France and Belgium to restore order.

FACTOIDS