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| World Trade Center on 9/11 |
At the end of the last century, our biggest fear at that time, was the Y2K mess that never occurred. As we ended the 20th century and
started the 21st century, the unemployment rate was at a low 4%, the economy
and stock market was booming and Bill Clinton was president.
It does seem like
a long time ago and a lot has happened since then. This first decade was
unfortunately a dismal decade.
The internet and
dot com stocks were still soaring to crazy prices. At the top of the dot com
bubble in 2000, stocks hit incredible highs like JDS Uniphase at almost $1,100
per share. When the dot com bubble burst in 2000, the NASDAQ market fell 78%.
The Dismal Decade and Politics
On November
7, 2000 the United States elected a new president. Bill Clinton
couldn’t run again so it was between his vice president, Al Gore and Texas
Governor George W. Bush.
The results were very close causing a lot of
controversy that still exists today. Al Gore actually won the popular vote by
.51% but George Bush won the electoral vote by 1%.
After midnight on the 8th of November it appeared George
Bush had won the election and Al Gore conceded. By 3:30 AM, Al Gore rescinded his concession and by
morning, both presidential candidates received 48.8% of the votes in Florida, but there is confusion in Florida about punch cards that had been used in the
balloting.
At this time Al
Gore had 260 electoral votes and George W. Bush had 246 electoral votes and
there had to be a recount in parts of Florida. Because of the closeness of the results,
several states had recounts. New Mexico calls it too close to call.
Over the next 6 weeks
there were recounts, lawsuits, decisions, more recounts and the US Supreme
Court became involved. Finally on December 13, 2000 Al Gore accepts George Bush as the 43rd
president.
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| The infamous hanging chad ballot recounting / Wikimedia |
On November
4, 2008 Barack
Obama became the first African-American to be elected president which
astonished people watching from outside of the United States who thought it would or could never happen
in the US.
Terrorism and War of the Dismal Decade
The first terrorist
attack against the United States of the new century and the dismal decade
occurred on October 12, 2000 with a suicide attack on the USS Cole in Yemen. While refueling in Yemen, a small boat came alongside and exploded
killing 17 Americans.
Everything changed
for Americans and most of the world when on September 11, 2001 terrorist attacked in the United States.
Terrorist who were later found associated
with Osama bin Laden and the terrorist group al-Qaeda hijacked 4 jetliners in
the US and flew two of them into the World Trade Center in New York City, one
into the Pentagon in Washington, DC and one crashed into the ground in
Pennsylvania.
The death toll was 2,752 killed in New York City, 189 at the Pentagon and 40 people on the
airliner in Pennsylvania. Like Pearl Harbor or the assassination of President John F.
Kennedy, all Americans remember where they were when they heard the news of the
September 11th attacks.
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| Late afternoon in New York City on 9/11 / Photo by mashleymorgan Flickr CCBY-SA 2.0 |
On October
7, 2001 the United States responded by attacking the Taliban and the
al-Qaeda controlled country of Afghanistan. For the next 17 months, the Bush
administration looked for weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in Iraq and thought they found them along with
al-Qaeda training camps.
On March 20, 2003 (March 19th EST) the United States launched an attack on Iraq and the rule of Saddam Hussein capturing
Hussein on December 14, 2003.
March 11, 2004 terrorist bombed the commuter train system
in Madrid, Spain killing 191 people and wounding 2,050.
On July 7,
2005 suicide bombers
blew up three underground subway trains and one bus in London killing 52 people and injuring 700. The
bombers were associated with al-Qaeda.
US Space Shuttle Columbia Tragedy
On the morning of February
1, 2003 the US Space Shuttle Columbia was coming home for a landing in Florida when Mission Control lost contact with the
shuttle.
Moments later there were reports of fiery debris over Texas which was later confirmed to be the Space
Shuttle Columbia breaking up on reentry with all astronauts aboard killed.
Natural Disasters in the First Decade of the 21st Century
This first decade
of the 21st century saw some of the worst natural disasters in memory. On December
26, 2004, a
devastating 9.3 magnitude earthquake struck the Indian Ocean near the Andaman Islands causing an even more devastating tsunami
that left 176,000 people dead and 2 million homeless with Indonesia hit the hardest.
Hurricane Katrina
slammed into the coast near New Orleans on August 29, 2005 and became one of the worst hurricanes in US history.
Katrina became the
costliest hurricane in history causing $81 million in damage and one of the
deadliest in history with more than 1800 killed. The wind and the storm surged
topped and broke through the levees that protected the city, flooding much of New Orleans.
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| New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina / U.S. Navy photo Wikimedia |
The Economy and the Great Recession
The end of this
dismal decade saw housing prices begin to fall with a huge number of mortgage
defaults. Throughout this dismal decade, mortgage companies were handing out
home loans with no credit checks, no employment history and no down payment.
We
saw the banking crises on Wall Street spill over onto Main Street in what became known as the Great Recession with the jobless rate going over 10%.
Technology Moves Forward
Technology moved
forward in some areas. The Apple iPod was introduced in 2001 and ten years ago
we got by with simple cell phones and dial-up modems.
Today we have video
camera phones, high speed modems, Googling and worldwide cell phone coverage is
normal.
Conclusion of the Dismal Decade
I apologize for
such a depressing article, but this first decade of the 21st century might have
been the most dismal decade since the 1970s or
possibly since the Great Depression. I do hope this next decade is much better, more
advanced, healthy and prosperous than the last.
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