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20th Century: Last Decade
Gallery
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Selectric typewriters
bye bye
1990

Terminator 2
shows morphing
1991

Rodney King
beating videotaped
1992

Jurassic Park
1993

Pathfinder to Mars
1997
1990-1999
 
1990
1990: Many telephone, broadcasting monopolies move to competition, privatization.
1990: With Iron John, writer Robert Bly starts a back-to-masculinity movement.
1900: Michael Crichton's blockbuster novel, Jurassic Park.
1990: Television Marti joins Radio Marti in sending U.S. propaganda to Cuba.
1990: Congress passes Children's Television Act for children's programming.
1990: Entertainment Weekly magazine.
1990: The second edition of the Oxford English Dictionary, book form or CD-ROM.
1990: Flyaway SNG aids foreign reportage.
1990: Kodak introduces the Photo CD player.
1990: IBM sells its Selectric division, a sign of the typewriter's passing.
1990: From IBM, a line of workstations using RISC chips.
1990: The Video Toaster, a low cost video effects tool.
1990: Another rating category is added for movies: NC-17.
1990: 85% of American adults completed high school.
1990: Most 2-inch videotape machines are also gone.
1990: Oscars: Dances With Wolves, Jeremy Irons, Kathy Bates.
1990: Also at the movies: Pretty Woman, GoodFellas, Total Recall, Ghost.
1990: Foreign language film Oscar: Journey of Hope, Switzerland.
1990: Dick Tracy is first 35 mm feature film with a digital soundtrack.
1990: Videodisc returns in a new laser form.
1990: World Wide Web originates at CERN in Europe. Tim Berners-Lee writes program.
1990: Norman Mailer, Harlot's Ghost, looks at two generations in the C.I.A.
1990: Nobel Prize in Literature: poet, essayist Octavio Paz, Mexico.
1990: Wide area barcode readers
1990: Easy Stamp, allowing purchase of stamps through computers
1990: International Post Office business reply service
 
1991
1991: Motion Picture Association says only 16% of American movies fit for kids under 13.
1991: Nobel Prize in Literature: South African novelist Nadine Gordimer.
1991: CNN dominates news coverage worldwide during Gulf War.
1991: The Web gets "servers"; planners talk about hypertext and browsers.
1991: Live TV news switching between world capitals during Gulf War looks simple.
1991: Denver viewers can order movies at home from list of more than 1,000 titles.
1991: Moviegoers astonished by computer morphing in Terminator 2.
1991: User-friendly Gopher offers point-and-click navigation of Internet files.
1991: Baby Bells get government permission to offer information services.
1991: Multichannel Multipoint Distribution Systems (MMDS) get more spectrum space.
1991: Sega's arcade game Time Traveler comes close to true holograms.
1991: In Europe, Internet sites more than triple in one year, pass 100,000.
1991: Collapse of Soviet anti-Gorbachev plot aided by the Internet.
1991: The start of grunge music.
1991: Recordable compact disc drivers, CD-Rs, reach the market.
1991: More than 4 billion cassette tape rentals in U.S. alone.
1991: Oscars: The Silence of the Lambs, Anthony Hopkins, Jodie Foster.
1991: Internet made available for commercial use.
1991: Recordable compact disc drivers, CD-Rs, reach the market.
1991: Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) written; helps create the World Wide Web.
1991: For the first time a cartoon, Beauty and the Beast, is up for best picture Oscar.
1991: Also at the movies: Thelma & Louise, Bugsy, City Slickers.
1991: Foreign language film Oscar: Mediterraneo, Italy.
1991: Motorola works on a communication system to reach every point on the globe.
1991: Data is transmitted through optical fiber at 32 billion bits per second.
1991: 3 out of 4 U.S. homes own VCRs; fastest selling domestic appliance in history.
1991: Tom Clancy, The Sum of All Fears, shows chilling foresight of Mideast terrorism.
1991: An x-ray photograph is taken of the brain recalling a word.
1991: Condoms advertised on U.S. television screens.
1991: Philips introduces the Compact Disc Interactive (CD-I) player for music, video.
 
