What was happening in the world in 2005?

February 3, 2023

A Bald Eagle flaps its wings, flying close to the ground.

The year was 2005. The first BirdNote Daily episode – about the Bald Eagle – premiered on KPLU (now KNKX) on February 21, 2005. It’s an understatement to say BirdNote has come so far since that day 18 years ago – with BirdNote Daily now playing on hundreds of radio stations and on podcast streaming apps, garnering millions more listeners, and creating even more content about the joy and wonder of birds that inspires listeners all over the world.

To kick off BirdNote’s 18th Birthday celebration, we’re taking you back nearly two decades to set the scene for what the world looked like in 2005 – here’s a look at what else was happening around us.

Time Magazine’s ‘Person of the Year’ was actually three people. Known as “The Good Samaritans”, Bill Gates, Melinda Gates, and Bono were featured for their efforts to end “poverty, disease and indifference”.
New Zealand’s Bird of the Year: The Tūī, a medium-sized bird that’s native to New Zealand. The Tūī is a distinct looking bird, and boasts a blue, green, and bronze color with a distinctive white throat tuft. Learn more about this one of a kind bird here. In other bird news, President Bush discussed migratory bird conservation.
The most popular TV show was American Idol. The same year, country music star Carrie Underwood won on the show. The top grossing movie was Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith. The movie earned over $868.4 million worldwide.
The number one song in the U.S. in 2005, according to Billboard’s Year-End Hot 100 list, was Mariah Carey’s “We Belong Together”.
Some of the most popular books of 2005 included Twilight, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, and Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.
In the online world, YouTube was created on February 14, 2005 and the most popular website was Yahoo, with 6.5–5.7 billion monthly visits. 2005 marked the birth of the social web, which continued to grow throughout the latter half of 2000 and into the early 2010s, and has expanded exponentially since!
On January 5, 2005, astronomers discovered the dwarf planet Eris, one of the largest known dwarf planets in our solar system.
In the technology world, both the iPod Nano and iPod Shuffle were both introduced in 2005.
The New England Patriots won the Superbowl for the third time in four years, with a score of 24 to 21.
Civil Rights icon Rosa Parks passed away in Detroit, Michigan at the age of 92.

Whether you've been listening to BirdNote since these early days or you're a new fan, we'd like to thank you from the bottom of our hearts for making the past 18 years so wonderful. It's been our pleasure adding the joy of birds into your life, and we can't wait to show you what we have in store for the future.