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Year 2000 internet panic
New York Times
By the time midnight struck in Maui, even the Internet’s most dedicated harbingers of millennium doom had to concede that things had turned out better than they had expected.”Does anyone still think TEOTWAWKI will happen??” typed one presumably sleep-deprived Y2K watcher, using the favorite chat room shorthand for ”the end of the world as we know it.” -
Reality Tv
New York Times
In the last decade reality tv has changed both the economics of prime-time programming and the aspirations of those looking to break into the industry. Since the debut of “Survivor” on CBS in 2000 [it] has grown to account for more than one-quarter of prime time on the five broadcast networks. -
George W. Bush overturns Florida
New York Times
The Supreme Court effectively handed the presidential election to George W. Bush, overturning the Florida Supreme Court and ruling by a vote of 5 to 4 that there could be no further counting of [its] disputed presidential votes. -
43rd president
New York Times
George Walker Bush, 54, comes into office as only the fourth man in history — and the first in more than a century — to assume the presidency without winning the popular vote. -
Afghanistan
New York Times
The United States has been involved militarily in Afghanistan since it led an invasion after the Sept. 11 attacks by Al Qaeda, which had been given a safe haven in the country by Al Taliban, the extremist Islamic group that had seized control in 1996 after years of civil war. -
911 terrorist attack
New York TimesIt was the day when the unreal became the unimaginable, September 11, 2001, the crystalline morning when planes dropped from the skies and toppled the World Trade Center and punctured a hole in the Pentagon, was a demarcation point that shattered the security of the contry and introduced a nebulous and virulent enemy previously unfamiliar to most citizens. -
Anthrax
New York Times
A nation still reeling from the Sept. 11th attacks was shaken again by a series of letters containing anthrax. -
First iPod
New York Times
Apple Computer introduced a portable music player and declared that the new gadget, called the iPod, was so much easier to use that it would broaden a nascent market in the way the Macintosh once helped make the personal computer accessible to a more general audience. -
Space Shuttle Columbia Disaster
New York Times
The space shuttle Columbia broke up on re-entry into the earth’s atmosphere, killing all seven astronauts on board and sending fiery debris over Texas in the second loss of a space shuttle in 17 years. -
SARS
New York Times
(SARS) is a serious form of pneumonia. Infection results in acute respiratory distress (severe breathing diffculty) and sometimes death. It is a dramatic example of how quickly world travel can spread a disease. It is also an example of how quickly a networked health system can respond to an emerging threat. -
Iraq News
New York Times
The American invasion of Iraq began when President George W. Bush ordered missiles fired at a bunker in Baghdad where he believed that Saddam Hussein was hiding. On June 30, 2009, America pulled its forces out of [that country's] cities as part of a phased withdrawal from the country. -
Steroids and baseball
New York Times
Baseball first tested for steroids in 2003. If more than 5 percent of players failed the tests, penalties would be imposed starting in 2004, which is what happened. -
Blackout of 2003
New York Times
A surge of electricity to western New York and Canada touched off a series of black outs that left parts of at least eight states in the Northeast and the Midwest without electricity. The widespread failures provoked the evacuation of office buildings, stranded thousands of commuters and flooded some hospitals with patients suffering in the stifling heat. -
Arnold Schwarzenegger
New York Times
A muscleman, a movie star, a mogul and perhaps the nation’s most prominent moderate Republican, Arnold Schwarzenegger was elected governor of California in a recall election that ousted the Democratic incumbent, Gray Davis. -
"Mission Accomplished"
New York Times
The triumphal "Mission Accomplished" banner was the pride of the White House advance team, the image makers who set the stage for the president’s close-ups. On a golden Pacific evening aboard the carrier Abraham Lincoln, they made sure that the banner was perfectly captured in the camera shots of President Bush’s speech declaring major combat in Iraq at an end. -
Bomb in Madrid
New York Times
Ten bombs ripped through four commuter trains in Madrid during the morning rush hour, killing at least 192 people and wounding more than 1,400 in the deadliest terrorist attack on a European target since World War II. -
Fall of Suddam Hussein
New York Times
Before the fall of Saddam Hussein, Abu Ghraib, a sprawling penal compound west of Baghdad, was notorious within Iraq as a place where torture and executions were commonplace. It became notorious throughout the world in 2004 after photographs were made public of American soldiers abusing Iraqi prisoners there. -
Same sex marriage
New York Times
For over a decade, the issue of same sex marriage has been a flashpoint political issue in the United States, setting off waves of competing legislation and ballot initiatives attempting either to legalize or ban the practice. Rifts have also opened among religious groups over the decision to recognize [it] or condemn it. -
Red Sox Erase 86 Years of Futility in 4 Games
New York Times
The Red Sox won the World Series for the first time since 1918, overcoming, at last, the sale of [Babe] Ruth to the Yankees. -
John Kerry
New York Times
After losing his bid for the White House to President Bush, John Kenny, Democrat of Massachusetts, struggled to find his footing in the Senate. -
9.0 earthquake
New York Times
