Year 2005 Fun Facts, Trivia, and History

What Happened During the Year 2005?

What are some fun facts, trivia, and history events from the year 2005? What were the top news stories in the U.S. and around the world, and what major events took place in the business and financial sectors? How much did a gallon of gas cost, and what happened in science, technology, sports, and in the entertainment industry?

Back in 2005, what were the biggest food and fashion trends, and what were the most popular baby names and Christmas gifts? Likewise, who won the Nobel Peace Prize, and how much did a first-class stamp or a gallon of milk cost? What about famous birthdays and deaths that year, and what were the best-selling books?

From world leaders to pioneers to innovators, who were the most influential people in 2005? What was the median household income, the average life expectancy, and how much did a new house or car cost? Finally, what was 2005 best known for, and was it a good or bad year overall? Let's find out.

Here is a summary of the top news stories and history events that happened in 2005:

1. The biggest solar proton storm in 15 years erupted in space, and astronomers discovered the dwarf planet Eris.
2. Hurricane Katrina made landfall on Florida and Louisiana—particularly in the city of New Orleans—and caused catastrophic damage from central Florida to eastern Texas.
3. New York City's Transport Workers Union Local 100 went on strike, shutting down all New York City subway and bus services for three days.
4. A December ice storm caused extensive damage across the southern U.S.
5. Cristeta Comerford became the first woman to serve as White House Executive Chef.
6. Back in the year 2005, the United States produced nearly ten billion pounds of apples.
7. Hong Kong’s Disneyland opened. It is located on reclaimed land in Penny's Bay—Lantau Island—and was the first Disney theme park to open in China.
8. The world’s largest passenger plane—the Airbus A380—took to the skies from Toulouse-Blagnac airport in France. Rhys Lewis tells us that the A380 "boasts 40% more floor space than Boeing’s current largest plane and can carry 853 passengers in an all-economy class configuration."
9. German Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was elected Pope Benedict XVI.
10. YouTube and Reddit were both launched, and Starbucks opened its 10,000th coffeehouse.
11. The cardboard box was inducted into the National Toy Hall of Fame.
12. Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith was the most popular film, The Broker was the best-selling fiction book, and American Idol (Fox) was the top TV show.
13. Million Dollar Baby won an Oscar for Best Picture, Clint Eastwood (Million Dollar Baby) won an Oscar for Best Director, and Everybody Loves Raymond (CBS) won an Emmy for Outstanding Comedy Series.
14. In the year 2005, Dan Rather retired from the CBS Evening News, and Ted Koppel retired from ABC’s Nightline.
15. Top-grossing Broadway shows included Mamma Mia! and The Lion King.
16. Harold Pinter of the UK won the Nobel Prize in Literature, and The Rocky Horror Picture Show (released in 1975) was entered into the National Film Registry.
17. Unemployment hovered around 5.3%, inflation was 3.39%, and the retail price for a gallon of gas averaged $2.30.
18. A loaf of bread cost $2.29, a pound of ground beef was $3.29, and Heinz Ketchup was $1.39 for a 14-ounce bottle.
19. Here are some sports facts from 2005: The New England Patriots were the Super Bowl champs, the Chicago White Sox won the World Series, and Giacomo won the Kentucky Derby.
20. The most popular search terms on Ask.com included President Bush, Usher, Lindsay Lohan, pregnancy, Star Wars, and NHL.

Here are five of the most popular websites from 1995:

1. AltaVista (search engine)
2. Excite (search engine)
3. GeoCities.com (This site helped netizens to create their own web pages.)
4. HotWired (one of the first web magazines)
5. Lycos (search engine)

Here are ten cool food and beverage trends for the year:

1. Bacon (for example, crispy brown-sugar glazed bacon)
2. Brown butter pasta
3. Cupcakes
4. Fruit smoothies
5. Giant hunks of meat (influenced by the Atkins diet)
6. Hi-C fruit drinks (for example, Blazin' Blueberry, Boppin’ Strawberry, Strawberry Kiwi Kraze, Orange Lavaburst, and Wild Cherry)Lunchables
7. Ouch! Bubble Gum
8. Planters Cheez Balls
9. Sliders or mini burgers - There were pizza sliders, chicken and biscuits sliders, ham and cheese sliders, Brussels sprouts sliders, and Eggo breakfast sliders.

