There was a realignment and consolidation ofeconomic and political power, such as the continued mass-mobilization ofcapital markets throughneoliberalism,globalization, and end of theCold War. Network cultures were enhanced by the proliferation ofnew media such as the internet, and a new ability to self-publish web pages and make connections on professional, political and hobby topics. Thedigital divide was immediate, with access limited to those who could afford it and knew how to operate a computer. The internet provided anonymity for individuals skeptical of the government. Traditional mass media continued to perform strongly. However, mainstream internet users were optimistic about its benefits, particularly the future ofe-commerce.Web portals, a curated bookmark homepage, were as popular as searching viaweb crawlers. Thedot-com bubble of 1997–2000 brought wealth to someentrepreneurs before itscrash of the early-2000s.
The UN (United Nations) immediately condemned the action and a coalition force led by theUnited States was sent to thePersian Gulf.Aerial bombing of Iraq began in January 1991, and one month later, the UN forces drove the Iraqi army from Kuwait in four days.
TheFirst Chechen War (1994–1996) was a conflict between theRussian Federation and theChechen Republic of Ichkeria. After the initial campaign of 1994–1995, culminating in the devastatingBattle of Grozny, Russian federal forces attempted to seize control of the mountainous area of Chechnya. Despite Russia's overwhelming manpower, weaponry, andair support, they were set back by Chechenguerrillas and raids on the flatlands. The resulting widespread demoralization of Russian federal forces, and the universal[citation needed] opposition of the Russian public to the conflict, ledBoris Yeltsin's government to declare aceasefire in 1996 and sign apeace treaty a year later.
TheSecond Chechen War (1999 – 2009) was started by the Russian Federation in response to the1999 invasion of Dagestan and theRussian apartment bombings, which were blamed on the Chechens. In this military campaign, Russian forces largely recaptured the separatist region of Chechnya[citation needed] and the outcome of the First Chechen War – in which the region gained de facto independence as the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria – was essentially reversed.
TheEritrean–Ethiopian War (1998–2000) was commenced by the invasion of Ethiopia by Eritrea due to a territorial dispute.[10] The conflict resulted in tens of thousands of deaths on both sides[11] and a peace agreement in December 2000.[12]
TheKargil War (1999) began in May when Pakistan covertly sent troops to occupy strategic peaks inKashmir. A month later, theKargil War with India resulted in a political fiasco for Pakistani Prime MinisterNawaz Sharif, followed by a Pakistani military withdrawal to theLine of Control. The incident led to a Pakistanimilitary coup in October, in which Sharif was ousted byArmy ChiefPervez Musharraf. This conflict remains the only war fought between the two declared nuclear powers.
The final fighting in the Croatian and Bosnian wars ended in 1995 with the success of Croatian military offensives against Serb forces. This led to the mass exodus ofSerbs from Croatia, Serb losses to Croat and Bosniak forces, and the signing of theDayton Agreement, which internally partitioned Bosnia and Herzegovina into aRepublika Srpska and aBosniak-Croat Federation.
TheKosovo War (1998–1999) was a war between Albanian separatists and Yugoslav military and Serb paramilitary forces inKosovo. That conflict began in 1996 and escalated in 1998, with increasing reports of atrocities.
In 1999, theNATO, led by the United States, launchedair attacks againstYugoslavia (then composed of onlySerbia andMontenegro) to pressure the Yugoslav government to end its military operations against Albanian separatists inKosovo. The intervention lacked UN approval yet was justified by NATO based on accusations of war crimes committed by Yugoslav military forces working alongside nationalist Serb paramilitary groups. Finally, after months of bombing, Yugoslavia conceded to NATO's demands, and NATO forces (later UN peacekeeping forces) occupied Kosovo.
Rwandan genocide: Bones of genocide victims in Murambi Technical School. Estimates put the death toll of the Rwandan genocide as high as 800,000 people.
TheFirst Liberian Civil War occurred from 1989 until 1997, and led to the death of around 200,000 people.
TheEthiopian Civil War (1991) was an internal conflict that had been raging for over twenty years. Its end coincided with the establishment of a coalition government of various factions.
TheAlgerian Civil War (1991–2002) was caused by a group of high-ranking army officers canceling the first multi-party elections inAlgeria.[13]
TheRwandan genocide (1994) occurred from 6 April to mid-July 1994 when hundreds of thousands ofRwanda'sTutsis andHutu political moderateswere killed by theHutu-dominated government under theHutu Power ideology. For approximately 100 days between 500,000[14] and 1,000,000[15] people were killed. The United Nations and major states came under criticism for failing to stop the genocide.
TheZapatista uprising (1994) occurred when a large number of the Zapatista indigenous people ofMexico formed theZapatista Army of National Liberation and began an armed conflict with the Mexican government to protest againstNAFTA. The uprising lasted 12 days, bringing worldwide attention to the Zapatistas, and continued through the rest of the 1990s.
The1996 Manchester bombing (1996) – on 15 June 1996, the IRA set off a bomb inManchester, England. The bomb, placed in a van on Corporation Street in the city center, targeted the city's infrastructure and economy and caused widespread damage, estimated by insurers at £700 million (£1 billion as of 2011[update]). Two hundred and twelve people were injured, but there were no fatalities.
LAX bombing plot (1999) –Ahmed Ressam, anIslamist militant associated with Al-Qaeda, was arrested when attempting to cross from Canada into the United States at the Canada-U.S. border on 14 December 1999. It was later discovered that he intended to bombLos Angeles International Airport (LAX) duringmillennium celebrations. This was the first major attempted terrorist attack by Al-Qaeda on United States soil since the1993 World Trade Center bombing and marked the beginning of a series of attempted terrorist attacks by Al-Qaeda against the United States that would continue into the 21st century.
Independence of East Timorese (1999) –East Timor broke away fromIndonesian occupation, only a year after the fall ofSuharto from power, ending a 24-yearguerrilla war andgenocide with more than 200,000 casualties. The UN deployed a peacekeeping force spearheaded by Australia's armed forces. The United States deployed police officers to serve with theInterpol element to help train and equip an East Timorese police force.
Ethnic tensions and violence informer Yugoslavia during the 1990s created a greater sense of ethnic identity among nations in newly independent countries and a marked increase in the popularity of nationalism.
April 23,1998:Konstantinos Karamanlis, Prime Minister of Greece (1955-58, 1958-61, 1961-63, 1974-80), President of Hellenic Republic (1980-85, 1990-95)
Nelson Mandela was elected President of South Africa in 1994, becoming the first democratically elected president in South African history, and ending a long legacy of apartheid white rule in the country.[18]
During the late 1990s, a move was made to remove American presidentBill Clinton from power following theClinton–Lewinsky scandal. Thisimpeachment attempt did not succeed, and Clinton continued to serve as president until the end of his term in January 2001.
Canadian politics was radically altered in the1993 federal election with the collapse of theProgressive Conservative Party of Canada. A major political party in Canada since 1867, the party went from controlling the government to being left with only two seats. TheNew Democratic Party collapsed as well, with their sets declining from 44 to 9. TheLiberal Party of Canada was the only genuinely 'national' political party left standing. Regionally based parties, such as the Quebec-basedBloc Québécois and the almost entirely Western Canada-basedReform Party of Canada, rose from political insignificance to being major political parties.
After the collapse of theMeech Lake constitutional accord in 1990, the province ofQuebec in Canada experienced a rekindled wave of separatism byFrancophoneQuébécois nationalists, who sought for Quebec to become an independent country and forced a referendum on the question of independence in 1995.
The1995 Quebec referendum on sovereignty was held in the predominantly francophone province of Quebec in Canada, a majorityAnglophone country. If accepted, Quebec would have become an independent country with an economic association with Canada. Quebec's voters narrowly rejected the proposal.
Jean-Bertrand Aristide, a former Haitian priest, became the first democratically elected President ofHaiti in 1990. A proponent of liberation theology, Aristide was appointed to a Roman Catholic parish inPort-au-Prince in 1982 after completing his studies to become a priest of the Salesian order. Aristide was later forced into exile in the Central African Republic and South Africa and returned to Haiti after several years.
United States President Bill Clinton was a dominant political figure in international affairs during the 1990s, known primarily for his attempts to negotiate peace in the Middle East and end the ongoing wars occurring in the former Yugoslavia, his promotion of international action to decrease human-createdclimate change, and his endorsement of advancingfree trade in the Americas.
