World Events
It was a bittersweet 2011, with sweeping protests abroad, the birth of Occupy Wall Street here at home, natural disaster, and a royal wedding.
In the North African country of Tunisia, 26-year-old Mohamed Bouazizi, a poor fruit vendor who did not have a permit to sell his goods, became an unlikely martyr.
Bouazizi had six siblings and a widowed mother to support. So when a policewoman ordered him to shut down his fruit cart, Bouazizi refused. The policewoman slapped him, and Bouazizi set himself on fire in front of a government building in protest.
The Arab Spring protests followed and spread to Tahrir Square in Egypt.
Amid the fists of fury was the fairytale wedding of Kate Middleton and Prince William.
Devastation struck in Japan, with a 9.0 earthquake that triggered a tsunami that damaged the Fukushima nuclear plant. But the shock and awe campaign found its closure with the assassination of Osama Bin Laden in Abbottabad, Pakistan. Also, protests, backed up with NATO airstrikes, led to the death of Moammar Gadhafi in Libya.
In the end, sweeping social change solidified Facebook and Twitter as the meeting places of choice (and necessity) for the world’s protest organizers and their legions.