1992
1992: The Sony Mini-Disc, a recordable magneto-optical disc.
1992: 65 million personal computers have been sold.
1992: Rodney King beating videotape shot by amateur adds "visualanties" to lexicon.
1992: More than 1,000,000 Internet hosts.
1992: Stamps sold by automatic machines.
1992: Compact disc music sales pass cassette tapes.
1992: The Michelangelo virus, originating in Europe, disables computers worldwide.
1992: The Internet Society is formed to coordinate Internet activities.
1992: U.S. cable mogul John Malone predicts 500-channel future.
1992: Cable TV revenues reach $22 billion.
1992: Daniel Boorstin: The Creators, a history of what and how mankind created.
1992: Michelangelo is first virus to reach national attention.
1992: Text-based browser opens World Wide Web for general usage.
1992: British end Oracle teletext and videotex service.
1992: At least 50 U.S. cities have competing cable services.
1992: Oscars: Unforgiven, Al Pacino, Emma Thompson.
1992: Also at the movies: Chaplin, The Player, The Crying Game.
1992: Foreign language film Oscar: Indochine, France.
1992: Two more from James Michener, Mexico and The World Is My Home.
1992: New Web terms: HTTP and URL.
1992: AOL reports it has 200,000 subscribers.
1992: Disneyland comes to Paris.
1992: Number of newspapers offering online news rises to 150.
1992: At Bell Labs, an English-Spanish translator recognizes 450 spoken words.
1992: After President Bush speaks, 25 million viewers try to phone in their opinions.
1992: Nobel Prize in Literature: West Indian poet, playwright Derek Walcott.
1992: Toni Morrison's novel Jazz.
1992: Delphi offers dial-up service to the Internet.
1992: Digital AM radio broadcasting is tested.
1992: James Michener turns his attention to Mexico.
1992: Remote barcoding system
1992: Stamps sold through automatic teller machines
 
1993
1993: "Spiders" search the Internet looking for key words.
1993: Compaq brings out Concerto, a pen-based notebook PC.
1993: David Letterman and Conan O’Brien start late night TV shows.
1993: Nobel Prize in Literature: African-American novelist Toni Morrison.
1993: Rumors fly that cellphones cause brain cancer; sales continue to soar.
1993: NBC News causes ethical explosion by staging a GM truck explosion.
1993: World conference adopts MPEG-2 standard for digital television pictures.
1993: IMAX 3D digital sound system goes into a New York theater.
1993: Oscars: Schindler's List, Tom Hanks, Holly Hunter.
1993: Computer-generated dinosaurs roam the earth in Jurassic Park.
1993: Also at the movies: The Fugitive, The Piano, Sleepless in Seattle.
1993: Foreign language film Oscar: Belle Époque, Spain.
1993: Hollywood film edited on non-linear editing computer system.
1993: Demand for "V-chip" to block out violent or sexual television programs.
1993: Nokia sends text messages between mobile phones.
1993: From Intel, the Pentium chip.
1993: Picturephone updated to put faces on computer screen for transmission.
1993: Graphical user interface, Mosaic, is developed for the World Wide Web.
1993: 1 in 3 Americans does some work at home instead of driving to work.
1993: Photojournalists, studio photographers switch to specialized digital cameras.
1993: Apple Newton, a PDA, recognizes handwriting on its screen.
1993: HTML introduced as the code for web design.
 
