A Slice in Time: 2000s World History Quiz

Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts

1. 2000: This department store was the world's first mail order company and at its peak had more than 500 retail outlets. On December 28th it announced that it was closing its doors after 128 years in business. Name it.

Answer: Montgomery Ward

Fun trivia fact: A copywriter from Montgomery Ward's advertising department created a character for a 1939 Christmas promotion which also included an illustrated poem. Thus was born "Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer" who was further popularized in a song by Gene Autry.

F. W. Woolworth's closed the last of its US department stores in 1997 and took the name of its top performing asset, Foot Locker, Inc. Marshall Field's was purchased by Macy's in 2005. Harrods was still in operation in 2000.

2. 2001: In January the United Nations War Crimes Tribunal demanded that Serbia hand over Slobodan Milosevic, who was charged with genocide, crimes against humanity and other war crimes. Milosevic had recently resigned as the president of which country?

Answer: Yugoslavia

Milosevic was the President of Serbia from 1989-1997 and then presided over the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia when it was formed in 1997 until he was forced to resign in September, 2000. He died in 2006 in the midst of the war crimes trial at The Hague, Netherlands, after being imprisoned there for nearly five years.

3. 2002: This year saw the boom and, more times than not, the bust of a group of new Internet-based companies commonly referred to as what?

Answer: Dot-coms

Companies were seeing their stock prices shoot up if they simply added an "e-" prefix to their name and/or a ".com" to the end, which has been called "prefix investing." One of the few dot-coms that sprang up during this time that not only survived but flourished was Amazon.com, the world's largest online bookseller.

4. 2003: This pandemic viral disease was first reported in Guangdong, China in 2002 and reached its peak this year. Which was it?

Answer: SARS

The symptoms of SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) were flu-like in nature such as fever, muscle aches, tiredness, cough and sore throat. Because the disease was viral, antibiotics were ineffective and medical intervention was geared toward treating the symptoms such as decreasing fever and myalgias with aspirin and ibuprofen. Mortality from SARS ranged from about 1% in children to as high as 70% in the elderly suffering from viral pneumonia.

5. 2004: Which free internet social networking site, whose name is a reference to a document some colleges produce that shows incoming students and faculty, was founded this year?

Answer: Facebook

Facebook was founded by Harvard sophomore Mark Zuckerberg. It received some media flack in January of 2009 when it renewed its policy of not allowing photos of women nursing children.

6. 2005: On August 28th Hurricane Katrina slammed into the southeastern United States. Louisiana, and the city of New Orleans in particular, received the lion's share of the press coverage of the event, but which other state suffered an estimated $50 billion in damage?

Answer: Mississippi

More than 230 people from Mississippi lost their lives as a result of Hurricane Katrina and every county in the state was declared a disaster area. One of the consequences of the disaster came in the form of changes to the Mississippi gaming laws. Native American casinos had formerly been forced to be built on huge floating barges that turned into battering rams to adjacent buildings during the hurricane.

The law was changed to allow them to be built on land.

7. 2006: This Welsh singer was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in March for service to music. Best known for hits like "What's New, Pussycat" and the theme from the James Bond movie "Thunderball", his career had a resurgence in the late 80s when he began collaborating with younger artists like Prince and Tori Amos. Who now answers to "Sir" for these achievements?

Answer: Tom Jones

A July 16, 2009 article from the 'New York Times' offered this review of a concert by Sir Tom: "The Welsh singer Tom Jones is as divisive a figure as any - some are drawn to his gold chains, exposed chest hair, booming vocals and singalong choruses ("It's Not Unusual," "She's a Lady"), while others are moderately repulsed."

In 2009 Jones stated in 'Vanity Fair' magazines that receiving the knighthood from Her Majesty, the Queen was the proudest moment of his life.

8. 2007: On January 1st, Ban Ki-moon replaced Kofi Annan as the Secretary-General of the United Nations. From which country did he hail?

Answer: South Korea

Mr. Ban was born and raised in Sangdong No. 1 Village, South Korea. His cousin told a 'New York Times' reporter: "Feng Shui tells us this (the local topography) is a perfect shape for funneling natural forces into the village," referring to an ancient belief that some sites are blessed by geography. "So we've known for three centuries that a great man would emerge here. Now, he's finally come." A local feng shui master further said that in the US, Ohio and Massachusetts have similar geographical alignments which is why those states have produced so many presidents.

9. 2008 was a very good year for this tennis phenom. She won the Australian Open, was cited as the most searched athlete on Yahoo! and was the highest paid female athlete in the world, with much of her earnings coming from product endorsements. Who was she?

Answer: Maria Sharapova

Sharapova burst onto the international tennis scene when she defeated the overwhelming favorite Serena Williams to win Wimbledon in 2005 at the age of 17. She also won the 2006 US Open.

A striking 6'2 blond born in Siberia, Sharapova was named one of the 50 Most Beautiful People in the world by 'People' magazine in 2004. She signed lucrative deals with many international companies like Canon, Tag Heuer, Sony, Motorola, Nike and Pepsi. The value she added to these brands was used as a case study at the Harvard Business School titled "Maria Sharapova: Marketing a Champion."

Williams is another Grand Slam winning tennis player. Sorenstam is a professional golfer. Patrick is a professional auto racer.

10. 2009: As the first decade of the third millennium came to a close who did 'Forbes' magazine report was the first author to have become a billionaire by writing?

Answer: J.K. Rowling

According to the March 11, 2009 issue of "Forbes" the first seven books in the "Harry Potter" series sold more than 400 million copies worldwide. Rowling was one of the few of the worlds' female billionaries to have earned, rather than inherited, her fortune. Other notable self-made female billionaires were Oprah Winfrey and former eBay chairman Meg Whitman.

While she was the richest author in publishing history, Rowling was a distant second to Agatha Christie as the best selling author by number of books sold: the creator of Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple had estimated global book sales of more than 3 BILLION volumes in 2008. This information is from getlisty.com.

Source: Author brewster76

This quiz was reviewed by FunTrivia editor bloomsby before going online.
Any errors found in FunTrivia content are routinely corrected through our feedback system.

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