This article teaches you fun facts, trivia, and history events from the year 2005. Find out about popular TV shows and movies, best-selling books, food and fashion trends, sports facts, pop music artists and songs, famous birthdays, economic and tech news, as well as unusual news events to get the right mix of questions and answers for your 2000s-themed trivia quiz.

Table of Contents

Here is a sneak preview of what this article is about:

1. Grocery Prices in the Year 2005
2. History Facts and Events From the USA
3. International News Events
4. Sports Facts and Trivia
5. Miscellaneous Fun Facts, Trivia, and Pop Culture Trends
6. Computer and Internet History
7. Most Popular Websites in 2005
8. Nobel Prize Winners
9. Most Popular Television Shows From 2005-06
10. Best-Selling Books
11. Highest-Grossing Films
12. Horror Movies From the Year 2005
13. Entries Into the National Film Registry
14. Biggest Pop Music Artists
15. Number One Music Hits for the Year
16. Favorite Video Games
17. Food and Beverage Trivia
18. Cool Halloween Costumes
19. Weddings and Divorces
20. Famous People Who Died in 2005
21. Best-Selling Cars in America
22. America’s Largest Corporations
23. Major Internet Companies Established

1. Grocery Prices in the Year 2005

These 2005 grocery prices have been made available courtesy of the Morris County Public Library in Whippany, NJ.

1. Apples (Braeburn): $1.29 a pound
2. Beef (ground): $3.29 a pound
3. Beef (sirloin steak): $6.49 a pound
4. Butter (Breakstone): $1.99 for a one-pound package
5. Cereal (Kellogg’s Froot Loops): $1.99 for a 15-ounce box
6. Cheese (Land O’Lakes, American singles): $1.84 for a 12-ounce package
7. Chicken (Perdue, chicken breasts): $1.50 per pound
8. Cookies (Keebler Fudge Shoppe): $1.49 for an 8.5-ounce package
9. Crackers (Nabisco Ritz): $3.19 for a 12-ounce box
10. Eggs: $2.50 a dozen
11. Fish (cod fillets): $3.99 per pound
12. Grapefruit: Two for $3.00
13. Grapes (Thompson seedless): 89 cents a pound
14. Ham (Hormel, cooked): $2.99 per pound
15. Hot dogs (Nathan’s): $2.49 per pound
16. Jelly (Welch’s, grape): $1.39 for a 32-ounce jar
17. Juice (apple): 99 cents for a one-gallon jug
18. Juice (Tropicana, orange): $2.99 for a 96-ounce jug
19. Ketchup (Heinz): $1.39 for a 14-ounce bottle
20. Margarine (Parkay): $1.84 for a three-pound tub
21. Mayonnaise (Hellmann’s): $2.99 for a 43-ounce jar
22. Onions (yellow): 88 cents for a three-pound bag
23. Oranges (navel): Five for $1.88
24. Peanut butter (Skippy, crunchy or creamy): Two 18-ounce jars for $3.00
25. Pineapple (Del Monte, whole): $2.88 apiece
26. Potato chips (Ruffles): $4.00 for two 10-ounce bags
27. Potatoes: 98 cents for a five-pound bag
28. Soda (Coca-Cola): $1.09 for a two-liter bottle
29. Soup (Campbell’s, tomato): 79 cents for a 10.75-ounce can
30. Valentine’s candy (Russell Stover): $9.99 for a 28-ounce heart-shaped box

