• the TV Land Awards have been awarded annually since 2003 by the TV Land network to reward classic television?
• the Darjeeling Ropeway was stopped on 19 October 2003 after four tourists were killed in an accident?
• the Challenge Yves du Manoir, a French Rugby union competition which ran from 1931 to 2003, was created by Racing Club de France with the support of CA Bordeaux-Bègles Gironde and AS Montferrandaise?
• the Russian singer Alla Bayanova, who celebrated the 80th anniversary of her stage performance back in 2003, recently collaborated with Marc Almond on several duets?
• the appearance of a dog named Cheeka in a Hutch ad campaign doubled sales of pugs in India in 2003?
• there have been six Indian Ocean Island Games, the latest being held on the isle of Mauritius in 2003?
• the retired United States Air Force lieutenant general Nicholas Kehoe became the President and CEO of the Congressional Medal of Honor Society in 2003 after 34 years of military service?
• the award-winning Chinese film Cell Phone, with its box office profit of over ¥50 million, was the highest-grossing film made in China in 2003?
• the charity organization Child's Play raised over $250,000 in 2003 in the form of cash and toy donations from the readers of popular web comic Penny Arcade?
• the Canadian Armed Forces mobilized more than 2,200 soldiers within days to help fight over 800 separate forest fires during Operation PEREGRINE in the summer of 2003?
• James McClinton was the first African American mayor of Topeka, Kansas, appointed by the city council in December 2003, but that the electorate of the city passed a referendum the following year to strip the office of political power?
• Dimba was the top goalscorer of the 2003 Brazilian football championship?
• mountaineer Ger McDonnell, the first Irish person to summit K2, brought a hurley to the summit of Mount Everest in 2003?
• Ron DeGregorio was elected in 2003 as the fourth president of USA Hockey since 1937?
• Simone Niggli-Luder from Switzerland won all four women's competitions at the orienteering world championships 2005 in Aichi, Japan, repeating her performance of 2003?
• in 2003 Erin Crocker became the first woman to qualify for the Knoxville Nationals sprint car race?
• as the result of a deal before the 2000 general election, Paul Bérenger became the first non-Hindu Prime Minister of Mauritius in 2003?
• Taiwan professional baseball was started in 1989, and the two leagues merged in 2003?
• advertisements featuring the character Michael Power doubled Guinness sales in Africa between 1999 and 2003?

Facts on topics related to 2003

2004

• 1985's only super typhoon, Super Typhoon Dot, is the sixth-most intense tropical cyclone in terms of wind speed to affect Bicol Region, Philippines between 1947 and 2004?
• Foreigner vocalist Lou Gramm survived a brain tumor in 1997 and completed a tour with his new band in 2004?
• Evan Taubenfeld was Avril Lavigne's lead guitarist from Spring 2002 to September 2004?
• Hubie Brown resigned as coach from the Memphis Grizzlies on Thanksgiving Day 2004?
• Rumaisa Rahman, born prematurely in Chicago on September 19, 2004, was 8 inches (20 cm) long and weighed 8½ oz. (244 g) at birth?
• Bend It Like Beckham was a crowd favorite at the ninth Pyongyang Film Festival in 2004?
• a Fairchild C-119 Flying Boxcar was used in the 2004 movie The Flight of the Phoenix?
  
• an Ivorian air attack in 2004 which killed 9 and wounded 37 French soldiers on a UN peacekeeping mission in Côte d'Ivoire prompted a retaliation that annihilated the Air Force of Côte d'Ivoire on the same day?
• at 67 years old, Elias Syriani was the oldest person executed in the United States since James Hubbard was executed by Alabama at the age of 74 in 2004?
• in 2004, the world spent US$896,235 million on military expenditures and the U.S. military budget constituted 41 percent of this, placing the nation at the top of the list of countries by military expenditures?

2006

• Indian-American teenager Gaurav Raja memorized 10,980 digits of pi in 2006 to break the North American pi memorization record?
• Internet entrepreneur Pete Ashdown is running against incumbent Orrin Hatch for the 2006 U.S. Senate race in Utah?
• Jackson Pollock 's No. 5, 1948 was sold by David Geffen to David Martinez for the inflation adjusted price of $140 million dollars, making it the world's most expensive painting sold at an auction as of November, 2006?
• Hurricane Sergio in 2006 was the strongest Pacific hurricane on record in the month of November?
• Scieno Sitter, a content-control software package created by the Church of Scientology, was referred to in the 2006 fictional film The Bridge?
• national legislative elections will be held in Thailand on April 2, 2006, following the decision by Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra to dissolve the lower house of the Thai legislature, the House of Representatives?
• The Berghoff restaurant in Chicago will close on 28 February 2006 after 107 years of operation by three generations of the Berghoff family?
• Super Typhoon Chanchu of 2006 (pictured) was only the second super typhoon recorded in the South China Sea?
• WildlifeDirect was established in 2006 to support wildlife protection in Africa via the use of weblogs?
• a new free trade agreement called the Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership between Brunei, Chile, New Zealand and Singapore will come into effect on 1 January 2006?

