A Decade in Review: 2006

January

NEWS

• Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon suffers a massive stroke. Power is transferred to his deputy, Ehud Olmert.
• Stephen Harper and the Conservative Party win elections in Canada, ending a long period of Liberal Party rule.
• Hamas, meanwhile, wins the majority of seats in the Palestinian Legislative Council, a victory that has since been used by some to point out that Democracy is occasionally flawed.
• Samuel Alito is sworn in as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, having replaced Harriet Miers when her candidacy collapsed.
• The Dow Jones Industrial Average closes above 11,000 for the first time since 2001. If you sold right then you’re probably sitting pretty.
• NASA’s Stardust mission returns dust from a comet to Earth for the first time.
• Sen. Barack Obama appears on Meet the Press and tells Tim Russert that he is not going to run for President in 2008.
• Coretta Scott King dies.

ARTS

• Disney announces plans to acquire Pixar, which weirdly feels like the surrender of traditional animation to the computer age.
• Meanwhile, The Disney Channel’s most successful project in quite some time is released, High School Musical. Part of you doesn’t want to hate it, but you probably should.
• Time-traveling cop drama Life on Mars premieres on the BBC, and is a big enough success that it eventually gets an inferior American remake.
• The Nintendo DS hand-held video game system is released. General verdict is that it’s fun but has some pretty random features.

SPORTS

• Vince Young pretty much single-handedly leads the Texas Longhorns to a 41-38 victory in the NCAA national championship over a star-laden USC Trojans team, in one of the other candidates for Greatest College Football Game of All-Time. The game breaks the Trojans 34-game winning streak.
• Kobe Bryant scores 81 points in a game for the Los Angeles Lakers. This is the second most in one game in NBA history, and the most since 1962.

February

NEWS

• An Egyptian passenger ferry carrying more than 1,400 people sinks in the Red Sea near Saudi Arabia.
• 67 are killed in a stampede in Pasig City, Philippines. The stampede is caused by those trying to get in to participate in an anniversary edition the hit Filipino game show, Wowowee.
• A bomb heavily damages the al-Askari mosque, an important Shiite holy site in Samarra, Iraq.
• Vice President Cheney accidentally shoots a friend of his in the face while on a hunting trip, though thankfully the friend survives and later gives a press conference saying it was not the Vice President’s fault.
  

ARTS

• U2 is the biggest winner at the Grammys, and Kelly Clarkson becomes the first American Idol contestant to win one.
• The one billionth song is downloaded from iTunes. The song is “Speed of Sound” by Coldplay.

SPORTS

• The 2006 Winter Olympics are held in Turin, Italy. Snowboard Cross is held for the first time and is remembered for American Lindsay Jacobellis’ unnecessary fall just before the finish. Interest in the U.S. is generally thought to be down, as several hyped U.S. athletes fail to medal. Still, the Americans finish second on the medal table, just behind Germany. Sweden wins Men’s Ice Hockey Gold and Shizuka Arakawa of Japan surprises to take Ladies’ Figure Skating.
• The Pittsburgh Steelers easily defeat the Seattle Seahawks 21-20 in Super Bowl XL. The Steelers are led by the second-year QB Ben Roethlisberger and veteran RB Jerome Bettis, who retires after the game. Many afterwards feel the Steelers were on the right side of far too many questionable officiating calls in the game.

March

NEWS

• The Blu-Ray disc format is released in the U.S., allowing DVDs to be watched in high definition.
• A 28-year-old man enters a house in Seattle and opens fire, killing six before shooting himself. There is no apparent motive.
• The ETA announces a permanent cease-fire in its violent fight for Basque independence from Spain.
• Marcos Pontes becomes the first Brazilian in space after blasting off in a Russian Soyuz spacecraft.
• The Cassini spacecraft discovers geysers of some kind of liquid on the surface of Saturn’s moon Enceladus, leading some to conclude there may be water there.

ARTS

• Crash upsets Brokeback Mountain to win Best Picture at the Oscars, leading some to conclude that many Academy members would not watch the latter due to its Gay themes. Ang Lee does prevail as Best Director. Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Reese Witherspoon, George Clooney, and Rachel Weisz win the acting awards.
• Top Chef and Big Love make their debuts. Meanwhile, FOX cancels Arrested Development.
• Politically-tinged graphic novel adaptation V for Vendetta opens in theaters.

