Looking back on some of the historical events of 2005. For some reason, it seemed to me to be an interesting year for centennial events also.

2005:

• The Huygens probe landed on Titan (Saturn’s moon).
• One Pope died and a new Pope was selected.
• Deep Throat’s identity was revealed.
• Hurricane Katrina destroyed much of New Orleans, Bixoli, and the Gulf Coast. It was an unusually dense and destructive year for tropical storms.
• Civil unrest hit France in the Paris suburbs.
• A 7.6-magnitude earthquake stuck the Kashmir region in Northern Pakistan, killing nearly 90,000 people.
• NASA more-or-less successfully launched a projectile into a comet for study.

Centennial notes (1905):

• Einstein published his Special Theory of Relativity.
• Bend, Oregon became officially incorporated.
• Las Vegas was founded.

Bicentennial notes (1805):

• Lewis and Clark arrived and wintered at the Pacific Ocean.
• The Battle of Trafalgar: Admiral Nelson defeats a combined French and Spanish naval fleet.
• Napoleon, meanwhile, soundly defeats the Russians and Austrians at the Battle of Austerlitz.

Obviously I’m only touching on a very, very abbreviated list. A good one to review (and getting better each day) is Wikipedia’s 2005 page. But, I think it’s a decent touchpoint to start with, and it definitely stimulates the thinking. At any rate, those are some of the first things I thought of or stood out to me when I was looking back at 2005.

What 2005 events are significant to you?