2002 Pop Culture History

In 2002, the United States was still processing September 11, the Enron scandal was unraveling in ways that implicated its accounting firm along with it, American Idol premiered and immediately became the most-watched show on television, and My Big Fat Greek Wedding — a small independent film made for $5 million — quietly became the highest-grossing romantic comedy in American history. Spider-Man swung onto screens and made over $800 million. Eminem spent the fall at number one. It was a year that moved between grief and distraction with the particular rhythm of a country still finding its footing.

Quick Facts from 2002

• World-Changing Events: President Bush’s “Axis of Evil” speech on January 29 named Iraq, Iran, and North Korea as state sponsors of terror; on January 1, Euro banknotes and coins became legal tender in twelve European Union member states; Elon Musk founded SpaceX on May 6
• Top Song: Lose Yourself by Eminem, the best-performing single of the year on the Billboard Year-End Hot 100
• Influential Songs: The Rising by Bruce Springsteen, Stole by Kelly Rowland, Cleanin’ Out My Closet by Eminem, A Thousand Miles by Vanessa Carlton, Sk8er Boi by Avril Lavigne
• Must-See Movies: Spider-Man, The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, My Big Fat Greek Wedding, Chicago, Barbershop, Lilo and Stitch, and Scooby-Doo
• Most Famous Fictional Person in America: Spider-Man
• People’s Sexiest Man Alive: Ben Affleck
• Notable Books: John Adams by David McCullough and The Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren
• Price of a Postage Stamp: 37 cents
• Wendy’s Single with Cheese: $2.25
• Land O’Lakes Butter, 1 lb: $3.99
• The Funny Late Night Host: Jay Leno
• The Conversation: Did you watch American Idol last night? And what do you think is going to happen with Iraq?

Top Ten Baby Names of 2002

Girls: Emily, Madison, Hannah, Emma, Alexis
Boys: Jacob, Michael, Joshua, Matthew, Ethan

Emily held the top spot for girls for the sixth consecutive year. Jacob had been number one for boys for four straight years. Madison, which had been essentially unused as a girl’s name before the 1984 film Splash popularized it, rose to second place in under two decades, one of the fastest climbs in the history of American baby naming.

Fashion Icons and Sex Symbols of 2002

Jennifer Garner, Angelina Jolie, Gisele Bündchen, Christina Ricci, Debra Messing, Britney Spears, Halle Berry, Faith Hill, Ashanti, Jennifer Aniston, Liv Tyler, Jennifer Love Hewitt, Selma Blair, Kim Cattrall, Kate Beckinsale, Kylie Minogue, Brittany Murphy, Winona Ryder, Julianne Moore, Christina Applegate, Rebecca Romijn-Stamos, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Sarah Jessica Parker, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Cameron Diaz, Jennifer Lopez, Gwyneth Paltrow, Jennifer Connelly, Nicole Kidman

Halle Berry won the Academy Award for Best Actress in 2002, becoming the first Black woman to win in that category. Catherine Zeta-Jones won Best Supporting Actress for Chicago the same year. Jennifer Aniston was in the final season of Friends, which had been the most-watched sitcom in America for most of the preceding decade.

The Heartthrobs of 2002

Brad Pitt, David Beckham, Tim McGraw, Russell Crowe, Justin Timberlake, Leonardo DiCaprio, George Clooney, Ashton Kutcher, Ryan Gosling, Adam Levine

The Quotes

“My precious.” — Andy Serkis as Gollum in The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, a line delivered through a motion-capture performance that was unlike anything audiences had seen before and that raised serious questions about whether Serkis deserved awards consideration that the Academy chose not to resolve

“What happens here, stays here.” — the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, in an advertising campaign that became one of the most recognized slogans in American tourism history

Time Magazine’s Persons of the Year

The Whistleblowers — represented by Cynthia Cooper of WorldCom, Coleen Rowley of the FBI, and Sherron Watkins of Enron. All three had raised internal alarms about institutional failures — accounting fraud at WorldCom, pre-9/11 intelligence lapses at the FBI, and the financial manipulation that destroyed Enron — and had been largely ignored until the consequences became unavoidable. Time’s selection was a recognition that the year’s most important stories had been broken not by journalists but by insiders willing to risk their careers.

