When I was 14, MTV came to my house because I was one of Britney Spears' biggest fans.

"Michael Jordan coming out of retirement. Rumors have been swirling for awhile now and on the actual morning on 9/11 before the first plane hit, it was one of the top stories on the morning news shows." — Kevin-W

"Apple came out with the iPod, and we carried our entire music collection in our pockets." — YELLOW_TOAD

"Michael Jordan's return to basketball was the biggest story of the day, but stations were also reporting on jury selection for the Andrea Yates trial, New York Fashion Week (which featured a maternity line for the first time), and the New York mayoral primary. Not a peep was heard about them after the north tower was hit." — DoFlwrsExistAtNight

“Here in NYC there was the Democratic primary for mayor with Mark Green and Fernando Ferrer running for the nomination on the 11th. The election was postponed and later Green would win the runoff only to lose to Bloomberg in November. Ferrer would go on to win the 2005 Democratic nomination only to lose to Bloomberg that November." — Blue387

"From a pop culture standpoint we were fully in reality TV hysteria with Survivor getting crazy ratings and Amazing Race debuted I think the week before 9/11." — BraveFalcon

"I was a teenager so Aaliyah dying was a huge deal. I only recently saw something about it just being a couple weeks before 9/11 and even though I remember both events clearly I cannot make my brain believe they were so close." — Foxenfre

"The disappearance of Chandra Levy. Once 9/11 happened, I don't recall any other news story for a week or so." — mermaidpaint

"Kind of an odd answer since it happened after 9/11, but the crash of American Airlines Flight 587. In November 2001, the plane crashed into a neighborhood in Queens, New York, killing all 260 people on board and 5 people on the ground." — r0cket-skates

"An ex army major cheated his way to a million on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, by getting his wife and a friend who were sat in the audience to cough to indicate the correct answer. It happened right before 9/11." — Ok-Noise2538

"Zoolander still decided to release only a few weeks later amid a decent amount of controversy that I have no memory of even happening despite loving the movie." —emerynlove

"It was discovered that the McDonald's Monopoly game had been rigged by an insider for years." — JimyLamisters

"Not sure how big the story was in the first place, but actress Thuy Trang, who played the yellow ranger in Mighty Morphin Power Rangers died in a car crash a week before 9/11." — Ethereal-Zenith

"It took me about 10 days to remember that Big Brother 2 was in production, with three contestants left." — mermaidpaint

"That summer, the news was ripe with reports of shark attacks in Florida. I remember thinking the Florida board of tourism was struggling to quiet the news coverage and then…blam." — Daxl

"Yeah, this is one that is easy to overlook, but it caused a lot of reviews to NASCAR safety standards, and kinda transformed the sport, because at first glance it wasn't even that bad of a crash." — ShaunTrek

"The Green River Killer was arrested in November 2001 and barely made a blip nationally." — Teammx112

"Michael Jackson gave two shows in New York, together with his brothers. That was on September 7 and on September 10." — P44

"My first thought was the Mariah Carey Glitter album. There's a decently known photo of a glitter billboard taken in NYC with the towers burning in the background. Which is a pretty good analogy as to how successful that album was." — Detatchamo

"George Harrison's death occurred 11-29-2001...it should have been huge news but ended as a footnote for 2001." — whathuhmeh10k

"The complete collapse of Enron as a company. It destroyed countless lives of the employees, and shareholders." — Doctor_Mothman

"Wikipedia launched. Low-key the beginning of the end for encyclopedia salesmen everywhere. We were too busy worrying about terrorism to notice we were entering the age of citation needed." — Street_Tuff

"The release of Donnie Darko. It came out in theaters a few weeks after 9/11 and only grossed $517,375 domestically but then went on to be probably the number 1 cult classic."  — ListenOk2972

"Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh was executed not too long before 9/11." —UnderwhelmingAF

"The Blueprint by Jay-Z dropped. A classic IMO but it released the same day." —oldveteranknees

"Band of Brothers was released on September 9th, 2001 Awful timing but also kind of perfect, ya know." — VGK9Logan