A lot sure has happened since 2005. For those of you keeping track, that’s the year most of the guys and gals getting ready to graduate from Fountain Hills High School were dropped off for their first day of kindergarten.
In honor of this Friday’s commencement ceremony, I decided to take a look back and remind everyone of what was going on around the world 13 years ago.
This stroll down memory lane has become an annual tradition, and I hope that it proves to be a fun time for the seniors and their families (as well as the rest of us) to reminisce about the goings-on from all those years ago.
While a lot has changed over the past 13 years, at least “Star Wars” has remained a constant. While we’re right in the middle of the latest trilogy, “Episode III: Revenge of the Sith” wrapped up the prequel trilogy of 2005 and went on to become the highest grossing film of the year. This year’s grads might not recall the Picture of the Year, “Million Dollar Baby,” but they likely saw some of the other box office hits including “The Chronicles of Narnia,” “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire” and “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.”
Television was dominated by the likes of “American Idol,” two versions of “CSI” and the ever-present “Survivor,” while radios frequently played Jon Mayer’s “Daughters,” Mariah Carey’s “We belong together” and Snoop Dogg’s “Drop it like it’s hot.”
In the world of sports, the World Series was an upset by the Chicago White Sox, the New England Patriots won Super Bowl XXXIX and the San Antonio Spurs were crowned champs of the NBA.
I don’t usually follow celebrity gossip but, since a saw a “new development” on the cover of recent tabloids, it should probably be mentioned that 2005 was the year Brad Pitt left Jennifer Aniston for Angelina Jolie. Brangelina, no!
The biggest national headlines in 2005 went to Hurricane Katrina, while the event that likely had one of the biggest impacts on today’s teens was the arrival of a little video service known as YouTube.
In social media news, 2005 was the year Mark Zuckerberg offered to sell Facebook to Myspace for $75 million, an offer that was rejected. This should serve as a good lesson for this year’s seniors that everybody makes mistakes and, yes, sometimes those mistakes are massive in scale.
Since we just had a royal wedding, it’s worth noting that 2005 was the year Prince Charles married Camilla Parker Bowles. Also, in totally unrelated news, this was the year Sudoku puzzles took the world by storm.
As kindergarteners, the graduating class of 2018 was likely interested in toys and games back in 2005, though probably not the item to get inducted into The National Toy Hall of Fame that year: The cardboard box. No, seriously, look it up.
However, they were possibly interested in another type of box and the number one Christmas item of the year, the Xbox 360.
So 2005 was certainly a busy year, but all of that is in the past now. What matters to the class of 2018 is the future, and we’re certainly looking forward to seeing what this year’s flock of graduating Falcons makes of it.
