This article is about the decade starting at the beginning of 2000 and ending at the end of 2009. For the century or millennium starting in 2000 (or 2001 depending on the calendar system in use), see the links below.
Thus far, the 2000s has been marked with generally an escalation of the social issues the world inherited from the 1990s and the post-Cold War era which included the rise of terrorism, the rapid expansion of communications and telecommunications with cell phones and the Internet, international pop culture, and the expansion of globalization. Politically, the 2000s has been almost entirely dominated by a War on Terrorism, with major terrorist attacks including the World Trade Center attack, the Moscow Theatre Siege, the Madrid train bombings, the Beslan school hostage crisis, and the 2005 London bombings. In the news almost daily, especially in the West, the war on terrorism and the rise of American global influence has helped fuel the development of a politically and socially divided world. The 2000s have also witnessed the incredible economic growth of the world's two most populous nations, India and China, and the ramifications their growth has had on the western world.
Names of the Decade
In contrast to the decades from 1920 to 1999, which are called "The Twenties", "The Nineties", and the like; the 2000s has had no generally-accepted name, although it is usually referred to as "The Two-Thousands". The term "The Ohs," referring to the sense of wonder that the then-new decade would bring, was suggested in a Newsday orial in the late Nineties.
It is also occasionally termed, in historical contexts, the "turn of the millennium" or "turn of the century" (or "turn of the new century," since the idea of 1900 being the "turn of the century" is still fresh in people's minds). This terminoloy would probably seem silly, however, if used in an informal context.
Other possible names include the "Zeroes", the "Zero Decade", the "Double-Ohs", and in a joking context the "New 90s" as some people think the 2000s are simply an extension of the 1990s in a pop cultural aspect.
The United Nations General Assembly declared the decade of 2000-2009 as the "International Decade for a Culture of Peace and Non-Violence for the Children of the World."
DVDs replace VCR technology as the common standard at video stores.
Wireless networks become commonplace in homes, education institutes and urban public spaces.
LASIK eye surgery becomes popular as costs and potential risk decreases and results further improve.
OLED (Organic light-emitting diode) technology revolutionizes display technology, making it possible to "print" screens on everyday objects.
Home automation and home robotics become popular in North America, mainly typified by Irobots' "Roomba".
GPS (Global Positioning System) becomes very popular especially in the tracking of items or people, and the use in cars.
RFID (Radio Frequency ID) becomes widely used in retail giants such as Wal-Mart, as a way to track items and automate stocking and keeping track of items.
DVRs (Digital Video Recorders), typified by TiVo, allow consumers to modify content they watch on TV, and to record TV programs and watch them later, leading to problems as consumers can fast-forward through commercials, making them useless.
Self-Serve Kiosks become very widely available, used for all kinds of shopping, airplane boarding passes, hotel check-ins, fast food, and car rental.
Emerging use of robotics in the medical field. Particularly in surgery.
Large increase of computers and other technoloiges incorporated into vehicles such as Xenon HID headlights, GPS, DVD players, self-diagnosing systems, advanced pre-collision safety systems, memory systems for car settings, back-up sensors and cameras, in-car media systems, mp3 player compatibility, USB drive compatibility, keyless start and entry, satellite radio, voice-activation, cellphone connectivity, adaptive headlights, HUD (Heads-Up-Display), infrared cameras, and Onstar (on GM models).
September 11, 2001 terrorist attack on New York's World Trade Center and Virginia's Pentagon killing almost 3000 people. A resultant change in stance towards international terrorism (See New Era and War on Terror) has ripple effects on the USA's foreign policy and military strategy.
United States expands international influence, in particular in the Middle East The US also hold a number of war games pertaining to the Strait of Taiwan in preparation for a possible war with the People's Republic of China over a Taiwanese secession. China and Russia display a strategic relationships during a simulated "humanitarian" crisis in the same region during Peace Mission 2005.
Japanese Prime Minister Koizumi Junichiro and his conservative Liberal Democratic Party are re-elected in a landslide election in September 2005, mainly due to a booming Japanese economy and Junichiro's plans to privatise the Japanese postal service.
In 2005, Early elections in Germany produce the first Grand Coalition for the country in almost forty years. After weeks of talks, the center-left Social Democrats and center-right Christian Democratic Union/Christian Social Union agree to let conservative Angela Merkel become chancellor. She will be the first chancellor to be from eastern Germany, as well as the country's first female chancellor.
The US dominance over the world economy continues. Economically rising nations like China, show signs of becoming contending world powers.
China continues to grow rapidly, driving up commodity prices worldwide
Significant oil price rises. Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline opens on 25 May 2005, potentially removing the dependence of the United States and other Western nations on Middle Eastern oil.