Miss America and Miss USA

Miss America: Katie Harman, Gresham, Oregon
Miss USA: Shauntay Hinton, Washington, DC

We Lost in 2002

Lisa “Left Eye” Lopes, founding member of TLC and one of the most distinctive presences in 1990s R&B and hip-hop, died April 25, 2002, at age 30, in a car accident in Honduras, where she had been staying at a retreat. She was the driver. The accident occurred on a rural road when she swerved to avoid another vehicle. She had been in Honduras working on a personal documentary project. TLC had been one of the best-selling female groups in history, with over 65 million records sold.

Jam Master Jay, born Jason Mizell, the DJ for Run-DMC whose turntable work helped establish the sonic template for hip-hop as a mainstream genre, was shot and killed on October 30, 2002, in his recording studio in Jamaica, Queens. He was 37. The case went unsolved for nearly two decades until federal charges were filed in 2020. Run-DMC had been among the first hip-hop acts to cross over into mainstream rock audiences, to appear on MTV, and to collaborate with rock artists — their 1986 recording of Walk This Way with Aerosmith is widely credited with bridging the two genres.

Dudley Moore, British comedian and actor whose performances in Arthur and 10 had made him one of the most recognizable comic presences of the 1980s, died March 27, 2002, at age 66, of pneumonia following a long struggle with progressive supranuclear palsy, a degenerative brain condition.

Milton Berle, the comedian and television pioneer known as “Uncle Miltie” and “Mr. Television,” whose Texaco Star Theatre had been one of the first major television hits in the late 1940s, died March 27, 2002, at age 93. He and Dudley Moore died on the same day.

Rosemary Clooney, the singer and actress whose recording of Come On-a My House was one of the biggest hits of the early 1950s and whose later career as a jazz vocalist earned enduring critical respect, died June 29, 2002, at age 74. She was George Clooney’s aunt.

Chuck Jones, the animator and director responsible for creating or developing Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, Wile E. Coyote, the Road Runner, Pepe Le Pew, and Marvin the Martian — among the most recognizable cartoon characters in history — died February 22, 2002, at age 89.

Ted Williams, the Hall of Fame baseball player widely considered the greatest hitter in the history of the game and the last player to hit .400 in a season, died July 5, 2002, at age 83. Following his death, his son John Henry Williams arranged for his body to be cryonically preserved at the Alcor Life Extension Foundation in Arizona, a decision that was contested by his daughter Bobby-Jo and generated considerable public controversy. Williams had reportedly expressed a wish to be cremated and have his ashes scattered at sea.

America in 2002 — The Context

The United States was in the first full year of what would become the longest war in its history. Operations in Afghanistan, which had begun in October 2001, were ongoing. The Bush administration was simultaneously building the political and intelligence case for military action against Iraq, and President Bush’s January 29 State of the Union address — in which he described Iraq, Iran, and North Korea as an “Axis of Evil” — announced the direction of that effort clearly. The speech drew immediate international reaction, particularly from the named countries and from European allies who were skeptical of the framing.

The Department of Homeland Security was established in November 2002, the largest reorganization of the federal government since the creation of the Department of Defense in 1947. It consolidated 22 separate agencies and approximately 180,000 employees under a single cabinet department. The Transportation Security Administration, created in the aftermath of September 11, was among the entities folded into it.

The wave of corporate scandals in 2001-2002 continued throughout the year. WorldCom, the telecommunications giant, disclosed in June 2002 that it had fraudulently reported $3.8 billion in expenses as capital expenditures, inflating its profits. It filed for bankruptcy in July, the largest bankruptcy filing in American history at the time, surpassing Enron’s filing from seven months earlier. The accounting firm Arthur Andersen, which had audited both Enron and WorldCom, was convicted of obstruction of justice and effectively ceased to exist, dissolving one of the world’s largest accounting firms.

The Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, signed by President Bush on March 27, 2002, included the “Stand By Your Ad” provision, which required political candidates to state “I approved this message” in their campaign advertisements. The requirement was intended to discourage candidates from running attack ads they were unwilling to personally endorse. The extent to which it achieved this goal has been a subject of ongoing discussion.

The Scandals

The Enron collapse, which began with the company’s bankruptcy filing in December 2001, continued to unfold in 2002 as the full scope of the fraud became clear. Executives had used complex off-balance-sheet partnerships to hide billions in debt and inflate reported profits. Its auditor, Arthur Andersen, was found to have shredded documents related to the audit and was convicted of obstruction of justice. The conviction was later overturned by the Supreme Court on technical grounds, but Arthur Andersen had already effectively dissolved, with most of its clients and staff having departed. The scandal contributed directly to the passage of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, which imposed new accounting oversight requirements on public companies.