2002

• California's current State Senate Minority Leader Dick Ackerman ran for State Attorney General in 2002?
• Émile Boga Doudou was killed on September 19, 2002 in Abidjan in the worst outbreak of violence in Cote d'Ivoire since a military coup d'etat in 1999?
• Danielle Reyes finished second place on the American version of Big Brother in 2002?
• Evan Taubenfeld was Avril Lavigne's lead guitarist from Spring 2002 to September 2004?
• J002E3 was at first thought to be a new moon of the Earth when discovered in 2002 but later found to be the third stage of the Apollo 12 Saturn V?
• Dutch bus-building firm Den Oudsten was founded in 1926 and went out of business in 2002?
• a 2002 BBC World Service global poll voted A Nation Once Again the world's most popular tune?
• in 2002 the Western New York and Pennsylvania Railroad bought 41½ miles (66.8 km) of track between Meadville and Corry, Pennsylvania for $1?
• on May 3, 2002 a military MiG-21bis aircraft crashed into the Bank of Rajasthan in India, killing eight?
• the 7.9 M_w Denali Fault earthquake on November 3, 2002 was the strongest shock ever recorded in the interior of Alaska?

2005

• "truthiness," a word made by Stephen Colbert of The Colbert Report, was selected as the 2005 Word of the Year by the American Dialect Society?
• professor Malcolm Grant, the Provost and President of University College London, agreed to shave off his moustache if UCL students raised £1500 for Comic Relief, on Red Nose Day in 2005?
• Bangalore Gayana Samaja, which celebrated its centenary in 2005, is one of the oldest cultural organisations in Bangalore?
• Bibliothèque nationale du Québec, the national library of Québec, and the public library of the city of Montréal, will share a facility beginning in 2005?
• Kermit Roosevelt III, author of the 2005 legal thriller In the Shadow of the Law, is the great-great-grandson of U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt?
• Luis Ramirez was the 15th person executed in 2005 in the U.S. state of Texas?
• Simone Niggli-Luder from Switzerland won all four women's competitions at the orienteering world championships 2005 in Aichi, Japan, repeating her performance of 2003?
• That Summer Day is the first television drama for children about the bombings of the London public transport system on July 7, 2005?
• director Fei Mu's 1948 film Spring in a Small Town was named the best Chinese-language film ever made, by the Hong Kong Film Association awards in 2005?
• in 2005, Ghatam player Ghatam Udupa became the first Indian to perform at the Krakow International Percussion Festival?

2000

• basketball coach Bob Knight told a radio program that if he had not been fired from Indiana University in 2000, he would have fired his assistant Mike Davis, who replaced him as IU coach?
• Charles Butler McVay III, commander of the USS Indianapolis, was blamed when it was lost at sea in 1945 and only finally exonerated by the United States Congress posthumously in 2000?
• soul singer Bettye Lavette's album Souvenirs was recorded in 1972, but was shelved by Atlantic Records until a French music collector discovered it and released it in 2000, sparking a continuing surge of interest in the singer?
• Tropical Storm Helene of 2000 struck Florida just five days after Hurricane Gordon?
• the 2000 Black Coaches Association Classic was postponed by an electrical storm during which lightning struck ESPN broadcaster Lee Corso's rental car?
• the Tagish Lake meteorite that impacted Canada on January 18, 2000 may be a broken off piece of the 773 Irmintraud asteroid that orbits between the planets Mars and Jupiter?
• the Philadelphia Metro is a free daily newspaper that was first published in 2000?
• what was probably the last living Spix's Macaw died in 2000?

2001

• Jacek Dukaj's Black Oceans, a Polish science-fiction novel, received the Janusz A. Zajdel Award Polish award for sci-fi literature in 2001?
• Buddhism in Austria is a legally recognized religion and has 10,402 followers according to the 2001 census?
• Go.com partnered with Goto.com in 2001, even though a judge had ordered Go.com to pay Goto.com $21.5 million earlier for having a similar logo?
• Lord of the Nutcracker Men was a 2001 children's novel about World War I?
• Vanessa Mendoza, Miss Colombia 2001, was the first Black woman to win that title?
• a fall of red rain in Kerala in 2001 might have contained microbes of extraterrestrial origin?
• ethnic Dayaks in Borneo resorted to the ancient practice of headhunting to chase away migrant Madurese during the Sampit conflict in 2001?
• in 2001 Watercolour Challenge won a Royal Television Society award in the category of Best Features - Daytime television?
• in June 2001, Olga Kern became the first woman in over three decades to win the Gold Medal at the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition?
• the 2001 single by Mylène Farmer, C'est une belle journée, was released in April, 2002 after the success of the album, Les Mots, rather than its scheduled date of release?

