April 15, 2001

Gas cost $1.46 a gallon in the spring of 2001, and the Dow Jones stood at 10,022 — a period when the United States was navigating a new presidential administration under George W. Bush while the country remained largely focused on daily life at home. On television, "Survivor: The Australian Outback" was drawing tens of millions of viewers each week, while David McCullough's biography "John Adams" sat at the top of the nonfiction bestseller list, reflecting a steady public appetite for American history. The Los Angeles Lakers claimed their second consecutive NBA championship by defeating the Philadelphia 76ers, the same spring that NASA launched the "2001 Mars Odyssey" orbiter atop a Delta II rocket, beginning a seven-month journey that would make it the most-studied planet in the solar system.