R. Kelly was the subject of a widely circulated videotape in February 2002, which his lawyers argued did not depict him. Criminal charges were filed in June 2002. He would not stand trial until 2008, when he was acquitted. Federal charges eventually caught up with him in 2021, when he was convicted on nine counts of racketeering and sex trafficking and sentenced to 30 years in prison.

Michael Jackson held his infant son Prince Michael II over the railing of a fourth-floor hotel balcony in Berlin on November 19, 2002, while fans watched from below. The image was immediately broadcast worldwide. Jackson later apologized, describing it as a mistake made in a moment of enthusiasm while trying to show the child to fans. The baby, later nicknamed Blanket, was later known as Bigi Jackson.

Winona Ryder was sentenced on November 6, 2002, following her conviction on two counts of felony grand theft and one count of vandalism for shoplifting $5,500 worth of merchandise from a Saks Fifth Avenue in Beverly Hills. She received three years’ probation, 480 hours of community service, $6,355 in restitution, and a fine. The trial received coverage that was, by most assessments, disproportionate to its legal significance.

Robert Blake, the actor best known for the 1970s television series Baretta, was arrested in April 2002 and charged with the murder of his wife, Bonny Lee Bakley, who had been shot in his car outside a restaurant in Studio City in May 2001. He was acquitted of criminal charges in March 2005 following a jury trial, but was subsequently found liable in a civil suit and ordered to pay $30 million in damages.

Pop Culture Facts and History

American Idol premiered on Fox on June 11, 2002, a format acquired from the British series Pop Idol. The first season ended with Kelly Clarkson defeating Justin Guarini in the finale on September 4, 2002. Clarkson’s first single, A Moment Like This, reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 within weeks. The show became the most-watched program on American television and remained so for most of the following decade, producing careers ranging from Clarkson’s sustained commercial success to a broader array of outcomes.

Spider-Man, directed by Sam Raimi and starring Tobey Maguire, opened May 3, 2002, and became the first film to gross $100 million in its opening weekend in American box office history. It was the highest-grossing film of the year and demonstrated that superhero films could be both critical and commercial successes, a lesson the studios of the following decade took seriously.

My Big Fat Greek Wedding, written by and starring Nia Vardalos, was produced for $5 million and grossed $369 million worldwide, making it the highest-grossing romantic comedy in American history and one of the most profitable films ever made relative to its budget. It spent 52 weeks in the top ten at the box office, a record for a live-action film.

Chicago, the film adaptation of the long-running Broadway musical, directed by Rob Marshall and starring Renée Zellweger, Catherine Zeta-Jones, and Richard Gere, was released December 27, 2002, and went on to win the Academy Award for Best Picture. It was the first musical to win Best Picture since Oliver! in 1968.

Elon Musk founded Space Exploration Technologies Corporation, known as SpaceX, on May 6, 2002, with $100 million of his own money from the sale of PayPal. The stated goal was to reduce space transportation costs and eventually enable the colonization of Mars. At the time of founding, the goal was widely considered ambitious to the point of impracticality.

Steve Fossett completed the first solo nonstop circumnavigation of the globe by balloon on July 4, 2002, landing in Queensland, Australia, after 14 days, 19 hours, and 51 minutes. He had attempted the feat five times previously. His balloon, the Spirit of Freedom, traveled approximately 20,626 miles.

Fujitsu marketed a tablet device called the iPad in 2002, using a trademark they had registered. Apple later paid Fujitsu $4 million to acquire the trademark before launching its own iPad in 2010. The negotiation was conducted quietly and Fujitsu’s prior claim was not widely known at the time of Apple’s launch.

Federal regulations required that all new passenger cars manufactured from model year 2002 onward include an interior trunk release, a glow-in-the-dark cable or handle allowing anyone trapped inside to open the trunk from within. The regulation followed a series of cases in which children had died after becoming trapped.

Claritin, which had been available only by prescription since its approval in 1993, was approved for over-the-counter sale in November 2002, making it the first non-sedating antihistamine available without a prescription in the United States. The change was significant for allergy sufferers and for the pharmaceutical industry’s approach to the prescription-to-OTC transition.

The Raëlian religious movement, which held that human life had been created by extraterrestrials, announced, through its associated company, Clonaid, in December 2002, that it had successfully cloned the first human baby. No scientific evidence for the claim was ever produced, no independent verification was permitted, and the claim was widely dismissed by the scientific community. The baby, referred to as Eve, has never been identified.

