• World Changing Event: 9/11 terrorist attack in New York City
• The Top Song was All For You by Janet Jackson
• The Big Movies included Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring and Shrek
• The price of a postage stamp in 2001 was 34 cents
  85% ground beef: 1.49/pound
  iPod (1st Generation): $399.00
• The World Population was ~ 6,174,000,000
• The Segway PT was introduced in 2001.
• In addition to over 100 other songs, the 2001 Clear Channel memorandum recommended banning every Rage Against the Machine song from radio airplay in the wake of 9/11.
• And… The iPod was released. It had been designed under the codename ‘Dulcimer.’

CC, short for Carbon Copy or Copy Cat (depending on who you ask), was the world’s first cloned cat, born December 22, 2001.

Upon his retirement from GE, Jack Welch, former CEO of General Electric, received a severance payment of $417 million, the most significant severance payment ever made.

Phoenix is the only city ever to have a complete “sports equinox” when all four major sports teams from a city play on the same day. On November 4th, 2001, the Cardinals (NFL), the Coyotes (NHL), and the Suns (NBA) all lost, while the Diamondbacks (MLB) won game 7 of the World Series.

Stanley Kubrick asked journalists to refer to “2001: A Space Odyssey” as “two thousand and one” instead of “twenty-oh-one,” hoping it would influence the pronunciation of that year.

The first song featured on the very first Kidz Bop album was All Star by Smash Mouth.

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.

In 2001, Neopets was the fourth most trafficked website on the internet, eight spots ahead of fast-growing search engine giant Google.

The Vatican publicly approved Pokémon in April 2001, claiming that the game was based on “intense ties of friendship” and lacked “any harmful moral side effects.”

On the 2001 New Zealand census, 53,715 people listed their religion as ‘Jedi’.

A ten-year-old named Laura Buxton released a balloon with her name and address, hoping to find 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 several other similarities.

“Tree Lobsters” are giant stick insects thought to have been extinct since 1920. In 2001, a few specimens were found on a single shrub on a magnificent volcanic sea stack between Australia and New Zealand. The insects have been bred in captivity and now have a stable population.

Bobby Bonilla will receive close to $1.2 million from the Mets once a year until 2035. He hasn’t played in the majors since 2001.

After Bill Murray’s character in the 2001 film Osmosis, Jones mentioned a fictitious “National Chicken Wing Festival” in Buffalo, New York; the city created a genuine version of the festival and has held it every year since then.

The voice of Boo from Monsters, Inc., Mary Gibbs, was just a toddler during production. The crew couldn’t get her to sit still and read her lines, so they had her play in the studio while following her around with a mic.

Tsar Simeon II of Bulgaria ruled from 1943 to 1946 as a child and was overthrown after WWII. He was later elected Prime Minister of Bulgaria in 2001. He is the only monarch to become the head of government through democratic elections in European history.

Cowboy Bebop was the first anime to play on Adult Swim.

Although “Madison” was the second most popular girl in 2001, it was virtually unheard of before the 1984 movie Splash, where a mermaid adopts it as her human name after seeing a street sign for Madison Avenue. To this, Tom Hanks’s character initially protests: “But Madison isn’t a name!”

Barry Bond’s record-breaking 73 Home Run season in 2001 is the only season in his career where he hit over 50.*
* steroid use was allegedly involved

Pizza Hut made a delivery to the International Space Station in 2001. They paid the Russians $1 million to transport the Pizza.

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

Ben Sliney, the man who ordered the grounding of all aircraft in the US on September 11, 2001, was on his first day of the job.

In the 1999 movie The Matrix, Neo’s passport expires on September 11, 2001.

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

United Airlines Flight 175 (hit the South Tower, NYC)
60 passengers and crew, five 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, ten paramedics & EMTs

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

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

Henryk Siwiak, a Polish immigrant, was murdered on September 11, 2001, and is widely described as “the last person killed in New York on 9/11”.

Officer John Perry of the NYPD went to headquarters to file retirement paperwork. When he heard the explosion at the World Trade Center, he immediately responded and was later killed when one of the towers collapsed. He was the only off-duty officer killed on 9/11.

Clear Channel banned many rock and pop songs after the attack.

Seth MacFarlane (of Family Guy, American Dad, and Ted fame) missed boarding American Airlines Flight 11 by fifteen minutes on September 11, 2001. He was reportedly late because of a hangover.

