50 Fun Facts About 2005

Which video-sharing website was founded in February 2005 by three former PayPal employees?

YouTube's first video, Me at the zoo, shows co-founder Jawed Karim at the San Diego Zoo and can still be watched on the site.

When the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season ran out of storm names, forecasters borrowed letters from which alphabet?

Greek letters from Alpha to Zeta named six storms in a season of 27, and Wilma became the most intense Atlantic hurricane on record.

Which singer from rural Oklahoma won the fourth season of American Idol in May 2005?

Carrie Underwood, raised on a farm in Checotah, beat rocker Bo Bice in a finale that drew 37 million votes.

Which actor jumped onto Oprah Winfrey's couch in May 2005 while declaring his love for Katie Holmes?

Tom Cruise stood on the yellow couch to make the announcement, and the couple married at a 15th-century castle in Bracciano in November 2006.

Which games console went on sale in November 2005 as a rival to the PlayStation 3 and Wii?

Xbox 360 consoles failed so often at first that the fault was nicknamed the Red Ring of Death and Microsoft extended the warranty.

Which pope was elected in April 2005 after the death of John Paul II?

Benedict XVI, the German cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, was elected after four ballots. In 2013 he became the first pope to resign since Gregory XII in 1415.

Which rock band reunited with Roger Waters at the Live 8 concerts in July 2005 after more than 20 years apart?

Pink Floyd's classic line-up of Waters, Gilmour, Wright and Mason shared a stage again at concerts timed to pressure G8 leaders meeting in Scotland.

Which 2005 novel did Stephenie Meyer base on her dream about a human girl in love with a vampire?

Twilight drew bids from eight publishers before its release and went on to be the biggest-selling book of 2008.

Which cyclist won a seventh straight Tour de France in 2005 but was stripped of every title in 2012?

Lance Armstrong lost all seven wins after a doping investigation, and cycling's governing body chose not to hand the titles to other riders.

Which NBC sitcom set at a paper company in Scranton, Pennsylvania, premiered in March 2005?

The Office was adapted from a BBC series created by Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant, and it ran for nine seasons and 201 episodes.

Which online mapping service, built on software from two Danish brothers in Sydney, launched in February 2005?

Google Maps began as a desktop program at the small Sydney firm Where 2 Technologies, which was bought in October 2004 and rebuilt as a web application.

Which Apple music player did Steve Jobs unveil in September 2005 by pointing to the watch pocket of his jeans?

iPod Nano replaced the iPod Mini and stored songs on flash memory, which made it slim enough for the pocket trick.

Which discussion website did University of Virginia roommates Steve Huffman and Alexis Ohanian found in June 2005?

Reddit was sold to the magazine publisher Condé Nast in October 2006, when the site was barely sixteen months old.

Which music video game, released in November 2005, came with a plastic controller modelled on a Gibson SG?

Guitar Hero grew out of a partnership between the studio Harmonix and RedOctane, a company that had been making dance pads for home consoles.

Which tech term, coined only a year earlier, did the New Oxford American Dictionary name Word of the Year for 2005?

Podcast was coined in 2004 by joining the name of a popular music player to the word broadcast.

Which dwarf planet, discovered in January 2005 and nicknamed Xena, was first described by NASA as a tenth planet?

Eris appeared to be larger than Pluto, which pushed astronomers to define the word planet for the first time.

On which moon did the European probe Huygens touch down in January 2005 after a ride aboard Cassini?

Titan gave Huygens the farthest landing from Earth a spacecraft has ever made, and the first on a moon other than our own.

Which double-deck airliner, the world's largest passenger plane, was unveiled in Toulouse and first flew in April 2005?

Airbus A380 jets are certified to carry as many as 853 passengers, though a typical cabin seats about 525.

Which chipmaker did Steve Jobs announce in 2005 would replace PowerPC processors inside Apple's Mac computers?

Intel chips replaced PowerPC processors supplied by IBM and Freescale, and the first Macs to use them went on sale in January 2006.

Which internet calling service, built on the file-sharing technology behind Kazaa, did eBay buy in September 2005?

Skype cost the auction site $2.6 billion, and Microsoft paid $8.5 billion for it in May 2011.

Which US city was left about 80 percent flooded in August 2005 when levees failed during Hurricane Katrina?

New Orleans turned the Superdome into a refuge of last resort for residents who could not leave, and the stadium itself was badly damaged.

Which former research scientist raised in East Germany became the first woman elected German chancellor in 2005?

Angela Merkel earned a doctorate in quantum chemistry in 1986 and worked in research until 1989, and the Bundestag elected her by 397 votes to 202.

Which city beat the favourite Paris by 54 votes to 50 in July 2005 to win the 2012 Summer Olympics?

London won on the fourth and final ballot at an IOC session in Singapore, where Tony Blair had flown out to lobby for the bid.

Which title did Camilla Parker Bowles use after marrying Prince Charles at Windsor Guildhall in April 2005?

Duchess of Cornwall became her style, and the wedding was pushed back a day so that Charles could attend the funeral of Pope John Paul II.

Which former FBI deputy director revealed in 2005 that he was Deep Throat, the secret Watergate source?

Mark Felt was 91 when he told Vanity Fair that he had passed information to Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein.

Which civil rights figure, who died aged 92 in October 2005, was given a public viewing in the US Capitol rotunda?

