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The Onion of November 15, 2000 tells the story of that tumultuous election: 1200 lives lost in the seventh day of the bloody battle for the White House. 253 Democrats executed in New Mexico, rendering their votes ineligible. All communication with Florida lost. Bill Clinton declaring himself president-for-life.
Well, it would have been if the US could only act like a normal country.
The Nobel Prize for physics went to Johannes Diderik van der Waals for his seminal paper on molecular behavior, which not only contained the first unassailable proof that molecules actually exist, but described the force which everyone now knows is responsible for making kids' hair stand on end at science museums.
The caliphate of Al-Andalus had had a turbulent year. Muhammad II, who had deposed Hisham II, fled the capital Qurtuba (Córdoba) at the arrival of another claimant, Sulayman, who arrived with an army of Berbers and the backing of the Christian count of Castile, Sancho Garcia. Muhammad, in turn, joined forces with the Christian nobles of Catalonia, who put him right back in charge. Two months later he was assassinated, and Hisham II was restored as caliph. When Sulayman returned shortly afterward, the city went under siege for two and a half years.
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