Ten images of the noughties

Children observe a total solar eclipse with Google goggles in Beijing, China. In 2002, Google was still earning nothing. Four years later, it was earning $20bn a year. Today 70% of all searches online are 'Googles' [This caption was amended on 19 October 2009. The original said that in 2002 Google was "just an idea". This has been corrected.] Photograph: ChinaFotoPress/Getty Images

The course of global politics was altered irrevocably when terrorists flew two passenger jets into the World Trade Center on September 11 2001. Just over two years later we were at war with Iraq Photograph: Carmen Taylor/AP

Before Trinny and Susannah marched in to our lives in 2001 and snapped the greying elastic on our knickers, we lived in an age of innocence. Hemlines were unflattering, jeans accentuated our muffin tops and our socks didn't match. How we learned the error of our ways... Photograph: ITV

After 9/11 airports became an unexpected frontline in the war on terror. Bottles of water were banned from flights, make-up was transferred to clear plastic bags and queues stretched on forever Photograph: Matt Rourke

Isabelle Dinoire, whose face was horrendously mauled by a dog, received the first successful partial face transplant in France in 2007. Just one of a decade's worth of scientific breakthroughs and discoveries Photograph: Reuters

Lance Armstrong rides to his second of seven consecutive victories in the Tour de France on 21 July 2000 - just three and a half years after he had beaten stage three testicular cancer Photograph: Christophe Ena/AP

The UK's reality princess was Jade Goody, who shot to fame and fortune on Big Brother in 2002; looked like losing it all after a racism row on the celebrity version of the show; received her cancer diagnosis live on the Indian version of it- on which she was appearing to atone for the racism row- and had her last weeks and funeral chronicled in a dedicated reality show. She was 27. Photograph: Tony Kyriacou/Rex Features

In 2004 Dr Who was a throwback to slightly dorky, old-school BBC drama. In 2005 it was a revelation starring first Christopher Ecclestone and then David Tennant as the Doctor reconstructed for a knowing noughties audience Photograph: Rex Features

The world looked on in horror as the 'Black Saturday bush fires' raged across south-eastern Australia in 2009, destroying the town of Kinglake. 173 people were killed. The fires were the latest in a long line of environmental disasters caused or made worse by climate change. [This caption was amended on 19 October 2009. The original located the fires in south-eastern Australia. This has been corrected.] Photograph: Mick Tsikas/Reuters

It always felt unlikely that we could spend so much money and get away with it... and we didn't. In 2008, the world's economies came crashing to their knees in tears. Our eyes were opened to some almost demonic corruption on Wall Street - the worst perpetrator of all being NASDAQ chairman Bernie Madoff. His arrest and imprisonment offered a moment of gleeful schadenfreude in a gloomy couple of years Photograph: Jason B Nicholas/Atlas Press/eyevine