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This article is about the decade starting at the beginning of 2000 and ending at the end of 2009. For the century or millennium starting in 2000 (technically 2001), see the links below.

The decade as a whole

Thus far, the 2000s has been marked with generally a continuation, if not escalation, of the social problems the world inherited from the 1990s and the Post-Cold War era which included rise of Terrorism, Globalization, the rapid expansion of communications and telecommunications with cell phones, international pop culture, and the expansion of Corporate America around the globe. Politically, the 2000s has been almost entirely dominated by the American War on Terrorism with prominent events that contributed to this being the World Trade Towers attack, Moscow Theatre Siege, Madrid train bombings, Beslan school hostage crisis, and the 2005 London bombings. In the news almost daily especially in the western world, the war on terrorism and the rise of American influence around the world has helped fuel the developement of a very politically and socially divided world.

The 2000s has also witnessed the incredible economic growth of the world's two most populous nations, India and China and the ramifications their growth has had on the western world.

In keeping with naming decades (cf. 1990s "the Nineties", 1980s "the Eighties", etc.), the decade of the 2000s lacks an accepted name. No such term exists for the decades of the 1900s and 1910s. Some suggestions for the 2000s decade are:

"the Twenty-O's" (pronounced; twenty-ohs) or "the Oh's". For example, the year 2005 would be pronounced as "twenty-oh-five," instead of "two-thousand-five."
"the 0-0s", usually pronounced as "the oh-ohs". This pronunciation sounds like "uh oh", an expression of dismay; this similarity is no doubt intentional.
"the 2Ks", a term that is rooted in the slang of the times. K is shorthand for the Greek prefix kilo meaning 1000; hence, 2K means 2000. In popular culture, the years of the decade are already being named according to this slang. For example, the year 2003 is referred to as 2K3. The "2K" term probably has its popular origins in the heavily-hyped Y2K bug that began in 1999, and lasted into this decade.
"the Aughts" (or "Oughts"), keeping with the practice of the twentieth century.
"the Nillies", derived from the term "nil", meaning nothing or zero.
"the Noughties" (or "Naughties"), referring to the nought, or zero, as the decade indicator; the word-play on "naughty" is intentional.
"the Twenty Hundreds", though this could be confused with a name for the century.
"the zeroes",
"the double-O's"
"the 0-Hundreds"
"the Retr00's"
"the Zips" ("zip" is an American slang term for zero.)
"the two thousands", simply 2000s instead of stressing the last two numbers of the first year of the decade e.g. 2000s instead of just 00's. Currently this is the most popular term used to describe the decade
"the Turn of the Century"
"the Turn of the Millenium"
"the New 90's", used by mostly young people who believe that the 2000s is little different from the 1990s, considering the strong holdover of many 1990s cultural icons and few noticeable changes in fashion, hairstyles, or musical tastes.

The United Nations General Assembly declared the (mostly overlapping) decade of 2000-2009 as the "International Decade for a Culture of Peace and Non-Violence for the Children of the World."

Events and trends

Technology

File:IPod 4G.jpg

A fourth-generation iPod with earphones.

A huge jump in broadband internet usage, from 6% of U.S. internet users in June, 2000 to what one study predicts will be 62% by 2010.
Boom in music downloading and MP3 audio data compression; rise of portable digital audio players, typified by Apple Computer's iPod
Digital cameras become very popular due to rapid decreases in size and cost while photo resolution steadily increases.
Google search engine increases trafficability of the internet and "to google" becomes a verb.
Due to an increase in ability to store data, USB flash drives begin to replace zip disks and 3.5-inch diskettes.
Graphic cards become powerful enough to render nearly photorealistic scenes in real time.
Windows XP and Microsoft Office 2003 become the ubiquitous industry standard in personal computer software. Open source products such as Linux, Mozilla Firefox and Safari make some inroads as alternatives.
Liquid crystal displays begin displacing cathode ray tubes.
Major advances in Hybrid vehicles such as the Toyota Prius and the Honda Insight.
Future energy development
Blogs, portals, and wikis become common electronic dissemination methods for businesses to conduct knowledge management
DVDs replace VCR technology as the common standard at video stores.
Wireless networks become commonplace in homes, education institutes and urban public spaces.