Synth-pop band “I Am the World Trade Center” released their debut album “Out of the Loop” in July 2001, with the 11th track of the album being “September”.

A live album from the band Dream Theater was released on 9/11/2001, with the skyline of NYC (with the World Trade Center) in flames on its album art. The album was recalled and re-released a short time later, but the incident remains one of the most bizarre coincidences in music.

The pilot episode of The Lone Gunmen was about a conspiracy of the US government to hijack an airline and fly it into the World Trade Center to start a profit-making war. It aired on March 4, 2001.

In August 2001, actor James Woods reported four suspicious males on his flight to authorities. Those males were the 9/11 hijackers on a dry run.

The name of the ‘USA Patriot Act’ is an acronym; “Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001.”

Recordings revealed that Enron shut down a power station in California and created an artificial power shortage, deliberately aggravating the 2001 California Energy Crisis so they could raise prices and cost residents billions in surcharges. Enron’s accounting scandal cost investors something close to $60 Billion, and their accounting firm, Arthur Anderson, went out of business. Earning short-term cash, Enron cost the state of California as much as $40 billion by causing artificial rolling blackouts in 2000 and 2001.

Continuum, a magazine devoted to the idea that AIDS is a conspiracy, went out of print in 2001 after all the editors died of AIDS.

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 didn’t – Ingmar Guandique, a Salvadoran immigrant, had killed her.

Mattel sold a Harry Potter ‘Nimbus 2000’ flying broom that vibrated when kids rode it. They pulled it from stores after adult stores began selling the toy.

Nascar Driver Death: Dale Earnhart

Airplane Celebrity Death: Aaliyah

Splitsville:
Julia Roberts and Benjaman Bratt
Nicole Kidman and Tom Cruise
Enron, due to financial misdeeds
Arthur Anderson Accounting, due to covering up Enron’s financial misdeeds

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

At the MTV’s Music Video Awards, millions watched Britney Spears dance with a python.

Microsoft Xbox, GameCube, Game Boy Advance, iPod, Harry Potter toys, K’NEX BattleTech/MechWarrior, Bob the Builder toys, Gran Turismo 3: A-Spec video game

Mental Floss Magazine (2001-2016)

Rosie Magazine (2001-2002)

People StyleWatch began publication

(Data is compiled from charts, including Billboard’s Pop, Rock, Airplay, R&B/Dance, and Singles Charts. The Hot 100 is the primary chart used for this list.)

February 3, 2001 – February 16, 2001: Shaggy featuring Ricardo ‘Rikrok’ Ducent – It Wasn’t Me

February 17, 2001 – February 23, 2001: Outkast – Ms. Jackson

February 24, 2001 – March 23, 2001: Joe featuring Mystikal – Stutter

March 24, 2001 – March 30, 2001: Crazy Town – Butterfly

March 31, 2001 – April 13, 2001: Shaggy featuring Rayvon – Angel

April 14, 2001 – June 1, 2001: Janet Jackson – All For You

June 2, 2001 – July 6, 2001: Christina Aguilera, Lil’ Kim, Mýa and Pink – Lady Marmalade

July 7, 2001 – August 3, 2001: Usher – U Remind Me

August 4, 2001 – August 17, 2001: Destiny’s Child – Bootylicious

August 18, 2001 – September 7, 2001: Alicia Keys – Fallin’

September 8, 2001 – November 2, 2001: Jennifer Lopez featuring Ja Rule – I’m Real

November 3, 2001 – December 14, 2001: Mary J. Blige – Family Affair

December 15, 2001 – December 21, 2001: Usher – U Got It Bad

December 22, 2001 – February 22, 2002: Nickelback – How You Remind Me

(according to boxofficemojo)
1. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone
2. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship Of The Ring
3. Shrek
4. Monster’s Inc
5. Rush Hour 2
6. The Mummy Returns
7. Pearl Harbor
8. Ocean’s Eleven
9. Jurassic Park III
10. Planet of the Apes

A Beautiful Mind, American Pie 2, Black Hawk Down, Donnie Darko, Dr. Dolittle 2, The Fast and the Furious, Hannibal, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, Jurassic Park III, Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, Legally Blonde, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, Monsters Inc., Moulin Rouge!, The Mummy Returns, Ocean’s Eleven, The Others, Pearl Harbor, Planet of the Apes, The Princess Diaries, Rat Race, Rush Hour 2, Shrek, Spy Kids, Vanilla Sky