A Decade in Review: 2000

At first I was going to do a very extensive list of my favorite movies of the 2000s, but eventually I decided it would be more rewarding to go back over the decade as a whole. It's easy to forget how much has changed and how much hasn't. Time has called this "The Decade from Hell", but for me it's the formative years of my life. When it started I was 15 and now I'm 25. When it started stocks were reaching record highs, America was the sole international super-power, and boy bands were all the rage. I should point out that this was partly inspired by a vaguely similar feature going on over at Deadspin, though theirs is obviously much more sports-centric. Anyway, without further ado...

2000

NEWS

• The world does not explode due to Y2K. Celebrations around the world for the Millennium go off without a hitch, except for those naysayers who insist it’s not REALLY the millennium.
• America Online reaches a deal to buy Time Warner, forming AOL-Time Warner. This works out well for everyone.
• The “Dot Com Bubble” reaches its peak. This is the heyday of the Pets.com puppet.
• Meanwhile, Wall Street closes early due to Rage Against the Machine. There’s a story there, but I think I’ll just leave it at that.
• The last known Pyrenean Ibex is found dead, having apparently been killed by a falling tree.
• Dr. Harold Shipman is found guilty of murdering 15 of his patients.

SPORTS

• The St. Louis Rams defeat the Tennessee Titans 23-16 in Super Bowl XXXIV, after Titans WR Kevin Dyson is tackled at the one yard line with no time left. This is still my favorite Super Bowl of all time.
• The Oklahoma Sooners win the NCAA football championship.
• -Dan Marino plays in his final game, a 62-7 loss to Jacksonville. He never wins a championship.
• Brazilian soccer club Corinthians wins the first World Club Cup. Someday this will matter.
  

February

NEWS

• The race for the Republican presidential nomination heats up. John McCain upsets in New Hampshire but loses to George W. Bush in South Carolina amidst allegations of dirty tricks by the Bush campaign.
• Tarja Halonen is elected the first female President of Finland.
• Torrential rains in Africa leads to mass flooding in Mozambique, killing 800 people.

ARTS

• A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers is published.
• Charles Schulz dies, and the final original “Peanuts” comic strip is published soon after. It still can be seen in re-runs in newspapers everywhere ten years later.
• Santana wins 8 Grammys in one night, tying Michael Jackson’s record. Christina Aguilera wins Best New Artist.

SPORTS

• Superstar Ravens LB Ray Lewis is arrested outside the Super Bowl and charged with murder. He is eventually acquitted.
• The Mariners trade Ken Griffey Jr. to the Cincinnati Reds.

March

NEWS

• Vladimir Putin is elected President of Russia.
• The NASDAQ collapses. The DotCom boom is officially over. The NASDAQ has yet to get close to these levels again.
• George Bush and Al Gore continue to emerge victorious in various primaries and caucuses in the presidential race.
• Pope John Paul II makes the first official visit by a Catholic pontiff to Israel.
• Nupedia, the predecessor to Wikipedia, is launched.

ARTS

• American Beauty is the big winner at the Academy Awards, taking home Best Picture, Director, and Actor for Kevin Spacey.
• Budweiser starts running the “Whassup?” commercials. I’m sorry for reminding you.

April

NEWS

• The entire Elian Gonzalez drama occurs in Miami. He is eventually repatriated after a predawn raid. The entire business turns parts of the South Florida Hispanic community againt the current administration, which would prove crucial in the upcoming elections.
• The state of Vermont legalizes same sex marriage.
• Japanese Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi suffers a stroke and dies soon after.
• Microsoft is ruled to have violated US anti-trust laws, though not that much really ends up changing.
  
• Richard Baumhammers goes on a 2 hour racially-motivated shooting spree in Pittsburgh, killing 5.

ARTS

• Metallica sues Napster, quickly followed by Dr. Dre and Madonna. It’s the beginning of the end for the free music service.
• *NSYNC’s album No Strings Attached sells 2.4 million copies in its first week, more than doubling the previous record.
• The film version of American Psycho, starring Christian Bale, is released.