2. History Facts and Events From the USA

1. In 2005, George W. Bush was President of the United States, and Dick Cheney was Vice President.
2. In January 2005, the U.S. unemployment rate was 5.3%. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics confirms that “The unemployment rate for whites, at 4.3 percent, was down over the year by 0.3 percentage point. For blacks, the unemployment rate dropped 1.1 percentage points to 9.7 percent, and the rate among Asians declined by 0.9 percentage point to 3.5 percent (not seasonally adjusted). For Hispanics, the unemployment rate decreased in 2005 to 6.0 percent, down from 6.6 percent a year earlier.”
3. The rate of inflation was 3.39%. In2013Dollars.com tells us that “Purchasing power decreased by 3.39% in 2005 compared to 2004. On average, you would have to spend 3.39% more money in 2005 than in 2004 for the same item. In other words, $1 in 2004 is equivalent in purchasing power to about $1.03 in 2005. The 2004 inflation rate was 2.66%. The inflation rate in 2005 was 3.39%. The 2005 inflation rate is higher compared to the average inflation rate of 1.90% per year between 2005 and 2019.”
4. In 2005, a loaf of bread cost $2.29, yellow onions were 88 cents for a three-pound bag, and a pound of ground beef was $3.29. A gallon of milk cost $3.75, eggs were $2.50 a dozen, and Heinz Ketchup was $1.39 for a 14-ounce bottle.
5. Here were the sticker prices for two best-selling 2005 cars: a Chevrolet Impala cost $18,485.00, and a Chrysler Town & Country was $26,495.00.
6. The average price for a gallon of gas was $2.30.
7. The minimum wage was $5.15. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, “75.6 million American workers [in 2005] were paid at hourly rates, representing 60.1 percent of all wage and salary workers. Of those paid by the hour, 479,000 were reported as earning exactly $5.15, the prevailing Federal minimum wage. Another 1.4 million were reported as earning wages below the minimum.”
8. The prime rate was 5.50%, an ounce of gold was $513.00, and the median household income was $46,242.00.
9. In 2005, the median cost of a newly-built, single-family home in the United States was $240,900 while the average price was $297,000. Comparatively, in November 2018, the median cost of a newly-built, single-family home in the U.S. was $302,400 while the average price was $362,400.
10. On January 15, the biggest solar proton storm in 15 years erupted in space. NASA.gov explains that a “giant sunspot” named “NOAA 720” exploded and sparked a powerful X-class solar fire, which “hurled a billion-ton cloud of electrified gas into space.”
11. On January 26, Condoleezza Rice was sworn in as U.S. Secretary of State, becoming the first African-American woman to hold the post.
12. On February 15, the video-sharing website YouTube was launched by Jawed Karim, Steve Chen, and Chad Hurley. The first YouTube video, Meet Me at the Zoo, was uploaded on April 23, 2005, and shows co-founder Jawed Karim at the San Diego Zoo. (In 2006, YouTube was purchased by Google for $1.65 billion.)
13. On February 23, the Slovakia Summit 2005, also known as the Bush-Putin summit, took place between U.S. President George W. Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin. Topics of discussion included Russian democracy, the situation in Iran, and North Korean nuclear talks.
14. On March 13, the Walt Disney Company named Bob Iger as the new CEO.
15. On May 9, the Huffington Post, a news and opinion website, was launched by Andrew Breitbart, Arianna Huffington, Kenneth Lerer, and Jonah Peretti.
16. On June 6, the U.S. Supreme Court voted to ban medical marijuana in Gonzales v. Raich.
17. On June 13, a jury in Santa Maria, California acquitted Michael Jackson of molesting 13-year-old Gavin Arvizo at his Neverland Ranch.
18. On July 29, astronomers Mike Brown, Chad Trujillo, and David Rabinowitz discovered the dwarf planet Eris. Futurism.com points out that “Three times more distant from the Sun than Pluto (almost 10 billion miles), Eris is the largest dwarf planet in the Solar System. It takes Eris more than twice as long to orbit the Sun as Pluto (about 557 years), and because its mass is 27% greater than Pluto’s, scientists initially described the newly discovered Eris as the Solar System’s ‘tenth planet.’”
19. On August 23, Hurricane Katrina, which later became a Category 5 hurricane, began forming over the Bahamas.
20. On August 29, Hurricane Katrina made landfall on Florida and Louisiana--particularly in the city of New Orleans--and caused catastrophic damage from central Florida to eastern Texas.
21. On September 24, Hurricane Rita made landfall and devastated Beaumont, Texas, and portions of southwestern Louisiana.
22. On October 19, Hurricane Wilma became the strongest Atlantic storm on record. TheGuardian.com explains that “Hurricane Wilma's highest sustained winds were measured at 175 mph by US air force reconnaissance planes, while its pressure readings dropped to 882 millibars - the lowest minimum pressure ever measured in a hurricane in the Atlantic basin.”
23. On October 22, tropical storm Alpha formed in the Atlantic Basin, making the 2005 hurricane season the most active since record-keeping began. During the 2005 season, there were 28 tropical storms, 15 hurricanes, four Category 5 hurricanes (Emily, Katrina, Rita, and Wilma), four major hurricanes to hit the U.S. (Dennis, Katrina, Rita, and Wilma), and the most damage to ever be recorded during a hurricane season ($150 billion).
24. From December 14-16, a winter storm caused extensive ice damage throughout the southern United States, “while extensive snowfall was reported across portions of the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec.”
25. On December 20, New York City's Transport Workers Union Local 100 went on strike, shutting down all New York City subway and bus services for three days.
26. On December 30, tropical storm Zeta formed in the Atlantic Ocean and became “one of only two recorded storms to cross from one calendar year to another.”

