March 22, 2007

Gas cost $2.80 a gallon in the spring of 2007, and the Dow Jones stood at 13,265 — the country was engaged in an active debate over the Iraq War, with Congress pushing withdrawal timelines and President Bush exercising his veto power to block them. On television, "American Idol" was drawing tens of millions of viewers each week, while Cormac McCarthy's novel "The Road" was dominating bestseller lists and winning the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. The San Antonio Spurs claimed the NBA championship by defeating the Cleveland Cavaliers in four games, and that same spring, astronomers announced the discovery of Gliese 581c, a planet orbiting a star 20 light-years away that was identified as the first extrasolar world considered potentially capable of supporting life.