50 Fun Facts About 2006

Which world, named by an 11-year-old English schoolgirl in 1930, was stripped of full planet status in 2006?

Pluto failed the astronomers' new test because it has not cleared other objects from the neighbourhood of its orbit. The vote left the solar system with eight planets.

Which social network launched in 2006 with every post capped at 140 characters, a limit doubled in 2017?

Twitter was first called twttr, a vowel-free name inspired by the photo site Flickr and five-character text short codes. It was rebranded as X in 2023.

Which video-sharing site did Google agree to buy in October 2006 for $1.65 billion in stock?

YouTube had been founded only in February 2005, by three former PayPal employees. They had already grown wealthy once, when eBay bought that company.

Which Nintendo console, codenamed Revolution during development, went on sale in North America in November 2006?

Wii owners got Wii Sports in the box, with a bowling game played by swinging the remote like a real ball. The console launched in the United States at $249.99.

Which French captain was sent off in the 2006 World Cup final for headbutting Marco Materazzi in the chest?

Zinedine Zidane was still awarded the Golden Ball as player of the tournament the day after the final. He had announced beforehand that he would retire once the World Cup was over.

Which TV wildlife presenter died in September 2006 after a stingray barb pierced his chest on the Great Barrier Reef?

Steve Irwin was filming a documentary called Ocean's Deadliest when he was struck. His death is believed to be the only fatal stingray attack ever caught on video.

Which Disney Channel sitcom, about a schoolgirl secretly living as a pop star, premiered in March 2006?

Hannah Montana cast Miley Cyrus first, and her father Billy Ray was only asked to audition afterwards. He ended up playing her on-screen dad.

Which one-word choice was Time magazine's Person of the Year for 2006, announced on a cover with a reflective panel?

You won for the millions of people who anonymously fill websites with their own content. The shiny panel on the cover was meant to show each reader's own face.

Which actor made his James Bond debut in 2006's Casino Royale after succeeding Pierce Brosnan in the role?

Daniel Craig's casting, announced in October 2005, proved controversial at first. Judi Dench, who played M, was the only cast member kept on from the Brosnan films.

Which nation won the 2006 football World Cup by beating France 5–3 on penalties in the Berlin final?

Italy claimed its fourth world title and its first in 24 years. Its semi-final win over the hosts came from two goals in the dying minutes of extra time.

Which Los Angeles ensemble drama upset Brokeback Mountain to win Best Picture at the Oscars held in March 2006?

Crash took only three Oscars in all, the smallest haul for a Best Picture winner since Rocky. Brokeback Mountain had led the field with eight nominations.

Which Johnny Depp character returned in the highest-grossing film of 2006, a sequel that passed $1 billion worldwide?

Jack Sparrow owes his swagger to Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards, on whom Depp modelled the performance. Dead Man's Chest reached $1 billion in a then-record 63 days.

Which Hollywood star and keen racing driver voiced retired champion Doc Hudson in the 2006 animated film Cars?

Paul Newman shared the character's passion for the track, having long raced and run teams himself. Archive recordings let him be billed in Cars 3, almost nine years after his death.

Which actress earned an Oscar nomination as fashion editor Miranda Priestly in the 2006 comedy The Devil Wears Prada?

Meryl Streep's icy editor is widely believed to be modelled on Vogue's Anna Wintour. Many designers avoided cameos in the film, reportedly for fear of displeasing her.

Which singer topped the US Hot 100 for the first time in 2006 with Hips Don't Lie, featuring Wyclef Jean?

Shakira took the song to number one in 18 countries, including Britain, France and Germany.

Which singer's 2006 album FutureSex/LoveSounds, made largely with Timbaland, yielded three US number-one singles?

Justin Timberlake had taken a three-year break from writing before making it. The chart-toppers were SexyBack, My Love and What Goes Around... Comes Around.

Which country singer released her self-titled debut album in October 2006, led by a single named after Tim McGraw?

Taylor Swift's debut had logged 157 weeks on the Billboard 200 by October 2009, making it the longest-charting album of the 2000s. She was 16 when it came out.

Which country does Sacha Baron Cohen's fictional journalist Borat call home in the hit 2006 mockumentary film?

Kazakhstan's government denounced the film at first but later embraced it in tourism campaigns. The scenes in Borat's home village were actually shot in Romania.

Which ousted leader was hanged on 30 December 2006 after a tribunal convicted him over the killing of 148 villagers?

Saddam Hussein was sentenced for the 1982 Dujail massacre, carried out in retaliation for an attempt on his life. The hanging took place on the first day of Eid al-Adha.

Which city, home of the carmaker Fiat, hosted the Winter Olympics in February 2006?

Turin's win in the 1999 vote came as a surprise. It was the first host picked under rules that barred Olympic committee members from visiting the candidate cities.

Which team won Super Bowl XL in February 2006 in Detroit, the hometown of its veteran running back Jerome Bettis?

Pittsburgh Steelers beat the Seattle Seahawks 21–10 for the franchise's first title in over two decades. Bettis had urged his teammates simply to get him to Detroit.

Which NBA team won its first championship in June 2006, with Dwyane Wade named Most Valuable Player of the Finals?

Miami Heat lost the first two games to the Dallas Mavericks, then won four in a row. Wade scored 36 points in the deciding game.

Which NBA star scored 81 points against Toronto in January 2006, at the time second only to Wilt Chamberlain's 100?

Kobe Bryant smashed the Lakers' franchise record of 71, set by Elgin Baylor, in a 122–104 win. It remained the highest score of his career.

Which 2006 Kentucky Derby winner shattered a hind leg two weeks later in the Preakness Stakes?

Barbaro burst through the starting gate in a false start moments before the injury. After eight months of treatment he was euthanised in January 2007.