3. International News Events

1. On January 16, Adriana Iliescu, a Romanian university lecturer and author of children’s novels, gave birth to a daughter at age 66, making her the oldest birth mother in the world. (The record was broken in 2006 by María del Carmen Bousada de Lara.)
2. On February 10, Prince Charles (Prince of Wales) and Camilla Parker Bowles (Duchess of Cornwall) announced their engagement.
3. On February 26, Tony Blair marked 2,838 days as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
4. On April 27, the world’s largest passenger plane, the Airbus A380, took to the skies from Toulouse-Blagnac airport in France. Rhys Lewis tells us that the A380 boasts 40% more floor space than Boeing’s current largest plane and can carry 853 passengers in an all-economy class configuration. The plane is powered by four Rolls-Royce engines, has a cruising speed of 560 mph, and is more fuel efficient than many smaller jets.
5. On February 16, the UK version of The Apprentice premiered on BBC. It featured British computer entrepreneur Alan Sugar.
6. On April 19, German Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was elected Pope Benedict XVI.
7. On July 16, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, the sixth book in the series by J.K. Rowling, was published. Over nine million copies were sold in twenty-four hours.
8. On September 12, Hong Kong’s Disneyland opened. It is located on reclaimed land in Penny's Bay, Lantau Island, and was the first Disney theme park to open in China.
9. On November 22, Angela Merkel became the first female Chancellor of Germany.
10. On November 27, the first partial facial transplant was performed in Amiens, France.

4. Sports Facts and Trivia

This information has been made available courtesy of Pop-Culture.us. Generally suitable for all age groups, sports trivia questions and answers are a welcome addition to any party game.

1. Kentucky Derby: Giacomo
2. NBA Champions: San Antonio Spurs
3. NCAA Basketball Champions: North Carolina
4. NCAA Football Champs: Texas
5. Stanley Cup Champs: The Stanley Cup was not awarded in 2005 because of the NHL lockout.
6. Super Bowl Champs: New England Patriots
7. U.S. Open Golf: Michael Campbell
8. U.S. Open Tennis (men/women): Roger Federer/Justine Henin-Hardenne
9. Wimbledon (men/women): Roger Federer/Venus Williams
10. World Series Champions: Chicago White Sox

5. Miscellaneous Fun Facts, Trivia, and Pop Culture Trends

PBS.org explains that pop culture is that loose blend of books, music, fashion and other daily ephemera that contributes to the identity of a society at a particular point in time. In the 2000s, radio, film, television, books, and the internet defined the essence of American pop culture.