Nobel Prize Winners in 2002

Physics was awarded to Raymond Davis Jr. and Masatoshi Koshiba for pioneering contributions to astrophysics, in particular for the detection of cosmic neutrinos, and to Riccardo Giacconi for pioneering contributions to astrophysics, which have led to the discovery of cosmic X-ray sources. Davis and Koshiba had independently confirmed that the sun produces neutrinos at a rate inconsistent with existing models, leading to a fundamental revision of particle physics.

Chemistry went to John B. Fenn and Koichi Tanaka for their development of soft desorption ionization methods for mass spectrometric analyses of biological macromolecules, and to Kurt Wüthrich for his development of nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy for determining the three-dimensional structure of biological macromolecules in solution. These techniques made it possible to analyze proteins and other large biological molecules that had previously been too fragile for existing methods.

Physiology or Medicine was awarded to Sydney Brenner, H. Robert Horvitz, and John E. Sulston for their discoveries concerning the genetic regulation of organ development and programmed cell death. Their work using the roundworm C. elegans established a model for understanding how organisms develop and how cells are programmed to die — a process central to cancer research.

Literature went to Imre Kertész of Hungary, for writing that upholds the fragile experience of the individual against the barbaric arbitrariness of history. Kertész, a Holocaust survivor, had spent years in Auschwitz and Buchenwald. His novel Fatelessness, about a Hungarian Jewish teenager in the camps, had been rejected by Hungarian publishers for years before finally appearing in 1975.

The Peace Prize was awarded to Jimmy Carter for his decades of tireless efforts to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development. Carter was 78 at the time of the award and had been more active in his post-presidential humanitarian work than most presidents had been during their terms.

Economics went to Daniel Kahneman and Vernon L. Smith. Kahneman, a psychologist rather than an economist, was recognized for his work integrating insights from psychological research into economic science — the foundation of behavioral economics — which demonstrated that human beings do not make decisions the way classical economic models assumed. His collaboration with Amos Tversky, who had died in 1996 and therefore could not share the prize, was central to the work.

2002 Toys Inducted to the National Toy Hall of Fame

The Jigsaw Puzzle and Raggedy Ann were inducted in 2002. The jigsaw puzzle dates back to approximately 1760, when London mapmaker John Spilsbury mounted a map on wood and cut it along country borders as a geography teaching tool. It has been entertaining and frustrating people in roughly equal measure ever since.

2002 Christmas Gifts and First Appearances

Ugly Dolls debuted in 2002, created by David Horvath and Sun-Min Kim from a drawing Horvath had included in a letter. They became one of the more durable independent toy brands of the decade. Trivial Pursuit 20th Anniversary Edition was among the season’s notable gifts. American Idol merchandise was already appearing in stores by the holiday season, less than six months after the show’s premiere.

Broadway in 2002

Hairspray, based on John Waters’s 1988 film, opened August 15, 2002, at the Neil Simon Theatre and ran until January 4, 2009, accumulating 2,642 performances. It won eight Tony Awards, including Best Musical. The show’s celebration of integration, body positivity, and 1960s Baltimore has kept it in near-continuous production somewhere in the world since its Broadway debut.

Movin’ Out, a dance musical using Billy Joel’s catalog with choreography by Twyla Tharp, opened October 24, 2002, at the Richard Rodgers Theatre and ran until December 11, 2005. The show had no dialogue; the story was told entirely through dance. It won two Tony Awards including Best Choreography.

We Will Rock You, a jukebox musical built around the Queen catalog, opened September 25, 2002, at the Dominion Theatre in London’s West End and ran until May 31, 2014, making it one of the longest-running West End productions of the era.

Best Film Oscar Winner

A Beautiful Mind, directed by Ron Howard and starring Russell Crowe as mathematician John Nash, won Best Picture at the 74th Academy Awards on March 24, 2002, for the 2001 film year. The film depicted Nash’s struggles with schizophrenia and his eventual Nobel Prize in Economics. Ron Howard won Best Director. The film’s dramatic representation of Nash’s hallucinations was later noted by Nash himself to differ significantly from how he actually experienced them, a factual liberty that generated some discussion.