SPORTS

• George Mason University becomes the lowest seeded team ever to reach the NCAA Men’s Basketball Final Four with a last-second 86-84 over #1-ranked Connecticut.
• The first World Baseball Classic is held, an attempt to emulate the success of international Soccer, Hockey, and Rugby by allowing Major League stars to compete for their home countries. Japan, led by Ichiro Suzuki and young pitcher Daisuke Matsuzaka, defeats Cuba in the final. Meanwhile, the U.S. crashes out with losses to Canada and Mexico.
• Major League Baseball commissions former Sen. George Mitchell to prepare a report on steroid use in the sport.
• Baseball great Kirby Puckett dies.
• Scandal erupts in North Carolina after an exotic dancer accuses several members of the Duke University Lacrosse team of rape. The accusations turn out to probably be baseless, pursued by an overzealous prosecutor who loses their job.

April

NEWS

• Rep. Tom DeLay of Texas, amidst a variety of scandals, steps down as House Majority Leader. He is replaced by Rep. John Boehner of Ohio.
• Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announces that his nation has successfully created a few grams of enriched uranium.
• Massive anti-war demonstrations nationwide mark the third year of the Iraq War.
• Former Gov. George Ryan of Illinois is found guilty of racketeering.

ARTS

• Stephen Colbert causes a stir when he spends his entire speech at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner ribbing a not-amused President Bush to his face.
• Mary J. Blige’s “Be Without You” becomes the most successful song in the history of the Billboard R&B chart.
• Paul Greengrass is acclaimed by critics for his cinema verite-tinged United 93, the first wide-release film to take the September 11 attacks as its direct subject.
• Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes’ daughter Suri is born.

SPORTS

• After defeating George Mason in the Semifinals, Florida beats UCLA to win the NCAA Men’s Basketball Championship.

May

NEWS

• More than 6,000 are killed by an earthquake that strikes Central Java. 1.5 million are left homeless.
• Henry Paulson is nominated to be the new Secretary of the Treasury.
• Demonstrators across the United States protest for increased rights for immigrants, though their biggest success is probably in making bigots even more frightened.
• The last survivor of the Titanic disaster dies.

ARTS

• Katie Couric leaves The Today Show to move to CBS and become the first solo female nightly news anchor on a major network.
• MTV pioneers the next generation of reality shows with The Hills.
• Blockbuster season enters full swing in theaters headlined by the film adaptation of The Da Vinci Code, starring Tom Hanks, and the over-loud and over-busy third X-Men film.
  Finnish heavy metal band Lordi wins the Eurovision Song Contest, drawing chuckles from cool people the world over.
• Keeping with that themed, weird-looking white-haired guy Taylor Hicks wins the fifth season of American Idol and then turns out to be pretty much unmarketable.
• Paul McCartney separates from his wife Heather Mills.
• The final episode of The West Wing airs on NBC to much fanfare, though some of us felt the luster has been off for a few years by now.
• Also ending this month are That 70s Show, Alias, and Charmed.

SPORTS

• Barbaro turns heads winning the Kentucky Derby, but tragically breaks his leg in the Preakness and eventually has to be put down.
• FC Barcelona wins the UEFA Champions League title.

June

NEWS

• Abu Musab al-Zarqaqi, the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq, is killed along with seven of his aides by an American air raid just north of Baqouba.
• The Senate rejects a Constitutional amendment banning gay marriage by a vote of 49-48.
• Montenegro declares its independence after a referendum on the subject passes. Within a few weeks, the union of Serbia and Montenegro is dissolved, leaving two separate nations.
• Seventeen men are arrested in Toronto and accused of plotting to blow up various high-profile targets in the region.
• Later this month, the FBI arrests seven men in Miami and accuses them with plotting to bomb the Sears Tower in Chicago. However, it soon comes out that the men are not really even close to being able to do this.
• Bill Gates theoretically steps down as Microsoft Chairman, but no one really believes this.

ARTS

• Pixar releases Cars, universally thought to be the worst the studio has ever produced.
• Bryan Singer tries to reboot the Superman franchise with Superman Returns, but fails to make a) an interesting movie, or b) a profit due to his immense budget.
• Shakira’s “Hips Don’t Lie” breaks single week records for most downloads and most radio airplay, and is miraculously not that annoying.

SPORTS

• The Miami Heat finish off their one great year with Dwyane Wade and Shaquille O’Neal and win the NBA Finals over the high-flying.
• The Carolina Hurricanes win the Stanley Cup, though NHL television ratings are now infinitesimal.

July

NEWS

• Terrorist simultaneously set off seven bombs on passenger trains in Mumbai. 209 die and over 700 are injured.
• North Korea attempts to make a whole weird convoluted statement by test firing missiles simultaneously with the launch of the Space Shuttle Discovery and American July 4 celebrations.
• Israel invades Lebanon in response to Hezbollah kidnapping two Israeli soldiers.