1. In 2005, popular baby names were Aidan, Jacob, Ethan, Nicholas, Emma, Emily, Madison, and Kaitlyn.
2. The average life expectancy at birth in the United States was 77.34 years.
3. The cost of a 30-second Super Bowl ad was $2,400.000.
4. Popular holiday gifts included cash, gift cards, Microsoft Xbox 360, PlayStation Portable, Game Boy Micro, Barbie as Harley Quinn, and Lindsay Lohan dolls.
5. Fashion trends in 2005 included trucker hats, skinny jeans, ironic t-shirts, cargo pants, juicy tracksuits, UGGs, western shirts with pearl snaps, and layered polos.
6. Heartthrobs and fashion icons for the year were Halle Berry, Beyonce, Jessica Biel, Kate Bosworth, Cameron Diaz, Jenna Fischer, Jennifer Garner, Teri Hatcher, Paris Hilton, Katie Holmes, Kate Hudson, Angelina Jolie, Nicole Kidman, Heidi Klum, Lindsay Lohan, Jennifer Love Hewitt, Brittany Murphy, Natalie Portman, Jessica Simpson, Reese Witherspoon, and Naomi Watts.
7. Hunks back in 2005 included Matthew McConaughey, Terrence Howard, Anderson Cooper, Tim McGraw, Justin Timberlake, Russell Crowe, and Jude Law.
8. Diedre Downs (Alabama) won the Miss America crown.
9. Chelsea Cooley (North Carolina) became Miss USA.
10. Time Magazine’s “Persons of the Year” were “The Good Samaritans.”
11. The cardboard box was inducted into the National Toy Hall of Fame.
12. Top-grossing Broadway shows included Wicked, The Lion King, Mamma Mia!, Spamalot, The Producers, The Phantom of the Opera, Hairspray, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, Beauty and the Beast, Fiddler on the Roof, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Chicago, Movin’ Out, Avenue Q, Rent, Doubt, The Light in the Piazza, and Sweet Charity.
13. At the 77th Academy Awards, which honored the best films of 2004, Million Dollar Baby won an Oscar for Best Picture, Clint Eastwood (Million Dollar Baby) won an Oscar for Best Director, Jaime Foxx (Ray) won an Oscar for Best Actor, and Hilary Swank (Million Dollar Baby) won an Oscar for Best Actress.
14. At the 57th Primetime Emmy Awards, Everybody Loves Raymond (CBS) won an Emmy for Outstanding Comedy Series, and Lost (ABC) won an Emmy for Outstanding Drama Series. Likewise, Tony Shalhoub (Monk) won an Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series, and Felicity Huffman (Desperate Housewives) won an Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series.
15. On January 23, the crime drama Numbers, starring Rob Morrow and David Krumholtz, premiered on CBS.
16. On March 18, The Suite Life of Zack & Cody, starring Dylan and Cole Sprouse, debuted on the Disney Channel.
17. On March 24, the U.S. version of The Office, starring Steve Carell and John Krasinski, premiered on NBC.
18. On September 11, Pride and Prejudice, a film adaptation of Jane Austen's novel of the same name, was released. It starred Keira Knightley as Elizabeth Bennet.
19. On November 6, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, the fourth film based on the books by J. K. Rowling, premiered in London.
20. In 2005, there were over two million farms in the U.S.
21. Minnesota had 79,600 farms.
22. Florida Governor Jeb Bush signed a bill that made the orange the official fruit of Florida.
23. The United States produced nearly ten billion pounds of apples. More than half of them were grown in the state of Washington.
24. Cristeta Comerford became the first woman to serve as White House Executive Chef.
25. Under new licensing laws in England and Wales, over 1,000 pubs, clubs, and grocery stores were able to sell alcohol.