Rosa Parks was also honoured in Montgomery, where her 1955 refusal to move from a bus seat sparked a boycott, and in Detroit, where she was buried.

Which lifestyle businesswoman left a West Virginia prison in March 2005 and was back on television by September?

Martha Stewart served five months over the ImClone stock trading case, then launched a daytime show and her own version of The Apprentice.

Which climate treaty, adopted in 1997, finally entered into force in February 2005 with binding emissions targets?

Kyoto Protocol targets applied to developed countries, although the United States did not ratify the treaty and Canada withdrew in 2012.

In which city did Disney open a theme park in September 2005, with a layout that follows the rules of feng shui?

Hong Kong became home to the second Disneyland in Asia, after Tokyo's in 1983, and Shanghai did not get one until 2016.

Which singer and David Furnish formed one of Britain's first civil partnerships in December 2005?

Elton John and the Canadian filmmaker held the ceremony on the very day the Civil Partnership Act came into force, after twelve years together.

Which club trailed AC Milan 3–0 at half-time of the 2005 Champions League final in Istanbul yet won on penalties?

Liverpool levelled with three goals in six minutes, and goalkeeper Jerzy Dudek saved Andriy Shevchenko's penalty to seal what became known as the Miracle of Istanbul.

Which NFL team beat the Philadelphia Eagles 24–21 in February 2005 for a third Super Bowl win in four seasons?

New England Patriots became only the second team, after the Dallas Cowboys, to manage that run, sealing their status as the NFL dynasty of the 2000s.

Which baseball team swept the Houston Astros in the 2005 World Series to end an 88-year title drought?

Chicago White Sox fans had waited since 1917, a drought nicknamed the Curse of the Black Sox, and the team had not even reached the Series since 1959.

Which North American sports league cancelled a whole season in February 2005 after a labour lockout?

NHL owners and players could not agree a new deal, so the Stanley Cup went unawarded for the first time since 1919.

Which rookie became the first woman to lead laps in the Indianapolis 500 when she finished fourth in May 2005?

Danica Patrick was named Rookie of the Year for both the race and the full IndyCar season.

Which tennis player won the French Open on his tournament debut in June 2005, two days after turning 19?

Rafael Nadal was the first man to win the title on debut since Mats Wilander in 1982, and he beat Mariano Puerta in a four-set final.

Which Star Wars film, showing Anakin Skywalker's turn to the dark side, was the top-grossing US release of 2005?

Revenge of the Sith earned about $850 million worldwide, which put it second for the year behind Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.

Which 2005 action comedy starred Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie as assassins working for rival agencies?

Mr. & Mrs. Smith marked the start of the two stars' real-life romance, which led to marriage and children.

Which actor first played Bruce Wayne in Batman Begins, the 2005 reboot directed by Christopher Nolan?

Christian Bale starred beside Michael Caine, Gary Oldman and Morgan Freeman in an origin story that pits Batman against Ra's al Ghul and the Scarecrow.

Which 2005 Ang Lee film starring Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal won the Oscar for Best Director?

Brokeback Mountain also won Oscars for its adapted screenplay and score, and it took the Golden Globe for best drama.

Which Seattle-set hospital drama premiered on ABC in March 2005 as a mid-season replacement?

Grey's Anatomy takes its title from the surname of its heroine and from a classic medical textbook first published in 1858.

Which BBC science fiction series returned in March 2005 after a 16-year break, with Christopher Eccleston in the lead?

Doctor Who came back with production based at BBC Wales in Cardiff, and Eccleston left after one series to be replaced by David Tennant.

Which singer's album The Emancipation of Mimi was the best-selling album in the United States in 2005?

Mariah Carey's single We Belong Together spent fourteen weeks at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 that year.

Whose 2005 single Hollaback Girl became the first digital download to sell one million copies in the United States?

Gwen Stefani's hit was produced by the Neptunes and topped the Billboard Hot 100 for four weeks.

Which singer, discovered in her home country of Barbados, released her debut single Pon de Replay in May 2005?

Rihanna was spotted by the American producer Evan Rogers, who arranged for her to fly to New York before she signed with Def Jam.

Which Broadway musical based on Monty Python and the Holy Grail won the 2005 Tony Award for Best Musical?

Spamalot, a title that blends Spam and Camelot, was directed by Mike Nichols and starred Tim Curry as King Arthur.

Which university's driverless car won the 2005 DARPA Grand Challenge and a $2 million prize?

Stanford built the car with Volkswagen's research lab, and team leader Sebastian Thrun had once been a colleague of his chief rival at Carnegie Mellon.

The 2005 Nobel Prize in Medicine went to two researchers who linked a bacterium, rather than stress, to which illness?

Stomach ulcers were long blamed on stress, spicy food and acid, so Barry Marshall drank a broth of the bacteria himself to help prove the link.

Which adventurer made the first solo nonstop airplane flight around the world in 2005, landing after about 67 hours?

Steve Fossett flew the Virgin Atlantic GlobalFlyer, an aircraft designed by Burt Rutan, and chose an airport in Salina, Kansas, for its extra-long runway.

South Korean scientists unveiled the world's first cloned example of which animal in 2005?

Dog cloning proved so difficult that 123 surrogate mothers produced only one surviving pup, an Afghan Hound called Snuppy after Seoul National University.