2008 Pop Culture History

In 2008, Barack Obama was elected President of the United States, Usain Bolt ran faster than anyone in recorded human history, The Dark Knight reminded everyone what a superhero film could be, and the global financial system came closer to complete collapse than most people realized at the time. The Large Hadron Collider went online and did not destroy the earth, which was considered a reasonable outcome. Heath Ledger died in January, and the performance he had already completed as the Joker became one of the most discussed in cinema history. It was a year that felt consequential while it was happening and looks more so in retrospect.

Quick Facts from 2008

• World Bold Event: Barack Obama was elected the 44th President of the United States on November 4, 2008, the first Black president in American history
• Top Song: Low by Flo Rida featuring T-Pain, the best-performing single of the year on the Billboard Year-End Hot 100
• Influential Songs: Foundations by Kate Nash, Fifteen by Taylor Swift, The Prayer by Celine Dion and Josh Groban, Leavin’ by Jesse McCartney, Forever by Chris Brown
• Must-See Movies: The Dark Knight, Iron Man, WALL-E, Slumdog Millionaire, Tropic Thunder, and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
• Most Talked-About Person in the World: Usain Bolt, who set world records in the 100m, 200m, and 4x100m relay at the Beijing Olympics and did it while eating approximately 100 McDonald’s Chicken McNuggets per day
• People’s Sexiest Man Alive: Hugh Jackman
• Notable Book: The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
• Price of a Postage Stamp: 42 cents
• Zune 120: $249.95
• Xbox 360: $279.99
• The Funny Guy: Louis C.K.
• The Funny Late Night Host: Jay Leno
• Chinese Zodiac: Year of the Rat, associated with intelligence, charm, and quick wit; people born in rat years are said to be hardworking, resourceful, and unusually good at saving money — traits that were tested fairly severely by the financial events of 2008
• The Movie Question: How did they get so many talented actors into Mamma Mia? ABBA songs, apparently. Nobody says no to ABBA
• The Conversation: Did you vote? And have you seen The Dark Knight yet?

Top Ten Baby Names of 2008

Girls: Emma, Isabella, Emily, Olivia, Ava
Boys: Jacob, Michael, Ethan, Joshua, Daniel

Emma held the top spot for girls, though Isabella was closing fast and would displace it the following year. Jacob had been number one for boys for ten consecutive years. The Twilight series had introduced a Jacob of its own in 2008, though it is unclear whether this helped or hurt the name’s standing, depending on which side of the Edward/Jacob debate a given family occupied.

Fashion Icons and Sex Symbols of 2008

Scarlett Johansson, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Christina Aguilera, Charlize Theron, Megan Fox, Jessica Biel, Beyoncé, Marissa Miller, Eva Longoria, Vanessa Hudgens, Rihanna, Hayden Panettiere, Elisha Cuthbert, Eva Mendes, Lindsay Lohan, Ashley Tisdale

Megan Fox achieved full cultural visibility in 2008, on the strength of Transformers the previous year and a steady stream of magazine covers. Beyoncé released Lemonade — wait, that was later. In 2008, she released I Am… Sasha Fierce, which contained Single Ladies, which would become inescapable within weeks of the election.

Leading Men and Hollywood Hunks of 2008

David Beckham, Robert Pattinson, Antonio Sabàto Jr., Hugh Jackman, Christian Bale, George Clooney, Brad Pitt

Robert Pattinson’s presence on this list was entirely attributable to Twilight, which opened in November 2008 and transformed him from a supporting actor in Harry Potter into something resembling a phenomenon. Christian Bale had just played Batman in the highest-grossing film of the year and had also, in an unrelated development, been arrested in London following an altercation with family members at a hotel.

