T/TAS 40th Anniversary  - History-Making Headlines from The 2000's

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2000
AOL Buys Time Warner for $162 billion
Vermont legalizes civil unions for same-sex couples
Concorde crash kills 113, essentially ending flights for the supersonic jetliner
6 year old Elian Gonzalez from Cuba is returned to his father
USS Cole attacked in Yemen
Bush-Gore election ends in virtual tie; Supreme Court rules to stop Florida recount, making George W. Bush president

2001
Apple launches the IPod
The 9/11 World Trade Center terror attacks occur
US attack on Afghanistan begins
Enron files Chapter 11 bankruptcy, making it the largest bankruptcy filing in US history at the time
"Shoebomber" Richard Reid caught on a Paris-Miami flight

2002
President Bush coins the term 'Axis of Evil'
"American Idol" debuts on the Fox channel
9 Pennsylvania miners are rescued after spending almost four days trapped in a flooded mine
D.C. Sniper suspects, John Allen Muhammad and minor Lee Boyd Malvo, are apprehended
Cardinal Bernard Law resigns as archbishop of Boston after church-sex scandal

2003
Space Shuttle Columbia breaks up on re-entry, killing seven astronauts
Secretary of State Colin Powell backs Bush administration's decision to remove Saddam Hussein
Club fire in Rhode Island kills 100 during Great White concert
US invades Iraq, beginning the Iraq War
Under "Mission Accomplished" banner, President Bush proclaims major combat in Iraq over
Largest blackout in US history blackens Northeast and Midwest
Saddam Hussein captured in farmhouse near Tikirt

2004
Madrid training bombing
Abu Ghraib prison scandal
Former President Reagan dies
Martha Stewart sentenced to prison for insider trading
President Bush defeats Sen. John Kerry in re-election
Earthquake triggers Asian tsunami that kills hundreds of thousands

2005
Terry Schaivo case becomes an emotionally charged battle in Congress
Pope John Paul II dies
Deep Throat mystery is over as fomer FBI executive, W. Mark Felt, emerges from the shadows
ABC News anchorman Peter Jennings dies of lung cancer
Hurricane Katrina hits New Orleans
California legislature legalizes same-sex marriages

2006
Twitter is built
Enron executives Ken Lay and Jeffrey Skilling are convicted of fraud
Steve "Crocodile Hunter" Irwin dies after getting fatally pierced in the chest by a stingray
Democrats take control of both Houses of Congress
Former President Ford dies
Saddam Hussein hanged in Iraq

2007
Nancy Pelosi becomes the first female Speaker of the House of Representatives
Anna Nicole Smith dies of apparent druge overdose
iPhone goes on sale in the US
The final installment of the Harry Potter book series hits store shelves
Track star Marion Jones admits to doping, and surrenders her Olympic medals
Benazir Bhutto, fomer Prime Minister of Pakistan, is killed by an Islamic assassin

2008
Actor Heath Ledger dies of an apparent drug overdose
American swimmer Michael Phelps wins eight gold medals in the 2008 Summer Olympics
President Bush signs Emergency Economic Stabilization Act
Illinois Sen. Barack Obama wins election as the country's first black president
President Bush announces a $17.4 billion rescue of the auto industry.
Bernard Madoff is arrested and charged with $50 billions in securities fraud

2009
US Airways flight lands on New York's Hudson River after engine malfunction, all survive
Barack Obama inaugurated as the 44th president of the United States
World Health Organization declares swine flue outbreak an international pandemic
Michael Jackson dies at his California home
Massachusetts Sen. Ted Kennedy dies
Fort Hood shooting leaves 14 dead

2010
The tallest man-made structure to date, the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, is officially opened
A 7.0-magnitude earthquake occurs in Haiti, devastating the nation's capital, Port-au-Prince
The 2010 Winter Olympics are held in Vancouver and Whistler, Canada
The 2010 United States Census begins
33 Chilean miners were buried under tons of rock and rubble for nearly ten weeks, and eventually successful rescued on live television and internet coverage
The Deepwater Horizon oil platform explodes in the Gulf of Mexico
Scientists announced that they have created a functional synthetic genome|
The first 24-hour flight by a solar-powered plane is completed by the Solar Impulse
The World Health Organization declares the H1N1 influenza pandemic
The International Space Station surpasses the record for the longest continuous human occupation of space

2011
Arab Spring builds momentum - the revolutionary wave of demonstrations, protests, riots, and civil wars in the Arab world that began in December 2010
A 9.1-magnitude earthquake and subsequent tsunami hit the east of Japan, killing 15,840 and leaving another 3,926 missing
An estimated two billion people watch the wedding of Prince William, Duke of Cambridge and Catherine Middleton at Westminster Abbey in London
U.S. President Barack Obama announces that Osama bin Laden, the founder and leader of the militant group Al-Qaeda, has been killed during an American military operation in Pakistan.
The world's first artificial organ transplant is achieved, using an artificial windpipe coated with stem cells
Space Shuttle Atlantis lands successfully at Kennedy Space Center after completing STS-135, concluding NASA's space shuttle program
The first solar-powered spacecraft on a mission to Jupiter, is launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station
Occupy Wall Street protests begin in the United States. This develops into the Occupy movement which spreads to 82 countries by October
The United States formally declares an end to the Iraq War.

2012
The Diamond Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II marks the 60th anniversary of her accession to the throne
After 244 years since its first publication, the Encyclopædia Britannica discontinues its print edition
The 2012 World Expo takes place in Yeosu, South Korea
Lonesome George, the last known individual of the Pinta Island Tortoise subspecies, dies at a Galapagos National Park, thus making the subspecies extinct
The 2012 Summer Olympics are held in London, England, United Kingdom
Curiosity, the Mars Science Laboratory mission's rover, successfully lands on Mars
Austrian skydiver Felix Baumgartner becomes the first person to break the sound barrier without any machine assistance during a record space dive
Seven paintings worth $25 million are stolen from the Kunsthal in Rotterdam, the Netherlands 

2013
A meteor explodes over the Russian city of Chelyabinsk, injuring 1,491 people and damaging over 4,300 buildings
American scientists use a 3D printer to create a living lab-grown ear from collagen and animal ear cell cultures
 Benedict XVI resigns as pope, becoming the first to do so since Gregory XII in 1415
 Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Argentina is elected the 266th pope, whereupon he takes the name Francis
Two bombs explode at the Boston Marathon in Boston, Massachusetts, in the United States, killing 3 and injuring 264 others
American Edward Snowden discloses operations engaged by a US government mass surveillance program to news publications and flees the country
July 22, the Duchess of Cambridge Kate Middleton gave birth to a healthy baby boy, the first child of The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge 

Sources:
http://abcnews.go.com/US/Decade/ 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011  
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013

 

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