Lin would go on to score 28 points in his first career start, drop 38 points on the Los Angeles Lakers in front of a raucous Madison Square Garden crowd, and can a game-winning three-pointer against the Toronto Raptors, sending NBA fans across the globe into a frenzy.
Lin's public notoriety skyrocketed in February when he landed on the cover Time Magazine and appeared on Sports Illustrated's cover in back-to-back weeks. Madison Square Garden, the publicly traded company that owns the Knicks, saw its stock soar to a 70-year high during Lin's run. Asian markets fought over the rights to air Knicks games that featured the Taiwanese-American.
Unfortunately for Knicks fans, Lin left New York over the summer, signing a new contract with the Houston Rockets. Despite getting off to sluggish start in 2012-13 season, Lin recently showed a flash of what Knicks fans loved so much about him. Lin tied his career-high 38 points in a win against the San Antonio Spurs.
FELIX BAUMGARTNER
Having to descend 18 miles out of the sky to the Earth's surface doesn't sound like a winning formula for any human being. Except for Felix Baumgarter, who decided 18 miles wasn't high enough.
The Austrian skydiver set a new world record in August, free-falling from 128,000 feet (about 24 miles) above the Earth's surface. During the nearly five minute fall, Baumgartner became the first human being to break the speed of sound, maxing out at 730 MPH.
Baumgarter completed the jump, (along with two other practice jumps from 71,000 and 96,000 feet) despite the dangers of near sub-zero temperatures in the Earth's upper atmosphere, the possibility of his skin boiling if his suit malfunctioned, and the quirks of that pesky physical force known as gravity.
The project, dubbed "Red Bull Stratos," after the energy drink maker that helped sponsor the stunt, may have ultimately proved that the company's tag line as a myth. As Baumgartner shows, Red Bull does not, in fact, give you wings.
ELON MUSK
As high as Felix Baumgartner traveled for his jump, it pales in comparison to the heights Elon Musk reached in 2012.
Musk saw a decade's worth of work come to fruition in May, when his private space exploration company, SpaceX, launched a Falcon 9 rocket that successfully docked with the International Space Station, the first private rocket to ever do so. Musk likened the event to "winning the Super Bowl."
Despite his interstellar ambitions, Musk's ventures on Earth were also a huge success. Musk's electric car company, Tesla, picked up automobile accolades from two big car magazines despite being a whipping boy in the run up to the presidential election.
The rocket launch seems to only scratch the surface of Musk's ambitious space plans. In an interview with Wired magazine, Musk said he wants to sell private space flights to Mars for $500,000, eventually helping to build a colony of 80,000 people on the Red Planet.
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