Lewinsky scandal – US president Bill Clinton was caught in a media-frenzied scandal involving inappropriate relations with White House internMonica Lewinsky, which was first announced on 21 January 1998. After the United States House of Representativesimpeached Bill Clinton on 19 December 1998, for perjury under oath, and following an investigation by federal prosecutorKenneth Starr, the Senate acquitted Clinton of all charges on 12 February 1999. He served out the remainder of his second term.
California voters passedProposition 215 in 1996, which legalizedcannabis for medicinal purposes.
In 1990, theLebanese Civil War came to a close and a return to political normalcy inLebanon began. With peace among all factions in Lebanon, the rebuilding of the country and its capital,Beirut, began.
1990 Nepalese revolution, a multiparty movement against the one-party Panchayat rule in Nepal. It led to the end of absolute monarchy in Nepal and the restoration of democracy.
Israeli military forces withdrew from these Palestinian territories in compliance with the accord, which marked the end of theFirst Intifada (a period of violence between Palestinian Arab militants and Israeli armed forces from 1987 to 1993).
The Palestinian National Authority was created in 1994 following the Oslo Accords, giving Palestinian Arab people official autonomy over the Gaza Strip and West Bank, though not official independence from Israel.
On 4 November 1995, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabinwas assassinated by a right-wing extremist who opposed the signing of theOslo Accords.
Lee Kuan Yew resigned as the Prime Minister ofSingapore on 28 November 1990, a position he had held since 1959, toGoh Chok Tong. Lee remained in the cabinet as Senior Minister.
In July 1994,North Korean leaderKim Il Sung died, having ruled the country since its founding in 1948. His sonKim Jong Il, who succeeded him, took over a nation on the brink of complete economic collapse.Famine had caused a significant number of deaths in the late 1990s, and North Korea gained a reputation for being an important hub of money laundering, counterfeiting, and weapons proliferation. The country's ability to produce and sell nuclear weapons became a prominent concern in the international community.
In 1990,Aung San Suu Kyi'sNational League for Democracy in Burma won a majority of seats in the first free election conducted in 30 years. But theSPDC refused to relinquish power, beginning a peaceful[citation needed] struggle that began in the 1990s and continued for several decades, primarily fueled by Aung San Suu Kyi and her supporters to demand the end of military rule.
Indonesian PresidentSuharto resigned after ruling the country for 32 years (1966–1998), following theriots on several cities in Indonesia.His resignation marked the beginning of theReform era.
The improvement in relations betweenNATO countries and the former members of theWarsaw Pact led to the end of theCold War, both in Europe and other parts of the world.
German reunification – on 3 October 1990, East and West Germany reunified as a result of the collapse of theSoviet Union and the fall of theBerlin Wall. After reintegrating their economic structure and provincial governments, Germany focused on the modernization of the formerly communist East. People brought up in socialist East Germany became integrated with those living in capitalist West Germany.
Margaret Thatcher, who had been the United Kingdom's prime minister since 1979, resigned as prime minister on 22 November 1990 after being challenged for leadership of the Conservative Party byMichael Heseltine. This was because of widespread opposition to the introduction of the controversialCommunity Charge, and the fact that her key allies such asNigel Lawson andGeoffrey Howe resigned over the deeply sensitive issues of theMaastricht Treaty and Margaret Thatcher's resistance to Britain joining theEuropean Exchange Rate Mechanism. Less than two years later, on the infamousBlack Wednesday of September 1992, thepound sterling crashed out of the system after the pound fell below the agreed exchange rate with theDeutsche Mark.
John Major replaced Margaret Thatcher as prime minister in 1990.
ThePerestroika (restructuring) of the Soviet Union destabilized, leading to nationalist and separatist demagogues gaining popularity.Boris Yeltsin, thenchairman of theSupreme Soviet ofRussia, resigned from theCommunist Party and became the opposition leader againstMikhail Gorbachev. The Communist Party lost its status as the governing force of the country and was banned after acoup attempt by communist hardliners attempted to revert the effects of Gorbachev's policies. Yeltsin's counter-revolution was victorious, and on 25 December 1991, Gorbachev resigned from the presidency, which led to thedissolution of the Soviet Union. Yeltsinbecame president of the Soviet Union's successor, the Russian Federation, and presided over a period of political unrest, economic crisis, and social anarchy. On 31 December 1999, Yeltsin resigned, leavingVladimir Putin as acting president.
TheDowning Street Declaration, signed on 15 December 1993 by thePrime Minister of the United Kingdom, John Major, and theTaoiseach of Ireland,Albert Reynolds at the British Prime Minister's office in10 Downing Street, affirmed that (1) the right of the people of Ireland toself-determination, and (2) thatNorthern Ireland would be transferred to theRepublic of Ireland from the United Kingdom only if a majority of its population was in favour of such a move. It included, as part of the perspective of the so-called "Irish dimension," theprinciple of consent that the people of the island of Ireland had the exclusive right to solve the issues between North and South by mutual consent.[19][20] The latter statement, which later would become one of the points of theGood Friday Agreement,[21] was key to producing a positive change of attitude by the Republicans towards a negotiated settlement. The joint declaration also pledged the governments to seek a peaceful constitutional settlement and promised that parties linked with paramilitaries (such asSinn Féin) could take part in the talks so long as they abandoned violence.[22]
TheIRA agreed to a truce in 1994. This marked the beginning of the end of 25 years of violence between the IRA and the United Kingdom and the start of political negotiations.
Samuel Doe, 21st President ofLiberia, was captured by rebels, tortured and murdered. His torture was controversially videotaped and seen on news reports around the world.[27]
Yitzhak Rabin, 5th Prime Minister of Israel, isassassinated at a rally in Tel Aviv by a radical ultranationalist who opposed the Oslo Accords.[36]
21 April 1996
Dzhokhar Dudayev, 1st President of Chechnya, is killed by two laser-guided missiles after his location was detected by a Russian reconnaissance aircraft.[37]
Vazgen Sargsyan, Prime Minister of Armenia,Karen Demirchyan, President of the National Assembly and 6 other politicians were assassinated in Armenian Parlament.[41]
The1999 İzmit earthquake, which occurred in northwestern Turkey, killed 17,217 and injured 43,959.
The 1990s saw a trend in frequent and more devastatingnatural disasters, breaking many previous records. Although the 1990s was designated by the United Nations as anInternational Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction as part of its program to prevent losses due to disasters, disasters would go on to cause a record-breaking US$608 billion worth of damage—more than the past four decades combined.[42]
July 1995 –Midwestern United States heat wave – An unprecedented heat wave strikes theMidwestern United States for most of the month. Temperatures peak at 106 °F (41 °C), and remain above 94 °F (34 °C) in the afternoon for 5 straight days. At least 739 people died in Chicago alone.
Hurricane Georges downed trees in Key West along the old houseboat row on South Roosevelt Blvd.
September 1996 –Hurricane Fran made landfall inNorth Carolina, causing significant damage throughout the entire state.
Hurricane Iniki hit the island ofKauai in the Hawaiian Islands on 11 September 1992, making it one of the costliest hurricanes on record in the eastern Pacific.
On May 3, 1999, the highest wind speeds recorded on Earth at 321 miles per hour (517 km/h) took place during the1999 Bridge Creek–Moore tornado outbreak. The estimated costs were $1 billion (about $1.8 billion in 2024). This event was the first issuedtornado emergency by theNational Weather Service in history.
In December 1999, torrential rains and flash floods killed tens of thousands of Venezuelans living in the state ofVargas in a natural disaster known as theVargas tragedy.
Gulf War oil spill: Resulting from actions taken during theGulf War in 1991 by the Iraq military, the oil spill caused considerable damage to wildlife in the Persian Gulf, especially in areas surrounding Kuwait and Iraq.
4 October 1992:El Al Flight 1862, aBoeing 747 cargo airplane heading toTel Aviv, suffered physical engine separation of both right-wing engines (#3 and #4) just after taking off from Schiphol and crashed into an apartment building in theBijlmer neighbourhood of Amsterdam while attempting to return to the airport. A total of 43 people were killed, including the plane's crew of three and a "non-revenue passenger." Several others were injured.
11 May 1996:ValuJet Flight 592, a DC-9, crashes into the Everglades shortly after takeoff from Miami, killing 110 people.
17 July 1996:Trans World Airlines Flight 800, a Boeing 747-131 exploded and crashed into the Atlantic Ocean near East Moriches, New York, killing 230 people.
