The decade in culture

DISASTERS

Sept. 11, 2001: This day would come in at No. 1 on any most-important moments list. Not only has it impacted an entire decade of political policy, it also renewed public focus on terrorism and led the way into a more pessimistic decade. And besides its larger cultural impact, 9/11 spawned movies, music, books and all sorts of other pop culture products.
 
Hurricane Katrina: Disaster relief didn’t go nearly as well as it did during 9/11.

Columbia explosion: Seven astronauts were killed during re-entry.
 

POLITICS AND POLICIES

2008 Election: Though questions of racism, sexism and ageism abounded, this election season finally ended by giving the United States its first black president. It would have been historic at any outcome – either way, our country was going to have its first black president, its first female president, its oldest president, or its first female vice president.

2000 Election: This decade’s first presidential election was historic (and notorious) for very different reasons: After 35 days of waiting, recounts and hanging chads, the Supreme Court finally stepped in to put an end to the madness.
 
Presidents: George W. Bush will go down in history as a “war” president. Will Barack Obama go down in history as a “hope” president? He still has those wars to worry about.

Gay marriage: It’s legal in four states (Iowa, Massachusetts, Vermont, Connecticut) – five if it weren’t for California’s Prop. 8.

Immigration: The Great Wall of Mexico isn’t keeping people out. Time for a policy change?

Wars: Battles in Afghanistan and Iraq have killed thousands, with most Americans still unsure of the point of both. They’ll probably still be happening in the next decade.

Scandals: Abu Ghraib and the NSA’s illegal wiretaps might not have gotten the most headlines – hello, State Party Crashers – but they were definitely more important.


WORLD EVENTS

Terrorism: It’s not just something the United States has dealt with since 9/11. Terror attacks in London, Madrid, Mumbai and across the Middle East have spurred the entire world to impose new travel rules, restrict cross-border traffic and implement or beef up existing anti-terrorism programs.

Darfur conflict: Though the war was propelled by race, the UN didn’t declare it genocide. Most of us probably still don’t know exactly what’s happening.

Nukes: North Korea probably has one, and Iran isn’t far behind.
 
The Euro: The first coins and bank notes rolled off the presses in 2002, with conspiracy theorists thinking the “Amero” is coming as well.
 

ECONOMY AND FINANCES

Financial crisis: From late 2007 to late 2009, we saw the downfall of three major U.S. economic institutions: the auto industry, the housing industry and the financial industry. Terms like “sub-prime mortgage,” “government bailout” and “stimulus package” are an increasingly anger-inducing part of our national lexicon, and with the recession officially over but unemployment still up, we’re not likely to get any happier any time soon.

Auto trouble: Who will win in the war between foreign and domestic? Oh, wait.

Airline trouble: We’re getting fewer amenities for higher prices.

Newspaper trouble: A lot of them went the way of the dinosaur this decade thanks to declining ad revenues and a failure to adapt to the Internet in time.
 

ENVIRONMENT

Global warming: More Al Gore and less Arctic ice have marked this decade’s struggle with keeping global temperatures from rising along with carbon dioxide emissions. Now it feels more like a political issue than anything else, as the name has changed to “climate change.”
 
Green energy: Wind and solar are the new stars as consumers begged for relief from high gas prices.
 
Green diets: Those concerned about the environment have gone organic or local.


HEALTH

Carb-curbing diets: Raise your hand if you tried Atkins or South Beach.

Obesity: Although the numbers have been steadily growing over the last 20 years, obesity is currently emerging as one of the most serious public health problems of the 21st century. More than 34 percent of U.S. adults are obese, according to the Centers for Disease Control.

New diseases: Acronyms and flus reigned with MRSA, SARS, avian flu and H1N1.

Health coverage: The un- and under-insured are piling up as more information is released about the insurance providers’ sketchy processes.
 

SCIENCE

The Human Genome Project: All 20,000 to 25,000 are mapped, but we still don’t have an exact number.
 
Water in space: It was found on Mars’ polar caps in 2002. This year it was discovered under the surface of the Moon. Maybe we can start building that Moon base now.
 
Pluto: It’s officially a dwarf planet. How sad.
 
CERN Large Hadron Collider: After much hype, the massive machine that hopes to re-create a Big Bang-like event was turned on – and we didn’t all die. But the Collider has been cursed, breaking down and delaying constantly, which might suggest it’s a bad idea to keep it on for very long.
 
Space tourism: Russia’s already doing it, and Virgin Galactic isn’t far behind.
 

TECHNOLOGY

Dot-com bubble (and burst): After steady growth in the 1990s, businesses in the Internet sector could no longer maintain that momentum in the early 2000s, sending the stock market tumbling and most dot-com firms filing for bankruptcy.
 
Internet use: It tripled from 1997 to 2007, according to the Census Bureau.  
 
Web 2.0: Facebook, blogging and other interactive applications went a long way toward aiding that growth. Social media will perhaps keep our generation moving forward.

Apple’s ascendancy: Thanks to the iPhone and the iPod, we’ve all developed degenerative thumb cartilage.

Google as Internet overlord: When was the last time you went on the Web and didn’t see the Google logo somewhere?


POP CULTURE

Reality TV: Although they’ve always been around, reality programs saw big growth early in the decade due to their cheapness to produce and non-union-represented writing staffs.

Fake news: Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert know their shows are a joke. Sadly, Bill O’Reilly and Glenn Beck can’t say the same about theirs.
 
Unnecessary Hiltons: Paris and Perez have really only been annoying us since the middle of the decade, but it feels like so much longer.
 
Britney Spears: “Oops!” ... she shaved her head. And had a mental and physical breakdown. Then made at least two separate comebacks in the decade’s latter half.
 
Brad Pitt’s partners: For the first half of the decade he was with Jen Aniston; now he’s with Angelina Jolie and they have six kids. “Brangelina” has a much better ring to it than “Brennifer,” don’t you think?
 

BOOKS

Fake memoirs: James Frey and Herman Rosenblat even had the audacity to shill their lies to Oprah. OPRAH!
 
Tween fantasies: From “Harry Potter” to “Twilight,” the young ’uns couldn’t get enough monsters and magic this decade.

“The DaVinci Code”: It became a cultural phenomenon, spawned a horrible movie and numerous literary rip-offs and caused stay-at-home moms to believe every word was true, all while staying on the New York Times’ Bestseller list for more than two years.
 

DEATHS

Michael Jackson’s death: Poor Farrah Fawcett. She was unlucky enough to die the exact same day as the biggest pop star of the 20th century.
 
Pope John Paul II’s death: He was the second-longest serving pope, after Pope Pius IX.   
 
Other deaths: Ted Williams, Barry White, Bob Hope, Johnny Cash, Christopher Reeve, most of the Ramones, Ray Charles, Ronald Reagan, Gerald Ford, James Brown, Evel Knievel, Kurt Vonnegut Jr., Liz Claiborne, Bo Diddley, Charlton Heston, Isaac Hayes, Paul Newman, Yves Saint-Laurent, Bea Arthur, Eunice Shriver, John Hughes, John Updike, Les Paul, Ted Kennedy and Walter Cronkite, among others.
 

SPORTS

Pacers/Pistons brawl: How embarrassing for us.
 
Super Bowl XXXVIII: One word – Nipplegate.
 
Major rivalries: Colts/Patriots in the NFL, Yankees/Red Sox in the MLB and Spurs/Lakers in the NBA.
 
Summer Olympics: The United States might have won the most medals, but China kicked our ass in gold in 2008. Just like in everything else.