2003 Pop Culture History

Quick Facts from 2003:

• World Changing Event: Myspace.com was launched.
• The Top Song was Hey Ya! by OutKast
• Influential Songs include: Unwell by Matchbox Twenty, Concrete Angel by Martina McBride, Seven Nation Army by The White Stripes, and Dance With My Father by Luthor Vandross
• The Movies to Watch include Finding Nemo, Gods and Generals, Bruce Almighty, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, Cheaper by the Dozen, and Elf
• People Magazine’s Sexiest Man Alive: Johnny Depp
• Notable books include: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by J.K. Rowling and The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
• Price of Boar’s Head deluxe ham in 2003: $5.99/pound
  Price of a movie ticket: $6.00
  Land O Lakes butter, 1 pound: $1.49
• US 666, once a spur route of the decommissioned US Route 66, was changed to US 491, a spur of US Route 191, due to concerns using the number 666 for a road.
• The Funny Guy was: Dane Cook
  The Funnier Guy was: Dave Chappelle
• The Conversation: The United States Department of Homeland Security and what it would mean for average Americans.

Here are a few notable events from 2003:

• The US led a coalition of countries in an invasion of Iraq, stating that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. These weapons were never found, and the invasion and its aftermath have been the source of much controversy and debate.
• The Human Genome Project was completed in 2003, resulting in the mapping of the entire human genome.
• The space shuttle Columbia disintegrated upon re-entry into the Earth’s atmosphere, killing all seven crew members.
• A massive heatwave occurred in European countries like France, where more than 15,000, over 70.,000 in total.
• SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) emerged in China in 2003 and spread to several other countries before being controlled.
• In the entertainment industry, Friends’ final episode aired on NBC, and Lord of the Rings: Return of the King won the Academy Award for Best Picture.

“The Quotes”
“Where do buffalo wings come from? Chickens or buffaloes?”
-Jessica Simpson, on her Newlyweds reality show.

“He’s just not that into you.”
-Jack Berger, Sex In The City

When Arnold Schwarzenegger was running for Governor in 2003, he was hit with an egg during a rally; later, during the speech, Arnold responded with, “Now he owes me bacon.”

The Scandals:
Angelina Jolie kissed her brother, James Haven, rather passionately at the Oscars. James claimed it was a quick peck, caught at the wrong second.

Paris Hilton’s sex tape was released with then-boyfriend Rick Salomon, One Night In Paris.

New York Times reporter Jayson Blair resigned after being confronted with evidence of fabricating quotes and details in at least 36 articles.

Natalie Maines, the lead singer for the Dixie Chicks, told a London crowd, “we’re ashamed that the President of the United States is From Texas.”

Conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh entered rehab for addiction to prescription drugs oxycodone and hydrocodone. This may have led to his hearing loss. (the radio talk show host is essentially deaf)

Michael Jackson was alleged to have engaged in sexual activities with a teenage boy (again).

Madonna Kissed Britney Spears at the VMAs

The Collar Bomb
Brian Wells was an American pizza delivery man who was killed on August 28, 2003, when a bomb locked around his neck detonated. The incident, which took place in Erie, Pennsylvania, is known as the “collar bomb” or “pizza bomber” case.

Wells had been delivering a pizza to a location on the outskirts of Erie when he was accosted by a man who claimed to be a police officer. The man forced Wells to wear a collar bomb and directed him to rob a nearby bank. After robbing the bank, Wells was taken into custody by the police, but the bomb detonated before it could be disarmed.

The case is notable for its complexity and the number of individuals who were eventually arrested and convicted in connection with the crime. It’s considered as a rare instance of a real-life criminal event that followed the scenario of a TV series or a movie.

The FBI had concluded that the crime was a “perfect crime” perpetrated by a group of criminals, but later investigations revealed the involvement of Wells himself in the crime. However, Wells’ family and some of the defendants maintain that he was an unwitting participant in the crime and was manipulated by the other individuals involved. The case remains controversial and is still being discussed by the media.

Welchia Computer Worm
Welchia, also known as the Nachi worm, is a computer worm that was first discovered in 2003. It was primarily spread through a vulnerability in the Windows operating system, known as the “Remote Procedure Call (RPC) DCOM” vulnerability. This vulnerability allowed the worm to propagate across networks and infect unpatched systems.