2002 Entries to the National Film Registry

Alien (1979)
Beauty and the Beast (1991)
The Black Stallion (1979)
Boyz N the Hood (1991)
The Endless Summer (1966)
From Here to Eternity (1953)
In the Heat of the Night (1967)
Punch Drunks (1934)
Sabrina (1954)
Stranger Than Paradise (1984)
This Is Cinerama (1952)
This Is Spinal Tap (1984)
Why Man Creates (1968)
Wild River (1960)

Top Movies of 2002

1. Spider-Man
2. The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
3. Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones
4. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
5. My Big Fat Greek Wedding
6. Signs
7. Austin Powers in Goldmember
8. Men in Black II
9. Ice Age
10. Chicago

Spider-Man broke the opening weekend record with $114 million, becoming the first film to gross $100 million in a single weekend. The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers was the middle chapter of Peter Jackson’s trilogy and sustained the critical momentum of the first film, winning two Academy Awards. My Big Fat Greek Wedding spent nearly the entire year in the top ten, an achievement that would be essentially impossible in the modern release calendar. Chicago arrived at the end of the year and swept the awards season.

Most Popular TV Shows of 2002

1. CSI (CBS)
2. American Idol — Wednesday (Fox)
3. Joe Millionaire (Fox)
4. Friends (NBC)
5. Survivor: Thailand (CBS)
6. ER (NBC)
7. Survivor: The Amazon (CBS)
8. Everybody Loves Raymond (CBS)
9. Law and Order (NBC)
10. Monday Night Football (ABC)

American Idol premiered in June and reached the top of the ratings within its first season, a pace of audience adoption that had rarely been matched. Friends was in its eighth season and remained one of the most-watched shows on television. Joe Millionaire, in which women competed for a man they believed to be worth $50 million (he was not), was the reality television phenomenon of early 2002 and drew over 40 million viewers for its finale.

2002 Billboard Number One Hits

December 15, 2001 – January 25, 2002: U Got It Bad — Usher (carryover from late 2001)
January 26 – February 22: How You Remind Me — Nickelback
February 23 – March 8: Always on Time — Ja Rule featuring Ashanti
March 9 – April 19: Ain’t It Funny — Jennifer Lopez featuring Ja Rule
April 20 – June 28: Foolish — Ashanti
June 29 – August 16: Hot in Herre — Nelly
August 17 – October 25: Dilemma — Nelly featuring Kelly Rowland
October 26 – November 8: A Moment Like This — Kelly Clarkson
November 9, 2002 – January 31, 2003: Lose Yourself — Eminem (carrying into 2003)

Nelly dominated the summer with two consecutive number ones, Hot in Herre and Dilemma, spending a combined 18 weeks at the top. Ashanti’s Foolish spent ten weeks at number one, making her one of the year’s most commercially successful artists. Kelly Clarkson’s A Moment Like This moved from number 52 to number one in a single week following her American Idol victory — the largest single-week jump in Billboard chart history at that time. Eminem’s “Lose Yourself,” from the film 8 Mile, closed the year at number one and carried over well into 2003.

Sports Champions of 2002

World Series: The Anaheim Angels defeated the San Francisco Giants four games to three in one of the most dramatic World Series in recent memory. The Angels were twice within one strike of elimination in Game 6 before Scott Spiezio’s three-run home run off Felix Rodriguez sparked a rally that forced Game 7. The Angels won their first World Series championship. Barry Bonds, hitting for the Giants, put on one of the greatest individual offensive performances in Series history, posting a .471 average with four home runs.

Super Bowl XXXVI: The New England Patriots defeated the St. Louis Rams 20-17 on February 3, 2002, in New Orleans. Tom Brady, a sixth-round draft pick starting his first full season, drove the Patriots 53 yards in the final minute and a half to set up Adam Vinatieri’s winning field goal as time expired. The Rams had been 14-point favorites. The victory was the first of what would become six Super Bowl championships for the Patriots under Brady and head coach Bill Belichick. The game is widely considered the beginning of the most dominant dynasty in NFL history.

NBA Champions: The Los Angeles Lakers defeated the New Jersey Nets four games to none, their third consecutive championship. Shaquille O’Neal was named Finals MVP for the third consecutive year. The dynasty ended the following season when the Lakers were eliminated in the first round.

Stanley Cup: The Detroit Red Wings defeated the Carolina Hurricanes four games to one. It was Detroit’s fourth Stanley Cup in eleven years under coach Scotty Bowman, who retired immediately following the victory. Nicklas Lidstrom won the Conn Smythe Trophy, the first European-trained player to do so.

U.S. Open Golf: Tiger Woods won his third U.S. Open title at Bethpage Black in New York, becoming the first player to win three U.S. Opens before age 27. He won by three shots in front of a crowd that was notably and vocally enthusiastic for a golf event.

U.S. Open Tennis: Pete Sampras won his 14th and final Grand Slam title, defeating Andre Agassi in the final. It was the last professional match Sampras ever played; he announced his retirement the following year. Serena Williams won the women’s title.

