THE crowning of Andy Murray as tennis champion, a royal baby, a raunchy dance, a new Pope and a boy band were just some of the hot topics of conversation this year on Twitter.

The birth of George, the Prince of Cambridge in July, which was announced both on an easel at Buckingham Palace and on Twitter, sparked a global frenzy of excitement on the social networking site. A spike in conversation came in the minutes after the announcement, with more than 25,300 tweets per minute.

But there was more Twitter activity after Andy Murray's historic Wimbledon victory earlier in the month which amassed 120,000 tweets per minute, and for the election of Pope Francis in March which sparked a massive 132,000 tweets per minute.

Twerking - the risque dance move made famous by US star Miley Cyrus at the MTV Video Music Awards in August - became a sensation both offline and on Twitter.

With almost 25 million unique followers, it comes as no surprise the 1D movie premiere took over the Twitter conversation. There were 3.6 million related tweets the day Harry, Zayn, Louis, Niall and Liam took to the red carpet in London's Leicester Square for One Direction: This Is Us in August.