2009 Annual History Facts

2009 Annual History Facts

  • The Viral Video: JK Wedding Entrance Dance… The wedding procession for Jill Peterson and Kevin Heinz of St. Paul, Minnesota, was choreographed to the song Forever by Chris Brown.
  • The Top Song was I Gotta Feeling by The Black Eyed Peas
  • The Big Movies included Avatar, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.
  • Price of a postage stamp in 2009: 44 cents
  • Price of a gallon of gas in 2009: $2.40
    XBox360 60GB Pro: $249.00
    Women’s Nike running shoe: $84.99/pair
  • The World Population was ~ 6,780,000,000
  • Silly Bandz were the must-have bracelets for trading and collecting from 2009-2011.
  • Cali Swag District recorded Teach Me How to Dougie, and the line dance song is still often requested today.
  • And… Slender Man (Slenderman) is a fictional character that originated as an Internet meme created by Something Awful forum user Victor Surge.

World Series Champions

New York Yankees

Superbowl XLIII Champions

Pittsburgh Steelers

National Basketball Association Champions

Los Angeles Lakers

NHL Stanley Cup Champions

Pittsburgh Penguins

US Open Golf

Lucas Glover

US Open Tennis (Men Ladies)

Juan Martin del Potro/Kim Clijsters

Wimbledon (Men/Women)

Roger Federer/Serena Williams

NCAA Football Champions

Alabama

NCAA Basketball Champions

North Carolina

Bowl Games

Orange Bowl: January 1, 2009 – Virginia Tech over Cincinnati
Rose Bowl: January 1, 2009 – USC over Penn State
Sugar Bowl: January 2, 2009 – Utah over Alabama
Puppy Bowl V: February 1, 2009 Most Valuable Puppy: Matilda (a Beagle)

Kentucky Derby

Mine That Bird

Westminster Kennel Best in Show Dog

Clissexx Three Grinchy Glee

Time Magazine’s Man of the Year

Ben Bernanke

Miss America

Katie Stam

Miss USA

Kristen Dalton (North Carolina)

Fashion Icons and Movie Stars

Christina Aguilera, Malin Akerman, Jessica Alba, Elizabeth Banks, Kate Beckinsale, Jessica Biel, Moon Bloodgood, Jordana Brewster, Alison Brie, Jordana Brewster, Rose Byrne, Katie Cassidy, Emilia Clarke, Penelope Cruz, Alexandra Daddario, Brooklyn Decker, Zooey Deschanel, Natalie Dormer, Eliza Dushku, Anna Faris, Jenna Fischer, Megan Fox, Karen Gillan, Jessica Gomes, Maggie Grace, Ashley Greene, Julianne Hough, January Jones, Rashida Jones, Kim Kardashian, Ellie Kemper, Mila Kunis, Padma Lakshmi, Evangeline Lilly, Adriana Lima, Lindsay Lohan, Jennifer Love Hewitt, AnnaLynne McCord, Leighton Meester, Eva Mendez, Lea Michele, Marisa Miller, Olivia Munn, Rachel Nichols, Michelle Obama, Katy Perry, Bar Refaeli, Rihanna, Zoe Saldana, Allison Scagliotti, Amanda Seyfried, Britney Spears, Yvonne Strahovski, Olivia Wilde

“The Quote”

“You guys might not know this, but I consider myself a bit of a loner. I tend to think of myself as a one-man wolf pack. But when my sister brought Doug home, I knew he was one of my own. And my wolf pack… it grew by one. So there… there were two of us in the wolf pack… I was alone first in the pack, and then Doug joined in later. And six months ago, when Doug introduced me to you guys, I thought, “Wait a second, could it be?” And now I know for sure: I just added two more guys to my wolf pack. Four of us wolves, running around the desert together, in Las Vegas, looking for strippers and cocaine. So tonight, I make a toast!”
– Alan, from The Hangover

2009 Pop Culture History

Canada passed the “Apology Act,” establishing that apologizing to someone after an incident cannot be used in court against the person who apologized to prove their guilt or liability.

Donald Unger cracked his left-hand knuckles daily for 60 years but did not do so on his right hand. Proving that cracking knuckles did not affect his health, he earned a 2009 ‘Ig Nobel Prize’ in Medicine.

The city council of Madison, WI, voted to make the plastic lawn flamingo the city’s official bird.

The Guinness World Records 2009 Gamer’s Edition lists GTA San Andreas as the videogame with the largest voice cast, with 861 credited voice actors, including 174 actors and 687 additional performers, many of those performers being fans of the series who wanted to appear on the game.

Ghostbusters: The Video Game (2009) features voice acting from all four of the original cast members (Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis, Ernie Hudson), who helped write the script as well. Aykroyd considers it “essentially the third movie.”

