2003: USA interest rates reach a 45-year-low
2003: the dollar falls 25% to the euro in just one year
2003: Austrian-born Hollywood star Arnold Schwarzenegger becomes governor of California
2003: serial killer Gary Ridgway confesses to be the “Green River Murderer” who killed at least 48 prostitutes and strippers in the Seattle area between 1982 and 1998
2003: the USA economy grows by 7% in the third quarter, the fastest rate in 20 years
2003: serial killer Gary Ridgway admits murdering 48 women (mostly prostitutes)
2003: the foreign-born populationof the USA reaches 33.5 million, out of 280 million people
2003: the USA dispatches 1,700 soldiers to the Philippines, to help fight the Abu Sayyaf terrorists
2003: scientists estimate the age of the universe is 13.7 billion years and 95% of the universe is invisible “dark matter”
2003: serial killer Charles Cullen, a hospital nurse, is arrested for causing the death of at least 40 patients with drug overdoses
2003: 15 million people worldwide suffer from Alzheimer’s disease
2003: 43,220 people die in traffic accidents in the USA,
2003: Skype is founded by Niklas Zennstroem and Janus Friis to offer voice over IP
2004: the “Spirit” and the “Opportunity” spacecrafts land on Mars and send the first pictures of the planet’s surface
2004: the World Health Organization estimates that 1.3 million people are killed every year in car accidents
2004: A NASA plane sets a new speed record of Mach 7 (8000 km/h)
2004: abuses of Iraqi prisoners, revealed by reporter Seymour Hersh, cause international outcry
2004: Mikhail Gorbacev, Margaret Thatcher and other leaders of the past attend Ronald Reagan’s funeral
2004: scientists transfer properties of one atom and to another atom by entangling their quantum waves
2004: the Bush administration admits that Saddam Hussein had no weapons of mass destruction (which was the reason to invade Iraq)
2004: the dollar falls to an all-time low against the euro (1.30)
2004: Congress approves an $800 billion increase in the nation’s debt limit, the third such increase since George W. Bush became president (the budget deficit exceeds $7 trillion)
2004: Ryan Matthews becomes the 115th prisoner in the USA since 1973 to be released from death row on the grounds of innocence
2004: Evidence of torture surfaces at both Iraqi and Afghan prisons (Abu Ghraib and Bagram) run by the USA military
2004: the number of millionaires jumps almost 10% in the USA
2005: the monthly USA trade deficit reaches $69 billion of which about 25% with China, 12% with Canada and 12% with Japan
2005: the Kyoto protocol (to reduce the level of greenhouse-gas emissions in order to avoid climate changes such as global warming) is adopted by 141 countries of the world but not the USA, China, India and Australia
2005: a gunman kills seven people at a hotel in Brookfield, Wisconsin
2005: a student kills nine people (and himself) at a high school on the Red Lake Indian Reservation of Minnesota
2005: Newsweek magazine reports that guards at Guantanamo desecrated the Quran, a news that sparks deadly riots in Afghanistan and anti-American protests in many Islamic countries
2005: Los Angeles elects a Hispanic mayor, Antonio Villaraigosa
2005: the Six Flags amusement park in New Jersey debuts the fastest and tallest rollercoaster in the world, “Kingda Ka”
2005: Microsoft displays the error message “This item contains forbidden speech” whenever someone tries to write the word “democracy” on its Chinese blog
2005: sales of notebook computers account for 53% of the computer market
2005: the Planetary Society of Pasadena, California, launches an experimental solar-sail spacecraft from a Russian submarine
2005: Bernard Ebbers, former Worldcom’s CEO, is sentenced to 25 years in jail, capping a string of corporate scandals
2005: Lance Armstrong, an American, wins a seventh tour de France, an all-time record
2005: the USA approves the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) with Guatemala, Costarica, Nicaragua, Honduras and Dominican Republic
2005: the price of oil jumps from $35 at the beginning of the year to an all-time record of $67 a barrel
2005: USA television channel ABC interviews the most wanted terrorist in Russia, Shamil Basayev
2005: Google’s market capitalization is $84 billion
2005: Yahoo, Google, America OnLine (AOL) and MSN (Microsoft’s Network) are the four big Internet portals with a combined audience of over one billion people worldwide
2005: scientists map the genome of the chimpanzee
2005: the “Katrina” hurricane destroys New Orleans and other cities of Louisiana and Mississippi, displacing more than 500,000 people
2005: under pressure from the USA, North Korea gives up its nuclear weapons program
2005: the “Deep Impact” probe “lands” on a comet, Comet Tempel 1, and confirms that comets contain organic material
2005: members of the Bush administration are indicted for leaking to the press the name of a CIA agent in a vicious attempt to silence a critic of the Iraqi war
2005: agriculture accounts for 2% of all jobs, manufacturing for 10% (but manufacturing output expanded 4% yearly from 1991 to 2001)
2005: the state of Kansas decides to teach alternatives to Darwin’s theory of evolution
2005: the USA carries out the 1,000th execution since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976
2005: anti-USA sentiment brings to power leftist regimes throughout Latin America
2005: hybrid cars represent only 1% of total cars sold
2005: the Atlanta airport, the busiest in the world, handles 88.4 million passengers from more than half a million flights
2005: Ebay acquires Skype for $3.1 billion
2006: Google acquires YouTube for $1.65 billion
2006: Alan Greenspan is retires from chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank
2006: a spacecraft (“New Horizons”) is launched towards Pluto
2006: American search engine Google accepts to cooperate with the government of mainland China in censoring the world-wide web
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