The worm was designed to target Windows 2000 and Windows XP systems, and it could exploit the RPC DCOM vulnerability without needing user interaction. Once a system was infected, the worm would attempt to download and install a patch for the vulnerability it had just exploited to protect the system from further attack.

In addition to patching the vulnerability, the worm also had several other malicious payloads, including:

• Attempting to propagate itself to other systems on the network
• Terminating several security-related processes and services
• Downloading and running additional malware
• Creating a backdoor on the infected system that could be used to control the system remotely.

Welchia was considered to be a significant threat when it was first discovered, as it was able to spread quickly across networks and caused disruptions to many systems. However, because the worm attempted to patch the vulnerability it was exploiting, some saw it as a “benign” worm.

HERO – 13-year-old Surfer Bethany Hamilton jumped right back on a surfboard after getting patched up from her shark bite, which took her left arm. A 2011 film, Soul Surfer, starring AnnaSophia Robb, was about her life.

HERO – Aron Ralston – while canyoneering in Utah, he was forced to amputate his right arm with a dull knife to free himself from a boulder. A 2011 film, 127 Hours, starring James Franco, was about the adventure.

HERO – Elizabeth Smart was found alive nine months after she was kidnapped. She has become an activist, working with Sexual Predator Legislation and the AMBER Alert system, and she spoke after the signing of the Adam Walsh Act. A TV movie about the ordeal, The Elizabeth Smart Story, was shown on CBS.

Pop Culture Facts & History:

Before 2003, if you changed wireless carriers, you would have to get a new phone number since carriers were not legally required to transfer your phone number.

Lord of the Rings: The Return Of The King won 11 Oscars, winning every category it was nominated for. For this reason, many consider it the greatest film of all time. Several books have been written regarding the making of the Lord of the Rings film series.

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (2003) was Sean Connery’s last movie role, as he didn’t like playing aging old men in movies.

The Cat costume Mike Myers wore in the 2003 live-action Cat in the Hat film was made out of wool and human hair.

Actor Paul Bettany proposed to Jennifer Connelly after 9/11. The two were not dating at the time; they met while filming A Beautiful Mind in 2001. They’ve been married since 2003.

In a study in 2003, shelter dogs were found to be more relaxed and quiet when listening to classical music. The dogs didn’t seem particularly interested in pop music or radio shows but exhibited more barking when heavy metal was playing.

The word “McJob” was added to the Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary in 2003, defined as “a low-paying job that requires little skill and provides little opportunity for advancement.”

The original “Dunkin’ Donut” from Dunkin’ Donuts had a pastry handle for dipping into coffee. It was discontinued in 2003 because it had to be cut by hand.

Despite a central theme of the X-Men comics being the mutants are still human – Marvel successfully won a court case in 2003 to classify the X-Men action figures as ‘non-human toys’ to avoid higher tariffs.

Disneyland and Disney World are “national defense airspace” no-fly zones and have been since 2003.

After the space shuttle Columbia disaster in 2003, the debris field stretched from Texas through Louisiana, and the search team was so thorough they found nearly 84,000 pieces of the shuttle, several murder victims, and a few meth labs.

The 2003 invasion of Iraq was initially called “Operation Iraqi Liberation” but was quickly changed to “Operation Iraqi Freedom” due to the acronym spelling out “OIL.”

In 2003, US President George W. Bush started PEPFAR, providing antiretroviral drugs to African nations, lowering the AIDS rate by 10%, and saving 1.1 million lives.

The detective show Columbo, starring Peter Falk, aired its first episode in February 1968 and aired its last episode 35 years later in January 2003

The Human Genome Project mapped the structure of DNA, and all the specific information it contained completed its work.

In 2003 the “@” symbol was added to Morse code using the symbol “•–•-•”, the first and only addition to Morse code since WWII.

The original Gameboy wasn’t discontinued until 2003.

Queen are the only group in which every member has composed more than one #1 single, and hence, all four members were inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2003.

US Route 666, nicknamed The Devil’s Highway was renamed to Route 491 in 2003, and within days of the announcement nearly all the old signs containing the number 666 were stolen as souvenirs.

In 2003 Dodge built and sold nine motorcycles with a viper V-10 engine called the Dodge Tomahawk.

