UN International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and Its Abolition
2000 – The first season of the U.S. version of the reality TV game show Survivorended, with Richard Hatch being pronounced the winner; the hugely popular series was credited with launching the reality TV fad of the early 21st century.
Anniversary of:
• the Battle of Stalingrad – 40,000 died (1942)
• the World Wide Web being opened to the public (1991)
• the release of Jeff Buckley’s only studio album Grace (1995)
• Hurricane Katrina forming over the Bahamas, later becoming a category 5 hurricane (2005)
• the first use of the hashtag in a tweet by US product designer Chris Messina (2007)
• the birthdays of actor Gene Kelly (1912), actor River Phoenix (1970), and basketball star Kobe Bryant (1978)