Science & Technology — 2005
Space missions, medical firsts, new hardware, and the founding of YouTube.
Table of Contents
Science & Technology — 2005
Space missions, medical firsts, new hardware, and the founding of YouTube.
| File | Date | Summary |
|---|---|---|
| Huygens Probe Lands on Titan | 2005-01-14 | ESA's Huygens probe completed the first landing in the outer solar system on January 14, transmitting 350 images from Saturn's largest moon. |
| Google Maps launches | 2005-02-08 | Google released Google Maps as a beta on February 8, pioneering draggable AJAX web mapping and satellite imagery that reshaped how the internet handled place. |
| Founding of YouTube | 2005-02-14 | Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim registered youtube.com on February 14, 2005, launching the platform that transformed global video sharing. |
| Kyoto Protocol Enters Into Force | 2005-02-16 | The international climate treaty took legal effect on February 16 for 141 signatory nations, establishing the first binding greenhouse-gas reduction targets. |
| English Wikipedia passes half a million articles | 2005-03-18 | Wikipedia's English edition reached 500,000 articles on March 18, underscoring the reach of crowdsourced reference amid new scrutiny of its accuracy. |
| PlayStation Portable (PSP) launch in North America | 2005-03-24 | Sony released the PSP on March 24 at $249 USD, establishing the first serious handheld gaming competitor to Nintendo's dominance with graphically advanced portable console technology. |
| Airbus A380 Makes Its First Flight | 2005-04-27 | The world's largest passenger airliner completed its maiden flight from Toulouse on April 27, opening the flight-test campaign for the double-deck "superjumbo." |
| MGM v. Grokster: Supreme Court Rules on P2P Copyright Liability | 2005-06-27 | The U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously on June 27 that P2P software distributors can be liable for actively inducing copyright infringement. |
| Deep Impact Collides with Comet Tempel 1 | 2005-07-04 | NASA's Deep Impact spacecraft deliberately collided with Comet Tempel 1 on July 4, marking the first active scientific excavation of a comet's interior. |
| STS-114: Space Shuttle Discovery Returns to Flight | 2005-07-26 | Discovery launched July 26 on STS-114, NASA's first crewed flight since the 2003 Columbia disaster; renewed foam shedding grounded the fleet again. |
| Discovery of Eris Announced | 2005-07-29 | A Caltech team announced Eris (2003 UB313) on July 29, more massive than Pluto, triggering the redefinition of "planet" and Pluto's 2006 reclassification. |
| Blu-ray and HD-DVD Format War Begins | 2005-08-22 | Sony and Toshiba abandoned unification talks on August 22, opening a two-year high-definition optical disc format war that Blu-ray ultimately won in 2008. |
| Motorola RAZR V3 launch in North America | 2005-09-23 | Motorola released the ultra-thin RAZR V3 flip phone on September 23, revolutionizing mobile phone design and becoming an iconic cultural symbol of the 2000s era. |
| Shenzhou 6 crewed spaceflight mission | 2005-10-12 | China launched its second crewed mission on October 12 with astronauts Fei Junlong and Nie Haisheng, completing five days in orbit and advancing Chinese spaceflight capabilities. |
| Apple releases the iPod Nano | 2005-10-12 | Apple released the compact iPod Nano on October 12 with flash-based storage and a 1.5-inch display, redefining portable music players and becoming one of the decade's iconic consumer devices. |
| The Sony BMG Copy-Protection Rootkit Scandal | 2005-10-31 | Researcher Mark Russinovich revealed on October 31 that Sony BMG music CDs secretly installed rootkit-style copy protection, opening security holes and prompting recalls, lawsuits, and a 2007 FTC settlement. |
| Guitar Hero launch | 2005-11-08 | Harmonix's rhythm game debuted on November 8 for PlayStation 2, featuring a guitar controller and rock soundtrack, sparking a multi-billion-dollar franchise. |
| Xbox 360 launch | 2005-11-22 | Microsoft's Xbox 360 launched in North America on November 22, ushering in the seventh generation of video game consoles and establishing Microsoft as a major force in gaming. |
| World's First Partial Face Transplant | 2005-11-27 | Surgeons in Amiens, France, performed the first human face transplant on November 27, grafting a donor's nose, lips, and chin onto Isabelle Dinoire. |
| The Hwang Woo-suk Stem Cell Fraud | 2005-12-15 | In December, South Korean researcher Hwang Woo-suk was exposed for fabricating his celebrated claims of patient-specific cloned stem cells, one of the decade's most prominent scientific frauds; *Science* retracted both papers in January 2006. |
| Dover Trial Rejects Intelligent Design in Schools | 2005-12-20 | On December 20, a federal judge ruled Intelligent Design is not science and barred it from public-school classrooms — the first such U.S. precedent. |
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