Historical fiction<span> is closely related to </span>realistic fiction<span> in that the past needs to be plausibly if not accurately represented, especially if the story is not only set in a</span>historical<span> period but the characters and events within that story have analogs within the actual </span>historical<span> record.</span>
The persuasive technique used in the example given above is emotional appeal because it is trying to connect with the consumers emotions by asking about the cellphone that they are using. By doing that, they are trying to tell the consumer that their product can give a better service than the current product that they own.
2000 might be when the disease peaked. It mentions in the passage that the government started to ban farmers from feeding their livestock high risk meat, and that the disease peaked shortly after that. Since 2000 is 'shortly after' 1997, the source from 2000 might be from the peak.
