2005 Fun Facts, Trivia and History

Quick Facts from 2005:

• World Changing Event: Youtube was founded
• The Top Song was We Belong Together by Mariah Carey
• The Movies to Watch include Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Walk the Line and Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
• The Most Famous Person in America was probably
• Notable books include: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by J.K. Rowling and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
• Price of a gallon of gas in 2005: $2.34
  Tylenol Extra Strength tablets: $1.99/24
• 1 ounce of gold value: $513.00
• The Funny Late Night Host: Jay Leno
  The Funny Late Late Night Host: Craig Ferguson
• Charlie the Unicorn is a 2005 animated comedy short film and viral video series created by Jason Steele in Orlando, Florida.
• One Red Paperclip is the story of Canadian blogger Kyle MacDonald, who traded his way from a single red paperclip to a house in a series of fourteen online trades over 2005/2006.
• The Conversation: Which was better? 2005’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory or 1971’s Willy Wonka?

The Scandals:
Minnesota Vikings boat cruise scandal, in which several players including Fred Smoot, Lance Johnstone, Daunte Culpepper, Mewelde Moore, Darren Sharper, Koren Robinson, Bryant McKinnie, Ralph Brown, Travis Taylor, Moe Williams, Jermaine Wiggins and Zygi Wilf allegedly performed lewd acts on a boat cruise on Lake Minnetonka.

Robert Blake, star of the 70s detective series “Baretta”, was acquitted of his wife’s murder in 2005 after a contentious 4-year legal drama. He was, however, found liable by a civil suit brought by his children.

In 2005, McDonald’s had an ad campaign saying “I’d hit it” about a double cheeseburger, not knowing the slang meant they wanted to have sex with the cheeseburger.

A woman falsely claimed she found a finger in her food at Wendy’s. The fast-food chain suffered an estimated $21 million in lost business. She later revealed, she cooked the finger at her home and then drove it to Wendy’s restaurant in San Jose, where she dropped it into the food.

Albert Gonzalez is an American computer hacker and computer criminal who is accused of masterminding the combined credit card theft and subsequent reselling of more than 170 million card and ATM numbers from 2005 to 2007: the biggest such fraud in history.

Brad Pitt left Jennifer Aniston for Angelina Jolie

December 12, 2005 – Dina and Michael Lohan officially divorced

Tom Cruise ‘Jumped The Couch” on Oprah while expressing how much he loved Katie Holmes.

Michael Schaivo successfully sued to have his brain-damaged wife Terri’s feeding tube removed.

Natalee Holloway disappeared in Aruba.
(Spoiler :Joran van der Sloot did it.)

Duluth, Georgia’s ‘Runaway Bride’ Jennifer Wilbanks came clean to the FBI about her faked kidnapping story.

England’s Prince Harry went to a costume party dressed as a Nazi.

Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans. Many people on both political sides and up and down the political power tree made mistakes. 

Pop Culture Facts & History:
The fasted whack with a Badminton racket was by Fu Haifeng, clocking at 206 MPH.

When Halle Berry won a Worst Actor Razzie Award for her role in Catwoman, she showed up in person to collect the award. She spoke while holding her 2002 Academy Award from Monster’s Ball in one hand and the Razzie in the other.

Danni Boatwright won Survivor: Guatemala

On January 14, 2005, the Cassini spacecraft landed the Huygens probe on the surface of Saturn’s moon, Titan. It is the first probe to land on a surface in the outer solar system, the farthest any man-made spacecraft has landed.

The term “flip phone” was a Motorola trademark until 2005.

The Jeopardy! “Think!” theme was composed by the show’s creator Merv Griffin in less than a minute as a lullaby for his son. By 2005, he had made over $70 million dollars in royalties from that song, the equivalent of a Jeopardy contestant winning every game for about a decade.

Leonardo Da Vinci’s Salvator Mundi was sold at a New Orleans art gallery for $10,000 in 2005 and ended up selling for $450,000,000 in 2017. It’s the most expensive painting ever sold.

In 2005, the Temple of the Jedi Order was registered in Texas. It was granted an IRS tax exemption in 2015.

There is over $45 billion on unused gift cards floating around since 2005

New Jersey made the tomato their state vegetable in 2005, justifying the decision with an 1893 ruling by the Supreme Court that although tomatoes are actually fruits, they would be legally considered vegetables.

