November 18, 2000

That fall of 2000, gas ran $1.51 a gallon and Clinton was in the White House — the USS Cole bombing in Yemen had just killed 17 American sailors when an Al-Qaeda boat packed with explosives struck the Navy destroyer in Aden harbor, and at home, the presidential race between George W. Bush and Al Gore was heading toward one of the closest and most contested elections in the country's history. On television, "The West Wing" was the drama Americans were tuning into on Wednesday nights, while John Grisham's "The Brethren" sat at the top of the fiction bestseller lists as beach and commuter reading across the country. The New York Yankees capped the season by defeating the New York Mets in the first Subway Series since 1956, and just weeks earlier in Sydney, Australia, American athletes had brought home 97 Olympic medals, including 36 gold, making the US the top medal-winning nation at the 2000 Summer Games.