ARTS

• The sequel Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest breaks single-day and opening weekend records at the box office and goes on to become the year’s top grosser. Many feel it is a disappointment but it is remembered for spectacular special effects.
• OK Go’s “Here It Goes Again” music video is a huge viral internet hit, signaling the re-birth of the music video on the smaller screen.
• Quirky indie comedy Little Miss Sunshine becomes the art house hit of the year. It goes on to win multiple Oscars and get a Best Picture nomination.
• Mel Gibson is pulled over for drunk driving in California and it becomes a major news story when the star proceeds to make a series of anti-semitic remarks to the police officers on the scene.

SPORTS

• The soccer World Cup is held in Germany, and is mostly characterized by defensive play and weird officiating So many cards are issues in the Portugal/Netherlands quarterfinal that there’s barely enough players to finish. Italy defeats France on penalties in a Final mostly remembered for French superstar Zinedine Zidane’s inexplicable head-butt of Italy’s Marco Materazzi in Overtime.
• Floyd Landis wins the Tour de France but flunks a drug test immediately afterwards. Landis continues to loudly proclaim his innocence, but his championship is taken away.

August

NEWS

• London police make 21 arrests in relation to a plot to blow up airplanes en route from the U.K. to the U.S. The plot apparently involved the use of liquid and gel explosives hidden shampoo bottles, etc. Liquids and gels are immediately banned from airplanes, though tiny amounts are now allowed through checks in see-through bottles.
• Pluto is demoted from the status of “planet” at a meeting of the International Astronomical Union, causing lots of weird jokes and international eye-rolling, though the astronomers were just trying to do their jobs.
• Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, former Democratic Vice Presidential candidate but later outspoken Iraq War supporter, loses his Primary for re-election but announces he will run in November as an independent.
• The U.N. brokers a peace agreement in the Israel/Lebanon War.
• In Austria, Natascha Kampusch manages to escape after being held by Wolfgang Priklopil for eight years in his basement. The story makes international headlines. Priklopil throws himself in front of a train.
• John Mark Karr creates a media frenzy by confessing to the infamous JonBenet Ramsey murder, but is quickly discovered to be lying.

ARTS

• Edvard Munch’s The Scream is recovered by a police raid in Oslo.
• Oliver Stone’s big studio drama version of 9/11, World Trade Center, flops at the box office. Studios conclude audiences are not interested in dramas about current events. Stone has not gotten to make another movie.
• Sci-Fi Channel cancels Stargate SG-1 after a rather inexplicable 10 seasons and over 200 episodes.

SPORTS

• Tony Kornheiser is added to the Monday Night Football announcing booth.

September

NEWS

• Congressman Mark Foley of Florida resigns after his sexually aggressive text messages to male Congressional pages are publicized. We are well on our way to the word “sexting” being used in newspaper headlines.
• A coup d’etat in Bangkok precipitates an ongoing crisis. Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra is removed by members of the Royal Thai Army. Mass protests follow.
• During a lecture in Germany, Pope Benedict XVI quotes a source criticizing the Islamic faith. Mass protests ensue in the Muslim world.
• Tony Blair announces that he plans to resign as Prime Minister and hand power to Gordon Brown.
• Spinach contaminated with E. Coli poisons at least 100 people across the U.S. I always knew spinach would be trouble.

ARTS

• Crocodile Hunter host Steve Irwin dies after being stabbed in the heart by a stingray off the Great Barrier Reef.
• The Road by Cormac McCarthy, a ultra-bleak post-apocalyptic book with literary pedigree, is published, draws critical raves, and becomes an unlikely bestseller when Oprah selects it for her book club.
• Christina Aguilera and Beyonce Knowles release hit albums in the same week.
• Fear Factor airs its final episode.
• High concept dramas premiere on most of the major networks. Superhero serial Heroes is the biggest hit, on NBC.

SPORTS

• Former Eagle and current Dallas Cowboys WR Terrell Owens creates a media firestorm after he takes too many pills. A public debate ensues over whether he tried to kill himself or simply overdosed accidentally.

October

NEWS

• South Korean Ban Ki-Moon is elected as the new Secretary General of the United Nations.
• Google buys YouTube for $1.65 billion, the first step in Google’s gradual world takeover.
• Charles Carl Roberts shoots and kills five girls in an Amish schoolhouse in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania before killing himself.
• 13 die after a freak massive snowstorm paralyzes Buffalo, New York. Over 400,000 spend several days without electricity.
• President Bush publicly admits that the Iraq War is “not going well.”
• The U.S. population officially reaches 300 million.