1994
1994: After 25 years, U.S. government privatizes Internet management.
1994: SAT takers may use calculators for the math exam.
1994: Radio stations open Net locations.
1994: Digital satellite TV service, DirecTV, offered in the U.S.
1994: The HP OfficeJet personal printer-fax-copier for home offices.
1994: Hewlitt Packard combines printer, fax, and copier into one machine.
1994: FCC approves Advanced TV standard, including HDTV and SDTV.
1994: Hewlitt Packard combines printer, fax, and copier into one machine.
1994: Banner ads appear on Internet websites.
1994: Real Audio allows audio listening in near real time.
1994: Time Warner creates WB television network.
1994: WWW growth mushrooms. Pizza Hut starts taking orders on the Web.
1994: 200 workstations worldwide get Rolling Stones concert on Internet "MBone."
1994: Nobel Prize in Literature: Japanese novelist, essayist Kenzaburo Oe.
1994: The Netscape Navigator replaces Mosaic as a World Wide Web browser.
1994: The Zip drive, with removable storage of up to 100 MB.
1994: The most popular radio format in the U.S. is country music.
1994: Yahoo search engine is started by two Stanford graduate engineering students.
1994: Chain bookstores outsell independents in the U.S. for the first time.
1994: Internet mass marketing brings "spamming" into the lexicon.
1994: To reduce Western influence, a dozen nations ban or restrict satellite dishes.
1994: Oscars: Forrest Gump, Tom Hanks, Jessica Lange.
1994: Also at the movies: Pulp Fiction, Nell, The Client, Speed, The Lion King.
1994: Foreign language film Oscar: Burnt by the Sun, Russia.
1994: Forrest Gump uses digital photo tricks to insert person into historical footage.
1994: Sega's Daytona USA complex video arcade game can have 8 players.
1994: Prodigy bulletin board fields 12,000 messages after L.A. quake.
1994: Magazines known as "�e-zines" are published on CD-ROM disks.
1994: Competitors agree on a standard for high definition TV.
1994: Radio HK, a 24-hour Internet-only radio station.
1994: Almost 1/3 of all American homes has a computer.
 
1995
1995: Nobel Prize in Literature: Irish poet Seamus Heaney.
1995: Caller ID now nationwide in U.S.
1995: Toy Story is the first totally digital feature-length film.
1995: Experimental CD-ROM disk can carry a full-length feature film.
1995: Sony Playstation and Sega Saturn use 32-bit systems for home video games.
1995: "Internet addiction" is identified.
1995: Worlds Chat, a 3-D online chatroom introduces communication avatars.
1995: TV images of black/white reactions to O.J. Simpson verdict polarize U.S.
1995: Videotape project lets prisoners read books to their children.
1995: Personal Communication Service (PCS) digital wireless phones.
1995: UPN television network created by Paramount and Universal studios.
1995: Amazon.com starts selling books online, will become Web's hottest retailer.
1995: Tokyo Wars advances arcade video games with two 32-bit microprocessors.
1995: Direct Broadcast Satellites (DBS) beam digital programs to home dishes.
1995: U.S. population continues to increase, but newspaper readership declines.
1995: Oklahoma City bombing sends many to the Internet for details.
1995: Sony demonstrates a flat TV set.
1995: WebTV formed to combine television and the Internet.
1995: The Java programming language for websites.
1995: DBS feeds are offered nationwide in U.S.
1995: The FCC allows radio stations to operate with no one there.
1995: Want a dot-com? It will now cost $50 a year. Dot-edu and dot-gov still free.
1995: Denmark announces plan to put much of the nation online within 5 years.
1995: The first of the Left Behind series of Christian prophecy novels.
1995: Major U.S. dailies create national online newspaper network.
1995: Oscars: Braveheart, Nicolas Cage, Susan Sarandon.
1995: Also at the movies: The Bridges of Madison County, Leaving Las Vegas, Babe.
1995: Foreign language film Oscar: Antonia's Line, The Netherlands.
1995: Lamar Alexander chooses the Internet to announce presidential candidacy.
1995: In Cleveland, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Museum opens.
1995: The average U.S. home has nearly six radios.
1995: Audio of live events can be heard on the Internet.
1995: Computer TouchPad offers substitute for the mouse.
1995: Vatican develops a web site.
 