Leonardo Notarbartolo stole diamonds worth 100M Dollars after getting past a lock with 100M possible combinations, infrared heat detectors, a seismic sensor, Doppler radar, a magnetic field and security guards in Antwerp, Belgium. He was later caught because he left a partially eaten sandwich near the crime scene

Jon Lech Johansen, a self-trained software engineer who created software that decoded DVD copy protection. Johansen defended himself against computer hacking charges, arguing he owned the DVDs and didn’t access anyone else’s information. He was acquitted in 2003.

A pair of Miami radio DJ’s prank called Fidel Castro in 2003. They pretended to be Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to get Castro on the line and had a brief chat before telling Castro he had been fooled. Castro responded with a brief verbal tirade. The radio station was later fined $4,000.

On May 25, 2003, two men boarded an empty Boeing 727 at an airport in Angola and flew off into the sunset. The FBI and CIA conducted a massive search, but neither the men nor the plane was ever seen or heard from again. it is one of the largest aircraft ever to disappear.

In 2003 a herd of wild elephants released a group of captive antelopes from a game reserve in Southeast Africa. The herd’s matriarch undid the gate’s metal latches with her trunk & then pushed it open. The antelope took their chance & ran into the bush, followed by the elephants.

In 2003, Juan Catalan was cleared of murder charges after outtake footage shot for “The Car Pool Lane” episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm showed him and his daughter attending the Los Angeles Dodgers vs. Atlanta Braves baseball game some 20 miles from the crime scene at the time of the murder.

The chief officer of the German-owned cargo ship RMS Mülheim got into difficulties while on watch. His trousers caught in his chair mechanism and while trying to free himself, he tripped and knocked himself unconscious. The ship was grounded on rocks while he was out and broke up.

Steven Bartman, sitting in Section 4, Row 8, Seat 113 of the stands at Wrigley Field, reached for and deflected a foul ball that Cubs left fielder Moises Alou was trying to catch. The Florida Marlins won the game and the chance to be in the World Series. Steven is a decent guy and still a Cubs fan by all reports. He received a World Series ring when the Cubs won in 2016.

Cost of a Super Bowl ad in 2003: $2,100,000

Broadway Show – Avenue Q (Musical) Opened on July 31, 2003 and closed on September 13, 2009

Broadway Show – Wicked (Musical) Opened on October 30, 2003

2003 Billboard Number One Songs:
November 9, 2002- January 31, 2003:
Lose Yourself – Eminem

February 1 – February 7:
Bump, Bump, Bump – B2K featuring P. Diddy

February 8 – March 7:
All I Have – Jennifer Lopez featuring L.L. Cool J

March 8 – May 9:
In Da Club – 50 Cent

May 10 – May 30:
Get Busy – Sean Paul

May 31 – June 27:
21 Questions – 50 Cent featuring Nate Dogg

June 28 – July 11:
This Is The Night – Clay Aiken

July 12 – September 5:
Crazy In Love – Beyonce featuring Jay-Z

September 6 – October 3:
Shake Ya Tailfeather – Nelly/P. Diddy/Murphy Lee

October 4 – December 5:
Baby Boy – Beyonce featuring Sean Paul

December 6 – December 12:
Stand Up – Ludacris featuring Shawnna

December 13, 2004 – February 13, 2003:
Hey Ya! – OutKast

2002 Pop Culture History

Quick Facts from 2002:

• World Changing Event: United States President George W. Bush “Axis of Evil” speech
• On January 1, Euro banknotes and coins become legal tender in twelve of the European Union’s member states.
• The Top Song was Lose Yourself by Eminem
• Influential Songs include: The Rising by Bruce Springsteen, Stole by Kelly Rowland, Cleanin’ Out My Closet by Eminem, A Thousand Miles by Vanessa Carlton, and Sk8er Boi by Avril Lavigne
• The Movies to Watch include Spider-Man, Barbershop, My Big Fat Greek Wedding, The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, Chicago, Lilo & Stitch, and Scooby-Doo
• The Most Famous Fictional Person in America was probably Spider-Man
• People Magazine’s Sexiest Man Alive: Ben Affleck
• Elon Musk founded SpaceX
• Notable books include: John Adams by David McCullough and The Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren
• Price of a postage stamp in 2002: 37 cents
  Wendy’s Single burger with cheese: $2.25
  Land O Lakes butter, 1 pound: $3.99
• The Funny Late Night Host: Jay Leno
• The Conversation: The Stand by Your Ad provision is a federal act requiring candidates to state “I approved this message” in all political advertisements, to discourage them from making controversial claims or attack ads.