The Quotes

“I can see Russia from my house!” — Tina Fey, on Saturday Night Live, impersonating Alaska Governor Sarah Palin in a sketch that became so embedded in public memory that many people attributed the line to Palin herself. The actual Palin quote, from a television interview, was that you could see Russia from land in Alaska, which is geographically accurate and considerably less quotable

“You know, they say the difference between a hockey mom and a pit bull? Lipstick.” — Sarah Palin, accepting the Republican vice presidential nomination at the Republican National Convention, a line that drew an enormous response from the audience and introduced the phrase “hockey mom” to national political vocabulary

“You can put lipstick on a pig, but it’s still a pig.” — Barack Obama, on the campaign trail; the comment was widely interpreted as a reference to Palin’s hockey mom line, which Obama denied, pointing out that the expression was a standard piece of American political rhetoric that had been used by many politicians, including John McCain

Time Magazine’s Person of the Year

Barack Obama, for his historic election as the 44th President of the United States on November 4, 2008. Obama won with 365 electoral votes to John McCain’s 173, carrying states including Indiana and North Carolina that had not voted for a Democratic presidential candidate in decades. His victory speech in Grant Park in Chicago, delivered before an estimated 240,000 people, was watched by an estimated 70 million Americans on television.

Miss America and Miss USA

Miss America: Kirsten Haglund, Farmington Hills, Michigan
Miss USA: Crystle Stewart, Houston, Texas

We Lost in 2008

Heath Ledger, an Australian actor whose career had moved from teen romantic leads to increasingly serious dramatic work, was found dead in his Manhattan apartment on January 22, 2008, at age 28. The cause was accidental acute intoxication from the combined effects of prescription medications. He had completed filming his role as the Joker in The Dark Knight six months earlier. His performance was released posthumously, won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, and is widely considered one of the finest in the history of the superhero genre. He became the second person to receive a posthumous acting Oscar, after Peter Finch in 1977.

George Carlin, the stand-up comedian and social critic whose seven-decade career had redefined what American comedy was permitted to say and how it was permitted to say it, died June 22, 2008, at age 71, of heart failure. His 1972 routine on the seven words you cannot say on television was the subject of a landmark Supreme Court case that shaped broadcast regulation for decades. He had been scheduled to receive the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor, the highest honor in American comedy, which was awarded posthumously.

Bernie Mac, comedian and actor whose stand-up and television work had made him one of the most distinctive comic voices of his generation, died August 9, 2008, at age 50, of pneumonia complicated by sarcoidosis.

Isaac Hayes, the singer, songwriter, and musician best known for the theme from Shaft and for his later role as Chef on South Park, died August 10, 2008, at age 65, one day after Bernie Mac.

Charlton Heston, actor whose career spanned six decades and included Ben-Hur, The Ten Commandments, and Planet of the Apes, and who later became a prominent political activist and served as president of the National Rifle Association, died April 5, 2008, at age 83.

Paul Newman, actor, film director, racing driver, and philanthropist, died September 26, 2008, at age 83, of lung cancer. His Newman’s Own food company, which he founded in 1982 as a joke and grew into a genuine enterprise, had donated over $300 million to charity by the time of his death. He had been nominated for ten Academy Awards and won one, for The Color of Money in 1987, widely considered a consolation for having lost for The Verdict, Absence of Malice, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Hud, Cool Hand Luke, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, and The Sting.

America in 2008 — The Context

The 2008 financial crisis was the most severe economic disruption since the Great Depression. It had been building for years through a combination of deregulated financial markets, aggressive mortgage lending to borrowers who could not ultimately sustain the debt, and the packaging of those mortgages into complex financial instruments that spread the risk — and eventually the losses — throughout the global banking system. When Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy on September 15, 2008, in what was then the largest bankruptcy filing in American history, the cascading effects threatened to seize the entire credit system. The federal government’s response included the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), which authorized $700 billion in expenditure to stabilize financial institutions. It passed Congress on October 3. The stock market continued to fall.

The presidential campaign between Barack Obama and John McCain was conducted largely against this backdrop of economic collapse. Obama’s calm demeanor and message of change contrasted with a Republican ticket that was dealing with an incumbent president with a 25 percent approval rating and a financial crisis that had erupted on his watch. McCain’s selection of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his running mate generated enormous initial enthusiasm from the Republican base and considerable skepticism from others. Palin’s debate performance, media interviews, and campaign appearances became a defining story of the election season.