SPORTS

• Michigan State wins the NCAA basketball championship behind Mateen Cleaves. This is the last time to date that I successfully pick the winner in my tournament bracket.
• The NBA approves the sale of the Dallas Mavericks to Mark Cuban.

May

NEWS

• Israel withdraws its forces from southern Lebanon after 22 years.
• The ILOVEYOU virus, originating in the Philippines, spreads quickly throughout the computers of gullible e-mail users everywhere.
• The one billionth resident of India is born.
• Boo.com, a joint British-Swedish venture attempting to sell branded clothes on the internet, collapses after burning through $160 million in six months.

ARTS

• Eminem’s The Marshall Mathers LP is released and becomes a spectacular success. Rap is never quite the same, for better or worse.
• Ridley Scott’s Gladiator is released in theaters, single-handedly bringing back the sword-and-sandals epic and setting trends for movie scores that are still going on.
• Britney Spears’ Oops, I Did It Again is released.
• Party of Five and Beverly Hills 90210 go off the air.
• The Tate Modern Gallery opens in London.
• Lars Von Trier’s quasi-musical Dancer in the Dark, starring Bjork, wins the Palm D’Or at Cannes.

SPORTS

• Real Madrid wins their eighth European club soccer championship.

June

NEWS

• Scientists announce that they have what is essentially a rough draft of a fully-mapped human genome.
• Photos reveal that there is real water on Mars.
• “Section 28”, a law prohibiting the promotion of homosexuality, is repealed by the Scottish Parliament.

ARTS

• 9 die at a Pearl Jam concert in Denmark due to overcrowding.
• “405 the Movie” becomes the first short film to be widely distributed on the internet.
• Bon Jovi releases Crush, their first album in over 5 years. It is wildly successful.

SPORTS

• The Kobe Bryant/Shaquille O’Neal edition of the Los Angeles Lakers wins the NBA championship.
• The New Jersey Devils win the Stanley Cup four games to two over the Dallas Stars.
• Steve Young retires from the NFL.

July

NEWS

• The Republican Party holds its National Convention in Philadelphia, nominating Texas Governor George W. Bush for President and former Bush Defense Secretary Dick Cheney for Vice President.
• Vicente Fox is elected President of Mexico, ending a rather ridiculous 71 years of rule by the PRI party.
• A leaking petroleum pipeline in Nigeria explodes, killing 250 locals who were scavenging gasoline.
• The Concorde explodes on take-off from Charles de Gaulle Airport, ending the halcyon days of the transatlantic supersonic service. 109 people are killed, with four additional fatalities on the ground as the plane’s remains crash into a nearby hotel.

ARTS

• The first X-Men film, starring Hugh Jackman, Halle Berry, and Patrick Stewart, among others, is released and becomes a huge success, ushering in the Decade of the Comic Book Movie. The first Scary Movie comes out one week before.

SPORTS

• France wins the European Soccer Championships, held jointly in Belgium and the Netherlands. They become the first team to hold the European and World championships simultaneously.
• Pete Sampras wins his record 13^th Grand Slam title. No one cares because he’s boring. (I’m only sort of kidding about this)
• ABC announces it’s hiring Dennis Miller as an announcer for Monday Night Football.

August

NEWS

• The Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles nominates Vice President Al Gore and Senator Joe Lieberman of Connecticut for President and Vice President, respectively. In the future most alternate histories of this decade will probably center around these two.
  
• A Russian submarine sinks in the Barents Sea, resulting in the deaths of all 118 on board.

ARTS

• Dora the Explorer debuts. I find her too demanding.
• Richard Hatch, perhaps best described as a gay con-man nudist, wins the first season of Survivor. The era of Reality TV is upon us.
• Kirsten Dunst stars in Bring It On, probably the greatest cheerleading movie ever made, for whatever that’s worth.
• Alec Guinness dies.
• Vernor Vinge is awarded the Hugo for A Deepness in the Sky.

