What Interesting/Important Happened in 2001?
2001 was the first year of the new millennium and the kind of apostle of the new era that was waiting for us.
Was it the year of your birth as well?
If that’s the case, you might be curious to find out what interesting events happened back then. Well, in this article we bring you our top picks of the biggest highlights of 2001. So, just keep reading!
World Trade Center Attack
Back in 1973 when the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in Manhattan were completed, they were the highest buildings on the planet and the symbol of New York City.
But, what happened in 2001 left everybody in America and all around the world in shock and grief.
On September 11, two passenger planes of the US hijacked and navigated by the members of the terrorist group Al-Qaeda crashed into the North and South towers. Less than two hours later, both buildings collapsed like the house of cards.
Near 3.000 people died. Over 25.000 were injured. And according to these disastrous numbers, the World Trade Center attack was the deadliest terrorist attack in history.
Wikipedia Was Established
Which site on the internet do you reach when you’re eager to learn new things and you want the source to be reliable? Wikipedia, of course! Well, you should celebrate 2001 not only for the day of your birth but also for this online encyclopedia establishing that changed our lives for the better.
Its founders were Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger, and today, it is maintained by volunteer editors. Besides, its host – Wikimedia Foundation is a non-profit organization and it is being funded mostly through donations.
At first, Wikipedia was meant to be an encyclopedia with only English articles, but as its popularity was growing, many other world languages were included. Today it counts more than 55 million articles and almost 2 billion people visit it per month!
The First iPod
Many people love it when some good music follows them through the day on their earphones. Today, all that is required for such a pleasure is a smartphone in your pocket. However, back in the past, in order to enjoy your favorite songs, you had to do a bit more – buy an MP3 player.
The year 2001 embellished the lives of music lovers all around the globe even more when the first Apple iPod came on the scene. Its modern, sophisticated, and yet practical design immediately won the hearts of millions of buyers.
Plus, it had a good capacity of up to 10GB, so you could download more than 1000 songs and sail through the world of music all day long.
They usually say that the letter ’i’ in iPod name stands for internet and innovation, but did you know where the ’pod’ came from? Interestingly, it was a part of a quote „Open the pod bay doors, Hal“ from 2001: A Space Odyssey movie. The space shuttles from there reminded the author of the iPod’s name of the new music player a lot.
Harry Potter and The Lord of the Rings Debuted on the Screen
Any fantasy movies lovers here? If you’re one of them, you will be enchanted by the fact that the first Harry Potter and The Lord of the Rings movies came out in 2001, the year of your birth!
It’s been almost 20 years, so maybe you’ve forgotten, but the first Harry Potter movie from 2001 was Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. Our beloved Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, and Rupert Grint were practically children back then!
The movie was welcomed with rapture, grossing almost $1 billion! That dazzling amount was enough to make it the highest-grossing movie in 2001. Furthermore, it won many Academy Awards and BAFTA Awards nominations.
The first part of The Lord of the Rings trilogy – The Fellowship of the Ring was out in 2001 as well, just a month after the Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone releasing. What a year, right?
And the public was not any less delighted by the movie comparing to Harry Potter’s success. Its gross was almost $900 million worldwide! The critics liked it a lot as well, so it won four Academy Awards, including those for Best Cinematography, Best Makeup, Best Visual Effects, and Best Original Score.
So – J. K. Rowling and J. R. R. Tolkien must be very proud!
Shrek Premiered
For every 2000s child, Shrek was a favorite animated movie. And it was one more great achievement of the movie industry made in 2001.
People got to see Shrek for the first time at the Canes Film Festival, and it was the only animated movie to compete there for the Palme d’Or since Disney’s Peter Pan that premiered in 1953. Unfortunately, it wasn’t the final winner, but despite that, the movie made an excellent success.
The unique plot about an ogre that unexpectedly finds love with an unusual princess, as well as the familiar voices of Mike Myers, Eddie Murphy, and Cameron Diaz surely contributed to that. Speaking of its interesting story, it was actually borrowed from a humorous fantasy book of the same name written and published in 1999 by American book writer William Stieg.
Shrek taught as all an important lesson about unconditional love that goes far beyond everything superficial, and that’s what both kids and adults liked about it. But did you know that Shrek’s appearance was kind of borrowed as well? Just take a look at the French wrestler Maurice Tillet and you’ll see yourself.
Bratz Dolls Entered the Stores
If you were a girl growing up in the 2000s, you remember for sure how fun it was to play with Bratz dolls. Yes, Barbie was also great, but Bratz dolls were so modern and stylish! So, which one was your favorite – Jade, Cloe, Sasha, or Yasmin? We loved them all!
To be honest, people were not so happy about their appearance when they first came out – comparing to the perfect-figured Barbie, Bratz dolls seemed a bit strange. But then Christmas arrived and many children got the opportunity to play with a Bratz doll for the first time. The result – love at first sight.
A few years later, more than 125 million dolls were sold worldwide and it became one of the most popular toys of the first decade of the new millennium.
Summary
As you can see, 2001 was a very interesting year. We hope our little time-travel machine made you feel the 2000s spirit at least for a minute.
Would you like to keep up with that spirit? Then just read our next article where we bring you the most important events from the following 2002!