The Beijing Olympics, held August 8-24, 2008, were the most elaborate in Olympic history, with an opening ceremony estimated to have cost $100 million and featuring 15,000 performers. China used the Games to announce its arrival as a global power. Usain Bolt of Jamaica used them to announce that human beings could apparently run faster than previously believed. He set world records in the 100m (9.69 seconds), the 200m (19.30 seconds), and the 4x100m relay (37.10 seconds). He celebrated before crossing the finish line in the 100m and still set a world record. His autobiography later revealed that he had eaten approximately 100 McDonald’s Chicken McNuggets per day during the Games because he was unfamiliar with Chinese food and found the nuggets reliable. He won three gold medals on this diet.

The Dark Knight

Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight, released July 18, 2008, was the highest-grossing film of the year and the first superhero film to be taken seriously as a work of cinema rather than as a commercial product. Heath Ledger’s portrayal of the Joker — chaotic, unpredictable, and genuinely menacing in a way that previous screen versions had not been — generated immediate critical acclaim. The film earned $1 billion worldwide, making it the second film in history to do so, after Titanic. It was not nominated for Best Picture at the Academy Awards, an omission that was considered significant enough that the Academy changed its nomination rules the following year, expanding the Best Picture field from five to ten films. Ledger was awarded the Best Supporting Actor Oscar posthumously at the 81st Academy Awards in February 2009.

The Election

Barack Obama was elected the 44th President of the United States on November 4, 2008, defeating the Republican nominee John McCain with 365 electoral votes to 173 and 52.9 percent of the popular vote. He was 47 years old, a first-term senator from Illinois, and the first Black president in American history. His victory speech in Grant Park in Chicago was delivered before an estimated 240,000 people. The crowd included people who had lived through the era of legal segregation and people born after it, watching the same moment from the same lawn.

The campaign had been the most expensive in American history to that point, with Obama raising over $750 million, much of it through small online donations. His campaign’s use of social media and digital organizing was considered a template for future campaigns. John McCain’s concession speech in Phoenix was widely praised for its grace.

Pop Culture Facts and History

Slumdog Millionaire, directed by Danny Boyle on a budget of $15 million, won eight Academy Awards, including Best Picture, at the 81st ceremony in February 2009. The film told the story of a Mumbai teenager on the Indian version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, and its combination of kinetic visual style and crowd-pleasing structure made it one of the most discussed films of the season.

Iron Man, released on May 2, 2008, launched the Marvel Cinematic Universe in its current form, though no one was certain of that at the time. Robert Downey Jr.’s casting as Tony Stark was considered a risk given his personal history, and it proved to be the franchise’s most consequential casting decision. The film earned $585 million worldwide. A post-credits scene featuring Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury indicated there was more to come. Sixteen years and dozens of films later, that is proving to be an understatement.

WALL-E, released June 27, 2008, was a Pixar film in which the first 30 minutes featured almost no dialogue, with a robot sorting garbage on an abandoned Earth, and it was somehow one of the most emotionally affecting films of the year. Critics called it a masterpiece. It won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature. It remains one of the highest-rated films in Pixar’s history.

Twilight, based on Stephenie Meyer’s novel and released on November 21, 2008, earned $392 million worldwide on a $37 million budget. The film sparked a franchise, divided its audience into Team Edward and Team Jacob factions that participants took very seriously, and introduced the concept of the sparkling vampire to a generation.

Tropic Thunder, directed by and starring Ben Stiller, featured Robert Downey Jr. as a method actor who underwent a procedure to darken his skin to play a Black character in a Vietnam War film. The film’s satirical intent was clear; its execution was debated.

During a worldwide hops shortage in 2008, the Sam Adams Brewing Company sold hops to small craft brewers at cost and provided cash loans to struggling microbreweries. The gesture was widely credited with helping preserve the craft brewing industry during a period when many small operations might otherwise have closed. It is the kind of corporate behavior that gets remembered.