TheNasdaq Composite displaying thedot-com bubble, which ballooned between 1997 and 2000. The bubble peaked on Friday, 10 March 2000.
Many countries, institutions, companies, and organizations were prosperous during the 1990s. High-income countries such as the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea, and Western Europe experienced steady economic growth for much of the decade during theGreat Moderation. However, in theformer Soviet Union, GDP decreased as their economies restructured to produce goods they needed, and somecapital flight occurred.
In 1993, theGeneral Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) was updated to include the creation of theWorld Trade Organization, with the 76 existing GATT members andEuropean Communities becoming the founding members of the World Trade Organization on 1 January 1995. Opposition by anti-globalization activists showed up in nearly every GATT summit, like the demonstrations inSeattle in December 1999.
The decade is seen as a time of great prosperity in the United States and Canada, largely because of the unexpected advent of the Internet and the explosion oftechnology industries. The US and Canadian economies experienced their longest period of peacetime economic expansion, beginning in 1991. Personal incomes doubled from the recession in 1990, and there was higher productivity overall. TheNew York Stock Exchange stayed over the 10,500 mark from 1999 to 2001.
After the 1992 boom of the USstock market,Alan Greenspan coined the phrase "irrational exuberance", a reference to the overenthusiasm of investors that typified the trading of this period, and warned ofovervaluation of assets and the stock market generally.
In thePeople's Republic of China, the government announced the majorprivatization of state-owned industries in September 1997. China entered the 1990s in a turbulent period due to the aftermath of both theTiananmen Square Massacre andhardline politicians' efforts to rein inprivate enterprise and attempt to revive old-fashionedpropaganda campaigns. Relations with the United States deteriorated sharply, and the Chinese leadership was further embarrassed by the disintegration ofcommunism in Europe. In 1992Deng Xiaopingtravelled to southern China in his last major public appearance to revitalize faith inmarket economics and stop the country's slide back intoMaoism. Afterward, China recovered and would experience explosive economic growth during the rest of the decade. Despite this, dissent continued to be suppressed, andCommunist Party General SecretaryJiang Zemin launched a brutal crackdown against theFalun Gongreligious sect in 1999. Deng Xiaoping died in 1997 at the age of 93. Relations with the US deteriorated again in 1999 after thebombing of the Chinese embassy during thebombing of Serbia by NATO forces, which caused three deaths, and allegations of Chinese espionage at the Los Alamos Nuclear Facility.
Financial crisis hitsEast andSoutheast Asian countries between 1997 and 1998 after a long period of phenomenal economic development, which continues into 1999. This crisis begins to be felt by the end of the decade.
InJapan, after three decades ofeconomic growth put them in second place in the world's economies, the county experiencedan economic downturn after 1993. The recession went on into the early first decade of the 21st century, ending the seemingly unlimited prosperity that the country had previously enjoyed.
Less affluent nations such asIndia,Malaysia, andVietnam also saw tremendous improvements in economic prosperity and quality of life during the 1990s. Restructuring following the end of the Cold War was beginning. However, there was also the continuation of terrorism inThird World regions that were once the "frontlines" for American and Soviet foreign politics, particularly in Asia.
By 1990, Soviet leaderMikhail Gorbachev's reforms were causing major inflation and economic chaos. Acoup attempt by hardliners in August 1991 failed, marking the effective end of the Soviet Union. All its constituent republics declared their independence by 1991, and Gorbachev resigned from office on Christmas. After 73 years, the Soviet Union had ceased to exist. The newRussian Federation was headed byBoris Yeltsin, and would face severe economic difficulty.Oligarchs took over Russia's energy and industrial sectors, reducing almost half the country to poverty. With a 3% approval rating, Yeltsin had tobuy the support of the oligarchs to win reelection in 1996. Economic turmoil and devaluation of theruble continued, and withheart andalcohol troubles, Yeltsin stepped down from office on the last day of 1999, handing power toVladimir Putin.
The firstMcDonald's restaurant opened inMoscow in 1990 with then-President of the Supreme Soviet of the Russian SFSR and future Russian President Boris Yeltsin attending, symbolizing Russia's transition towards a capitalistfree market economy and a move towards adopting elements ofWestern culture.
Oil andgas were discovered in many countries in the former Soviet bloc, leading to economic growth and broader adoption of trade between nations. These trends were also fueled by inexpensivefossil energy, with lowpetroleum prices caused by increased oil production. Political stability and decreased militarization due to the winding down of theCold War led to economic development and higher living standards for many citizens.
Most of Europe enjoyed growing prosperity during the 1990s. However, problems including the massive1995 general strikes in France following a recession and the difficulties associated withGerman reunification led to sluggish growth in these countries. However, the French andGerman economies improved in the latter half of the decade. Meanwhile, the economies of Spain,Scandinavia and formerEastern Bloc countries accelerated at rapid speed during the decade.Unemployment rates were low due to many having experienced a deeprecession at the start of the decade.
After theearly 1990s recession, theUnited Kingdom andIreland experienced rapid economic growth and falling unemployment that continued throughout the decade. Economic growth would continue until theGreat Recession, marking the longest uninterrupted period of economic growth in history.
TheEuro is adopted by the European Union on 1 January 1999, which begins a process of phasing out the former national currencies of EU countries.[44]
South America
A Latin American common market,Mercosur, was established in 1991. Mercosur's origins are linked to the discussions for the constitution of a regional economic market for Latin America, which go back to the treaty that established the Latin American Free Trade Association in 1960, which was succeeded by the Latin American Integration Association in the 1980s.
Thecompact disc reached its peak in popularity in the 1990s, and not once did anotheraudio format surpass the CD inmusic sales from 1991 throughout the remainder of the decade. By 2000, the CD accounted for 92.3% of the entiremarket share in regard to music sales.[45]
The 1990s were a revolutionary decade fordigital technology. Between 1990 and 1997, householdPC ownership in the US rose from 15% to 35%.[46] Cell phones of the early-1990s and earlier ones were very large, lacked extra features, and were used by only a few percent of the population of even the advanced nations. Only a few million people used online services in 1990, and theWorld Wide Web, which would have a significant impact on technology for many decades, had only just been invented. The first web browser went online in 1993.[47] By 2001, more than 50% of some Western countries had Internet access, and more than 25% had cell phone access.
The 90s were a vital period for the development of theInternet. Several inventions and applications were launched to create the web as it's known today.Tim Berners-Lee, an English computer scientist, released theWorld Wide Web to the general public on April 30, 1993.[48] The same year,Mosaic, one of the first widely available web browsers, was launched as the first browser to display images in line with text and not in a separate window.[49] In 1990,Archie, the world's first search engine, was released. In the early days of its development, Archie served as an index ofFile Transfer Protocol (FTP) sites, which was a method for moving files between a client and a server network.[50][51] This early search tool was superseded by more advanced engines likeYahoo! in 1995 andGoogle in 1998.[52][53]
Following the launch of the early Internet and fiber optic capabilities to the public, a significant shift occurred. Consumers, recognizing the potential of the Internet, began to demand more network capacity. This surge in demand spurred developers to seek solutions to reduce the time and cost of laying new fiber, in order to meet the growing needs of the public.[54][55][56]
In 1992,David Huber, an optical networking engineer, joined forces with entrepreneurKevin Kimberlin. Together, they laid the foundation for a new era in telecommunications with the birth ofCiena Corporation.[56][57][58] The company would harness the technology physicistGordon Gould, inventor of thelaser (Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation), had pioneered with co-founder William Culver ofOptelecom, an early creator of fiber optic cable and optical amplifiers.[59][60][61] Ciena's formerchief executive officer Pat Nettles, and a team of engineers attempted to transmit information on waves of light with a form of a laser.[62] The team began working on a dual-stage optical amplifier that enableddense wave division multiplexing (DWDM), which allowed large amounts of data to be transmitted across the nation.[63] The firm filed a patent on a dual-stage amplifier on November 13, 1995.[64][65] A year later, in 1996, Ciena made history by deploying the world's first densewavelength-division multiplexing (WDM) system on theSprint fiber network.[66][67] These developments eventually formed the backbone of every global communications network, and the foundation of the Internet.[67]
Prominentwebsites launched during the decade includeIMDb (1993),eBay (1995),Amazon (1994),GeoCities (1994),Netscape (1994),Yahoo! (1995),AltaVista (1995),AIM (1997),ICQ (1996),Hotmail (1996),Google (1998),Napster (1999). The pioneeringpeer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing internet serviceNapster, which launched in Fall 1999, was the first peer-to-peer software to become massively popular. While at the time it was possible to share files in other ways via the Internet (such asIRC andUSENET), Napster was the first software to focus exclusively on sharingMP3 files formusic.
