History

2016 Trivia, Fun Facts and Pop Culture HistoryQuick Facts from 2016World Changing Event: Pokémon Go brought game-playing to the outside world for millions of children, teens, and plugged-in adults — and also to hospital emergency rooms, as people walked into traffic while staring at their phones.Top Song: “Closer” by The Chainsmokers featuring Halsey — the

2015 Pop Culture History Quick Facts from 2015 USA Changing Event: On June 26, 2015, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-4 in Obergefell v. Hodges that same-sex couples have a constitutional right to marry, making marriage equality the law of the land in all 50 states. Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote the majority opinion; its final

2014 Pop Culture HistoryQuick Facts from 2014World Bold Event: CVS Pharmacy stopped selling tobacco products on September 3, 2014, becoming the first major U.S. pharmacy chain to do so, forgoing an estimated $2 billion in annual tobacco revenue. They also rebranded as CVS Health.Top Song: Happy by Pharrell Williams, which spent ten consecutive weeks at

2013 History, Facts, and Trivia Quick Facts from 2013 The Mis-heard Event: Philadelphia public schools went on lockdown after a teacher misheard The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air theme song lyrics as “shooting some people outside of school” instead of “shooting some b-ball outside of school.” The school district confirmed the incident was real. Top Song:

2012 Pop Culture HistoryIn 2012, the world was supposed to end on December 21st, according to a misreading of the Mayan calendar that spawned an entire industry of books, documentaries, and emergency-preparedness kits. It did not end. What actually happened was that The Avengers made a billion dollars, Carly Rae Jepsen asked if you had

2011 Pop Culture History In 2011, the most-wanted man in the world was killed in Pakistan by Navy SEALs, the Arab Spring toppled governments across the Middle East, Harry Potter said goodbye after a decade, and Adele released an album that outsold nearly everything else on earth. Oprah ended her show. Steve Jobs died. Beyoncé

2010 History, Facts, and TriviaQuick Facts from 2010World Changing Events: Instagram launched on October 6, 2010, and the iPad debuted on April 3. Between them, they changed how humans consume media, share their lives, and waste time on the toilet.Top Song: Tik Tok by Ke$haMust-See Movies: Toy Story 3, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

2009 Pop Culture HistoryIn 2009, a man landed a commercial airliner on the Hudson River and became an instant American hero. A 47-year-old Scottish woman walked out onto a television stage and sang a song that made the internet cry. Bitcoin was invented and was worth essentially nothing. Avatar made more money than any film

2008 Pop Culture HistoryIn 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

2007 Pop Culture HistoryIn 2007, Steve Jobs stood on a stage in San Francisco and introduced a device that combined a phone, an iPod, and an internet communicator. The audience responded as if he had announced the discovery of fire, which in certain respects is not an unreasonable comparison. The iPhone launched on June 29,

2006 Trivia, Fun Facts and Pop Culture HistoryQuick Facts from 2006World Changing Events: Facebook opened to anyone over age 13 with a valid email address, and Twitter launched — two moves that would permanently rewire how humans communicate, argue, and share photos of their food.Top Song: Irreplaceable by BeyoncéMust-See Movies: Dreamgirls, Mission: Impossible III, The

2005 History, Facts, and TriviaQuick Facts from 2005World-Changing Event: YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by three former PayPal employees — Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim — in a Menlo Park, California, garage. The first video, Me at the zoo, was uploaded by Karim on April 23, 2005. Within 18 months, Google

2004 Trivia, Fun Facts, and Pop Culture HistoryQuick Facts from 2004World-Changing Event: Facebook launched on February 4, 2004, from Mark Zuckerberg’s Harvard dorm room, open initially only to Harvard students. By the end of the year, it had expanded to most major universities. The social network that would eventually connect 3 billion people started as

2003 Pop Culture HistoryQuick Facts from 2003World-Changing Event: MySpace launched in August 2003, becoming the first social network to achieve mass adoption and introducing the concept of online personal profiles, friend lists, and music pages to a mainstream audience. It briefly made Tom Anderson the most well-known person on the internet, simply by being everyone’s

2002 Pop Culture HistoryIn 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 —

2001 History, Facts, and TriviaOn the morning of September 11, 2001, nineteen hijackers took control of four commercial aircraft. Two flew into the World Trade Center in New York City. One hit the Pentagon. The fourth came down in a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, after passengers attempted to retake control. By the time the day

2000 History, Facts, and TriviaQuick Facts from 2000World Changing Event: Y2K arrived on January 1, 2000, and the world did not end. Planes did not fall from the sky. ATMs did not fail. Power grids stayed on. The $300 billion spent globally to prepare for potential computer failures resulted in the most anticlimactic disaster in

1999 History, Facts, and TriviaIn 1999, America spent the entire year worrying about whether every computer on Earth would simultaneously malfunction at midnight on December 31, ushering in a civilization-ending cascade of failures. The Y2K bug turned out to be largely a non-event, the result of thousands of programmers quietly fixing things that nobody noticed