United States

The always eloquent Patrick Stewart excels himself in this passionate and moving response to a question about domestic abuse.

In February 2012 I had the pleasure of seeing Letz Zep in concert in Brussels. However, in December 2012, the surviving members of the genuine article - Led Zeppelin - went to Washington to receive laurels at the 35th Annual Kennedy Center Honors. Jimmy Page, Robert Plant and John Paul Jones sat watching from the balcony, as a series of performers paid tribute to the band.

Stanford tutors taught a class, attended by 175 students in situ - and over 150,000 via an interactive webcast.  Key learnings included: invite students to comment in online fora; don't leave the videos online, but run the class at a set time; emulate the one-on-one experience as far as possible.

Pace David Bowie, and in the light of the hagiography building in some quarters around the late Steve Jobs, one wonders who are the real enduring, beyond "just for one day" heroes, ancient and modern?

A good candidate from my childhood is Alexander the Great, from the moment I first shed a tear when reading in a Ladybird history book (a constant companion, and part of a set which I preserve with fondness and gratitude to this day) about Alexander dying (at just 33, thereby giving him a special bond with Jesus in my young mind) "far from his homeland".  As a long-standing, albeit non-heroic exile from my own homeland, this still resonates...

During the 2011 annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, CNBC hosted a full-panel debate engaging business and political leaders in a televised discussion entitled 'The West Isn't Working', foreshadowing many of the economic problems that would hit the U..S and, in particular, Europe, during 2011.

The world's first theme park aimed at educating the public about sustainability and global warming opened in the US.