10-year-old Colby Curtin, suffering from cancer, had a dying wish to watch Pixar’s Up, leading to a Pixar employee flying down with a movie DVD for a private film screening. She died later that night.

The entire main cast of Zombieland (2009) has been nominated for at least one Oscar: Jesse Eisenberg for the Social Network (2010), Emma Stone for Birdman (2014), Woody Harrelson for The People vs. Larry Flynt (1996) and The Messenger (2009), and Abigail Breslin for Little Miss Sunshine (2006).

Disney considered making ‘The Dark Kingdom’ at Walt Disney World, a Fifth Park themed around its Villains.

A retired policeman named Geraint Woolford was admitted to Abergale Hospital in North Wales and ended up next to another retired policeman called Geraint Woolford. The men weren’t related, had never met, and were the only two people in the UK named Geraint Woolford.

A 2009 study by psychologist teams at the University of Toronto and the University of California, San Diego, concluded that singer Shania Twain’s face possesses the ‘golden ratio’ – or perfect distances – between a woman’s eyes and mouth that determines whether she is considered beautiful.

Scientists discovered that a single, ant mega-colony had colonized much of the world on a scale rivaled only by human civilization, including one super colony spanning 3,700 miles along the Mediterranean coast.

Chris Hemsworth’s first movie role was in Star Trek (2009). He played Kirk’s father, George Kirk, who died in the film’s opening sequence.

The producers of 2009’s Star Trek hosted a screening in Austin publicized as that of The Wrath of Khan. A few minutes into Khan, the film appeared to melt, and Leonard Nimoy appeared on stage with the hosts, asking the audience, “Wouldn’t you rather see the new movie?” before a preview.

Comedian Eddie Izzard completed 43 marathons in 51 days despite having no history of long-distance running.

One of Google’s programmers was adding websites to the malware registry when he accidentally entered “/” instead of a full URL, causing the search engine to block off every website in its index, including Google’s pages, for 55 minutes.

Eight hundred years ago, the average UK wage in 1209 was £1.93 a year.

Paint Drying: The Movie was made in 2009, consisting only of paint drying, as a rebuttal to critics who mention that they “Would rather watch paint dry” than a particular film.

In 2009 art historian Gergely Barki was watching Stuart Little when he spotted Róbert Berény’s Sleeping Lady, a lost painting not seen since an exhibit/sale in 1928. After a years-long mission, he tracked it to an asst set designer’s home, who bought the six-figure painting for $500 for the film.

Stephen Colbert won a NASA competition to have a module of the ISS named after him, but NASA opted to name it ‘Tranquility’ instead. They did, however, name a treadmill on the ISS after him. It is called the Combined Operational Load Bearing External Resistance Treadmill (C.O.L.B.E.R.T.)

While watching the movie Stuart Little with his daughter, a Hungarian art historian spotted a long-lost avant-garde painting in the background. The painting was bought by a set designer in a Pasadena antiques shop for “next to nothing”, and later sold for $285,700 at an auction.

Sony sold 12 million floppy disks- in 2009!

A woman filed a lawsuit against PepsiCo after discovering that the crunchberries in a Cap’n Crunch cereal had not been natural fruit. The case was thrown out, with the judge remarking that to do otherwise would “ignore all concepts of personal responsibility and common sense.”

On June 28, 2009, Stephen Hawking threw a party for time-travelers. He announced the party the day after it happened, and according to Hawking, no one came.

In the 2009 Philippines floods, a teenager named Muelmar Magallanes saved 30 lives. After leaping into the rushing waters to save his family from danger, he repeatedly jumped back in to save others, including a trapped mother and baby, until too tired to fight the current, he was swept away.

In 1989, the best-paid player in the MLB was paid about $2.76 Million. By 2009, it was $33 Million.

Cost of a Superbowl ad in 2009: $3,000,000

Irish police found more than 50 motoring offenses recorded for someone called “Prawo Jadzy.” It turned out that Prawo Jadzy means “driving license” in Polish.

The original version of Ain’t No Sunshine by Bill Withers did not chart on the UK Singles Chart until 2009, 38 years after its release.

RIP, Scandals, Sad and Odd News

Golfer Tiger Woods allegedly involved in extramarital affairs with ten women, including Playboy model Loredana Jolie and porn star Holly Sampson.

Chris Brown’s battery charges against Rihanna and the shocking picture of her black eye that surfaced on the internet.

Google’s Chairman, Eric Schmidt, said, “If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place” when confronted about the search engine’s privacy policies.

A female serial killer named “Phantom of Heilbronn” was linked to 40 crimes, six of which were murders. In 2009, it was discovered that she didn’t exist and her DNA was contaminated by the cotton swabs used at the crime scenes.

George Vera, an obese Houston, Texas man who was a felony suspect, could hide a pistol so well in the flabs of his skin that it wasn’t found in five searches from police and other authorities. It was only after he confessed to a guard that the gun was found.