“The Quotes”
“My precious.”
– Andy Serkis, Gollum, in Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers

“What happens here, stays here”
– Las Vegas

The Scandals:
Michael Jackson dangled Prince Michael II, off a balcony from a Berlin hotel room, earning him the nickname “blanket.”.

Enron’s 2001 surprise bankruptcy was just the beginning when its accounting firm, Arthur Andersen, was implicated in a huge accounting fraud scandal. AA was also dissolved in this scandal.

R & B singer R. Kelly liked to twiddle with underage girls, according to the visual evidence of videos he made.

Winona Ryder was sentenced to three years probation, 480 hours of community service, $3,700 in fines, $6,355 in restitution, and ordered to attend psychological and drug counseling after being found guilty of stealing $5,500 worth of merchandise from Saks Fifth Avenue.

Raelian UFO sect/sex cult scientists announced that they, through their company called Clonaid, had cloned the first human baby. They didn’t.

TV Star Murder?
Robert Blake, best known as TV’s Baretta was charged, then acquitted for murdering his wife, Bonny Lee Bakley.

Ted Williams had his head separated from his body and frozen – he and his children agreed to each have it done so they could once again be together at some point in the future.

Pop Culture Facts & History:
Steve Fossett finished his non-stop trip around the world via balloon on July 4th. It took him 14 days, 19 hours and 51 minutes.

Muggle” was added to the Oxford English Dictionary in 2003 defined as a person who is lacking a skill. Muggle is also a 1930s jazz slang word for someone who uses cannabis.

Fujitsu made a device called the “iPAD” in 2002. Apple had to pay $4 million to Fujitsu to buy the trademark.

Every car made after 2002 has an “Emergency Release” cable inside the trunk in case of kidnapping.

Claritin, invented as a prescription medication in 1993, became an over-the-counter allergy medicine.

Cost of a Super Bowl ad in 2002: $1,900,000

The Master of Disguise, a flop film from 2002, is only 65 minutes long but it includes 15 minutes of end credits in order to qualify as a feature film.

1st Appearances & 2002’s Most Popular Christmas Gifts, Toys and Presents:
Ugly Dolls, Trivial Pursuit 20th Anniversary Edition

FOX’s American Idol Premiered

Broadway Show – Hairspray (Musical) Opened on August 15, 2002 and closed on January 4, 2009

East End Show – We Will Rock You (Musical) Opened on September 25, 2002 and closed on May 31, 2014

East End Show – Stomp (Dance Musical) Opened on September 25, 2002

Broadway Show – Movin’ Out (Dance Musical) Opened on October 24, 2002 and closed on December 11, 2005

2002 Billboard Number One Songs:
December 15, 2001 – January 25, 2002:
U Got It Bad – Usher

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

2001 History, Fun Facts, and Trivia

Quick Facts from 2001:

• World Changing Event: September 11 terrorist attack in New York City
• The Top Song was All For You by Janet Jackson
• The Movies to Watch include Shrek, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, Monsters Inc, Legally Blonde and Ocean’s 11
• The Most Famous Fictional Person in America was probably Harry Potter
• The Most Famous Real Person in America was probably Angelina Jolie
• The 21st century didn’t begin on January 1st, 2000. It actually began on January 1st, 2001. This is because the first year of a century is the year 01, never 00.
• Price of Playstation 2: $299.97
  Game Boy Advance: $89.97
  iPod (1st Generation): $399.00
• The Funny Late Night Host: Jay Leno
  The Controversial Funny Guy: Gilbert Gottfried
• The Longest English Sentence Written: The longest sentence in a book is believed to appear in the 2001 novel The Rotters’ Club by Jonathan Coe which consisted of 13,955 words.
• Creepypasta: Although short, horror-themed stories have been told forever, the first Creepypasta story was Ted the Caver on an Angelfire website.