The longest-lived domestic cat was named Creme Puff. She lived from August 3, 1967, to August 6, 2005, a span of 38 years and 3 days.

In 2005 graffiti artist David Choe was offered $60K to paint multiple murals at Facebook headquarters. He chose to take his compensation in stock which was eventually worth more than $200 million in 2020.

Eric James Torpy was convicted of shooting with intent to kill and robbery. He asked that his sentence be changed from 30 years’ imprisonment to 33 so that it would match Larry Bird’s jersey number. His request was granted.

On April 1st, 2005, NASA pulled an April Fool’s prank telling the world that they had found water on Mars.

When the results began coming in from the March 30, 2005 Powerball drawing, lottery officials suspected fraud was underway because 110 players claimed second prizes of $100,000 or $500,000. All 110 players and the jackpot winner got their numbers from fortune cookies.

Doug Heckman read the EULA before he installed some PC software. The agreement included a clause offering ‘financial compensation’ to licensees who actually read the license agreement. He emailed the company, referred to the clause and the company sent him a check for $1,000

In 2005 Manhattan was home to both the lowest-income ($9,320 household income) and the highest-income ($188,697 household income) census tract in the USA.

Sichuan pepper, commonly used in Chinese cuisine, was banned in the US until 2005.

In 2005 there were so many tropical storms and hurricanes in the Atlantic that we ran out of names and had to start using the Greek alphabet. The last Hurricane was Epsilon (December), while the last tropical storm was Zeta (January). Countless records were broken during this season.

Gene Greytak was a real estate broker who moonlighted as an actor, but he only played and made personal appearances as Pope John Paul II. If you saw the Pope in a movie or on a sitcom before 2005, it was Gene.

Since 2005 it has been illegal to carry more than five dollars worth of pennies and nickels outside of the United States when traveling (due to people melting them down for copper).

In 2005 the Emergency Alert System mistakenly issued an immediate evacuation order for all of Connecticut. 63% of residents surveyed after the incident said they had been “a little or not at all concerned” by the vague message; 1% admitted to taking it seriously and trying to flee the state.

The term “Cyber Monday” was created and coined by Ellen Davis from the Nation Retail Federation, and Scott Silverman on November 28, 2005, after a study revealed that online retailers experienced a surge in sales the Monday after Thanksgiving.

Stephen Hawking wrote a sequel to A Brief History of Time in 2005 called A Briefer History of Time with only 176 pages. The book was updated with newly discovered topics and informs of recurring subjects throughout the book in greater detail

Ted Koppel retired from Nightline on November 22

Dan rather retired from the CBS Evening News on March 9. #Courage

Mark Felt, a 92-year-old retired FBI agent was revealed to be 1972’s “Deep Throat” who helped take down the Nixon presidency.

Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore got married on September 24.

England’s Prince Charles married long-time flame, Camilla Parker Bowles.

Heidi Klum and Seal were married on May 10

Cost of a Super Bowl ad in 2005: $2,400,000

The Habits:
Sudoku, YouTube, MySpace, Facebook opened up for High School students in September 2005.
Watching Penguins and/or Grey’s Anatomy
Supersized Sunglasses

Splitsville:
Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston (Homewrecker: Angelina Jolie)
Jessica Simpson and Nick Lachey (mutual)
Kenny Chesney and Renee Zellweger (annulled 4 months after the marriage)
Jude Law and Sienna Miller (His affair with the nanny, we hear)

2005 Billboard Number One Songs:
January 1, 2005 – March 4:
Let Me Love You – Mario

March 5 – May 6:
Candy Shop – 50 Cent featuring Olivia

May 7 – June 3:
Hollaback Girl – Gwen Stefani

June 4 – July 2:
We Belong Together – Mariah Carey

July 2 – July 8:
Inside Your Heaven – Carrie Underwood

July 9 – September 9:
We Belong Together – Mariah Carey

September 10 – November 25:
Gold Deggir – Kanye West featuring Jamie Foxx

November 26 – December 29:
Run It! – Chris Brown

December 30, 2005 – January 13, 2006:
Don’t Forget About Us – Mariah Carey