The world’s most powerful earthquake in 40 years erupted underwater off the Indonesian island of Sumatra and sent a tsunami barreling thousands of miles, killing more than 19,000 people in half a dozen countries across South and Southeast Asia, with thousands more missing or unreachable. -
YouTube
New York Times
YouTube is far and away the most popular destination on the Internet for viewing video, most of which has been posted by users. Nearly two-thirds of all video views in the United States occur on [the site], according to the measurement firm Nielsen. -
The murder of Terri Schiavo
New York Times
Terri Schiavo, the profoundly incapacitated woman whose family split over whether she would have preferred to live or die, forced Americans into a national conversation about the end of life. Her case raised questions about the role of government in private family decisions. -
The new pope
New York Times
After the death of the popular and long-serving Pope John Paul II, the German cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was elected Pope Benedict XVI. Since the [former Pope's] visit to the United States in 1999, the Catholic Church here has been devastated by the clergy sex-abuse scandal. -
Hurricane Katrina
New York Times
A day after New Orleans thought it had narrowly escaped the worst of Hurricane Katrina’s wrath, water broke through two levees and virtually submerged and isolated the city, causing incalculable destruction and rendering it uninhabitable for weeks to come. -
Global Warning Science
New York Times
Global warming has become perhaps the most complicated issue facing world leaders. On the one hand, warnings from the scientific community are becoming louder, as an increasing body of science points to rising dangers from the ongoing buildup of human-related green house gases. produced mainly by the burning of fossil fuels and forests. -
Pluto (Dwarf Planet)
New York Times
The International Astronomical Union passed a new definition of planet that excludes Pluto and puts it in a new category of “dwarf planet.” -
Hanging of Suddam Hussein
New York Times
The hanging of Suddam Hussein ended the life of one of the most brutal tyrants in recent history and negated the fiction that he himself maintained even as the gallows loomed — that he remained president of Iraq despite being toppled by the United States military and that his power and his palaces would be restored to him in time. -
Nintendo Wii
New York Times
Some of the video game industry’s smartest minds thought that couch potatoes wanted richer graphics and more challenging virtual worlds. It turns out that a lot of potatoes simply wanted to get off the couch. That may be the best explanation for the growing popularity of the Nintendo Wii, the new video game system that has players jumping, punching and swinging, having players get aerobic. -
Virginia Tech Shootings
New York Times
A student, Seung-Hui Cho, opened fire in a dormitory and classroom building on the Virginia Tech campus , killing 32 people before committing suicide. -
Hillary Rodham Clinton
New York Times
Hillary Rodham Clinton, Barack Obama’s former bitter rival for the Democratic presidential nomination, is his secretary of state. -
China
New York Times
A 7.9-magnitude earthquake hit a mountainous region in Western China, killing about 70,000 people and leaving over 18,000 missing. Over 15 million people lived in the affected area, including almost 4 million in the city of Chengdu. -
Stock Market plunges
New York Times
As stock markets plunged and credit markets around the globe seized up, Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson and the chairman of the Federal Reserve, Ben S. Bernake, came up with a proposal for a sweeping $700 billion bailout of the nation’s financial institutions. -
John McCain
New York Times
Down to the last hours of his doomed bid for the White House, John McCain repeated to himself a familiar admonition. It was the same mantra he had called upon to steel himself for moments of conflict as a collegiate boxer at the Naval Academy, a prisoner of war bracing for interrogation, a legislator twisting arms for votes or a candidate exhorting crowds in the final rallies of his -
Joseph Biden
New York Times
As a senator, Joseph Biden experienced personal tragedy, near-fatal illness, and multiple failed attempts to advance to the other side of Pennsylvania Avenue. Though neither of his campaigns for the Democratic nomination ever really took off, he was tapped as Senator Barack Obama’s running mate. -
Michael Phelps
New York Times
By the end of the Beijing Olympics, Michael Phelps, had put to rest the argument over who is the greatest American Olympian and perhaps the greatest from any country. By winning eight gold medals in eight swimming events in Beijing, shattering seven world records in the process, he raised his haul of career Olympic medals to 16. Fourteen of them are gold. -
H1N1 flu
H1N1 causes moderate symptoms in most patients but poses greater risks to pregnant woman, young people and patients with underlying health problems, according to the WHO. The United Nations agency declared a full-blown pandemic — at six on its six-point scale — under way. -
Micheal Jackson's Death
New York Times
Micheal Jackson, whose quintessentially American tale of celebrity and excess took him from musical boy wonder to global pop superstar to sad figure haunted by lawsuits, paparazzi and failed plastic surgery, was pronounced dead at U.C.L.A. Medical Center after arriving in a coma, a city official said. -
Sarah Palin
New York Times
Sarah Palin emerged on the political scene in Alaska, a self-described “hockey mom” and small-town mayor who ousted the incumbent governor to become the youngest person and first woman to hold the post in a state whose government had been dominated by many of the same faces since its inception. -
Tiger Woods
New York Times
Tiger Woods, one of the most dominant golfers ever, is taking an “indefinite break” from the sport to try to rebuild his personal life after a flood of reports of marital infidelities linking him to multiple women.