Wimbledon: Lleyton Hewitt won the men’s title and Serena Williams won the women’s. Hewitt, an Australian, was 21 years old and had been ranked world number one for most of the previous year.

NCAA Football: Ohio State won the BCS National Championship in January 2003 for the 2002 season, defeating Miami 31-24 in double overtime in one of the most memorable championship games in the BCS era. Quarterback Craig Krenzel led the comeback. The game included a controversial pass interference penalty in overtime that kept Ohio State’s winning drive alive, a call that Miami’s players and coaches disputed at the time and have continued to dispute since.

NCAA Basketball: Maryland defeated Indiana 64-52 in the national championship game in Atlanta. It was Maryland’s first national championship. Guard Juan Dixon, who had lost both parents to AIDS-related illnesses and had himself overcome substance abuse issues, was named the tournament’s Most Outstanding Player.

Kentucky Derby: War Emblem won the Derby and went on to win the Preakness, setting up a potential Triple Crown run at the Belmont. He stumbled at the start of the Belmont and finished eighth, ending the bid. It was the fourth consecutive year a potential Triple Crown winner had failed at Belmont, a run that was beginning to feel less like a coincidence and more like structural inevitability.

FIFA World Cup: Brazil defeated Germany 2-0 in the final in Yokohama, Japan, claiming their fifth World Cup title. Ronaldo, who had suffered a mysterious convulsive episode the night before the 1998 final in France and played poorly, was the tournament’s top scorer with eight goals and was named player of the tournament. It was widely considered a redemption narrative.

Frequently Asked Questions About 2002

Q: What was the “Axis of Evil” speech?
A: President Bush’s State of the Union address on January 29, 2002, described Iraq, Iran, and North Korea as an “Axis of Evil” for their pursuit of weapons of mass destruction and support for terrorism. The phrase was written by speechwriter David Frum. It generated immediate international controversy, particularly from European allies, and set the rhetorical framework for the administration’s foreign policy in the years that followed.

Q: What happened to Enron and Arthur Andersen?
A: Enron had filed for bankruptcy in December 2001 following the disclosure of massive accounting fraud. In 2002, its auditor Arthur Andersen was convicted of obstruction of justice for shredding documents related to the Enron audit. Although the conviction was later overturned, Arthur Andersen had already effectively dissolved, with most clients and partners having departed. The scandal contributed directly to the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, signed in July 2002, which imposed sweeping new accounting oversight requirements.

Q: How did American Idol change television?
A: American Idol premiered June 11, 2002, and became the most-watched show on American television within its first season. It popularized the viewer-voting format, produced commercially successful recording artists including Kelly Clarkson, Carrie Underwood, and Jennifer Hudson, and demonstrated that reality competition formats could dominate prime time. Kelly Clarkson’s first single achieved the largest single-week jump to number one on the Billboard chart following her victory.

Q: What made the 2002 World Series memorable?
A: The Anaheim Angels were twice within one strike of elimination in Game 6 before rallying to force Game 7 and win the series. Scott Spiezio’s three-run home run off Felix Rodriguez in the eighth inning of Game 6, when the Angels trailed 5-0 and were one strike away from losing, remains one of the most dramatic moments in recent World Series history. Barry Bonds hit .471 with four home runs for the losing Giants.

Q: What was the significance of the New England Patriots’ Super Bowl XXXVI win?
A: Tom Brady, in his first full season as a starter after replacing injured Drew Bledsoe, led a last-minute drive to set up the game-winning field goal against the heavily favored St. Louis Rams. The victory began a dynasty that would eventually produce six Super Bowl championships for the Patriots. It is widely considered the starting point of the most successful sustained run in NFL history.

Q: What was SpaceX’s founding goal?
A: Elon Musk founded SpaceX in May 2002 with $100 million of his own money, with the stated goal of reducing the cost of space transportation sufficiently to enable the colonization of Mars. The goal was considered unrealistic by many observers at the time. SpaceX became the first private company to send a spacecraft to the International Space Station in 2012 and the first to land orbital rocket boosters for reuse.

In a year that watched the Enron dominoes finish falling, a reality singing competition rewrite television, a web-slinger break box office records, and Tom Brady begin a dynasty nobody saw coming, 2002 moved forward with the particular determination of a country that had decided, one way or another, to keep going. The Euro launched. SpaceX launched. American Idol launched. Not everything that launched in 2002 was equally consequential, but it was a year that planted seeds that are still growing.