On 6 August 1991,CERN, a pan-European organization for particle research, publicized the new World Wide Web project.[68] Although the basic applications and guidelines that make the Internet possible had existed for almost two decades, the network did not gain a public face until the 1990s.
Driven by mass adoption, consumerpersonal computer specifications increased dramatically during the 1990s, from 512 KB RAM 12 MHzTurbo XTs in 1990,[69] to 25–66 MHz80486-class processor[70] to over 1 GHz CPUs with close to agigabyte of RAM by 2000.
The logo created by The President's Council on theYear 2000 Conversion, for use on Y2K.gov
Y2K spread fear throughout the United States and eventually the world in the last half of the decade, particularly in 1999, about possible massive computer malfunctions on 1 January 2000. As a result, many people stocked up on supplies for fear of a worldwide disaster. After significant effort to upgrade systems on the part of software engineers, no failures occurred when the clocks rolled over into 2000.
The introduction of affordable, smallersatellite dishes and theDVB-S standard in the mid-1990s expanded satellite television services that carried up to 500 television channels.
The first MP3 player, theMPMan, is released in the late spring of 1998. It came with 32 MB offlash memory expandable to 64 MB. By the mid-2000s, the MP3 player would overtake the CD player in popularity.
The firstGSM network is launched in Finland in 1991.
IBM introduces the 1-inch (25 mm) wideMicrodrive hard drive in 170 MB and 340 MB capacities.
Apple Computer in 1998 introduces theiMac all-in-one computer, initiating a trend in computer design towards translucent plastics and multicolour case design, discontinuing manylegacy technologies likeserial ports, and beginning a resurgence in the company's fortunes that continues to this day.
TheCD-ROM drive became standard for most personal computers during the decade.
TheDVD media format is developed and popularized along with a plethora ofFlash memory card standards in 1994.
Pagers are initially popular but ultimately are replaced by mobile phones by the early-2000s.
Hand-heldsatellite phones are introduced towards the end of the decade.
The24-hour news cycle becomes popular alongside the outbreak of theGulf War between late 1990 and early 1991, and is solidified with CNN's coverage ofDesert Storm andDesert Shield. Though CNN had been running 24-hour newscasts since 1980, it was not until the Gulf War that the general public took notice, and others imitated CNN's non-stop news approach.[71]
Portable CD players, introduced during the late 1980s, became very popular and profoundly impacted the music industry and youth culture during the 1990s.
In 1992,Fujitsu introduced the world's first 21-inch (53 cm) full-color displayplasma display television set.
MacintoshSystem 7 was released in 1991. For much of the decade, Apple would struggle to develop a next-generation graphical operating system, starting withCopland and culminating in its December 1996 buyout ofNeXT and the 1999 release ofMac OS X Server 1.0.
The opening of theChannel Tunnel between France and the United Kingdom saw the commencement by the three national railway companies of Belgium, France, and the United Kingdom, respectivelySNCB/NMBS,SNCF andBritish Rail of the jointEurostar service.
On 14 November 1994 Eurostar services began betweenWaterloo International station in London,Gare du Nord in Paris andBrussels South in Brussels.[72][73][74]In 1995 Eurostar was achieving an average end-to-end speed of 171.5 km/h (106.6 mph) between London and Paris.[75]On 8 January 1996 Eurostar launched services from a second railway station in the UK whenAshford International was opened.[76] Journey times between London and Brussels were reduced by the opening of theHigh Speed 1 line on 14 December 1997.
The 1990s began with arecession that dampened car sales.General Motors suffered huge losses because of an inefficient structure, stale designs, and poor quality. Sales improved with the economy by the mid-1990s, but GM's US market share gradually declined to less than 40% (from a peak of 50% in the 1970s). While the newSaturn division fared well,Oldsmobile fell sharply, and attempts to remake the division as a European-style luxury car were unsuccessful.
Cars in the 1990s had a rounder, more streamlined shape than those from the 1970s and 1980s; this style would continue early into the 2000s and to a lesser extent later on.
Chrysler ran into financial troubles as it entered the 1990s. Like GM, the Chrysler too had a stale model lineup (except for the best-sellingminivans) that were largely based on the agingK-car platform. In 1992, chairmanLee Iacocca retired, and the company began a remarkable revival, introducing the newLH platform and "Cab-Forward" styling, along with a highly successful redesign of the full-sizedDodge Ram in 1994. Chrysler's minivans continued to dominate the market despite increasing competition. In 1998,Daimler-Benz (the parent company ofMercedes-Benz) merged with Chrysler. The following year, it was decided to retirePlymouth, which had been on a long decline since the 1970s.Ford continued to fare well in the 1990s, with thesecond andthird generations of theFord Taurus being named the best-selling car in the United States from 1992 to 1996. However, the Taurus would be outsold and dethroned by theToyota Camry starting in 1997, which became the best-selling car in the United States for the rest of the decade and into the 2000s. Ford also introduced the Ford Explorer, with the first model being sold in 1991. Ford's Explorer became the best-selling SUV on the market, outselling both the Chevy Blazer and Jeep Cherokee.
Japanese cars continued to be highly successful during the decade. TheHonda Accord vied with the Taurus most years for being the best-selling car in the United States during the early decade. Although launched in 1989, the luxury brandsLexus andInfiniti began car sales of 1990 model year vehicles and saw great success. Lexus would go on to outsell Mercedes-Benz and BMW in the United States by 1991 and outsell Cadillac and Lincoln by the end of the decade. SUVs and trucks became hugely popular during the economic boom in the decade's second half. Many manufacturers that had never built a truck before started selling SUVs. Fabrication during the 1990s became gradually rounder and ovoid, theFord Taurus andMercury Sable being some of the more extreme examples. Safety features such asairbags and shoulder belts became mandatory equipment on new cars.
In the United Kingdom, the firstcloned mammal,Dolly the sheep was confirmed by theRoslin Institute, and was reported by global media on 26 February 1997. Dolly would trigger a raging controversy on cloning, andbioethical concerns regarding possible human cloning continue to this day.[77]
The NIH launched theHuman Genome Project in 1990 under the leadership ofFrancis Collins, with the goal of sequencing the entire human genome.[78] In the same year,Mary-Claire King's discovery of the link between heritable breast cancers and a gene found on chromosome 17q21 sparked a wave of collaborative research.[79][80] Inspired by this breakthrough, scientistsMark Skolnick andWalter Gilbert, in partnership with entrepreneurKevin Kimberlin, joined forces to establishMyriad Genetics, a company dedicated to sequencing the BRCA1 gene.[79] In 1991, Skolnick and his team of scientists developed a gene mapping method,Restriction Fragment-length Polymorphisms (RFLP), to help locate the cancer gene.[81] The company later introduced the first commercial genetic test for assessing the risk of hereditary breast and ovarian cancer, the BRACAnalysis.[82][83][84] The Human Genome Project was partially completed in 2003 with a 92% accuracy. It was not until 2022 that the final complete human genome sequence was published.[85]
DNA identification of individuals finds wide application incriminal law. Brazil, United States, United Kingdom, Russia and The Netherlands established their own nationalDNA database.
Hubble Space Telescope was launched in 1990 and revolutionizedastronomy. Unfortunately, a flaw in its main mirror caused it to produce fuzzy, distorted images. This was corrected by aSpace Shuttle repair mission in 1993.
Protease inhibitors introduced, allowingHAART therapy against HIV; drastically reduces AIDS mortality.
NASA's spacecraftPathfinder lands onMars and deploys a small roving vehicle,Sojourner, which analyzes the planet's geology and atmosphere.
TheHale–Bopp comet swings past the Sun for the first time in 4,200 years in April 1997.
TheGalileo probe orbitsJupiter, studying the planet and its moons extensively.
Comet Shoemaker–Levy 9 (formally designated D/1993 F2, nicknamed String of Pearls for its appearance) was a comet that broke apart and collided with Jupiter in July 1994, providing the first direct observation of an extraterrestrial collision of Solar System objects.
The 1990s represented continuing social liberalization in most countries, coupled with an increase in the influence of capitalism, which would continue until theGreat Recession of the late 2000s/early 2010s.