1993

• Barbadian cricketer Sir Clyde Walcott became the first non-English and non-white chairman of the International Cricket Council in 1993?
• Japan and Poland are the world's largest krill fishing nations since Russia abandoned its operations in 1993?
• land under cultivation has grown from under 400,000 acres in 1976 to more than eight million acres in 1993 thanks to the irrigation in Saudi Arabia?
• the leg break bowled by Shane Warne to Mike Gatting that turned around the 1993 Ashes cricket series is widely known as the Ball of the Century?
• the Irish cricket team didn't become an official member of the International Cricket Council until 1993, despite having played first-class cricket matches since 1902, including games against Scotland, Australia and New Zealand?
• the Law Library of Congress created the Global legal information network in 1993 to provide free access to an online searchable full text database of international legal documents, judicial decisions, legislation, statutes and other laws, from many countries, including Brazil, Costa Rica, Kuwait, Peru, and Romania?

1979

• Swiss artist Harald Naegeli spent several months in jail in 1984 for the graffiti he had painted in Zürich from 1977 to 1979?
• Chris Woods cost Queens Park Rangers 250,000 pounds from Nottingham Forest in 1979 even though he had never played a League game before his transfer?
• a Catalan wine was secretly added to the classified Bordeaux wine category of the 1979 Gault Millau Wine Olympics and won?
• despite its federal mandate to provide only intercity rail service, Amtrak operated the Calumet commuter train between Chicago, Illinois and the Indiana suburb of Valparaiso from 1979 to 1991?
• the Soviet D-10 tank gun (pictured) of World War II was built until 1979 for the world's most common tank (the T-55), which remains in service?
• the first comprehensive campaign of unionized labor was the subject of the 1979 Academy Award-winning film Norma Rae?

1971

• motorcyclist Jo Siffert was killed in an end-of-season non-championship F1 race on October 24, 1971 at Brands Hatch?
• Chandra Prakash Mainali, who led an armed Maoist revolt in eastern Nepal in 1971, later served as Minister of Local Development in 1994-95?
• Sheffield Wednesday Ladies F.C. were formed at the Star Inn public house in Rotherham during 1971 following a charity match between men and women at the pub?
• Suhrawardy Udyan in Dhaka was the scene of Mujibur Rahman's historic speech on March 7, 1971 that eventually led to Bangladesh's Liberation War?
• the 1971 Harley-Davidson Super Glide, the first factory custom motorcycle, used an Electra Glide frame mated to Sportster forks?
• the Bangladeshi musician and composer Samar Das, who composed over 2,000 songs and was the music director of over 50 films, also played a prominent role in the Bangladesh Liberation War in 1971?
• the Turkish military coup of 1971 is known as the Coup by Memorandum?
• the Occupational Safety and Health Act went into effect in the United States on April 28, 1971, the same day as Workers' Memorial Day?
• the only international cricket in South Africa between 1971 and 1981 comprised 6 private tours and 1 women's test match, because no test match playing nation was willing to tour the country because of its apartheid policy?
• the upcoming British film Hippie Hippie Shake by Beeban Kidron, which follows the 1971 obscenity trial of the Australian editor Richard Neville of satirical magazine Oz, was in development hell for nearly ten years?

1975

• footballer Alan Taylor scored two goals in the quarter final, two goals in the semi final and two goals in the final of the 1975 FA Cup as his club West Ham United won the competition?
• public broadcasting in New Zealand of color television began in 1975?
• J.M. Legard's 2006 novel Giraffe is based on the real-life mass killing of giraffes at the zoo in the Czechoslovakian town of Dvůr Králové nad Labem on the night of 30 April 1975?
• in 1975 a freak Typhoon caused the Banqiao Dam in China's Henan Province to fail, killing over 200,000 people?
• in 1975 a freak typhoon caused the Banqiao Dam in China's Henan Province to fail, killing over 200,000 people?
• the 1975 U.S. Supreme Court case NLRB v. J. Weingarten, Inc. allowed all workers in unionized workplaces to have a union representative present during management inquiries that might result in discipline?
• the Angolan War of Independence lasted from 1961 until 1989, even though Portugal left Angola in 1975?
• the Satellite Instructional Television Experiment, launched in 1975, was one of the first demonstrations that showed the potential of satellite technology as an effective mass communication media?

2003 in film

• Douglas Henshall and Daniel Craig were originally considered for the roles of Gordon Brown and Tony Blair in 2003 film The Deal?
• the 2003 documentary Prisoner of Paradise is a chronicle of the life of Kurt Gerron, a German Jewish actor who was forced to make a Nazi propaganda film and later murdered in a Nazi concentration camp?
• while the 2003 Norwegian film Buddy was described as "simple" in the Norwegian press, a U.S. reviewer called it "overly plotted"?