Science

The Mars Exploration Rover (MER) Mission succesfully reached the surface of Mars, and sent detailed data and images of the landscape there back to Earth.
On June 21, 2004 SpaceshipOne made the first privately-funded human spaceflight.

War, peace and politics

File:WTC1 on fire.jpg

The World Trade Center ablaze after two airplanes crash into the towers in a terrorist attack

Saddam Hussein shortly after his capture

Major controversy over U.S. presidential election, 2000
September 11, 2001 terrorist attack on New York's World Trade Center and Virginia's Pentagon killing almost 3000 people. A resultant change in stance towards international terrorism (See New Era and War on Terror) has ripple effects on the USA's foreign policy and military strategy.
2001 U.S. invasion of Afghanistan to depose the Taliban regime in response to the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks
December 2001 – July 18, 2003: The Convention on the Future of Europe proposing first European constitution (i.e., of the EU)
East Timor gains official independence from Indonesia on May 20, 2002
International Criminal Court exists as of 1 July 2002, used for judging war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide
American 2003 invasion of Iraq
Darfur conflict in Sudan
"Orange Revolution" in Ukraine leads to election of Viktor Yushchenko as President after initial election victory of incumbent Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych is annulled due to vote-rigging
Revolution in Kyrgyzstan overthrows government of President Askar Akayev
Beslan school hostage crisis, in which multinational terrorists took a school in Beslan, Russia hostage and subsequently killed 344 people including children
United States expands international influence, in particular in the Middle East The US also hold a number of war games pertaining to the Strait of Taiwan in preparation for a possible war with the People's Republic of China over a Taiwanese secession

Economics

Globalization: Transnational companies become more pervasive, and anti-globalization protests occur frequently during meetings of IMF and WTO, especially in the early 2000s.
The NASDAQ, the American Stock Exchange and the New York Stock Exchange closed for six days after the September 11th, 2001 attacks the longest close since the Great Depression in 1929.
Major downturn in the value of dot-com shares, with occasional exceptions (Google's IPO on August 13, 2004)
The US dominance over the world economy, which began in the late 1980s with the collapse of the Eastern bloc, begins to falter. Economically rising nations like China, show signs of becoming contending world powers.
China continues to grow rapidly, driving up commodity prices worldwide
Significant oil price rises. Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline opens on 25 May 2005, potentially removing the dependence of the United States and other Western nations on Middle Eastern oil.
Enron and other major accounting and corporate governance scandals prompt reviews of corporate government legislation worldwide (eg Sarbanes-Oxley Act)

Culture and religion

The decline of newspapers and the vast proliferation of information technology and digital media leads to many cultural paradigm shifts as people grapple with information overload. Generation Y (Millennials) are said to be adept at these technological developments.
Reality television becomes a well-established sector of the television programming industry. Nightly news broadcasts continue to lose viewership to 24-hour internet news coverage. Changing television habits that involve increased use of the internet and the preponderance of TiVo make marketers rethink the paradigm of the 30-second TV ad. Viral marketing, and Product placement within reality television shows and movies are some increasingly used alternatives. Spam is utilized as an alternative, making people irritated.
European society continues to become more secular; in contrast, religious groups increase their political influence in the United States and the Middle East
The divisive US presidential elections of 2000 and 2004 leads to commentators describing the country as split between Red States and Blue States.
April 2, 2005: Pope John Paul II dies at age 84.

Other

November 2002: SARS virus outbreak, most notably in Hong Kong and Toronto
Major earthquake rocks the ancient city of Bam, in Iran. Cost over 50,000 lives.
A major earthquake and ensuing tsunami causes devastation in Sri Lanka, India, Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, The Maldives and many other areas around the rim of the Indian Ocean. As of January 2005 the death toll is estimated to be nearly 290,000, prompting the largest humanitarian response for a natural disaster in history.
Bird flu spreads through South East Asia
Criticism of Vladimir Putin's governmental policies and reforms mount and a backlash of Soviet-nostalgia occurs in Russia.