Decade Quiz 2000s
In 2001, Steven Soderbergh won the Best Director Oscar for which film?
- Soderbergh won for Traffic, but was also nominated for Erin Brockovich. The last time a director was nominated twice in the same year was in 1939, when Michael Curtiz was plucked for Angels with Dirty Faces and Four Daughters. (He lost to Frank Capra for You Can't Take It with You.)
How many copies of 2005's Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, the sixth book in the series, were printed?
- This is by far the largest first printing of a book. It broke the record previously held by Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, which had a first printing of 6.4 million copies.
What American ship was bombed while docking at the Yemeni port of Aden in 2000?
- U.S. Navy destroyer USS Cole was heavily damaged when a small boat loaded with explosives blew up alongside it. Seventeen sailors were killed in what was apparently a deliberate terrorist attack.
What 2006 decision created the need for updates to science books all over the world?
- In a decision announced at the 26th General Assembly of the International Astronomical Union (IAU) in Prague, the former planet Pluto is now designated a "dwarf planet" and is no longer recognized as one of the eight planets in our solar system.
Who is considered the second-highest ranking member of al-Qaeda, behind Osama bin Laden?
- Al-Zawahiri is an Egyptian surgeon from an upper-class family. He joined Egypt's Islamist movement in the late 1970s. He served three years in prison on charges connected to the assassination of Anwar Sadat. After his release he went to Afghanistan, where he met bin Laden and became his personal physician and advisor.
What country is believed to have been at the epicenter of the 2009 H1N1 outbreak?
- The CDC reported that between April and mid-October, about 22 million Americans had contracted H1N1, 98,000 cases required hospitalization, and about 3,900 people died from H1N1-related causes. Though these numbers seem high, they are lower than those normally associated with seasonal flu.
On August 7, 2007, Barry Bonds, no stranger to controversy, surpassed Hank Aaron as the all-time home run hitter in American baseball history. How many homers did it take to break the record?
- Bond is also the single-season home run champ: he hit 73 during the 2001 season, passing Mark McGwire for that record.
What American auto-racing driver won the Indy Japan 300 in 2008, becoming the first woman to win an IndyCar race?
- Danica Patrick placed fourth in the 2005 running of the Indianapolis 500, making her the top-finishing woman ever at the famous auto race.
Who said: "I'm probably not the only one up at this table that is more outraged by the outrage than by the treatment."
- Senator James Inhofe (R-Okla.) was commenting about the Abu Ghraib prison abuse.
Which country changed its name in 2003?
- Yugoslavs (i.e., South Slavs) consisted of Serbs, Croats, Slovenes, Macedonians, Montenegrins, and Bosniaks (also known Bosnian Muslims). Closely related linguistically, these peoples are separated by historical and cultural factors that ultimately led to the disintegration of Yugoslavia.
In July 2002, what firm became the largest company to go bankrupt in U.S. history after it admitted to cooking its books?
- The nation's second-largest telecommunications company, WorldCom, continued the wave of corporate scandals begun by the fall of Enron at the close of 2001.
