--- description: Celebrating the new year by revisiting an old one title: 2016 Anniversaries: 16 Things Turning 16 This New Year image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt78e2c8f662b64f4d/698875ec8e0601528e463d20/jlo.jpeg?branch=production&width=1080&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  * [History](/section/history/) ## History Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close * [Anniversaries](/tag/anniversaries/) ## Anniversaries Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close # 16 Things Turning 16 in 2016  by [Lily Rothman](/author/lily-rothman/)  ## Lily Rothman Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Rothman is managing editor at TIME. Jan 1, 2016 11:00 AM CUT  Jennifer Lopez at the Staples Center in Los Angeles for the 2000 Grammy Awards Jennifer Lopez at the Staples Center in Los Angeles for the 2000 Grammy AwardsKirby Lee—WireImage/Getty Images  by [Lily Rothman](/author/lily-rothman/)  ## Lily Rothman Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Rothman is managing editor at TIME. Jan 1, 2016 11:00 AM CUT We made it through the Y2K freak-out mostly unscathed, but that didn’t mean the year 2000 was uneventful. In the new year, these events will hit their 16th anniversaries: **The Dow hit its dotcom-boom peak (Jan. 14):** The Dow closed at a whopping 11,722.98 on that day, and then it started to go down—and down. The tech stocks that had buoyed the market began their decline in early 2000\. Only two weeks into the decade and the ’90s were really over. _Read TIME’s original coverage of the stock market boom, here in the TIME Vault:_ [Beware the Cult](http://time.com/vault/issue/2000-03-27/page/146/ "undefined") **The final Peanuts comic strip ran (Feb. 13):** After decades with Charlie Brown and Snoopy, the world said good-bye to Peanuts, just one day after the death of creator Charles Schulz. _Read TIME’s original coverage of Peanuts, here in the TIME Vault:_ [Comment in the Comics](http://time.com/vault/issue/1965-04-09/page/1/ "undefined") **Jennifer Lopez rocked the Grammy Awards in** **_that_** **dress (Feb. 23):** The singer stole the show in a barely-there Versace gown that was still talked about months and years later. And she remembered, too: the iconic palm print made an appearance in 2014 in the video for her song “I Luh Ya Papi.” _Read TIME’s original coverage of that year’s Grammys, here in the TIME Vault:_ [The Shoes Aren’t Bad, Either](http://time.com/vault/issue/2000-03-06/page/96/ "undefined") **_Erin Brockovich_** **got us on her side (Mar. 14):** The film was a hit and won Julia Roberts an Oscar, though some of the actual people involved in the case that made Brockovich famous claimed the movie didn’t do justice to their story. The real Brockovich, for her part, [continues](http://time.com/4129785/erin-brockovich-gmos/ "undefined") to work as a consumer advocate. _Read TIME’s original coverage of the film, here in the TIME Vault:_ [Erin Go Bra](http://time.com/vault/issue/2000-03-20/page/86/ "undefined") **Pope John Paul II visited Israel (Mar. 21):** During the historic trip, the Pope apologized to the Jewish people for the ills done to them by Roman Catholics over the years, from the Crusades to the Church’s failure to act during the Holocaust. _Read TIME’s original coverage of the visit, here in the TIME Vault:_ [The Pope in the Holy Land](http://time.com/vault/issue/2000-04-03/page/1/ "undefined") **Metallica took Napster to court (April 13):** The rock band became the face of resistance to changes in the music industry, ready to do whatever it took to defend its copyright. Thanks in part to the case, Napster eventually lost its place as the primary music-sharing platform—but not before permanently changing the way we listen to music. _Read TIME’s original coverage of Napster, here in the TIME Vault:_ [What’s Next for Napster](http://time.com/vault/issue/2000-10-02/page/1/ "undefined") **Elian Gonzalez was removed from his relatives’ home in Florida (April 22):** Months into the international saga of where a young Cuban boy ought to live—with relatives in Miami or with his father in Cuba—Attorney General Janet Reno made the decision to have the Immigration and Naturalization Service seize the child. _Read TIME’s original coverage of the controversy, here in the TIME Vault:_ [Elian and His Dad](http://time.com/vault/issue/2000-04-17/page/1/ "undefined") **The Vermont legislature approved civil unions for gay couples (April 26):** Almost exactly 15 years before the Supreme Court extended the right to full marriage to all Americans, the state of Vermont made history by being the first to offer legal unions to gay couples. _Read TIME’s original coverage of the law, here in the TIME Vault:_ [The Marrying Kind](http://time.com/vault/issue/2001-05-14/page/54/ "undefined") **The world was enthralled by** **_Gladiator_** **(May 5):** Russell Crowe and Ridley Scott