The Large Hadron Collider at CERN went online on September 10, 2008, as the most powerful particle accelerator ever built. Nine days later, it had to be shut down after an electrical fault between two of its superconducting magnets caused significant damage that required over a year of repairs. The portion of the internet that had been concerned about the LHC creating a black hole and destroying the earth had nine days to be concerned, and then a year to be relieved, and then concerned again.

Consumer DNA testing expanded significantly in 2008, with 23andMe and Ancestry.com offering direct-to-consumer genetic analysis at prices that put them within reach of the general public for the first time. The implications for genealogy research, medical history, and the occasional unexpected discovery about one’s ancestry were not fully understood at the time and are still being worked through.

A study of British Convict Transportation Registers from 1788 to 1868, published in 2008, estimated that approximately 22 percent of living Australians had a convict ancestor. Reactions to this finding varied considerably depending on which Australians were asked.

Michael Jackson reportedly attended a club in 2008, attempting to spend an anonymous evening people-watching. Upon hearing the DJ play remixes of his songs, he expressed genuine surprise that his music was still being played. The anecdote is either charming or deeply sad, depending on one’s perspective, and may be both simultaneously.

The Scandals

John Edwards, former U.S. senator and two-time presidential candidate, admitted in August 2008 to having an affair with campaign videographer Rielle Hunter, with whom he had begun a relationship while his wife Elizabeth was being treated for cancer. He initially denied being the father of Hunter’s child. He was later charged with campaign finance violations related to payments made to Hunter; he was acquitted on one count, and the jury deadlocked on the remaining five.

New York Governor Eliot Spitzer, known for his aggressive prosecution of Wall Street corruption and widely considered a leading figure in Democratic politics, resigned on March 12, 2008, after federal investigators identified him as a client of a high-end escort service, referred to in the investigation as Client Number 9. His lieutenant governor, David Paterson, succeeded him.

The 2008 Chinese infant formula scandal resulted in an estimated 300,000 victims after melamine was found to have been added to milk and infant formula to artificially inflate protein readings during quality testing. Six infants died. The scandal prompted widespread international recalls of Chinese dairy products and a long-running reassessment of Chinese food safety standards.

Nobel Prize Winners in 2008

Physics was awarded to Yoichiro Nambu for the discovery of the mechanism of spontaneous broken symmetry in subatomic physics, and to Makoto Kobayashi and Toshihide Maskawa for the discovery of the origin of the broken symmetry that predicts the existence of at least three families of quarks in nature. The work had been done decades earlier; the Nobel Committee’s timeline on theoretical physics prizes is measured in generations.

Chemistry went to Osamu Shimomura, Martin Chalfie, and Roger Tsien for the discovery and development of green fluorescent protein, a naturally occurring protein that glows under ultraviolet light and has become one of the most widely used tools in biological research, allowing scientists to track specific proteins and processes inside living cells in real time.

Physiology or Medicine was awarded to Harald zur Hausen for his discovery that human papillomavirus (HPV) causes cervical cancer — work that made the development of the HPV vaccine possible — and jointly to Françoise Barré-Sinoussi and Luc Montagnier for their discovery of HIV in 1983. The prize to the HIV researchers came 25 years after the discovery, which by Nobel standards is nearly prompt.

Literature went to Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio of France and Mauritius, described as an author of new departures, poetic adventure, and sensual ecstasy; an explorer of a humanity beyond and below the reigning civilization.

Peace was awarded to Martti Ahtisaari of Finland, a former president of Finland and decades-long international mediator who had helped resolve conflicts in Namibia, Kosovo, Indonesia, and Iraq. He was 71 at the time of the award.

Economics turned to Paul Krugman for his analysis of trade patterns and the location of economic activity, work that integrated the study of international trade with the geography of industrial clustering, explaining phenomena such as why financial services concentrate in certain cities and why manufacturing relocates to certain regions.

2008 Toys Inducted to the National Toy Hall of Fame

The Stick, the Baby Doll, and the Skateboard were inducted in 2008. The Stick was described by the Hall of Fame as the “world’s most classic toy,” predating every manufactured product in the collection by several thousand years. Its induction was either an acknowledgment of a fundamental truth or a comment on the institution’s ability to include the obvious, depending on how cynical one felt.