Youth culture in the 1990s responded to this by embracing both environmentalism andentrepreneurship. Fashion of the Western world reflected this by often turning highlyindividualistic and/orcounter-cultural, which was influenced byGeneration X and earlymillennials:tattoos andbody piercings gained popularity, and "retro" styles, inspired by fashions of the 1960s and 1970s, were also prevalent. Some young people became increasingly involved inextreme sports and outdoor activities that combined embracing athletics with the appreciation of nature.
In 1990 theWorld Health Organization removed homosexuality from its list of diseases.[86] Increasing acceptance ofopenly homosexual people occurred in the western world, slowly starting in the early 1990s.[87]Biphobia towards bisexual men became somewhat fashionable amongst heterosexual women and gay men, while lesbians and bisexual women complained of being commodified by publishing and film industries to cater to heterosexual men.
Following the murder of actressRebecca Schaeffer by astalker, America's first anti-stalking laws, including California Penal Code 646.9 were passed in 1990. California also passed the firstcyberstalking law in 1999 (§646.9 of the California Penal Code).
Transdisciplinarity in academia. The 1st World Congress of Transdisciplinarity, Convento da Arrabida, was in Portugal, November 1994.
Child abduction warnings on emergency broadcasting systems, such asAmber alerts became standard in such cases.
The prevention of the destruction of thetropical rainforests of the world is a major environmental cause that first came into wide public concern in the early 1990s and has continued and accelerated in its prominence.
TheChernobyl disaster hadsignificant impact on public opinion at the end of the 1980s, and the fallout was still causing cancer deaths well into the 1990s and possibly even into the 21st century.[88] Well into the 1990s, severalenvironmental NGOs helped improveenvironmental awareness among public opinion and governments. The most famous of these organizations during this decade wasGreenpeace, which did not hesitate to lead illegal actions in the name of environmental preservation. These organizations also drew attention to thelarge deforestation of theAmazon rainforest during the period.
Global warming as an aspect ofclimate change also became a major concern, and the creation of theUnited Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) after the Earth Summit helped coordinate efforts to reduce carbon emissions in the atmosphere. From 1995, the UNFCCC held annual summits on climate change, leading to the adoption of theKyoto Protocol in December 1997, a binding agreement signed by several developed countries.[89]
The 1989EPA total ban onasbestos was overturned in 1991.[90]
In 1996, (Anderson, et al. v. Pacific Gas & Electric, file BCV 00300) alleged contamination of drinking water with hexavalent chromium and the case was settled for (US) $333 million, a new record for a direct-action lawsuit.
Record numbers of women are elected to high office in the United States in 1992, the "Year of the Woman".
Violence against women takes centre stage as an essential issue internationally. TheViolence Against Women Act was passed in the United States, which greatly affected the world community through the United Nations. The law's author,Joe Biden, UN Ambassador and Secretary of StateMadeleine Albright, andHillary Clinton (see below) have become vocal advocates of action against violence against women.Women's rights demonstration in Paris, November 1995
More nations than ever before are led by elected women Presidents and Prime Ministers. Prime MinisterBenazir Bhutto's 1988 victory in Pakistan makes great strides for women leaders in Muslim states. In Turkey,Tansu Çiller became the first female prime minister in 1993.
In popular culture, British pop group theSpice Girls also played a part in the feminist movement, boosting popularity with their slogan "Girl Power!", while country music superstarShania Twain declared female supremacy in her 1995 hit song "Any Man of Mine."
Marketing campaigns aimed at young adults in wealthy English-Speaking Countries were informed by unscientific theories about selling to so-calledGeneration X andBaby boomers. Few people embraced the labels Generation X and Baby Boomer as self-descriptors. Films with characters depicting the Generation X stereotype includedSlacker (1990),The Brady Bunch Movie (1995) andAustin Powers.
Pakistan's government passed laws to end caste based slavery:- 1992 Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act. - 1995 Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Rules.
In Paris,Diana, Princess of Wales and her fiancé,Dodi Al-Fayed, were killed in a car accident in August 1997, when their chauffeured, hiredMercedes-Benz S-Class crashed in the Pont de l'Alma tunnel. The chauffeur, Henri Paul, died at the scene, as did Al-Fayed. Diana and an Al-Fayed bodyguard, Trevor Rees-Jones, survived the accident. The Princess of Wales died at a Paris hospital hours later. The bodyguard, Rees-Jones, is the sole survivor of the now infamous accident.[92]
With help from clinicalfertility drugs, an Iowa mother,Bobbie McCaughey, gave birth to the first survivingseptuplets in 1997. There followed a media frenzy and widespread support for the family.
Debate onassisted suicide, highly publicized byMichigan doctorJack Kevorkian, surfaces when Kevorkian is charged with multiple counts ofhomicide of his terminally ill patients through the decade.
Beerkeg registration becomes a popular public policy in the United States.
The 500th anniversary ofChristopher Columbus' purported discovery of the Americas in 1992 was popularly observed in the United States, despite controversy and protests against the victimization of Native Americans by Columbus' expeditions. The holiday was labeled by some asracist, in view of Native American experiences ofcolonialism,slavery,genocide, and cultural destruction.
Matthew Shepard is murdered near theUniversity of Wyoming, purportedly for beinggay. This sparks intense national and international media attention and outrage. Shepard becomes a major symbol in theLGBT rights movement and the fight againsthomophobia. Claims of crystal methamphetamine related "meth rage" as a contributing factor in the crime surfaced in 2013.[94]
Shanda Sharer was murdered on 11 January 1992. She was lured away from her house and held captive by a group of teenage girls. She was tortured for hours and burned alive. She died from smoke inhalation. Those found guilty and sentenced to prison wereMelinda Loveless,Laurie Tackett,Hope Rippey, andToni Lawrence. According to Loveless, she was jealous of her former partner Amanda Heavrin's relationship with Shanda Sharer.[citation needed]
Karla Homolka was arrested with her husband,Paul Bernardo, in 1993. Both sexually tortured and killed their victims. Their first victim was Karla's 15-year-old sister,Tammy Homolka. The second and third victims wereLeslie Mahaffy andKristen French. Karla told the investigators that she reluctantly did what Paul told her to do because he was abusive, and was given aplea deal. She was sentenced to 12 years in prison (10 years for Mahaffy and French, and two years for Tammy). Later, investigators discovered the crime videotapes, proving that Karla was a willing participant. But by that time the deal had already been made. In 1995, Paul was sentenced to life in prison. Karla was released from prison in 2005.
Polly Klaas (3 January 1981 – October 1993) was kidnapped byRichard Allen Davis from her home during a slumber party. She was later strangled to death. After her death, her father, Marc Klaas, established the KlaasKids Foundation.
Jonbenet Ramsey (6 August 1990 – 25 December 1996) was a child beauty pageant contestant who was missing and found dead in herBoulder, Colorado, home. The crime terrified the nation and the world. Her parents were initially considered to be suspects in her death but were cleared in 2003 when DNA from her clothes was tested. To this day, her murderer has not been found and brought to justice.
Lorena Bobbitt was charged with malicious wounding for severing her husbandJohn Bobbitt's penis after she was repeatedly sexually assaulted by Bobbitt, for which he was charged. Both parties were acquitted of their respective crimes. The story was notable because of the use ofMicrosurgery to re-attach the man's penis.
Wanda Holloway was convicted of solicitation of capital murder when she attempted to hire ahitman to kill the mother of her daughter's junior high school cheerleading rival.
Scandal rocked the sport offigure skating when skaterNancy Kerrigan wasattacked during practice by an assailant hired by Jeff Gillooly, former husband of skaterTonya Harding. The attack was carried out in an attempt to injure Kerrigan's leg to the point of her being unable to compete in the upcoming1994 Winter Olympics, thereby securing Harding a better spot to win agold medal.
1992 Los Angeles riots – resulted in 53 deaths and 5,500 property fires in a 100-square-mile (260 km2) riot zone. The riots were a result of the state courtacquittal of three white and oneHispanic L.A. police officer by anall-white jury in apolice brutality case involving motoristRodney King. In 1993, all four officers were convicted in a federal civil rights case.
In 1994,Conscription ceases to exist and becomes voluntary inArgentina after the murder of a conscript which caused great social upheaval, the trial to clarify the cause of death was namedCaso Carrasco.
