What were the most spectacular comets in recent years?

How quickly I forget - when I think for sure that I'll remember.

What was the comet that had such a long spectacular tail a couple years ago?

What was the comet that kept growing in size? Edit to add:

From www.spaceweather.com:
Comet 17P/Holmes shocked astronomers on Oct. 24, 2007, with a spectacular eruption. In less than 24 hours, the 17th magnitude comet brightened by a factor of nearly a million, becoming a naked-eye object in the evening sky. Look for a golden 2.5th magnitude fuzzball in the constellation Perseus after sunset.

Click to expand...

What comets in recent years (maybe the last 50?) qualify as being as being truly spectacular? I guess I'd put Shoemaker-Levy in that category. It's not every day that a comet smashes into a planet.

Was Comet Neat a big deal? I remember the name - just not the specifics about it.

Then there was Hale-Bopp, when those people commited suicide, right? Was it major? I don't even remember.

I'm trying to make a list of most spectacular comets & their date of closest approach.

Hale-Bopp was the spectacular naked-eye comet that was visible for weeks in '97.

http://www2.jpl.nasa.gov/comet/

Comet Holms was the one that erupted and spread out over huge distances last year. It was still faintly visible (to those with very specialized equipment) in Feburary of this year.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/17P/Holmes

FJ

Check out Laura's blog from 17 April 2008 on "Meteorites, Asteroids, and Comets: Damages, Disasters, Injuries, Deaths, and Very Close Calls" @ http://laura-knight-jadczyk.blogspot.com/
At the bottom of that article online she lists the last few centuries or more so that people can see the pattern in which they are not so rare events as we are led to think they are.