ARTS

• Martin Scorsese’s latest gangster drama, The Departed, this time set in the Boston irish mob, starring Jack Nicholson, Matt Damon, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Mark Wahlberg among others, still surprises insiders by becoming a major hit (mostly due to its violent content and depressing ending).
• Sofia Coppola ignites a widespread debate among film nerds with Marie Antoinette. Most either hate it with a fiery passion or call her a female Kubrick.
• The final Lemony Snicket book is published.
• The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins is published, heralding a new faction of public, in your face Atheism. I read it and am not particularly impressed.
• Weird Al Yankovic finally gets his first Top 10 hit after 25 years, with “White and Nerdy”.
• The rock world finds itself debating the deliciously overblown My Chemical Romance album “The Black Parade”.
• It’s a good month for new TV shows. 30 Rock, Dexter, Friday Night Lights, and Torchwood premiere.

SPORTS

• The St. Louis Cardinals win the World Series in five games over the Detroit Tigers. The Cardinals regular season record is the worst ever for a Series champ, 83-78, and a debate ensues as to whether the Cardinals are the weakest champion ever. Albert Pujols gets his championship.
• Legendary Celtics coach Red Auerbach dies.

November

NEWS

• Somewhat surprisingly, the Democrats win big in mid-term elections, gaining control of both the House of Representatives and the Senate. Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi of California becomes the first female Speaker of the House of Representatives. Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania is among those who lose their seats. Sherrod Brown defeats incumbent Republican Sen. Mike DeWine in Ohio. Sen. Joe Lieberman wins re-election as an independent in Connecticut.
• Missouri voters pass a ballot measure funding stem cell research, which had caused a famous feud between Rush Limbaugh and Michael J. Fox.
• Though six out of seven states with similar ballot measures pass them, Arizona becomes the first state to defeat by popular vote a ban on gay marriage.
• Saddam Hussein is found guilty of “crimes against humanity” by an Iraqi court and sentenced to death by hanging.
• A series of bomb and mortar attacks by insurgents terrorize the Baghdad neighborhood of Sadr City. At least 215 die.
• Alexander Litvinenko’s dies in London after being poisoned, allegedly by the Russian government. International intrigue ensues.
• Typhoon Durian hits the Philippines. At least 720 die when it triggers a mudslide on Luzon.
• Ted Haggard resigns as head of the New Life Church after admitting to having homosexual liaisons while doing crystal meth. Nobody’s perfect, I suppose.

ARTS

• The PlayStation 3 is released in North America, followed two days later by Nintendo’s semi-revolutionary Wii system, a mostly successful attempt to finally bring video gaming to the grandmas of the world.
• Sacha Baron Cohen’s semi-documentary Borat touches a nerve in the cultural zeitgeist and rips Middle American ignorance a new one.
• The James Bond franchise is re-ignited and modernized by Casino Royale starring Daniel Craig as the famous spy.
• Arabic news network al-Jazeera’s English language channel hits the air, though no cable service in the U.S. will carry it.
• Snow Patrol are the first British band in the last 13 years to reach the top 5 on the U.S. album charts.
• Gears of War is released for the Xbox 360, and ends up as the years highest selling original game.
• Robert Altman and Jack Palance die.

SPORTS

• Bo Schembechler dies, and the Dead Schembechlers temporarily consider renaming themselves before deciding heck with it.

December

NEWS

• Saddam Hussein is hanged in Baghdad.
• Former President Gerald Ford dies.
• Robert Gates, usually seen as a more moderate choice, replaces Donald Rumsfeld as Secretary of Defense.
• Felipe Calderon is inaugurated as President of Mexico, and Hugo Chavez is re-elected as President of Venezuela.
• Ohio bans smoking in all bars and public places after a ballot initiative in the November election.
• Sen. Tim Johnson of South Dakota suffers a stroke during a radio interview.
• ETA breaks its cease-fire by setting off a bomb in the Madrid airport, killing 2.
• The Chinese River Dolphin officially becomes extinct
• The American death toll in Iraq reaches 3,000.

ARTS

• Dreamgirls, a musical about a fictionalized version of the Supremes, is chief among the end of year Oscar bait films. However, it ends up missing a Best Picture slot, resulting in some charges of Oscar racism.
• Meanwhile, more indie-inclined film viewers are graced with two of the decade’s best SF films, Alfonso Cuaron’s Children of Men and Guillermo Del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth.
• Hannibal Rising by Thomas Harris is published, the fourth book to feature the character of Hannibal Lecter.

SPORTS

• The Boston Red Sox win a bidding war and pay $50 million to Daisuke Matsuzaka’s Japanese team just for the right to negotiate with the pitcher. They eventually sign him to a massive contract.