Richard and Mayumi Heene of Fort Collins, Colorado, claimed their 6-year-old child was trapped inside a gas balloon that floated up to altitudes of 7,000 feet. The incident received mass media attention but turned out to be a hoax.

Rapper Coolio attempted to stage dive. Nobody caught him; he was beaten up and had his shoes stolen.

General Motors declared bankruptcy, took billions in government bailout money, and issued new stock for the “new GM,” with no compensation for the old shareholder’s now worthless “old GM” stock.

Burger King had a promo where you’d receive a free Whopper if you deleted 10 Facebook friends.

Kanye West did not let Taylor Swift finish at the MTV VMA Awards and interrupted her during her acceptance speech.

When the news broke that Michael Jackson died, Twitter, Wikipedia, and AOL Instant Messenger temporarily crashed. Google initially believed that the millions of search requests meant their search engine was under DDoS attack and blocked searches related to Michael Jackson for 30 minutes.

Michael Jackson, The King of Pop, died while preparing for a series of concerts.

Photo: Presidents Obama (US) and Sarkozy (France) turned and noticed a young woman who walked past them. French presidents are known for ‘noticing’ pretty young women, but American presidents typically don’t get photographed in such positions.

 

Firsts and the Biggest Christmas Gifts

Nintendo DSi, Nintendo DSi XL, Sony’s PSP Go, Wii, Dora the Explorer Links Doll, Mindflex, Barbie Three Musketeers, Rubik’s 360, Twilight merchandise, Transformers toys, Zhu Zhu Pets, New Super Mario Bros Wii

Video Games: Wii Sports Resort, Wii Fit Plus, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, New Super Maio Brothers Wii

Food Network Magazine began publication

The Habit

Reading The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown

The First Viral Selfie

Melissa and her husband, Jackson Brandts, were exploring Lake Minnewanka in Banff National Park, Canada when a ground squirrel photobombed their timed picture.

 

2009/10 Biggest Television Shows

(according to Nielsen TV Research)
1. American Idol (FOX)
2. Dancing With the Stars (ABC)
3. NCIS (CBS)
4. Sunday Night Football (NBC)
5. The Mentalist (CBS)
6. NCIS: Los Angeles (CBS)
7. Undercover Boss (CBS)
8. CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (CBS)
9. Grey’s Anatomy (ABC)
10. Two and a Half Men (CBS)

Popular Music Artists

The Biggest Pop Artists of 2009 include
Black Eyed Peas, Colbie Caillat, Flo Rida, George Strait, Jay-Z, John Mayer, Justin Bieber, Keith Urban, Kelly Clarkson, Kesha, Lady Gaga, Michael Bublé, Pink, Rihanna, Sugarland, Susan Boyle, Taylor Swift

(Data is compiled from charts, including Billboard’s Pop, Rock, Airplay, R&B/Dance, and Singles Charts. The Hot 100 is the primary chart used for this list.)

Number One Hits of 2009

December 13, 2008 – January 16, 2009: Beyoncé – Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)

January 17, 2009 – February 6, 2009: Lady Gaga featuring Colby O’Donis – Just Dance

February 7, 2009 – February 20, 2009: Kelly Clarkson – My Life Would Suck Without You

February 21, 2009 – February 27, 2009: Eminem featuring Dr. Dre and 50 Cent – Crack a Bottle

February 28, 2009 – April 10, 2009: Flo Rida – Right Round

April 11, 2009 – April 17, 2009: Lady Gaga – Poker Face

April 18, 2009 – July 10, 2009: The Black Eyed Peas – Boom Boom Pow

July 11, 2009 – October 16, 2009: The Black Eyed Peas – I Gotta Feeling

October 17, 2009 – October 23, 2009: Jay Sean featuring Lil Wayne – Down

October 24, 2009 – November 6, 2009: Britney Spears – 3

November 7, 2009 – November 13, 2009: Owl City – Fireflies

November 14, 2009 – November 27, 2009: Jason Derülo – Whatcha Say

November 28, 2009 – January 1, 2010: Jay-Z featuring Alicia Keys – Empire State of Mind

Popular Movies

(according to boxofficemojo)
1. Avatar
2. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
3. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
4. The Twilight Saga: New Moon
5. Up
6. The Hangover
7. Star Trek
8. The Blind Side
9. Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel
10. Sherlock Holmes

2012, Avatar, Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squakquel, The Blind Side, District 9, Fast and Furious, G.I. Joe: The Riose of Cobra, The Hangover, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs, Monsters Vs. Aliens, Moon, Night At the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian, The Proposal, Paul Blart: Mall Cop, Sherlock Holmes, Star Trek, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, The Twilight Saga: New Moon, Up, X-Men Origins: Wolverine

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