Massive immigration wave of Jews from the Commonwealth of Independent States to Israel – With the end of the Soviet Union, Israel faced a mass influx of Russian Jews, many of whom had high expectations the country was unable to meet. Israel also came under an Iraqi missile attack during the Gulf War but acquiesced to US pressure not to retaliate militarily, which could have disrupted the US-Arab alliance. The US and Netherlands then rushed anti-missile batteries to Israel to defend the country against missile attacks.
TheSpratly Islands issue became one of the most controversial islands in Southeast Asia.
The closing Mass of the XWorld Youth Day 1995 was held inRizal Park on 15 January 1995, attended by more than 5 million people. This is therecord gathering of the Roman Catholic Church.
Pakistan &Bangladesh both witnessed a transition to democracy following the end of the military dictatorships ofZia-ul-Haq &Hussain Muhammad Ershad respectively. In the first half of the decade, both countries were led by women.Benazir Bhutto's election in Pakistan was the first instance of a woman heading the government in a Muslim-majority country, followed byKhaleda Zia in Bangladesh. In Pakistan, Bhutto's opponent wasNawaz Sharif, while Zia faced challenge from another woman,Sheikh Hasina.
TheDreamcast (Sega's final video game console) launched in Japan in 1998, and launched in North America and Europe the following year. The system saw the release of games likeSonic Adventure andSoulcalibur.
Technological advancements like theinternet,personal computers, and theWorld Wide Web were popular in the 1990s. TheY2K bug in the late 1990s affected popular culture. Y2K was a computer bug occurring when computers switched from the years 1999 to 2000, some computers reset to 1900.
The futuristicY2K aesthetic was popular in the late 1990s and early 2000s, named after the Y2K bug. This period was defined by then-new technology such as theiMac G3,digital cameras, and fashion such as shiny metallic clothing.
Crystal Pepsi was a popular drink in the 1990s, which was re-released for a limited run in the summer of 2016. Drinks likeSurge released in 1997 and were also popular in the 1990s.
In the 1990svideotapes were used for personal home video recordings and recording television airings. VHS tapes could be put in devices such asVCRs, which were popular in the decade.
Pokémon Red, Blue, and Yellow released in the late 1990s, which launched the globally popularPokémon franchise, pictured above the GameBoy cartridges.
Dogme 95 became an important European artistic motion picture movement by the decade's end. Also in 1998,Titanic by directorJames Cameron (released in late 1997) became the highest-grossing film of all time, grossing over $1.8 billion worldwide. It would hold this record for over a decade until 2010 when James Cameron'sAvatar (released in December 2009), took the title.[96]
In 1994, former Disney employeeJeffrey Katzenberg foundedDreamWorks SKG, which would produce its first two animated films:The Prince of Egypt andAntz which were both aimed more at adults than children and were both critically and commercially successful.Toy Story, the first full-lengthCGI movie, made byPixar, was released in 1995 and revolutionized animated films. In 1998, with the release ofDreamWorks'sAntz and Pixar'sA Bug's Life, the rivalry between DreamWorks and Pixar began between the studios due to the similarities between both films.
RappersSalt-n-Pepa continued to have hit songs until 1994.Dr. Dre's 1992 albumThe Chronic provided a template for moderngangsta rap, and gave rise to other emerging artists of the genre, includingSnoop Dogg.[126] Due to the success ofDeath Row Records and Tupac Shakur,West Coast gangsta rap commercially dominated hip hop during the early-to-mid 1990s, along withBad Boy Records and the Notorious B.I.G. on theEast Coast.[127] Hip hop became the best-selling music genre by the mid-1990s.[128][129]
In the 1990s, country music became a worldwide phenomenon thanks toBilly Ray Cyrus,Shania Twain andGarth Brooks.[130][131][132] The latter enjoyed one of the most successful careers in popular music history, breaking records for both sales and concert attendance throughout the decade. TheRIAA has certified his recordings at a combined (128×platinum), denoting roughly 113 million United States shipments.[133]
The impact of boy band pop sensationTake That, founded in 1990, lead to the formation of other boy bands in the UK and Ireland, such asEast 17 in 1991 and the Irish boy bandBoyzone in 1993. Female pop iconsSpice Girls took the world by storm since 1994, becoming the most commercially successful British group sincethe Beatles,the Rolling Stones andLed Zeppelin.[134][135] Their global success brought about a widespread scene of teen pop acts around the world[136][137] such asAll Saints,Backstreet Boys (both formed in 1993) as well as American acts asHanson (from 1992),NSYNC (1995–2002, reunited 2003),Britney Spears andChristina Aguilera who came to prominence into the new millennium.[138]
Controversy surroundedthe Prodigy with the release of the track "Smack My Bitch Up". The National Organization for Women (NOW) claimed that the track was "advocating violence against women" due to the song's lyrics, which are themselves sampled fromUltramagnetic MCs' "Give the Drummer Some". The music video (directed by Jonas Åkerlund) featured a first-person POV of someone going clubbing, indulging in drugs and alcohol, getting into fist fights, abusing women and picking up a prostitute. At the end of the video, the camera pans over to a mirror, revealing the subject to be a woman.
1991 also saw the death ofQueen frontmanFreddie Mercury from AIDS-related pneumonia. Next to thisKurt Cobain,Selena,Eazy-E,Tupac Shakur andthe Notorious B.I.G. were the most publicized music-related deaths of the decade, in 1994, 1995, 1996, and 1997 respectively.Richey Edwards ofManic Street Preachers was publicized in the media in 1991 following an incident involvingSteve Lamacq backstage after a live show, in which Edwards carved '4 Real' into his arm. Edwards' disappearance in 1995 was highly publicized. He is still missing but was presumed dead in 2008.
1993 saw the debut of themedical–mystery drama,Diagnosis Murder, a comeback vehicle forDick Van Dyke, who guest-starred on an episode of its parent series,Jake and the Fatman, where the show got off to a rocky start and became one of television's long-running mysteries, that lasted until its cancellation in 2001. It was one of a number of shows that made CBS popular with a distinctly older audience than its competitors, with a lineup consisting mainly of murder mysteries, westerns and religious dramas, such asWalker, Texas Ranger,Touched by an Angel,Murder, She Wrote andDr. Quinn, Medicine Woman.
Medical dramas started to return to television in the 1990s after the end ofSt. Elsewhere in 1988. In 1994,ER, which originally starredAnthony Edwards,Noah Wyle andGeorge Clooney, was instantly a domestic and international success, lasting until 2009 and spawning similar series to compete against it, such as the more soap opera-esqueGrey's Anatomy (2005–present), and the short livedMedicine Ball (1995). It was one of the many successful shows during that period (as well as sitcoms such asSeinfeld andFriends) which madeNBC the most-watched channel in the United States. This show launched the career ofGeorge Clooney. That same year,Chicago Hope, that starredHéctor Elizondo,Mandy Patinkin andAdam Arkin, was also a popular series forCBS, lasting between 1994 and 2000.
Beverly Hills, 90210 ran on Fox from 1990 to 2000. It established the teen soap genre, paving the way forDawson's Creek,Felicity,Party of Five, and other shows airing later in the decade, and into the 2000s. The show was then remade and renamed simply90210 and premiered in 2008.Beverly Hills, 90210, and its spin-offMelrose Place also became a popular TV show throughout the 1990s.Baywatch became the most-watched TV show in history[citation needed] and influenced pop culture.
Sex and the City's portrayal of relationships and sexuality caused controversy and acclaim, leading to a new generation of sexually progressive television shows in the 2000s, such asQueer as Folk andThe L Word.
Other television shows and genres
Fantasy and science fiction shows were popular on television, with NBC airingSeaQuest DSV beginning in 1993, which madeJonathan Brandis a popularteen idol, but was cancelled after three seasons. The 1990s saw a multitude ofStar Trek content: in 1993, following the success ofStar Trek: The Next Generation, Paramount released the follow-up showsStar Trek: Deep Space Nine (1993–1999) andStar Trek: Voyager (1995–2001).Touched By an Angel, broadcast by CBS in 1994, was intended as the comeback vehicle ofDella Reese, and also launched the career ofRoma Downey. It wasn't an immediate success and was cancelled, but was revived the following year due to a fan letter-writing campaign, and ran for eight more seasons. At the end of the decade, thefantasy drama seriesCharmed gained acult following and helped popularizethe WB.