offered audiences a macho fantasy epic for the ages. Later that year, 2.3 million copies of the DVD sold in 10 days. _Read TIME’s original coverage of the film, here in the TIME Vault:_ [The Empire Strikes Back](http://time.com/vault/issue/2000-05-08/spread/84/ "undefined") **_Survivor_** **got us hooked on reality TV (May 31):** An adaptation of a Swedish show, _Survivor_ wasn’t the first reality show competition—but its runaway success ushered in a new paradigm for television. And it’s still on today. _Read TIME’s original coverage of_ Survivor, _here in the TIME Vault:_[ Candid Cameras](http://time.com/vault/issue/2000-05-29/page/91/ "undefined") **Eminem returned with** **_The Marshall Mathers LP_** **(May 23):** The rapper offended many with his lyrics—even his own mother didn’t escape his wrath—but fans gobbled up the album gleefully. More than a decade later, Enimen produced a sequel, _The Marshall Mathers LP 2._ _Read TIME’s original coverage of the album, here in the TIME Vault:_ [A Whiter Shade of Pale ](http://time.com/vault/issue/2000-05-29/page/89/ "undefined") **Tiger Woods won the U.S. Open by 15 strokes (June 18):** His margin of victory was unprecedented for Pebble Beach, and his level of fame was—for a while at least—similarly untouchable. _Read TIME’s original coverage of Tiger Woods, here in the TIME Vault:_ [Tiger’s Tale](http://time.com/vault/issue/2000-08-14/page/1/ "undefined") **Scientists announced they’ve decoded the human genome (June 25):** We’re still figuring out more that we can do with the knowledge, but mapping out our 3 billion chemical base pairs was a start. _Read TIME’s original coverage of the Human Genome Project, here in the TIME Vault:_ [Cracking the Code!](http://time.com/vault/issue/2000-07-03/page/1/ "undefined") **Mifepristone was approved by the FDA (Sept. 28):** The ability to provide abortion with a pill rather than surgery was meant to change the calculus for American women, but the new option didn’t put an end to philosophical debate. _Read TIME’s original coverage of RU 486, here in the TIME Vault:_ [The Abortion Pill](http://time.com/vault/issue/2000-10-09/page/1/ "undefined") **The first crew arrived at the International Space Station (Nov. 2):** The Space Station had been orbiting the Earth for years when the Russian and American crew arrived on board. In the years since, it has never been unoccupied. _Read TIME’s original coverage of the space station, here in the TIME Vault:_ [Coming Soon to the Skies Near You](http://time.com/vault/issue/2000-12-11/page/40/ "undefined") **_Bush v. Gore_** **decided the election (Dec. 12):** It came at the end of the year—and months after the election results were supposed to be in—but it was perhaps the most influential event of the whole 12 months. In an unprecedented move, the Supreme Court put an end to the recounts and put George W. Bush in the White House. _Read TIME’s original coverage of the decision, here in the TIME Vault:_ [The Supreme Showdown](http://time.com/vault/issue/2000-12-11/page/1/ "undefined") ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4149639/2016-2000-anniversaries/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4149639/2016-2000-anniversaries/"},"headline":"16 Things Turning 16 in 2016","datePublished":"2016-01-01T11:00:58.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-22T13:23:30.926Z","description":"Celebrating the new year by revisiting an old one","url":"https://time.com/4149639/2016-2000-anniversaries/","keywords":["Anniversaries","Holidays","New Year"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt78e2c8f662b64f4d/698875ec8e0601528e463d20/jlo.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Lily Rothman","jobTitle":"Rothman is managing editor at TIME.","url":"https://time.com/author/lily-rothman/"}],"articleSection":"History","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt78e2c8f662b64f4d/698875ec8e0601528e463d20/jlo.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"J. Lo","caption":"The 42nd Annual GRAMMY Awards","creditText":"Kirby Lee—WireImage/Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/history/","name":"History"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/anniversaries/","name":"Anniversaries"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4149639/2016-2000-anniversaries/","name":"16 Things Turning 16 in 2016"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"Happy New Year: The World Welcomes 2016","description":"","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/pDFpbLE2/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2016-01-01T19:02:52.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/pDFpbLE2.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/4149639/2016-2000-anniversaries/","duration":"PT1M33S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/4149639/2016-2000-anniversaries/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```