War On Terror:
Number of Deaths on the 9/11 attack:

American Airlines Flight 11 (hit the North Tower, NYC)
-87 passengers and crew, 5 hijackers

United Airlines Flight 175 (hit the South Tower, NYC)
-60 passengers and crew, 5 hijackers

Total World Trade Center
– 2,606 people
1366+ in North Tower
618+ in South Tower
18 was the guesstimate pedestrians killed on the street below
411 emergency workers were killed:
341 firefighters, 60 police officers, 10 paramedics & EMTs

United Airlines Flight 90 (Crashed near Shanksville, PA)
-40 passengers and crew, 4 hijackers

American Airlines Flight 77 (hit the Pentagon)
-59 passengers and crew, 5 hijackers
The Pentagon
-125 employees

The Scandals:
Angelina Jolie gave a passionate open-mouth kiss to her brother, James, which made many people almost forget Bjork’s goose dress.

Barry Bonds hit 73 Home Runs*.
* steroid use was allegedly involved

Enron’s accounting scandal cost investors something close to $60 Billion, and their accounting firm, Arthur Anderson, went out of business

Gary Condit, a Democrat California congressman, had an affair with his intern, Chandra Levy, which was alleged may have also led to her murder. It looked bad, but he didn’t; Ingmar Guandique, a Salvadoran immigrant had killed her.

Renee Zellweger was in the bathroom when Hugh Grant called her up for her Golden Globe Award.

Back From The Brink:
The rarest insect in the world is the Lord Howe Island stick insect. It was believed to be extinct since 1920 until some were found again in 2001. In 2006 there were only about 50 of them, but only 2 years later their population increased to 700!

While on a trip in Kenya, the pilot of an airplane with actor-passenger Rowan Atkinson fainted, so Atkinson took control and flew it, until the pilot recovered.

HAL from 2001: A Space Odyssey got his name; it’s not IBM minus one. Both Clarke and 2001 director Stanley Kubrick characterized this idea as “utter nonsense! I thought that by now every intelligent person knew that H-A-L is derived from Heuristic ALgorithmic computer”.

In 2001, 269 newborn baby boys in the US were named ‘Keanu’.

In 2001 Stan Lee was given the opportunity to ‘re-imagine’ DC’s heroes and he made Batman black, Wonder Woman Hispanic, and The Flash a teenage girl.

Hidden within the files to the 2001 Spiderman game, there are numerous angry rants targeted towards an employee named ‘Matt’.

Before the 20th century, people reported mostly dreaming in color. But in 1942, 70% of college sophomores “rarely/never” had color dreams. By 2001 that rate had dropped to 17%. The change is thought to be because of the influence of black and white media in the mid-1900s.

Ten-year-old named Laura Buxton released a balloon with her name and address in the hope of finding a pen pal. The balloon traveled 140 miles before coming down and was found by an almost-ten-year old also named Laura Buxton. They share a number of other similarities.

In 1986, nurse Sandra Clarke could not stay with a patient who asked her to stay. When she returned, the patient had died alone. In 2001, she was key in starting No One Dies Alone, a program where volunteers sit with terminal patients who have no one else. The program is now world-wide.

Pizza Hut Delivered a Pizza to the International Space Station. It cost over a million dollars.

Cost of a Super Bowl ad in 2001: $2,100,000

The Habits:
iPod was released in October 2001.

The X-Box came out in November 2001.

…Everybody else was watching SpongeBob Squarepants

2001 Billboard Number One Songs:
November 18, 2000 – February 2, 2001:
Independent Women – Destiny’s Child

February 3 – February 16:
It Wasn’t Me – Shaggy Featuring Ricardo “RikRok” Ducent

February 17 – February 23:
Ms. Jackson – OutKast

February 24 – March 23:
Stutter – Joe

March 24 – April 6:
Butterfly – Crazy Town

April 7 – April 13:
Angel – Shaggy Featuring Rayvon

April 14 – July 1:
All For You – Janet Jackson

June 2 – July 6:
Lady Marmalade – Christina Aguilera / Lil’ Kim / Mya / Pink

July 7 – August 3:
U Remind Me – Usher

August 4 – August 17:
Bootylicious – Destiny’s Child

August 18 – September 28:
Fallin’ – Alicia Keys

September 29 – November 2:
I’m Real – Jennifer Lopez featuring Ja Rule

November 3 – December 14:
Family Affair – Mary J. Blige

December 15, 2001 – January 25, 2002:
U Got It Bad – Usher