World’s Cheapest Car Debuts In India

On this day in 2008, at the New Delhi Auto Expo in India, Tata Motors debuts the Nano, billing it as the world’s cheapest car: The anticipated price tag is around $2,500. Tata, India’s largest automaker, called the four-door, bubble-shaped mini-vehicle (it was just 5 feet wide and 10 feet long) the “People’s Car” and […]

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Disney-MGM Studios Becomes Disney’s Hollywood Studios

At the close of business on January 6, 2008, the Walt Disney World Resort theme park known as Disney-MGM Studios officially shut its doors after almost a decade of operation. Fans didn’t have to worry too much, however, as the park would reopen the next morning under its new name, Disney’s Hollywood Studios. Debuting on […]

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Honda Produces 6 Millionth Civic In North America

During the week ending on July 23, 2007, Honda Motor Company Ltd. produces its 6 millionth Civic in North America, according to an article in Automotive News. Honda’s history goes back to 1946, when the engineer Honda Soichiro founded his namesake technical research institute near Hamamatsu in order to produce internal-combustion engines. Incorporated as Honda […]

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Final Harry Potter Book Released

On this day in 2007, the seventh and final Harry Potter novel, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, is released, with an initial print run of 12 million copies in the United States alone. Like each of the previous Harry Potter novels, Deathly Hallows was slated to be made into a major Hollywood film. The […]

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Last Episode Of The Sopranos Airs

Almost 12 million people tune in for the series finale of HBO’s critically acclaimed, multi-award-winning Mob-family drama The Sopranos on this day in 2007. The mastermind behind The Sopranos was David Chase, a longtime writer, producer and director for TV series such as The Rockford Files, I’ll Fly Away and Northern Exposure. Chase drew inspiration […]

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The Simpsons Airs 400th Episode

On this day in 2007, Fox’s long-running animated series The Simpsons airs its 400th episode. The Simpsons was created by Matt Groenig, whose comic strip Life Is Hell caught the attention of the Hollywood producer James L. Brooks. Brooks enlisted Groenig to create a cartoon short that would run during the Fox sketch comedy series […]

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Smart Launches U.S. Road Show To Introduce Its Microcar

Los Angeles, California, is the first stop on a cross-country road show launched on this day in 2007 by Smart USA to promote the attractions of its “ForTwo” microcar, which it had scheduled for release in the United States in 2008. In the early 1990s, Nicholas Hayek of Swatch, the company famous for its wide […]

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DaimlerChrysler Sells Most Of Chrysler For $7.4 Billion

On this day in 2007, the European-American carmaker DaimlerChrysler, created in 1998 in a $36 billion merger, announces that it is selling 80.1 percent of the Chrysler group to the U.S. private-equity firm Cerberus Capital Management. Cerberus paid $7.4 billion in the deal, mostly in the form of investments in Chrysler; Daimler AG, as it […]

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British Girl Goes Missing In Portugal

On this day in 2007, less than two weeks before her fourth birthday, Madeleine McCann of Rothley, England, vanishes during a family vacation at a resort in southern Portugal. McCann’s disappearance prompted an international search; however, she has never been found. In May 2007, the McCann family—parents Gerry and Kate McCann, Madeleine and her 2-year-old […]

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Massacre At Virginia Tech Leaves 32 Dead

On this day in 2007, in one of the deadliest shootings in U.S. history, 32 students and teachers die after being gunned down on the campus of Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University by Seung Hui Cho, a student at the school who later dies from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. The violence began around 7:15 […]

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