1996
1996: AT&T splits off Lucent Technologies and NCR.
1996: The stripped-down Net computer arrives.
1996: Dell's "e-tailing" sells assemble-to-order computers on the Internet.
1996: Supreme Court throws out Communication Decency Act.
1996: From Netscape: the cookie.
1996: Loosening of rules allows multiple station ownership of radio, TV in same city.
1996: World Exposition is a world�s fair held on the Internet.
1996: In Athens, arch�ologists uncover the ruins of Aristotle's Lyceum.
1996: From Microsoft: Hotmail.com, a Web-based email site.
1996: Disney swallows ABC.
1996: America Online has 5,000,000 subscribers.
1996: Digital Associated Press cameras send Super Bowl pix to newspapers in minutes.
1996: More than 100,000 World Wide Web sites, and growing fast.
1996: 45 million Internet users, including 30 million in U.S.
1996: Optical fiber cable line stretches across the Pacific.
1996: The shooter game Quake allows users to create their own levels.
1996: Web-TV tunes television sets to the Internet via the TV-top box.
1996: Yahoo goes public. In three years its market value will be $70 billion.
1996: South African factory makes Bayliss radio receivers operated by windup spring.
1996: Advanced Photo System provides drop-in film loading, choice of print formats.
1996: TV host Oprah Winfrey boosts book sales with monthly book club.
1996: Computer makers sell flat-panel displays.
1996: Telecommunication Reform Act: phone, cable, broadcast companies compete.
1996: Dell's "e-tailing" sells assemble-to-order computers on the Internet.
1996: Oscars: The English Patient, Geoffrey Rush, Frances McDormand.
1996: Also at the movies: Evita, Shine, Fargo, Jerry McGuire.
1996: Sesame Street gets a Russian version.
1996: 28% of U.S. public libraries offer Internet access.
1996: Foreign language film Oscar: Kolya, Czech Republic.
1996: Japanese newspaper Mainichi Shinbum delivers its editions online.
1996: Typical modem is 14.4K bits/sec., but new sales are for 28.8K.
1996: Michael Crichton's blockbuster about aircraft construction, Airframe.
1996: American Psychological Assoc. correlates TV violence, aggressive behavior.
1996: U.S. Postal Service handles nearly 600 million pieces of mail daily.
1996: A pocket telephone/computer comes on the market.
1996: Several large newspapers offers Web access to their archives.
1996: The FCC approves a digital HDTV standard.
1996: Microsoft releases Explorer 3.0 Web browser.
1996: Nobel Prize in Literature: poet Wislawa Szymborska, Poland.
1996: Nintendo produces 64-bit Sujper Mario 64 home video game.
 
1997
1997: Exploding growth: more than 4,000 ISPs in the U.S. and Canada alone.
1997: DVD players and movies are on the fast track to success.
1997: ARIN, the American Registry for Internet Numbers.
1997: "Heaven's Gate" cult sets up website before committing mass suicide.
1997: More than 50 million Americans, Canadians use the Internet.
1997: Titanic uses computer images to show people falling off sinking ship.
1997: The first weblogs, or "blogs."
1997: Palm produces the first handheld device with the Palm OS.
1997: "Spam" means more than canned meat.
1997: DVDs go on sale.
1997: Ultima Online, a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG).
1997: Nearly 8 of 10 U.S. public schools have Internet access.
1997: Elton John's "Candle in the Wind" sells 32 million copies in 37 days.
1997: IBM computer defeats world chess champion Garry Kasparov.
1997: Email spreads hoax of Kurt Vonnegut "sunscreen" commencement speech.
1997: From Kodak, the first point-and-shoot digital camera.
1997: Optical fiber cable lines now stretch around the world.
1997: Pathfinder's Mars pictures released; NASA website gets 46 million hits.
1997: U.S. television adopts age-based ratings; news, sports excluded.
1997: Nobel Prize in Literature: playwright Dario Fo, Italy.
1997: Streaming audio and video are available on the Web.
1997: AOL boasts 10 million subscribers.
1997: 2,600 U.S. newspapers have Internet sites or dial-up connections.
1997: Oscars: Titanic, Jack Nicholson, Helen Hunt.
1997: Also at the movies: As Good As It Gets, Wag the Dog, The Full Monty.
1997: Foreign language film Oscar: Character, The Netherlands.
1998: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, the first of the J.K. Rowling series.
1997: Novelist Charles Frazier's Cold Mountain.
1997: 43% of U.S. homes have computers.
1997: Film Titanic costs $300 million to make, market; will earn more than twice that.
 
