One Direction’s 10 Best Moments Of 2012!

It’s been another amazing year for One Direction! From smashing sales records to winning a BRIT Award and even meeting The Queen, The Hits Radio takes a look Harry, Niall, Louis, Zayn and Liam’s best bits from the past 12 months

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10. Meeting The Queen At the 100th Royal Variety performance at London’s Royal Albert Hall in November, One Direction met Queen Elizabeth herself! As well as meeting the head of state backstage, the lads also sang ‘Little Things’ to the millions watching around the world.

9. Working With Ed Sheeran (again) Having worked with their good mate Ed on the ‘Up All Night’ deluxe bonus track ‘Moments’, in 2012 One Direction joined forces with the acoustic-pop troubadour once again on the amazing ‘Little Things’. Showcasing a more mature side of their art it was undoubtedly one of their high points of 2012.

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8. Winning Seven MTV Awards One Direction took home a phenomenal seven MTV gongs in 2012 – three at the MTV Europe Music Awards in Frankfurt, three at the MTV Music Video Awards in Los Angeles and one at the MTV Video Music Awards Brazil in Sao Paolo. As if that wasn’t enough they also won big at the 4Music Video Honours, the Teen Choice Awards, the Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards and many more.

7. International Success Unlike many other boybands whose success is limited to the UK and America, in 2012 One Direction triumphed on every corner of the globe! This year they topped the charts everywhere from Taiwan to Poland and Mexico to Croatia cementing their status as the biggest boyband on planet Earth.

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6. Winning a BRIT Award On 21st February, One Direction’s ‘What Makes You Beautiful’ won the Best British Single title at The BRIT Awards – beating such giants as Adele’s ‘Someone Like You’, Jessie J’s ‘Price Tag’ and Ed Sheeran’s ‘The A Team’. An incredible achievement that kick-started their year in style!

5. Madison Square Garden Triumph In December One Direction triumphed at their historic sold-out show at the world-famous Madison Square Gardens in New York. Niall told the 20,000 strong crowd: “This is the best night of our lives. You guys have travelled from all around the world and we cannot believe what has happened here tonight. Thank you so much.”

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4. Sell Out World Tour One Direction’s epic Up All Night Tour saw them play 60 sold-out arena shows in the UK, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, the United States, Canada and Mexico. In Britain alone they performed to more than 500,000 fans! Incredibly they’re set to surpass this jaunt with the colossal One Direction 2013 World Tour throughout next year. Impressive is an understatement!

3. Selling 12million Records In August 1D were handed an award for smashing the 12million record sales barrier in less than a year! Commenting on the tally which includes eight million singles, three million albums and one million DVDs, Liam Payne said: "We are obviously ecstatic and incredibly humbled by our award. We have an incredible team of people around us who have helped us achieve this, and above all we would like to thank our fans. We owe all our success to them." Since picking up the award One Direction have sold many millions more records!

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2. Performing At The Olympics Closing Ceremony In front of an estimated worldwide audience of 750million people, One Direction belted out ‘What Makes You Beautiful’ from the back of the van as part of the 2012 Olympics closing ceremony. It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and One Direction absolutely nailed it!

1. Conquering America! 2012 was the year that 1D took Stateside by storm! When ‘Up All Night’ topped the charts in March One Direction became the first UK group in US chart history to debut at number one with their first album. Since then they’ve sold out a massive arena tour, appeared on a string of high profile TV shows, scored another number one album with ‘Take Me Home’ and gone top three with ‘Live While We’re Young’. Wowzers!