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On September 11th, 2001 two planes crashed into the North and South Twin Towers, The Pentagon, and an attempt to attack the White House. In total there were 2,819 people killed in the attacks and 20 percent of Americans knew someone hurt or killed in the attacks.
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The U.S. and NATO invaded Afghanistan on October 7, 2001 and overthrew the Al-Qaeda-supportive Taliban government. American troops then began to institute democracy, fight off any insurgents, and the search for Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.
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The Multi-National Force – Iraq, led by the U.S. overthrew and eventually executed Suddham Hussein. The troops remained there in order to institute a democratic government.
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A conflict in Darfur, Sudan began and soon escalated into full-scale war. It is soon considered the worst humanitarian crisis in the world. By 2008 it is believed that up to 400,000 people have been killed and over 2.5 million displaced.
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Two Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity were launched to Mars and landed January 2004.
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Hurricane Katrina was the costliest natural disaster, as well as one of the five deadliest hurricanes, in the history of the United States. Katrina formed in the Bahamas and made its biggest impact as a Category 3 storm in New Orleans,LA.
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On July 11, bombs planted on the train system in Mumbai exploded, killing 209 people.
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There are three main conditions for an object to be considered a 'planet':
The object must be in orbit around the Sun.
The object must be massive enough to be a sphere by its own gravitational force. More specifically, its own gravity should pull it into a shape of hydrostatic equilibrium.
It must have cleared the neighbourhood around its orbit.
Pluto fails to meet the third condition, since its mass is only 0.07 times that of the mass of the other objects in its orbit -
The Great Recession has affected the entire world economy, with higher detriment in some countries than others. It is a global recession characterized by various systemic imbalances and was sparked by the outbreak of the late-2000s financial crisis.
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Barack Obama made history when he became the first African-American President.
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In the early 2000s DVD began to overtake VCR as the most popular consumer of prerecorded video and VCR stopped being sold as of December 23, 2008.
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MySpace fades but Facebook & YouTube remain popular and new sites such as Twitter and Google+ emerge. Facebook replaces Digg as the most popularity media sharing site.
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At least 230,000 were killed in Haiti after a massive earthquake on January 12, 2010 and 3,000,000 were left homeless as estimated by the Haitian government.
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The Gulf Oil Spill have been one of the worst environmental disasters in United States history.BP estimated the flow could be as much as 100,000 barrels per day.
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The shutdown of the largest UK tabloid News of the World after 168 years in print due to the 2009 phone hacking scandal.
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Completion of the Harry Potter film series, which is currently the world's highest grossing film series.