1998
1998: Boorstin's history, The Seekers, examines man's quest for understanding.
1998: Image of dancing baby emailed worldwide, becomes TV's Ally McBeal regular.
1998: Britain abandons telegrams in favor of email.
1998: Megapixel cameras available at consumer level.
1998: Associated Press once had 1,500 telegraph operators, now has four.
1998: HP introduces the Jornada PDA (personal digital assistant).
1998: About 800 drive-in theaters still remain open in the United States.
1998: Music industry up in arms as fans download MP3 sound files for free.
1998: Sonny Bono Act extends copyright to lifetime plus 70 years.
1998: HDTV broadcasts begin in the United States.
1998: Cable channels start using digital compression technology.
1998: Internet economy gets its own weekly magazine, The Industry Standard.
1998: Sony's Everquest multiplayer online game attracts thousands worldwide.
1998: In U.S. alone, 70,000 book titles this year, 50.000 publishers.
1998: Some cable systems upgraded to permit hundreds of channels.
1998: FCC's E-Rate program makes Internet access cheap for libraries, schools.
1998: Iridium worldwide satellite cellphone service born, but will soon die.
1998: An HDTV station goes on the air in the United States.
1998: SPJ awards given for public service to online journalism.
1998: Drudge Report, an online website, breaks news of Clinton-Lewinsky affair.
1998: Oscars: Shakespeare in Love, Roberto Begnini, Gwyneth Paltrow.
1998: Also at the movies: Saving Private Ryan, The Truman Show, Pleasantville.
1998: Foreign language film Oscar: Life Is Beautiful, Italy.
1998: The Last Broadcast is the first desktop feature film.
1998: Associated Press sells online archive service to newspapers.
1998: Netscape makes public its code for Mozilla, an open-source browser.
1998: 3,250 newspapers, 1,280 TV stations now have online websites.
1998: Justice Department sues Microsoft for monopolistic practices.
1998: Estimated number of World Wide Web pages: 300 million.
1998: Estimated number of Web pages added each day: 1.5 million.
1998: Plans laid by universities, industry, government for Internet2.
1998: 150 million Internet users estimated at year's end, half in the U.S.
1998: The Pentium II processor incorporates 7.5 million transistors.
1998: Apple unveils the colorful iMac computer.
1998: Net users are judges of a TV sports event: world champion ice skating.
1998: Traffic on the Internet, network of networks, is doubling every 100 days.
1998: AOL reports it has 14 million subscribers.
1998: Postage stamps downloaded from the Web, then printed, go on sale in the U.S.
1998: First digital TV programs are broadcast in the U.S.
1998: Nobel Prize in Literature: José Saramago, Portugal.
1998: Clancy: Rainbow Six; the good guys use latest military gadgets to foil terrorists.
1998: V-chips go into television sets.
1998: Survey: average American with a computer uses it more than 5 hours weekly.
1998: Americans average 2,300 phone calls a year.
 
1999
1999: $35,000 Blair Witch Project shows potential of low cost video production.
1999: Virus after virus attack computers. Melissa is the worst yet.
1999: Home video games expand with Sega Dreamcast 128-bit operating system.
1999: World worries about Y2K bug; great sums spent to solve the problem.
1999: Number of U.S. daily newspapers drops to 1483, total 56 million circulation.
1999: Ten million Web servers throughout the world.
1999: Baby Bells start to offer long distance phone service.
1999: Free downloading of music via the Internet increases sharply. Millions do it.
1999: Melissa is first virus to cause problems worldwide.
1999: Americans are buying average of 8 books a year, 3 times pre-WWII.
1999: Michael Crichton visits medieval France for sci-fi novel, Timeline.
1999: 150 million Internet users can access more than 800 million web pages.
1999: Mule train still delivers mail down the south face of the Grand Canyon.
1999: Nobel Prize in Literature: German novelist G�nter Grass.
1999: Oscars: American Beauty, Kevin Spacey, Hilary Swank.
1999: Also at the movies: Matrix, The Insider, The Hurricane, The Sixth Sense.
1999: Non-English language (not "foreign") film Oscar: All About My Mother, Spain.
1999: Jon Johansen, 15, of Norway manages to break movie DVD copy protection.
1999: The Ikonos satellite can detect an object on Earth as small as a card table.

 


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Copyright © Irving Fang and Kristina Ross, 1995-1996. All rights reserved.