The world’s attention wavered between the tragic and the silly in 2012, and along the way, millions of people searched the Web to find out about a royal princess, the latest iPad, and a record-breaking skydiver. Whitney Houston was the “top trending” search of the year, according to Google Inc.’s year-end “zeitgeist” report. Google’s 12th annual roundup is “an in-depth look at the spirit of the times as seen through the billions of searches on Google over the past year,” the company said in a blog post Wednesday. People around the globe searched en masse for news about Houston’s accidental drowning in a bathtub just before she was to perform at a pre-Grammy Awards party in February. Google defines topics as “trending” when they garner a high amount of traffic over a sustained period of time.

Personally, Whitney Houston was not my top search of the year, but the general public seemed to be fascinated by her untimely death. I certainly don’t want to make light of the fact she struggled with drugs, had a very tough personal life, and died before her time. However, I would NEVER have guessed she was the top searched on Google in 2012. Never. How about this story I just stumbled upon – Private Investigator says Whitney Houston was murdered.