2008 Christmas Gifts and First Appearances

The LEGO Star Wars Rebel Scout Speeder and the Hannah Montana Holiday Singing Doll were the season’s notable toys. The Twilight franchise had generated a parallel merchandise industry by November. The Team Edward versus Team Jacob debate, which had begun as a reader response to a novel series, had by December become a retail category.

Broadway in 2008

In the Heights, written by Lin-Manuel Miranda and directed by Thomas Kail, opened on Broadway on March 9, 2008, at the Richard Rodgers Theatre. The musical, set in Washington Heights in Manhattan and mixing hip-hop, salsa, and traditional Broadway forms, ran until January 9, 2011. It won four Tony Awards, including Best Musical. Miranda had written the show while a student at Wesleyan University. His next Broadway project would be somewhat larger.

Billy Elliot the Musical, based on the 2000 British film about a mining-town boy who wants to dance, opened on November 13, 2008, at the Imperial Theatre and ran until January 8, 2012. It won ten Tony Awards, including Best Musical.

Jersey Boys, the story of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, opened in London’s West End at the Prince Edward Theatre in March 2008, having already been running on Broadway since 2005. The West End production ran until March 2017.

Best Film Oscar Winner

No Country for Old Men, directed by Joel and Ethan Coen and starring Tommy Lee Jones, Javier Bardem, and Josh Brolin, won Best Picture at the 80th Academy Awards on February 24, 2008, for the 2007 film year. Bardem won Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of Anton Chigurh, one of the most menacing antagonists in recent American cinema. The Coen Brothers won Best Director. The film’s ending, which declined to resolve its narrative in the conventional manner, generated the most discussion about a film’s final scene since The Sopranos had cut to black the previous year.

2008 Entries to the National Film Registry

The 7th Voyage of Sinbad (1958)
The Asphalt Jungle (1950)
Deliverance (1972)
A Face in the Crowd (1957)
Flower Drum Song (1961)
Hallelujah! (1929)
In Cold Blood (1967)
The Invisible Man (1933)
Johnny Guitar (1954)
The Killers (1946)
No Lies (1973)
On the Bowery (1957)
One Week (1920)
The Pawnbroker (1965)
The Perils of Pauline (1914)
Sergeant York (1941)
The Terminator (1984)
Water and Power (1989)

Top Movies of 2008

1. The Dark Knight
2. Iron Man
3. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
4. Hancock
5. WALL-E
6. Kung Fu Panda
7. Twilight
8. Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa
9. Quantum of Solace
10. Dr. Seuss’ Horton Hears a Who!

The Dark Knight grossed $1 billion worldwide, the second film in history to reach that figure. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull was the long-awaited fourth installment of a franchise that had been dormant since 1989. Reactions were mixed, with particular attention to a sequence involving a refrigerator and a nuclear blast that became a cultural reference point for the franchise’s disappointment. Kung Fu Panda was better than its premise suggested, a phrase that has been used to describe several DreamWorks productions.

Most Popular TV Shows of 2008

American Idol, Dancing with the Stars, CSI, NCIS, The Mentalist, Sunday Night Football, Desperate Housewives, Two and a Half Men, Criminal Minds, and Grey’s Anatomy dominated broadcast television in 2008. The Mentalist was a new entry, premiering in September 2008 and immediately drawing large audiences. Breaking Bad premiered on January 20, 2008, to modest ratings, offering no particular indication of what was to come. Mad Men won its first Emmy for Outstanding Drama Series.

