2010: The Year in Entrepreneurship

Apple launched the iPad on April 3, and sold more than a million units of the tablet product in the first month alone.

This Los Angeles-area man was one of hundreds who camped out to buy the iPad on the first day of sale.

Though the economy has now posted five quarters of consecutive growth, business has been sluggish. The U.S.'s gross domestic product expanded by a scant 2.5 percent in the third quarter.

President Obama signed the Wall Street and Consumer Protection Act on July 21. Among other provisions, the law establishes a number of new regulatory agencies and reshapes rules concerning consumer credit.

NASA announced five winners of a $50 million award for commercial crew development, and a total of $3.5 billion in contracts awarded to private space ventures.

These innovative prototypes of Bigelow Aerospace’s Sundancer habitat, which may be used to bring equipment to the International Space Station, fill a hangar in North Las Vegas, Nevada.

SpaceX successfully launched it's Falcon 9 rocket into orbit on June 4, and became the first commercial company to launch and retrieve a spacecraft from orbit on December 8.

The Tea Party political movement, which advocates for smaller government and lower taxes, became a major force in politics this year.

In the mid-term elections in November, Republicans gained 63 seats in the House of Representatives; in December, President Obama agreed to extend the Bush tax cuts for top earners.

The explosion in April at BP's Deepwater Horizon oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico killed 11 and created an unprecedented natural disaster.

Gulf area entrepreneurs such as Venice Marina owner Bill Butler (left), seen here selling shrimp with his son Dylan, worried that the spill would hobble the region's still-fragile economy.

The well was finally capped in a "static kill" operation on July 15, after spewing as much as 184 million gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. It is the largest accidental oil spill in history.

Customer service gripes are always fun, especially when they involve a tart tweet written by Kevin Smith, the director of popular indie comedies such as Clerks and Dogma

Inspiring disgruntled employees everywhere, JetBlue flight attendant Steven Slater was charged with reckless endangerment and trespassing after his well publicized trip down an airplane's evacuation chute. He's currently selling ironic "Let it Slide" t-shirts for $20 a piece to pay for his legal defense.

Spirit Airlines CEO Ben Baldanza tried to use physical comedy to justify his airline's decision to charge customers a fee for even their carry-on luggage.

Following through on a pledge to stop censoring search results in China, Google began in March serving mainland Chinese users via its unfiltered Hong Kong site, a move that could prompt the government to block the service.

Groupon grew so popular that it rebuffed a reported $6 billion acquisition offer from Google. This year alone, the company added some 2,700 employees and expanded into 29 different countries.

In the face of stiff competition from Google and Facebook, Foursquare still managed to add 4 million registered users this year.

Domino's Pizza's high-risk ad campaign shared negative comments and photos from unhappy customers, along with a pledge to do better. "Domino's very public admission of its own awfulness might represent the most elaborate mea culpa ad in history," Paul Farhi wrote in the Washington Post.

Produced by the ad agency Wieden + Kennedy, Old Spice's television commercials created a fictional character who lived in through virtuoso online viral marketing. Mashable called it "the archetype of a successful social media campaign."

Elon Musk celebrates Tesla's listing on the Nasdaq by showing off some roadsters in Times Square. The stock closed at nearly $24 a share on its first day of trading, up 40 percent.

Following a successful government bailout, General Motors went public on the New York Stock Exchange on November 18.

Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh sold his company to Amazon because, he wrote in Inc., he believed that "if the economy didn't improve, the board would fire me and hire a new CEO who was concerned only with maximizing profits."

As his company's website surpassed Google in terms of total traffic, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg was named Time's Person of the Year for 2010.

Written by Aaron Sorkin and directed by David Fincher, The Social Network starring Jesse Eisenberg was hailed by many critics as one of the year's best films.

Newark mayor Cory Booker confers with Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg, who agreed to donate $100 million to the local school system.

Voters in California did not, as some experts predicted, approve an effort in November that would allow local authorities in the state to regulate marijuana-related activities including its sale and use.

Fifty-three percent of California voters voted no on Proposition 19; medical marijuana remains legal in the state.

Walter Fred Morrison, inventor of the Frisbee, died on February 9 at age 90.

George Niseen, inventor of the Trampoline, died on April 7 at age 96. He successfully lobbied the International Olympic Committee to include trampolining in the 2000 Games.

George Steinbrenner, owner of the New York Yankees, died on July 13 at age 80.

Glenn Bell, founder of Taco Bell, died in January at age 86.

Bob Guccione, founder of Penthouse magazine, died in October at age 79.