Analyzing Documents (21st Century Edition)

Thousands of images are taken daily of events from across the world. From the first photographs taken dating back to before the American Civil War, to the alien-technology-quality images today, pictures of people, buildings, places, and objects have held many meanings, both positive and negative.

It's just not images that shack the world: videos, speeches, demographics, documents, and graphs also send an output to the world. From the Y2K to the rise of ISIS, countless events are photographed and published daily.


Bellow are 14 images, one image per year, of a significant event from that year of magazines, pictures, news reports, and more.

Images are from Google

2000: Y2K
Remember when someone said that all the world's computers are going to start a uprising? Me neither, but Y2K was the big hoax that the earth was going to stall because of a huge computer bug-crisis-hijack-thing. 

2001: New York Terrorist Attack
September 11th, 2001 is an infamous day that I still remember watching on TV in Japan. The terrorist attack on this day can most likely traced back to America's involvement in the middle east as far back as 1979.

2002: Euros
In 2002, Euro is circulated for the first time being in existence for about 10 years.

2003: Space Shuttle Columbus
The tragic re-entry accident with the Space Shuttle Columbus in 2003 marked one of the worst manned space shuttle accidents after the Challenger accident in 1986.

2004: Indonesian Earthquake
A magnitude 9.1 earthquake hit Indonesia in 2004, and resulted in about 250,000 casualties. Not only did it affect Indonesia, but the waves stretched to Sri Lanka, India, Australia, and many more Oceania and Indian ocean nations. 

2005: Hurricane Katrina
A Category 5 hurricane strikes in August of 2005 and is one of the most costliest natural disasters in the history of the US. States that were hit hard from the storm like Mississippi still have areas that are affected from the storm a decade ago.

2006: Saddam Hussein
Saddam Hussein was sentenced to death by hanging in December of  2006. The US and British invaded Iraq in 2003 to capture  Hussein in suspicion of  possessing Weapons of Mass Destruction and having ties to the Al-Quida.

2007: Korean Train Border Passage
A passenger train passes through the North and South Korean border for the first time since 1953. 

2008: First African-American President
An African-American president elected for the first time in the history. He is basically a US version of Nelson Mandela. Still in office until we get to see who wins in a few days.

2009; Burj Khalifa
The worlds tallest tower finished construction in 2009, and opened to the public in 2010.  Stands 163 floors high, or about 830 meters in height. There's also a night club on the 144th floor if you want to party hard in Dubai.

2010: BP-Oil Spill
Hundreds of gallons of limited resources of fossil fuel was lost when the rig suddenly exploded in April of 2010. About 11 workers are M.I.A., and the US estimates that about 4.9 million barrels of oil was lost. It is the largest marine oil spill in history.

2011: Higashi-Nihon Dai-Shinsai
A magnitude 9 earthquake strikes the north eastern area of Japan on March 11th, 2011. It resulted in about 15,000 dead, 6,000 injured, and about 2,000 that are still missing (assumed dead by this point). The Fukushima Dai-Ichi Nuclear Power Plant took a direct hit and caused a large number of radioactive elements to spew into the atmosphere. It is the second nuclear accident rated a 7 on the International Nuclear Event Scale, and is the costliest clean-up and recovery project for Japan (since WW2) and the world (Since Chernobyl).

2012: End of the World
The Mayans predicted that the world was going to end of December 21st, 2012... but they forgot to count leap years so their calculation was thrown off for about 300 years. Hollywood dedicated a rather interesting movie 2012 which kind of seemed like a prequel to Day After Tomorrow to picture a world in chaos.For all I know, when I have kids, I'm going to show my younglings the movie (2012, Day After Tomorrow, and Terminator 2: Judgement Day, and more) and say: "you see, daddy survived all of that. and that's how daddy met mommy!"  

2013: The Death of Nelson Mandela
Nelson Mandela passes away on 5 December, 2013 at the age of  95. He was a key figure to the Anti-Apartheid in South Africa, and became the first colored president of South Africa in 1994. 

2014: Ukraine Crisis
Began when the president of Ukraine suspends the treaty between them and the EU for an association agreement. Evolved into a riot as western Ukrainian "pro-EU" people clash with eastern-Ukrainian "pro-Russians" groups. Then, the Russians  decides to annex a eastern area of Ukraine called Crimea, which is crawling with pro-Russians. Unrest in other eastern Ukrainian cities have mega-involved into a civil war between the post-Revolutionary Ukrainian government and pro-Russian insurgents. A small scale cold-war between the west and the east again, however, if both sides do to much, the EU, NATO (OK, the US), and Russia are going to be gnarling at each other again....