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Born in 2001? Here's the world you arrived into

In 2001, "Hanging by a Moment" topped the charts, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone packed theaters, a stamp cost 34¢, the average home went for about $175,200.

What things cost in 2001

That $1.46 gallon of gas from 2001 works out to about $2.70 in today's dollars, and the 34-cent stamp to roughly 63 cents. Even the $5.66 movie ticket translates to only about $10.40 now, so a night at the movies was a genuine bargain either way.

The biggest moments of 2001

• The September 11 attacks reshaped the world.
• Apple released the first iPod in October.
• Wikipedia launched in January.

• Microsoft released Windows XP in October, the operating system with the famous green-hill wallpaper that millions would use for a decade.
• American businessman Dennis Tito became the world's first paying space tourist, riding a Russian rocket to the International Space Station in April.
• Russia's 15-year-old Mir space station made a fiery, carefully planned plunge into the Pacific Ocean in March, watched live around the world.

Toys, TV & trends of 2001

• Apple released the very first iPod in October 2001, promising "1,000 songs in your pocket."
• Microsoft's Xbox and Nintendo's GameCube both launched in November, kicking off a new era of video games.
• Bratz dolls made their debut, and Razor scooters were still zipping around every neighborhood.

• The Game Boy Advance arrived in June, letting kids play Super Mario on a sleek widescreen handheld between classes.
• Lizzie McGuire premiered on Disney Channel in January, and Hilary Duff's animated alter ego said everything tweens were thinking.
• A free browser game called RuneScape launched in January, quietly beginning its reign over school computer labs everywhere.

The music scene

Music in 2001 lived on burned CD-Rs and shared playlists, and the file-sharing wars hit a turning point when a court order forced Napster to shut down its song-swapping service in July. Meanwhile Destiny's Child's "Survivor" and Shaggy's sly "It Wasn't Me" ruled radio early in the year, and MTV's Total Request Live with Carson Daly was still the daily scoreboard of pop. Few noticed that a little Mac program called iTunes, released in January, would soon change how everyone bought music.

At the movies

Hollywood launched two of the biggest franchises in history within a single month, as wizards and hobbits arrived in theaters just weeks apart in November and December. The Academy also created a brand-new Oscar category that year, Best Animated Feature, and a wisecracking green ogre beat out Pixar's Monsters, Inc. to win the very first one. A Beautiful Mind, the story of mathematician John Nash, took home Best Picture.

Cartoons kids loved

• SpongeBob SquarePants
• The Fairly OddParents
• The Simpsons

Cartoon Network was hitting a creative golden age, debuting Genndy Tartakovsky's artful, nearly wordless Samurai Jack in August alongside its Toonami action block. Over at Nickelodeon, The Fairly OddParents graduated from the Oh Yeah! Cartoons shorts showcase to its own series, proving the network could mint a second powerhouse right behind SpongeBob.

The world in 2001

• World population: about 6.2 billion
• U.S. President: George W. Bush (took office January 20)
• Enron filed for bankruptcy in December

• China officially joined the World Trade Organization in December, a milestone that reshaped the global economy for decades.
• The Netherlands became the first country in the world to legalize same-sex marriage in April.
• Italy's Leaning Tower of Pisa reopened to visitors in December after an 11-year engineering project gently straightened it just enough to keep it standing.

2001 birthday questions

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