SPORTS

• Tiger Woods becomes the first golfer since 1953 to win three majors in one year with his victor at the PGA Championship.

September

NEWS

• Tuvalu joins the United Nations.
• Microsoft releases Windows ME.
• The Global Millennium Summit is held at the United Nations in New York City.

ARTS

• Cameron Crowe’s Almost Famous is released. More than one person later describes it to me as “maybe the most perfect movie ever made.”
• Madonna’s Music is her first number one album since Like a Prayer. It makes the people come together.

SPORTS

• The Summer Olympics are held in Sydney, Australia. Ian Thorpe and Cathy Freeman star for the home country. Marion Jones dominates women’s running events, though many years later her medals will be stripped. The United States tops the medals table.
• Indiana fires Bob Knight as their Men’s Basketball coach.

October

NEWS

• The USS Cole is badly damaged by two suicide bombers while in port at Aden, Yemen, killing 17 soldiers. The bombing is linked to a terror group known as al-Qaeda.
• Slobodan Milosevic leaves office as President of Serbia after widespread protests.
• October 30 is the most recent day (and for all we know maybe the last day ever) without a human presence in space. The next day a rocket launches from Kazakhstan carrying a crew to the International Space Station.

ARTS

• The PlayStation 2 is released, beginning the “Next Generation” of video game consoles.
• CSI, Gilmore Girls and Curb Your Enthusiasm debut.
• Meet the Parents is number one at the box office.
• Limp Bizkit’s Chocolate Starfish and the Hot-Dog Flavored Water breaks records for a rock album debut, though it is not close to *NSYNC numbers.
• Rage Against the Machine breaks up when Zak de le Rocha announces he is leaving the band.

SPORTS

• The Yankees beat the Mets 4-1 in a “Subway Series”. No one west of the Delaware cares, and the Series gets record-low ratings. The Series is best remembered for Roger Clemens throwing a broken bat at Mike Piazza.

November

NEWS

• The US Presidential Election ends in what is for all practical purposes a tie, despite Vice President Gore clearly winning the national popular vote. The campaign comes down to approximately 200 votes in Florida, over which the representative of each campaign battle for a month. The phrase “hanging chad” enters the national vocabulary.
• Meanwhile, in Iraq, Saddam Hussein throws out UN weapons inspectors, precipitating an international crisis.
• Hillary Clinton is elected to the U.S. Senate from New York, becoming the first First Lady to hold public office.
• An Illinois State Senator named Barack Obama loses his run for the U.S. House of Representatives.
• Hillary’s husband Bill becomes the first sitting U.S. President to visit Vietnam.
• Jean Chretien and the Liberal Party are re-elected in Canada.

ARTS

• M. Night Shyamalan’s “Unbreakable” is released, sparking debates among geeks that go on to this day.

December

NEWS

• The U.S. Supreme Court rules in Bush v. Gore, stopping the ongoing recounts in Florida. This gives the state and the Presidency to George W. Bush. The die is cast for a lot of the rest of the decade. Somewhere a polar bear cries.
  
• Deadly bombings in Indonesia and the Philippines kill dozens.

ARTS

• Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is the first Chinese film to crossover to the American box office,
• The Smashing Pumpkins play their final concert prior to breaking up in Chicago.
• Madonna marries British film director Guy Ritchie in Scotland.
• The film O Brother, Where Art Thou is released. Its soundtrack is credited with reviving national interest in traditional bluegrass music.
• Adult Swim premieres Aqua Teen Hunger Force, Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law, and Sealab 2021. Stoners and fans of dadaist comedy everywhere rejoice.
  

SPORTS

• The Texas Rangers sign Alex Rodriguez to a ten year, $252 million contract, shattering records.
• Pitcher Mike Mussina signs a contract with the New York Yankees. The Baltimore Orioles, among the top teams of the late nineties, have not been competitive since.
• Mario Lemieux announces his return to the NHL after a three year retirement.