In 1993, one of the lastwesterns to air on television wasWalker, Texas Ranger, acrime drama starringChuck Norris as the title character. Running for nine seasons, the show tackled a wide variety of subjects and was one of few shows to feature an actor performing karate stunts at that time.
The 1990s saw the debut of live-action children's programs such as the educationalBill Nye the Science Guy andBlue's Clues as well as the superhero showMighty Morphin Power Rangers, the latter becoming a pop culture phenomenon along with a line of action figures and other toys by Japanese toy manufacturerBandai. This can also be said for the British pre-school seriesTeletubbies, which was a massive hit loved by very young children. It also saw long time running shows such asBarney & Friends and the continuation ofSesame Street, both of which would continue in the following decades and so.
During the mid-1990s, two of the biggest professional wrestling companies:World Championship Wrestling andWorld Wrestling Federation were in a ratings battle that was called theMonday Night War (1995–2001). Each company fought to draw more viewers to their respective Monday night wrestling show. The "War" ended in 2001 whenWWE boughtWCW. In November 2001, there was a Winner Takes All match with both companies in a Pay-Per-View calledSurvivor Series. WWF won the match, putting an end to WCW.
The late 1990s also saw the evolution of a new TV genre: primetime game shows, popularized by the quiz showWho Wants to Be a Millionaire?, hosted originally byChris Tarrant onITV in the United Kingdom andRegis Philbin onABC in the United States, as well as other first-run game shows aired in prime time on the newly launchedGame Show Network.
Many Argentine TV shows andsoap operas were greatly successful abroad, such asMuñeca Brava, which would become immensely successful in Russia, and would be exported to over 80 countries, and translated to over 50 languages. Similarly,Chiquititas was broadcast in 36 countries in Latin America, Europe and Asia.
Animated shows
The animated sitcom,The Simpsons, premiered onFox in December 1989 and became a domestic and international success in the 1990s. The show has since aired more than 600 episodes and has become an institution of pop culture. In addition, it has spawned the adult-orientedanimated sitcom genre, inspiring more adult-oriented animated shows such asBeavis and Butt-Head (1993–1997),Daria (1997–2001), along withSouth Park andFamily Guy, the latter two of which began in 1997 and 1999, respectively, and continue to air new episodes through the 2000s and into the 2020s.
Cartoons produced in the 1990s are sometimes referred to as the "Renaissance Age of Animation" for cartoons in general, particularly for American animated children's programs.Disney Channel,Nickelodeon (owned by Viacom, now Paramount Global) andCartoon Network (owned by Warner Bros. Discovery) would dominate the animated television industry. These three channels are considered the "Big Three", of children's entertainment, even today, but especially during the 1990s.
Earth and jewel tones, as well as an array of minimalist style and design influences, characterize the 1990s, a stark contrast to the camp and bombast seen in the brightly colored fashion and design trends of the1980s.
The Rachel,Jennifer Aniston's hairstyle on the hit TV showFriends, became a cultural phenomenon, with millions of women copying it worldwide.
The model 1300Wonderbra style has a resurgence of popularity in Europe in 1992, which kicks off an international media sensation, the 1994 return of "The Wonderbra" brand, and a spike in the push-up, plunge bras around the world.
Slap bracelets were a popular fad among children, preteens, and teenagers in the early 1990s and were available in a wide variety of patterns and colors. Also popular among children were light-up sneakers,jelly shoes, and shoelace hair clips.
TheGrunge hype at the beginning of the decade popularizedflannel shirts among both genders during the 1990s.
Heroin chic appeared sporadically across film, fashion models and grunge music, but gave way by end of the US recession and the emergence of internet "geek" culture (a sassy tech-literate style centered on web searching and drinking coffee).
Grunge- andhip-hop-inspired anti-fashion saw an expansion of the slouchy, casual styles of past decades, mostly seen in baggy and distressed jeans, cargo shorts and pants, baseball caps (often worn backward), chunky sneakers, oversized sweatshirts, and loose-fitting tees withgrandiloquentgraphics andlogos.
Svelte fashion was also popular from the beginning of the 1990s and into the 2000s, as the new millennium began. The rivalry of sloppy grunge fashion versus more expensive clothing made for fitter bodies was a repeat of the rock versus disco rivalry of a decade ago. Nineties fashion became darker, slinkier, and morefuturistic-looking clothing in the late 1990s, with Keanu Reeves in The Matrix as a style icon.
Tamagotchi andFurby were popular iconic toys among children around the world in the 1990s, also in the 2000s
Pogs was a popular street game among children around the world during the decade
Grunge-style fashion became a trend in the 1990s, modeled here by teen actorJonathan Brandis
Boots likeTimberlands andDr. Martens became popular. Hiking, motorcyclist and safety boots were all part of the general trend towards grunge fashion in footwear
Theconsole wars, primarily betweenSega (Mega Drive, marketed as theSega Genesis inNorth America, introduced in 1988) andNintendo (Super NES, introduced in 1990), sees the entrance ofSony with thePlayStation in 1994, which becomes the first successful CD-based console (as opposed tocartridges). By the end of the decade, Sega's hold on the market becomes tenuous after the end of theSaturn in 1999 and theDreamcast in 2002.
Arcade games rapidly decreased in popularity, mainly due to the dominance of handheld and home consoles.[140]
Sony'sPlayStation becomes the top-selling video game console and changes the standard media storage type fromcartridges tocompact discs (CDs) in home consoles.Crash Bandicoot is released on 9 September 1996, becoming one of the most successful platforming series for the Sony PlayStation.Spyro The Dragon, released on 9 September 1998, also became a successful platforming series.Tomb Raider'sLara Croft became a video gamesex symbol, becoming one of the most recognizable figures in the entertainment industry throughout the late 1990s.
Resident Evil is released in 1996 andResident Evil 2. Both games became the most highly acclaimedsurvival-horror series on the PlayStation at the time it was released. It is credited with defining the survival horror genre and with returning zombies topopular culture, leading to a renewed interest inzombie films by the 2000s.
Video game genres
3D graphics become the standard by the decade's end. AlthoughFPS games had long since seen the transition to full 3D, other genres began to copy this trend by the end of the decade. The most notable first shooter games in the 1990s areGoldenEye 007 andTom Clancy's Rainbow Six.
Thereal-time strategy (RTS) genre is introduced in 1992 with the release ofDune II.Warcraft: Orcs & Humans (1994) popularizing the genre, andCommand & Conquer andWarcraft II: Tides of Darkness in 1995, setting up the first major real-time strategy competition and popularizing multiplayer capabilities in RTS games.StarCraft in 1998 becomes the second best-selling computer game of all time. It remains among the most popular multiplayer RTS games today, especially inSouth Korea.[citation needed]Homeworld in 1999 becomes the first successful 3D RTS game. The rise of the RTS genre is often credited with the fall of theturn-based strategy (TBS) genre, popularized withCivilization in 1991.Final Fantasy was introduced (in North America) in 1990 for theNES and remains among the most popular video gamefranchises, with many new titles to date and more in development, plus numerous spin-offs, sequels, films and related titles.Final Fantasy VII, released in 1997, especially popularized the series.
The gameTomb Raider, launched in 1996, became particularly popular during the decade and as a resultLara Croft's character eventually became a cultural icon in the video game industry
PrivateLAN parties were at the peak of their popularity in the late 1990s and early 2000s when broadband Internet access was unavailable or too expensive for most people
Major League Baseball players went onstrike on 12 August 1994, thus ending the season and canceling theWorld Series for the first time in 90 years. The players' strike ended on 29 March 1995, when players and team owners agreed.
The1991 World Series pitted theAtlanta Braves and theMinnesota Twins, two teams who finished last place in their respective divisions, theprevious season. The series would go all seven games won by the home teams, concluding dramatically with the Minnesota Twins claiming their second World Series title.
Canadian hockey starMario Lemieux led thePittsburgh Penguins, one of the original NHL expansion teams, to back-to-back Stanley Cup championships in1991 and1992.
In addition to the Pittsburgh Penguins, three other NHL expansion teams went on to earn their first Stanley Cup championships: theNew Jersey Devils in1995, the Colorado Avalanche in1996, and the Dallas Stars in1999.
Canadian hockey starWayne Gretzky announced his retirement from the NHL in 1999. Upon his final game on 18 April, he held 40 regular-season records, 15 playoff records, and six All-Star records. He is the leading point-scorer in NHL history and the only NHL player to total over 200 points in one season – a feat he accomplished four times. In addition, he tallied over 100 points in 16 professional seasons, 14 of them consecutive. He played for four teams during his NHL career: theEdmonton Oilers, theLos Angeles Kings, theSt. Louis Blues, and the New York Rangers.