Reality television becomes a well-established sector of the television programming industry. Nightly news broadcasts continue to lose viewership to 24-hour internet news coverage. Changing television habits that involve increased use of the internet and the preponderance of TiVo make marketers rethink the paradigm of the 30-second TV ad. Viral marketing, and product placement within reality television shows and movies are some increasingly used alternatives. Spam is used as an alternative, making people irritated.
Criticism of Vladimir Putin's governmental policies and reforms mount and a backlash of Soviet-nostalgia occurs in Russia.
On August 29, 2005Hurricane Katrina, a major hurricane (category 4/5 on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale) with maximum sustained winds of 175 mph, makes landfall on the gulf coast of the United States with sustained winds of 140 mph. The states of Mississippi, Louisiana, and Alabama all sustain severe damage from the storm. The city of New Orleans, Louisiana sustains catastrophic damage with 80% of the city underwater as a result of breaches in the levee system. Most citizens of the city are forced to evacuate; significant delays in the arrival of aid to the city result in numerous deaths and breakdown of civil order in among those remaining in the city. On the gulf coast of Mississippi, the towns of Bay St. Louis, Gulfport, and Biloxi all sustain catastrophic damage from a 20-30 foot storm surge; over 300 people are killed.
Arctic sea ice cover reaches record lows; global warming continues to be a major concern.
Pop Culture
Fashion slowly becomes less grungy and more excessive as the wearing of flannel by people under 30 declines and acid-washed jeans and shaggy hair become again commonplace. This trend may point to the fashion of the 2010s.
Rap music, especially of the post-gangsta and crunk varieties, reaches new heights of popularity, surpassing even the early 1990s in presence and begins to overtake rock and roll as the music of the youth. Popular and definitive artists include Eminem, Nelly, 50 Cent, Ja Rule, DMX, OutKast, and Kanye West. The Beastie Boys, who were superstars in the 80s and 90s, become uncool to some.
Cell phones become a necessity and an accessory to youth, which in the 1980s were rare Yuppie items and in the 1990s were rising into mainstream use. Most members of Generation Y had one in the 2000s.
MP3 players and Ipods become very common/break out. Talk begins of the two replacing CDs around 2004.
Generation Y, which came to prominence around 1997a href="1999.html" title="1999">1999, comes of age mostly during this decade, supplanting Gen X as the current generation.
1990s pop culture not actively backlashed in 2000s, with many aspects of the decade going strong even into 2005. Many note the general sameness between the late 90s and 2000s as alternative rock, tattoos, baggy pants, and many slang words of the 90s continue to be current into the early and middle 2000s.
Baseball in the United States undergoes controversy due to steroids; stars such as Mark McGuire and Barry Bonds, ranked #1 and #2 in single-season home runs, are suspected to have used steroids, while others such as Jason Giambi and Rafael Palmeiro are confirmed to have been using the drugs.
Beach Volleyball becomes an increasingly popular sport worldwide, establishing its first generation of superstars and branching out into large cities which are not even coastal.
Numetal, popular early in the decade, loses favor around 2005.
Pop-punk, pioneered by late 90s band Blink 182, rises in popularity throughout the decade.
PopR&B continues to be popular, fueled further by combination with Rap.
Crunk becomes a household word in 2003 when Lil' Jon popularizes the genre.
Green Day, a 1990s punk band, reaches what is arguably their peak of success in the mid-2000s with the "punk-rock opera" American Idiot.
TelevisionSMS live chat shows became popular in Finland in the year 2001, from where it has spread to a few other European countries, such as Bulgaria. Since then, in Finland, the concept has received much criticism for taking advantage on children who do not understand how much a single message costs. Finnish television channels have also developed interactive SMS games with usually a prize given for the most successful player. MTV3 has been the pioneer of SMS-using television shows, originally developing the concept.
The Simpsons remains in production and continues to be popular, but is generally regarded as inferior in quality to the 1990s episodes.
Disney Channel shifts from Old Disney programming to live action shows in late 1990s and early 2000s, while turning towards original cartoons beginning in 2002 with Kim Possible.
Boy Bands hit peak around 1999a href="2000.html" title="2000">2000 and decline as quick in 2001a href="2002.html" title="2002">2002. Girl singers have better success. Girl groups such as Spice Girls and B*witched disappear by 2001.
Internet browsing surpasses TV viewing in the year 2004.
Poker becomes a craze, as many Americans are enticed by online poker rooms and games with their friends and neighbors. The World Series of Poker aired on ESPN becomes a huge success.
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