2008 Billboard Number One Hits

January 5 – January 11: No Air — Jordin Sparks featuring Chris Brown
January 12 – February 8: Bleeding Love — Leona Lewis
February 9 – February 22: Don’t Stop the Music — Rihanna
February 23 – March 14: With You — Chris Brown
March 15 – March 28: Touch My Body — Mariah Carey
March 29 – April 18: Lollipop — Lil Wayne
April 19 – May 9: Bleeding Love — Leona Lewis
May 10 – June 6: I Kissed a Girl — Katy Perry
June 7 – June 20: Lollipop — Lil Wayne
June 21 – July 11: I Kissed a Girl — Katy Perry
July 12 – July 25: Viva la Vida — Coldplay
July 26 – August 8: I Kissed a Girl — Katy Perry
August 9 – August 29: So What — Pink
August 30 – September 19: Whatever You Like — T.I.
September 20 – October 3: Disturbia — Rihanna
October 4 – October 24: Live Your Life — T.I. featuring Rihanna
October 25 – November 21: Whatever You Like — T.I.
November 22 – December 5: Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It) — Beyoncé
December 6 – January 2, 2009: Low — Flo Rida featuring T-Pain

I Kissed a Girl by Katy Perry spent seven weeks at number one across multiple runs and announced Perry as a major commercial force. Leona Lewis’s Bleeding Love made two separate runs at the top, spending a combined seven weeks there. T.I. dominated the fall with Whatever You Like and Live Your Life. Single Ladies arrived in November and would continue its run well into 2009. Low ended the year at number one and was the best-performing single on the Billboard Year-End chart.

Notable Books of 2008

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins launched a dystopian fiction franchise that would define young adult reading for the next decade and eventually generate four films and a prequel. Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell popularized the 10,000-hour theory of expertise. The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch, the Carnegie Mellon professor who had been diagnosed with terminal cancer, became one of the best-selling non-fiction books of the year after his lecture of the same name was viewed millions of times online. The Tales of Beedle the Bard by J.K. Rowling, a companion volume to the Harry Potter series, sold 375,000 copies on its first day.

Full 2008 Bestseller List:

A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle
Breaking Dawn by Stephenie Meyer
Brisingr by Christopher Paolini
The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman
Hot, Flat, and Crowded by Thomas L. Friedman
The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan
The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch
New Moon by Stephenie Meyer
Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell
Paper Towns by John Green
The Shack by William P. Young
The Tales of Beedle the Bard by J.K. Rowling
Twilight by Stephenie Meyer

Sports Champions of 2008

World Series: The Philadelphia Phillies defeated the Tampa Bay Rays four games to one, winning their first World Series championship since 1980. Cole Hamels was named Series MVP. The Rays, in only their 11th season, had been one of the worst franchises in baseball for most of their existence and reached the Series as a genuine surprise.

Super Bowl XLII: The New York Giants defeated the New England Patriots 17-14 on February 3, 2008, in Glendale, Arizona, in what is widely considered one of the greatest upsets in Super Bowl history. The Patriots had entered the game 18-0 and were attempting to complete the first perfect season in NFL history since the 1972 Miami Dolphins. Eli Manning’s scrambling, helmet-catch drive in the final minutes — capped by David Tyree pinning the ball to his helmet with one hand while being tackled — and the subsequent touchdown pass to Plaxico Burress produced one of the most memorable finishes in the game’s history.

NBA Champions: The Boston Celtics defeated the Los Angeles Lakers four games to two, their first championship since 1986, and restored the league’s most storied rivalry to its proper place at the center of the sport. Paul Pierce was named Finals MVP. Kevin Garnett, arriving via trade from Minnesota, completed the roster that made the championship run possible.

Stanley Cup: The Detroit Red Wings defeated the Pittsburgh Penguins four games to two. Henrik Zetterberg won the Conn Smythe Trophy. It was Detroit’s 11th Stanley Cup championship and its fourth since 1997.

U.S. Open Golf: Tiger Woods defeated Rocco Mediate in an 18-hole playoff on Monday, June 16, after the two had finished tied at the end of regulation play. Woods played the entire tournament on a leg that required surgery immediately afterward — a double stress fracture of the left tibia and a torn anterior cruciate ligament in the left knee. He did not play again for eight months. The performance is considered one of the most physically remarkable in the history of golf.

U.S. Open Tennis: Roger Federer won the men’s title and Serena Williams won the women’s. Federer’s U.S. Open victory was his fifth consecutive, a record in the Open Era.