The United States hosted the 15th staging of the1994 FIFA World Cup. It holds the record for the largest attendance per game during the World Cup finals (even after the tournament's expansion to 32 teams and 64 matches). Additionally, this led to the creation of theMLS.
In theNFL, theSan Francisco 49ers and theWashington Redskins showed promise of continuing their '80s glory by each team winning another Super Bowl at the beginning of the decade. However, it was theDallas Cowboys who made a gradual return to dynasty status, winning three Super Bowls (1992,1993 and1995) in four years after a 14-year NFL championship drought. TheDenver Broncos also won their first two Super Bowls after having lost four, winning consecutive championships of the1997 and1998 seasons.
Florida State, 1987–2000 – At the height ofBobby Bowden's dominance, the Florida State Seminoles went 152–19–1, won nineACC championships (1992–2000), two national championships (1993 and 1999), played for three more national championships (1996, 1998, and 2000), were ranked #1 in the preseason AP poll five times (1988, 1991, 1993, 1995, and 1999), never lost the #1 AP ranking during 1999, produced 20 1st round NFL draft picks (including the 1997 offensive and defensive rookies of the year), won at least ten games every year, and never finished a season ranked lower than fourth in the AP poll. QuarterbacksCharlie Ward andChris Weinke wonHeisman Trophies.[145]
TheNebraska Cornhuskers led by head coachTom Osborne won three national championships in college football in four years (1994, 1995, 1997)
Led by head coachJim Tressel, TheYoungstown State Penguins claimed to be the "team of the '90s" by winning four national championships (1991, 1993, 1994, 1997) in division I-AA college football[146]
Major League Baseball added four teams,Miami Marlins (as Florida Marlins),Colorado Rockies,Tampa Bay Rays (as Tampa Bay Devil Rays), and theArizona Diamondbacks, and moved one (Milwaukee Brewers) into the National League. The Florida Marlins would win the World Series in1997 and2003; the Arizona Diamondbacks would win the World Series in2001, becoming the fastest expansion team to win a major championship for any major sport; the Colorado Rockies and Tampa Bay Rays would appear in the World Series in2007 and2008 respectively.
In the 1996 Summer Olympics, theWomen's Gymnastics team won the first team gold medal for the US in Olympic Gymnastics history.
In 1997, eight Australian Rugby League Premiership clubs defect to theNews Corporation-backedSuper League, before a resolution sees the two parties form theNational Rugby League in 1998. The British competition is bought out byNews Corporation, and renamedSuper League, which it is still currently named (although it was sold by News Corporation).
Leading talk show hostOprah Winfrey became an important book influencer in 1996 when she launched the highly successfulOprah's Book Club.
The hugely successfulHarry Potter series byJ. K. Rowling was introduced in 1997. The series, with seven main novels, would go on to become thebest-selling book series in world history and adapted into afilm series in 2001.
Goosebumps byR. L. Stine, the second highest-grossing book series in the world, was introduced in 1992 and remained a dominant player in children's literature throughout and after the decade. Atelevision series released onFox Kids alongside afilm version that released in 2015.
The decline of diverse study options in university humanities schools due toeconomic rationalism, leading to a boom inpurple prose heavily influenced by 20th century Europeansocial theory andcultural studies. In 1996 in what is known as theSokal affair, a mathematician pranked a cultural studies by tricking them into publishing his nonsensical essay "Transgressing the Boundaries: Towards a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity" on the basis that the journal wasn't peer-reviewed and would publish anything that seemed fashionably left-wing. In 1996 thePostmodernism Generator used arecursive transition network to imitate the postmodernist style of humanities writing.
The 1990s saw the rise of diverse musical trends, identifiable through the decade's top-selling pop songs and the continued prominence of established genres such asgangsta rap,grunge,industrial rock, anddeep house.Alternative hip hop gained visibility at the start of the decade, while the public's interest in independent music surged as a counter to commercial radiopayola.[151]
^Peatling, Gary (2004).The failure of the Northern Ireland peace process. Irish Academic Press, p. 58.ISBN0-7165-3336-7
^Cox, Michael, Guelke, Adrian and Stephen, Fiona (2006).A farewell to arms?: beyond the Good Friday Agreement. Manchester University Press, p. 486.ISBN0-7190-7115-1
^Clark, Desmond, and Jones, Charles (1999).The rights of nations: nations and nationalism in a changing world. Palgrave Macmillan, p. 168.ISBN0-312-22595-4
^"A Short History of the Internet."National Science and Media Museum, 3 Dec. 2020, www.scienceandmediamuseum.org.uk/objects-and-stories/short-history-internet.
^Alexander, Stephen B., Chaddick, Steve w., et al. WDM Optical Communication System with Remodulators.US Patent 5,504,609., May 11, 1995., April 2, 1996.
^Alexander, Stephen B., Chaddick, Steve w., et al. Wavelength division multiplexed optical communication systems employing uniform gain optical amplifiers.US Patent 5,696,615., November 13, 1995., December 9, 1997.
^abHecht, Jeff (2004).City of light: the story of fiber optics. The Sloan technology series (Rev. and expanded ed., 1. paperback [ed.] ed.). Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.ISBN978-0-19-510818-7.
^Grossman, Lev (31 March 2003)."How the Web Was Spun".Time Magazine. Archived fromthe original on 25 June 2009. Retrieved19 July 2009.Berners-Lee's computer faithfully logged the exact second the site was launched: 2:56:20 pm, 6 August 1991.
^Cook-Deegan, Robert (1995).The gene wars: science, politics, and the human genome (1. publ. as a Norton paperback ed.). New York NY: Norton.ISBN978-0-393-31399-4.
^Wolf, Mark J.P. (2008)."Arcade Games of the 1990s and Beyond".The video game explosion: a history from PONG to PlayStation and beyond. Westport, Connecticut:Greenwood Press. p. 135.ISBN978-0-313-33868-7.OCLC154776597. Retrieved19 July 2009.The decline of arcade video games would come back in the 1990s, despite attempts to redefine the arcade experience and attract players back to the arcade.
^"College Football's 12 Greatest Dynasties".Sports Illustrated. 25 December 2005. Archived fromthe original on 28 December 2005. Retrieved1 May 2010.At the height of Bobby Bowden's dominance, the Florida State Seminoles won two national championships (1993 and 1999), played for three others (1996, 1998 and 2000) and never finished outside the AP top four. Quarterbacks Charlie Ward and Chris Weinke won Heisman Trophies.
Ash, Timothy Garton.History of the Present: Essays, Sketches, and Dispatches from Europe in the 1990s (2009)excerpts
Bender, Thomas. "'Venturesome and Cautious': American History in the 1990s."Journal of American History (1994): 992–1003.in JSTOR
Bentley, Nick, ed.British Fiction of the 1990s (Routledge, 2007).
Berman, Milton.The Nineties in America (2009).
Brügger, Niels, ed,Web25: Histories from the first 25 years of the World Wide Web (Peter Lang, 2017).
Cornia, Giovanni Andrea, Ralph van der Hoeven, and Thandika Mkandawire.Africa's recovery in the 1990s: from stagnation and adjustment to human development (St. Martin's Press, 1992)
O'Neill, William.A Bubble in Time: America During the Interwar Years, 1989-2001 (2009)Excerpt, popular history
Parratt, Catriona M. "About Turns: Reflecting on Sport History in the 1990s."Sport History Review (1998) 29#1 pp: 4–17.
Rubin, Robert, and Jacob Weisberg.In an uncertain world: tough choices from Wall Street to Washington (2015), economic history.
Sierz, Aleks.Modern British Playwriting: The 1990s: Voices, Documents, New Interpretations (A&C Black, 2012)
Stiglitz, Joseph E.The roaring nineties: A new history of the world's most prosperous decade (Norton, 2004), economic history
Turner, Alwyn.A Classless Society: Britain in the 1990sAurum Press (2013)
van der Hoeven, Arno. "Remembering the popular music of the 1990s: dance music and the cultural meanings of decade-based nostalgia."International Journal of heritage studies (2014) 20#3 pp: 316–330.
Yoda, Tomiko, and Harry Harootunian, eds.Japan After Japan: Social and Cultural Life from the Recessionary 1990s to the Present (2006)
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