1990

February 11- Nelson Mandela freed after 27 years of being a political prisoner

March 18- Largest art theft in US history occurs in Boston, when two thieves posing as
policemen abscond twelve paintings worth an estimated $100-200 million from the
Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.

April 24- Hubble Space telescope launched during Space Shuttle Discovery mission.

July 26- President George Bush signs into law the American Disabilities Act of 1990

October 3- Reunification of Germany after fall of the Berlin Wall the year prior

1991
January- The Gulf War begins

March 2- Rodney King is pulled over and beaten by police officers

August 6- The World Wide Web is publicly debuted as an Internet service

The Dead Sea Scrolls, an important historical document detailing the same period of
time as the Bibles Old Testament, are exhibited to the public.

September- FDA approves of drug Foscavir, which manages CMV in AIDS patients

1992
April 6- The first widely-distributed version of the Windows operating system for PC,
Windows 3.1, is released.

May 5- The 27th Amendment is ratified prohibiting any law that increases or decreases
the salary of members of the Congress from taking effect, until the start of the next set
of terms of office for Representatives.

August 11- The Mall of America in Bloomington, Minnesota opens for business, covering
4.2 million square feet and offering 20,000 parking spaces.
November 3- U.S. presidential election, 1992 (Bill Clinton defeats President George H.
W. Bush)

1993
After seven years together, New Kids On The Block go their separate ways, proving that
perhaps they did not have The Right Stuff after all.
February 26- bomb detonated underneath the World Trade Center

March- Michael Jordan retires from the NBA to play minor league baseball. He
returns to the NBA 17 months later.

July- Bill Clinton proposes Dont ask, Dont tell policy

August 21- The multi-million dollar Mars Observer probe breaks radio contact with
NASA and disappears completely into the reaches of space.

1994

January 1- The North American Free Trade Agreement is passed by Canadian,

America and Mexican governments, codifying the economic interactions of the three
countries.

January 14- American and Russian nuclear missiles are for the first time no longer
pointed at each others countries, thanks to the signing of the Kremlin Accords. This
marks the most significant thawing of Cold War relations in decades.

May 6- The Channel Tunnel, an undersea rail link between England and France,
opens for passengers for the first time. It is the longest sub-oceanic tunnel in the
entire world.

July 5- Amazon is founded

1995
Retired professional football player O. J. Simpson is acquitted of two charges of first-
degree murder in the 1994 slayings of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and Ronald
Goldman. The trial, which lasts nine months, received worldwide publicity.

February 22- Steve Fosset flies across the Pacific Ocean in a hot air balloon, taking off
in South Korea and landing in Saskatchewan, Canada.

March 2- Yahoo!, the popular search engine, web directory and email service is founded
by Jerry Wang and David Filo.

September 3- eBay, another giant of internet commerce comes into being as an online
auction house.

October 16- The Million Man March reaches the Capitol Buildings in Washington, D.C.
The March consisted of black men and was organized in order to address the concerns
regarding national social problems and voter apathy.

1996
January- US Clean Air Act is amended to ban the sale of leaded fuel for use in on-road
vehicles.

Women's softball finally becomes an Olympic event in the 1996 Summer Olympics in
Atlanta, Georgia. The U.S.A. team will go on to win gold by defeating China.
The Nissan Stagea is first produced

1997
April 10-13-Tiger Woods wins Masters Tournament and also achieves the number 1
ranking in professional golf faster than any athlete before him.

May 11- IBMs Deep Blue becomes the first machine to beat a reigning world chess
champion, Gary Kasparov, at a single game of chess.

June 26- First Harry Potter book is released...the fandom starts!

July 5- Dolly the cloned sheep(July 5, 1996 - February 14, 2003) is born at the Roslin
Institute in Scotland and lives 6 years. She is the first mammal cloned from an adult cell.

August 31- Diana Spencer, Princess of Wales, and her boyfriend, Dodi Al-Fayed, is
killed in a car accident while fleeing paparazzi in Paris.

October 29 - John Glenn, thirty-six years after becoming the first American astronaut to
orbit the earth, becomes the oldest astronaut in space at seventy-seven years old. His
role on the Space Shuttle Discovery flight tests the effect of space travel on aging.

December 11- The Kyoto Protocol, an international environmental agreement meant to

combat global warming is negotiated in Japan.
Mad Cow Disease, otherwise known as BSE dominates headlines when it is
conclusively shown that it can be transmitted to humans through the consumption of
infected beef.

1998
January- American president Bill Clinton is embroiled in a sex scandal that will
eventually see him take the stand to testify about his relationship with a White House
intern.

September 4- Google, a company which would come to dominate the internet search
engine wars thanks to their unique sorting algorithms, is founded in California.

Founding of the Holocaust History project which aims to document the stories from
survivors

1999
February 12- Bill Clinton acquitted by US Senate in impeachment proceedings

October 11- The 6 billionth person populating the Earth is born in Bosnia.

June 14- Nelson Mandela steps down as president of South Africa, ending his reign as
the countrys first black head of state.

June 15- First battle of Yeongpyeong between North and South Korea over the territory

Serena Williams wins her first womens US Open