Wimbledon: Rafael Nadal defeated Roger Federer in a five-set final that many analysts consider the greatest tennis match ever played, coming from two sets down in fading light before completing his victory 9-7 in the fifth set. Venus Williams won the women’s title. The match ran four hours and 48 minutes, the longest Wimbledon men’s final in history.

NCAA Football: Florida, under Urban Meyer, won the BCS National Championship, defeating Oklahoma 24-14 in Miami. Tim Tebow, who had won the Heisman Trophy the previous year, was the signal caller. It was Florida’s second national championship in three years.

NCAA Basketball: Kansas defeated Memphis 75-68 in overtime in the national championship game in San Antonio. Mario Chalmers hit a three-pointer with 2.1 seconds remaining in regulation to tie the game and force overtime, in one of the most memorable moments in recent tournament history. Derrick Rose played for Memphis and was later ruled ineligible after a third party took his SAT, vacating the season’s results.

Kentucky Derby: Big Brown won in a dominant performance and went on to win the Preakness Stakes, setting up a potential Triple Crown run at the Belmont. He finished last in the Belmont Stakes after his jockey pulled him up, ending the Triple Crown bid. It was the fifth consecutive year in which a potential Triple Crown winner had failed at the Belmont.

Frequently Asked Questions About 2008

Q: What caused the 2008 financial crisis?
A: A combination of deregulated financial markets, aggressive subprime mortgage lending, and the widespread packaging of those mortgages into complex financial instruments that distributed risk — and eventually catastrophic losses — throughout the global banking system. Lehman Brothers’ bankruptcy on September 15, 2008, the largest in American history at the time, triggered a cascading credit freeze. The federal government responded with TARP, a $700 billion rescue package passed on October 3. The recession that followed was the most severe since the Great Depression.

Q: Who was Usain Bolt and what did he do in 2008?
A: Usain Bolt of Jamaica set world records in the 100m (9.69 seconds), 200m (19.30 seconds), and 4x100m relay (37.10 seconds) at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, winning three gold medals. He celebrated before crossing the finish line in the 100m and still broke the world record. He later wrote that he had eaten approximately 100 McDonald’s Chicken McNuggets per day during the Games, having found them the most reliable food option available to him in Beijing.

Q: What happened to Heath Ledger?
A: Heath Ledger was found dead in his Manhattan apartment on January 22, 2008, at age 28. The cause was accidental acute intoxication from a combination of prescription medications. He had already completed his performance as the Joker in The Dark Knight, which was released six months later. He was awarded the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor posthumously in February 2009.

Q: Did The Dark Knight win Best Picture?
A: No. The Dark Knight was not nominated for Best Picture at the 81st Academy Awards, an omission considered significant enough that the Academy expanded its Best Picture field from five to ten nominees beginning the following year. The film did win two Oscars: Best Supporting Actor for Heath Ledger and Best Film Editing.

Q: What was the significance of Barack Obama’s election in 2008?
A: Barack Obama became the 44th President of the United States and the first Black president in American history, winning with 365 electoral votes and 52.9 percent of the popular vote. His campaign’s use of small-donor online fundraising and social media organizing was considered a new template for American political campaigns. He delivered his victory speech before an estimated 240,000 people in Grant Park, Chicago.

Q: Who really said, “I can see Russia from my house”?
A: Tina Fey said it on Saturday Night Live while impersonating Sarah Palin. The actual Palin quote was that you could see Russia from parts of Alaska, which is geographically accurate. Fey’s version was funnier and entered the cultural record as if Palin had said it, which she did not.

Q: What was notable about the 2008 Super Bowl?
A: The New York Giants defeated the undefeated New England Patriots 17-14, completing one of the greatest upsets in Super Bowl history. The Patriots had been 18-0 entering the game, attempting the first perfect season since the 1972 Miami Dolphins. David Tyree’s helmet catch on the game-winning drive is considered one of the most improbable plays in NFL history.

In a year that elected a new president, watched the financial system wobble to the edge of collapse, saw a man run 100 meters in 9.69 seconds on a broken leg’s worth of McNuggets, and delivered the best superhero film anyone had made up to that point, 2008 asked a great deal of everyone paying attention. Most of them were paying attention.