This Year in History:
2005
Discover what happened in this year with HISTORY’s summaries of major events, anniversaries, famous births and notable deaths.
On January 25, 2005, a Wichita, Kansas, television station receives a postcard from the BTK killer that leads police to discover a Post Toasties cereal box that had been altered to contain the letters BTK. This communication was one in a long line sent by the serial killer who terrorized Wichita for over 30 years, […]
On January 26, 2005, Condoleezza Rice is sworn in as secretary of state, making her the highest ranking African American woman ever to serve in a presidential cabinet. A native of Birmingham, Alabama, Dr. Rice earned advanced degrees in political science and international relations from prestigious schools, followed by a post as Stanford University provost. […]
Alberto Gonzales became the first Hispanic U.S. Attorney General, the 15th Amendment giving black men the right to vote, and Yasser Arafat founds the PLO in This Day in History video. The date is February 3rd. Also, on this date, Eileen Collins becomes the first woman to pilot a space shuttle. She piloted the Discovery […]
On February 3, 2005, Alberto Gonzales wins Senate confirmation as the nation’s first Hispanic attorney general despite protests over his record on torture. The Senate approved his nomination on a largely party-line vote of 60-36, reflecting a split between Republicans and Democrats over whether the administration’s counterterrorism policies had led to the abuse of prisoners […]
On February 12, 2005, 7,503 orange curtains unfurl across New York City’s Central Park from thousands of gates. The art installation, Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s “The Gates,” will be gone by the end of the month, but it will leave a lasting impression and be remembered as one of the best-known and most beloved works of […]
On March 4, 2005, billionaire mogul Martha Stewart is released from a federal prison near Alderson, West Virginia, after serving five months for lying about her sale of ImClone stock in 2001. After her televised exit from the facility, Stewart flew on a chartered jet from nearby Greenbrier International Airport to New York, where she […]
On March 13, 2005, the board of directors of the Walt Disney Company officially announces that Robert Iger, Disney’s president and chief operating officer, will succeed Michael Eisner as the company’s chief executive officer (CEO). As Disney’s chief executive since 1984, Eisner was credited with expanding the company’s reach into diverse realms of the entertainment […]
On March 16, 2005, after a three-month-long criminal trial in Los Angeles Superior Court, a jury acquits Robert Blake, star of the 1970s television detective show “Baretta,” of the murder of his 44-year-old wife, Bonny Lee Bakley. Blake, who was born Mickey Gubitosi in 1933 in New Jersey, made his movie debut at the age […]
On April 2, 2005, John Paul II, history’s most well-traveled pope and the first non-Italian to hold the position since the 16th century, dies at his home in the Vatican. Six days later, 2 million people packed Vatican City for his funeral, said to be one of the biggest in history. John Paul II was […]
On this day in 2005, John Paul II, history’s most well-traveled pope and the first non-Italian to hold the position since the 16th century, dies at his home in the Vatican. Six days later, two million people packed Vatican City for his funeral, said to be the biggest funeral in history. John Paul II was […]
Eric Rudolph agrees to plead guilty to a series of bombings, including the fatal bombing at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, in order to avoid the death penalty. He later cited his anti-abortion and anti-homosexual views as motivation for the bombings. Eric Robert Rudolph was born September 19, 1966, in Merritt Island, Florida. He served […]
Nearly eight years after Princess Diana’s death in a car crash was mourned the world over, Prince Charles, her widower and heir to the British throne, weds his longtime mistress, Camilla Parker Bowles. The marriage, a private civil ceremony, took place at Windsor Guildhall, 30 miles outside of London. The ceremony was originally supposed to […]
On May 20, 2005, ex-teacher and convicted sex offender Mary Kay Letourneau, 43, marries her former student and the father of two of her children, Vili Fualaau, 22. Just nine months earlier, Letourneau had been released from prison after serving a seven-and-a-half year sentence for raping an underage Fualaau. Letourneau first met Fualaau when she […]
Shortly after midnight on May 28, 2005, Carl Edward Roland, 41, is removed from a crane perched 18 stories above Atlanta’s Buckhead neighborhood. Roland was wanted by police in connection with the murder of his ex-girlfriend Jennifer Gonzalez. Police in Pinellas County, Florida, discovered the badly beaten body of Gonzalez, 36, in a retention pond […]
On May 29, 2005, 23-year-old Danica Patrick becomes the first female driver to take the lead in the storied Indianapolis 500. Having previously distinguished herself in the Toyota Atlantic series, Patrick had qualified fourth—another best for a woman—for the 89th Indianapolis 500, only her fifth Indy Racing League event. (Toyota Atlantic served as a feeder […]
On May 31, 2005, W. Mark Felt’s family ends 30 years of speculation, identifying Felt, the former FBI assistant director, as “Deep Throat,” the secret source who helped unravel the Watergate scandal. Felt’s admission, made in an article in Vanity Fair magazine, took legendary reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, who had promised to keep […]
On June 15, 2005, more than two weeks after American teen Natalee Holloway vanished while on a high school graduation trip to the Caribbean island of Aruba, police there search the home of 17-year-old Joran Van der Sloot, one of the last known people to see the young woman alive. Although Van der Sloot would […]
After 14 Formula One race car drivers withdraw due to safety concerns over the Michelin-made tires on their vehicles, German driver Michael Schumacher wins a less-than-satisfying victory at the United States Grand Prix on June 19, 2005. The race, held at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in Indianapolis, Indiana, will go down one of the most […]
The actor Tom Cruise has an infamous interview with Matt Lauer, host of NBC’s morning talk show “Today,” on June 24, 2005. During the interview, Lauer challenged Cruise about critical comments the actor had made regarding the actress Brooke Shields’ use of anti-depressant medications to treat her postpartum depression. One of Hollywood’s most bankable leading […]
The last Thunderbird, Ford Motor Company’s iconic sports car, emerges from a Ford factory in Wixom, Michigan on July 1, 2005. Ford began its development of the Thunderbird in the years following World War II, during which American servicemen had the opportunity to observe sleek European sports cars. General Motors built the first American sports […]
