As we say goodbye to 2012, Google offers their annual Zeitgeist (‘spirit of the age’ or ‘spirit of the time’) video which summarizes all the top searches and headlines over the last year. The video starts with the amazing space jump by Felix Baumgartner, and calls out other pop culture phenomena of 2012 including PSY‘s ‘Gangam Style‘ and blade runner Oscar Pistorius.
The video goes on to show all the top search requests of the year including the London Olympic Games, natural disasters Hurricane Sandy and the Manila floods, political news such as protests in Greece and Syria, and the elections of Egypt, France, and the United States. The growing popularity of Google+ Hangouts got a mention, as did the deaths of astronaut Neil Armstrong, writers Gore Vidal and Maurice Sendak, actor Michael Clarke Duncan, and singers Whitney Houston and Donna Summer, among others.
Click through to watch the video!
2012
The search giant says in 2012 they logged over 1.2 trillion searches, in over 146 different languages. You can check out all the trending searches from 2012 on their site, and if you missed the Google Zeitgeist videos from the last few years you can watch them below.