6. Computer and Internet History

This cool trivia from 2005 has been made available courtesy of ComputerHope.com and SearchEngineWatch.com.

1. In 2005, Google’s most popular search terms were Janet Jackson, Hurricane Katrina, tsunami, Xbox 360, Brad Pitt, Michael Jackson, American Idol, Britney Spears, Angelina Jolie, and Harry Potter.
2. Google search terms that gained the most in popularity during 2005 included MySpace, Ares, Baidu, Wikipedia, Orkut, iTunes, Sky News, World of Warcraft, Green Day, and Leonardo da Vinci.
3. Top searches on Froogle were iPod, digital camera, mp3 player, iPod mini, PSP, laptop, Xbox, iPod shuffle, computer desk, and iPod nano.
4. The most popular searches on AOL included lottery, horoscopes, tattoos, lyrics, ringtones, IRS, jokes, American Idol, hairstyles, and NASCAR.
5. Top searches on Lycos were Paris Hilton, Pamela Anderson, Britney Spears, poker, dragon ball, Jennifer Lopez, WWE, Pokemon, PlayStation, and Hurricane Katrina.
6. Dogpile’s top ten searches included music lyrics, Paris Hilton, Google, eBay, Yahoo, Mapquest, games cheat, games, dogs, and top 100 baby names.
7. Top searches on Amazon that contained nine letters were equipment, refinance, furniture, insurance, marketing, wholesale, Christian, treatment, corporate, and directory.
8. The most popular search terms on Ask.com included President Bush, Usher, Lindsay Lohan, pregnancy, Star Wars, and NHL.
9. The most popular browsers were Internet Explorer (85.05%), Firefox (9.57%), Safari (3.07%), Netscape (1.24%), and Opera (0.55%). MethodShop.com points out that “Microsoft Internet Explorer ended 2004 with 90.31% browser usage market share, and steadily lost ground, ending 2005 with 85.05% market share. While any company would typically be thrilled with 85% of a market segment, let’s not forget that Netscape once owned a huge percentage of this same segment before IE showed up.”
10. In 2005, the term “selfie” was becoming popular.
11. Verizon introduced its FiOS high-speed Internet service.
12. On February 8, Google Maps was launched.
13. On February 15, the video-sharing website YouTube was launched by Jawed Karim, Steve Chen, and Chad Hurley. The first YouTube video, Meet Me at the Zoo, was uploaded on April 23, 2005, and shows co-founder Jawed Karim at the San Diego Zoo. (In 2006, YouTube was purchased by Google for $1.65 billion.)
14. On June 23, the social news website Reddit was launched. ComputerHope.com explains that Reddit is a site “in which a community of registered users (redditors) submits content. Its format resembles a traditional bulletin board system, allowing users to post messages and links to other websites and comment on each other's posts. Entries are ranked by a voting system; other users can vote comments and posts either up (upvoted) or down. Users who post and comment receive ‘karma’ for upvotes and lose karma for downvotes.”
15. On August 10, the Opera Mini browser was released, “designed for use with smartphones that could run standard web browsers.”
16. On August 25, Pandora Radio, an online music service, was launched.
17. In November, Google released Google Analytics, a “freemium service” that allows anyone with a website “to monitor and create reports of their visitors.”
18. In November, Shop.org coined the term “Cyber Monday.”
19. On November 22, Microsoft released the Xbox 360, “the second generation of their popular game console.”

7. Most Popular Websites in 2005

These Internet history facts have been made available courtesy of Tech.co.

Here are 10 of the most popular websites from 2005:

1. Yahoo!
2. MSN
3. Time Warner
4. Google
5. eBay
6. Amazon
7. Ask Jeeves
8. Walmart
9. Viacom
10. The New York Times