Auburn lost to Clemson Saturday, an ugly 38-24 defeat. Clemson outplayed the guys in orange and blue, ending a 14-game streak in the series that dated back to the Korean War. Most importantly it also ended Auburn’s 17-game win streak, which dated back to the Outback Bowl at the end of the 2009 season. It had been 659 days since Auburn last lost. One year, nine months and 21 days.
Since Nov. 27, 2009:
The Tiger Woods story broke.President Obama sent 30,000 troops to Afghanistan.
More than 1,000,000 World Cup tickets went on sale in a big international farce.
President Obama accepted his much ballyhooed Nobel Prize.
As the World Turns was canceled.
The world’s tallest man-made structure, the Burj Khalifa in United Arab Emirates, opened.
The earthquake in Haiti claims 230,000 lives.
The Vancouver Winter Games.
Volcanic ash from Eyjafjallajökull, an ice cap in Iceland, disrupted air traffic across northern and western Europe.
The Deepwater Horizon oil platform exploded in the Gulf of Mexico, killing 11, and beginning an ecological disaster.
S&P downgraded Greece to a junk rating.
Scientists suggested, through a genome project, that Neanderthal and humans might have interbred.
Nine activists were killed in an Israeli Navy forces raid on a flotilla attempting to break the Gaza blockade.
Spain won the World Cup.
Wikileaks.
Monsoons lead to flooding in Pakistan. Over 1,600 were killed, and more than one million were displaced.
The World Health Organization declared the H1N1 influenza pandemic over.
Thirty-three miners in Chile were trapped 700 meters underground, and returned to the surface after being trapped for a record 69 days.
The International Space Station, in October of 2010 took over the record for the longest continuous human occupation of space, dating back 10 years. (Now that’s a streak.)
Researchers at CERN trapped 38 antihydrogen atoms for a sixth of a second, the first time in history that humans have trapped antimatter.
Harvey Updyke.
Flooding and mudslides in Rio de Janeiro killed more than 800.
Auburn won the 2010 National Championship.
The Tunisian government fell.
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak resigned, leaving control of Egypt in the hands of the military.
The 9.1-magnitude earthquake and subsequent tsunami hit the eastern portion of Japan, killing more than 15,000 and leaving another 8,000 missing. Emergencies are declared at four nuclear power plants.
The United States and a host of other countries become tangled in the Libyan Civil War.
Some royalty got married in London. Americans cared way too much.
Osama bin Laden killed, Party in the USA, Auburn fans shout “War Eagle.”
Syria and Yemen are in turmoil as the Arab Spring continues. There have also been unrest or uprisings in Algeria, Bahrain, Iraq, Jordan, Morocco, Oman, Saudi Arabia and more.
The world’s first artificial organ transplant was achieved, using an artificial windpipe coated with stem cells.
NASA’s space shuttle program concluded with the return to earth of Atlantis.
76 people were killed in twin terrorist attacks in Norway.
NASA announced that its Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter captured photographic evidence of possible liquid water on Mars during warm seasons.
Clemson beat Auburn. Stanford (Stanford!) holds the nation’s longest winning streak.
Related: Auburn fans start “Un-Rolling Toomer’s” Tradition.
Kenny graduated from Auburn at the turn of the century. He worked in newsrooms across the region and then earned a master’s degree at UAB. He met and married a Yankee, who declared her Auburn allegiance at her first home game. She’s now on the faculty at Auburn. He’s finishing his PhD at Alabama and teaches at Samford University. See him online at www.kennysmith.org and @kennysmith.
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We didn’t start the fire. It was always burning since the world’s been turning.