Which American cyclist lost his 2006 Tour de France title after failing a drug test following stage 17?

Floyd Landis's sample showed an unusually high testosterone ratio, a result he contested for years. The title passed to the runner-up, Spain's Óscar Pereiro.

Which baseball legend's career total of 714 home runs did Barry Bonds pass in May 2006?

Babe Ruth's mark fell when Bonds hit number 715 off Colorado pitcher Byung-hyun Kim. That left only Hank Aaron ahead of him on the all-time list.

Which eight-time major champion retired from tennis at the 2006 US Open after a four-minute standing ovation?

Andre Agassi bowed out with a four-set loss to Benjamin Becker, a German ranked 112th in the world. He had announced the plan at Wimbledon that summer.

Which country carried out its first nuclear test in October 2006, detonating a plutonium device underground?

North Korea was hit with UN Security Council sanctions, approved unanimously, five days later. It denounced them as a declaration of war.

Which US politician accidentally shot lawyer Harry Whittington during a Texas quail hunt in February 2006?

Dick Cheney's 78-year-old companion had a minor heart attack from a pellet near his heart. He then told reporters he was sorry for all the vice president had been put through.

Which country did Montenegro vote narrowly to split from in May 2006, clearing a 55% threshold by half a point?

Serbia responded by declaring itself the legal successor of the joint state the two had shared. Montenegro's parliament formally declared independence on 3 June.

Which radioactive element was used to poison former Russian agent Alexander Litvinenko in London in November 2006?

Polonium was not suspected at first: police initially looked into thallium, which also makes hair fall out. Litvinenko died on 23 November.

Which diplomat was chosen in October 2006 to succeed Kofi Annan as Secretary-General of the United Nations?

Ban Ki-moon led every straw poll and was the only candidate that no permanent Security Council member voted against. India's Shashi Tharoor finished second.

Which West African country swore in Ellen Johnson Sirleaf in January 2006 as Africa's first elected female president?

Liberia's new president had trailed the former footballer George Weah in the first round, then beat him in the run-off. She won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2011.

Which virus, the cause of most cervical cancers, is targeted by Gardasil, a vaccine first approved in the US in 2006?

HPV types 16 and 18 alone cause an estimated 70% of cervical cancers. The first approval covered girls and women aged 9 to 26.

Which animation studio did Disney agree to buy in January 2006 in an all-stock deal worth about $7.4 billion?

Pixar's biggest shareholder was Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, so the sale made him Disney's largest individual shareholder, with a 7% stake and a seat on the board.

Which collapsed energy company's former chiefs Kenneth Lay and Jeffrey Skilling were found guilty of fraud in May 2006?

Enron's former chairman Lay died that July, before he could be sentenced. Skilling was convicted on 19 of the 28 counts against him.

Which country's army seized power in September 2006 while Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra was in New York?

Thailand's ousted premier watched his own overthrow on television from a hotel room. He had been due to address the United Nations General Assembly.

Which reclusive mathematician turned down the Fields Medal in 2006 after proving the century-old Poincaré conjecture?

Grigori Perelman said he had no interest in money or fame and did not want to be put on display like an animal in a zoo. He later refused a million-dollar prize as well.

Which Bangladeshi economist won the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize for founding Grameen Bank and pioneering microcredit?

Muhammad Yunus began by lending $27 of his own money to 42 village women. More than 94% of the bank's loans have since gone to women.

Which duo's song Crazy became the first single to top the UK chart on download sales alone, in 2006?

Gnarls Barkley, the pairing of CeeLo Green and Danger Mouse, later pulled the single from British shops so that listeners would not grow sick of it.

Which US television network launched in September 2006 as the successor to both UPN and The WB?

The CW takes its name from the initials of its founding owners, CBS and Warner Bros. The CBS chairman joked that the letters could hardly go the other way round.

Which word coined by Stephen Colbert did Merriam-Webster readers vote Word of the Year for 2006?

Truthiness, the sense that something is true because it feels true, won the reader poll by a five-to-one margin. The runner-up was the verb google.

Which animated musical about a tap-dancing emperor penguin beat Cars to the Oscar for best animated film of 2006?

Happy Feet was directed by George Miller, the man behind the Mad Max films. Its hero Mumble cannot sing to attract a mate as other penguins do, so he dances instead.

Which African country did Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt choose for the birth of their daughter Shiloh in May 2006?

Namibia was picked to escape the media frenzy surrounding the couple. They later funded a health clinic, housing and a school there in their daughter's name.

Which country won its first Eurovision Song Contest in 2006 with Lordi, a heavy metal band in monster costumes?

Finland had waited 45 years for a win, the longest any country had competed without one at that point. The winning song was Hard Rock Hallelujah.

Which Istanbul-born author of My Name Is Red and Snow won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2006?

Orhan Pamuk became the first Nobel laureate from Turkey. His next novel, The Museum of Innocence, followed two years later.

Which Sheffield band's 2006 debut became the fastest-selling debut album in British chart history at the time?

Arctic Monkeys sold 363,735 copies of the album in its first week. The fan-made MySpace page that spread their demos was news to the band, who said they had no idea what the site was.

Which team won the 2006 Stanley Cup, the first awarded after a lockout cancelled the entire previous season?

Carolina Hurricanes beat the Edmonton Oilers 3–1 in a deciding seventh game on home ice. It was the franchise's first Stanley Cup.

Which former US president died in December 2006 aged 93, at that point the longest-lived president in history?

Gerald Ford outlived Ronald Reagan's record by 45 days. He is the only person to have held the office without being elected as either president or vice president.

Which company launched the Zune media player in November 2006 in a bid to challenge Apple's iPod?

Microsoft's first model drew jokes for its bulky size and brown colour. The brand never dented the iPod's lead and was discontinued in 2012.