Terrorism, natural disasters, sporting moments and political events spring to mind, but technology has arguably been the defining aspect of the decade. Chris Ormond of NZPA looks at the first 10 years of the new millennium.
In any 10-year time span things become obsolete and habits change, but the extent to which that has happened since 2000 has made the 1990s seem like the dark ages.
Hardly any teenagers owned a cellphone in the 1990s, but these days they all walk the streets holding them out in front of them like hands of cards.
Younger generations also use social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter as staple communications tools and, for many, emailing must seem like the modern-day equivalent of writing a letter using paper and ink.
Websites such as YouTube and MySpace quickly became global phenomenons, with the latter capitalising on the digital music age to make a large section of the traditional music industry redundant.
Corporate record labels had to scramble to downsize and adjust to change, and compact discs now appear to be heading down the road of vinyl or cassettes.
While it seems there is always likely to be a place for books, libraries, newspapers and magazines, many businesses linked to those mediums have taken direct hits because of the accessibility on the internet of almost any information one seeks.
The extent to which computer technology has changed modern society in 10 years makes for an interesting next 10, but the overall newsmakers of the past decade might have been more easily predicted.
Perhaps the most determined and notable terrorist attacks in history unfolded on September 11, 2001, when four passenger planes were hijacked in the United States - two of them slamming into the World Trade Centre complex in New York.
Organised by al Qaeda, the attacks saw a third plane crash into the Pentagon and a fourth into a Pennsylvania paddock.
Over 3000 people of 90 different nationalities were killed, and United States President George Bush launched the "war on terrorism".
Over the next few years, he became one of the most polarising leaders his country had seen, and many breathed a sigh of relief when the Democrats, led by Barack Obama, were voted into power in 2008.
Terrorists also detonated bombs in Bali in 2002, killing more than 200 people, including three New Zealanders. London's public transport system was targeted three years later with the loss of 56 lives. Those who wished for world peace as they entered the new millennium were sorely disappointed.
While New Zealanders felt the repercussions of violence happening thousands of kilometres away, most had other things to think about - such as smoking bans, smacking laws, leaky homes and whether their country was becoming a nanny state.
By 2008 the Labour Party was into its ninth year in power. National leader Bill English's attempt to lead his party to victory in 2002 was a disaster, and while Don Brash's attempt three years later was an improvement, it took another three years and another leader - John Key - to unseat Helen Clark.
His party's message that New Zealand had indeed become an over-blown, bureaucratic nanny state appeared to have struck a few chords.
There were the usual political side-shows, including prison terms for MPs (Donna Awatere Huata, Philip Field) over corrupt dealings, and disgraceful behaviour allegations (David Benson-Pope, Richard Worth).
Winston Peters courted controversy for most of the decade, but a combination of cat-like cunning and a hard-core loyal following ensured he not only remained in Parliament, but also stayed relevant.
His ninth life was snuffed out in the 2008 election, but his absence has given him time to plot a 2011 comeback.
On the sports front, the decade started on a high with New Zealand winning the America's Cup, and in 2003 the country prepared to celebrate the All Blacks at last winning the rugby World Cup.
But the forgone conclusion unravelled in the semifinal with an Australian victory. The George Gregan sledge "four more years" late in the match was motivation not to let it happen again.
Four years later, thousands of New Zealanders, feeling either hopeful, confident or arrogant, booked semifinal and final tickets for the French tournament, only to watch in disbelief as the hosts bundled them out in the mere quarterfinal stage.
Some of those ticket holders sold up and returned home early. Others hadn't even packed their bags to leave New Zealand.
On a brighter note, there were huge achievements by sporting teams and individuals on the international stage - rowers the Evers-Swindell twins and Mahe Drysdale, shot-put champion Valerie Vili, race car driver Scott Dixon and golfer Michael Campbell were among those who reached the top, while the Kiwis rugby league team pulled off their first World Cup win in 2008.
Daniel Vettori, Irene van Dyk, Richie McCaw and Dan Carter became sporting heroes.
No news wrap is complete without references to mother nature, and she had a ruthless start to the 21st century.
The "Boxing Day tsunami" in 2004, caused by a massive earthquake in the Indian Ocean, was the most devastating event, with well over 200,000 lives claimed, while closer to home, this year's Samoan tsunami left 180 people dead and thousands of New Zealand families in mourning.
More earthquakes and tsunamis, heatwaves, crippling droughts, melting glaciers and flooding occurred around the world, and it was the latter which occurred most frequently here.
Flooding has become an annual headache in many parts of the country and caused over $100 million worth of damage in the Manawatu-Wanganui region in 2004 - the same year parts of the Bay of Plenty were devastated by flooding and a swarm of destabilising earthquakes.
In parts of Northland and the Coromandel Peninsula residents grew used to having their lives disrupted by flooding.
Flash flooding caught a school group off-guard in the central North Island in 2008, with six students and a teacher being swept to their deaths in a swollen stream.
While the west coast - Taranaki in particular - has become a tornado zone, those living on the country's east coast have had droughts to deal with and it seems no district is immune from the occasional snow storm.
Film maker Peter Jackson wins hands-down as New Zealand's entertainment industry figure of the decade, while in business there were too many success stories to list.
Packaging magnate Graeme Hart came from nowhere to become the country's richest man, Stephen Tindall put Warehouse stores everywhere and Sam Morgan quickly achieved domination of New Zealand's buy and sell industry through Trade Me. He then sold it, making enough money to be able to buy an average sized suburb.
On the crime front it was business as usual, with the abuse and murder of children coming to the fore and taking the mantle as the most vile of all offending.
There were several high-profile child murder cases - the Kahui twins, Nia Glassie, Corral Burrows to name a few, but the publicity is yet to slow the rate of killings and injuries.
The trial of the decade - a retrial - involved one of the country's most intriguing cases and ended with David Bain being found not guilty of killing five of his family members.
Every year is marked by the death of a highly regarded New Zealander. To name a few there was Peter Blake in 2001, Possum Bourne in 2003, Janet Frame in 2004, Rod Donald and David Lange in 2005, and maybe the most famous of them all in 2008 - Sir Edmund Hillary.
Their names will remain relevant into the next decade, but it's anyone's guess as to what else will remain relevant and what will slip into obscurity.
