2006 in history
Here are some light-hearted facts about 2006, designed to serve as a prep sheet for a radio feature on 2006.
I created this page because when I needed some notes to create a few talking points about 2006 in Ireland I couldn't find any suitable sources, so I thought I'd share what I did find. It applies to 2006 in Britain too.
You can also look at years other than 2006:
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2006
Google purchased YouTube, the little-known video-sharing website, for €1.4 billion.
The World Cup was held in Germany, and ended with the notorious Zinedine Zidane headbutt.
A heatwave hits Europe. In the UK, the highest temperature was recorded at Wisley Airfield of 36.5oC. Some people claim it later hit 42.0, but this was never verified. In Ireland, a record 32.3oC was recorded in Co. Roscommon.
An Eirjet flight from Liverpool to Derry accidentally landed at Ballykelly airstrip, six miles away from the actual City of Derry Airport. The pilot apparently announced to confused passengers, "we may have arrived at the wrong airport". The plane was stranded for several days.
Katie Holmes and Tom Cruise tied the knot. Nicole Kidman married Keith Urban and Cheryl Tweedy married Ashley Cole.
Littlewoods closed all its stores.
A whale is discovered swimming in the River Thames in London.
Bob Geldof received the Freedom of Dublin City. He later [2017] returned it in protest of another awardee.
Pluto was downgraded to merely a dwarf planet.
Roches Stores became Debenhams.
2006 Launches
The Nintendo Wii was released. Wii Sports was particularly popular.
Twitter was launched in this year. The very first tweet, from the founder Jack Dorsey, is still there: it said "just setting up my twittr". The 'e' was added to its name later.
Elizabeth Gilbert's Eat Pray Love was published.
Google launched Google Translate.
Coca-Cola sold Coca-Cola with Lime, with the advertising campaign, "you put a lime in the Coke you nut".
2006 in Film
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest was the biggest film of the year.
Other big films include Cars, X-Men: The Last Stand, The Da Vinci Code, Superman Returns, Ice Age: The Meltdown, Happy Feet, Over the Hedge, Casino Royale, Click, Mission: Impossible III, The Devil Wears Prada and The Departed.
Bambii II was released in this year, 64 years after the original.
Borat was the most memorable film.
An Inconvenient Truth was also released in this year.
2006 in TV
Dancing On Ice, Waterloo Road, Hannah Montanna and The IT Crowd were first shown on TV.
Top of the Pops was cancelled this year.
In Blue Peter, viewers were asked to name the new cat, but the programme ignored the public vote and chose 'Socks' instead. This later turned into a major scandal, when it was discovered that lots of channels were running impossible competitions and phone-ins that had already been won.
Miriam O'Callaghan hosted RTÉ's Test The Nation.
Irish language teen drama series Aifric debuted on TG4.
While these facts about 2006 have been checked against third-party sources (and have been used on air before!), they are provided in good faith to inspire your research and no guarantee is made about their accuracy or their uniqueness. You can use the facts however you wish: most people just take a couple of points they remember and talk around then.
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