BITS ‘N’ PIECES

Things that turn 20 in 2017

Not to bum you out, but you’re getting old. The point is that time is moving a lot quicker than we think. It’s important to take a minute to reflect on everything you’ve experienced over the years. Whether you were born in the ‘90s or the ‘00s, you probably won’t realize how fast everything is happening.

• Harry Potter and The Sorcerer’s Stone has been around for nearly 20 years. The first novel was one of seven, and the series turned into eight movies, plus a spinoff that was released last year.
• Titanic - the Best Picture Oscar winner (still the second-highest-grossing film of all time), which starred now-BFFs Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet as star-crossed lovers aboard the doomed ocean liner, hit theatres on December 19, 1997.
• August 2017 marked 20 years since the death of Diana, Princess of Wales.
• Mike Tyson lost his boxing license 20 years ago after biting off a piece of Evander Holyfield’s ear in a fight.
• Although the website didn’t officially launch until 1998, the domain name “Google.com” turned 20 in September.
• Matt Damon and Ben Affleck won their first Oscar (for best screenplay) for Good Will Hunting. The movie was about an MIT janitor who happens to be a math genius. The film, which premiered in the US in December 1997, also earned Robin Williams his first and only Oscar for Best Actor in a Supporting Role.
• Will Smith made fighting aliens look good when he starred alongside Tommy Lee Jones in the sci-fi comedy Men in Black in July 1997.
• Trey Parker and Matt Stone’s animated, irreverent comedy South Park - which has won five Emmys to date - premiered on Comedy Central on August 13, 1997.

Irma broke a mind-boggling number of records

From its early days of jaw-breaking destruction in the Caribbean to its rampage through Florida, there has never been a storm like Hurricane Irma.

* No storm in recorded history has sustained winds of 185 mph for as long as Irma: a record-breaking 37 hours.

* Irma is tied with the 1932 hurricane in Cuba for the longest time (3.25 days) spent as a Category 5 hurricane.

* Irma wasn’t alone this season. Hurricane Harvey hit Texas and Louisiana only days earlier and then Jose was close on Irma’s heels. With hurricanes Irma and Jose, it’s the first time on record that there were two hurricanes with winds of at least 150 miles per hour in the Atlantic at the same time.

* Irma generated the second most Accumulated Cyclone Energy (ACE) - a measurement combining strength and duration - in the satellite era. Irma had 67.5 ACE units, trailing only Hurricane Ivan, which had 70.4 in 2004.

* Irma prompted the largest evacuation from the Bahamas with an estimated 5,000 people leaving, and it could be the largest evacuation in US history as some 6.5 million people were told to evacuate their homes in Florida alone.

Compiled by Usama Rasheed