Annual

2003 Pop Culture HistoryQuick Facts from 2003World-Changing Event: MySpace launched in August 2003, becoming the first social network to achieve mass adoption and introducing the concept of online personal profiles, friend lists, and music pages to a mainstream audience. It briefly made Tom Anderson the most well-known person on the internet, simply by being everyone’s […]

2002 Pop Culture HistoryIn 2002, the United States was still processing September 11, the Enron scandal was unraveling in ways that implicated its accounting firm along with it, American Idol premiered and immediately became the most-watched show on television, and My Big Fat Greek Wedding — a small independent film made for $5 million —

2001 History, Facts, and TriviaOn the morning of September 11, 2001, nineteen hijackers took control of four commercial aircraft. Two flew into the World Trade Center in New York City. One hit the Pentagon. The fourth came down in a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, after passengers attempted to retake control. By the time the day

2000 History, Facts, and TriviaQuick Facts from 2000World Changing Event: Y2K arrived on January 1, 2000, and the world did not end. Planes did not fall from the sky. ATMs did not fail. Power grids stayed on. The $300 billion spent globally to prepare for potential computer failures resulted in the most anticlimactic disaster in

1999 History, Facts, and TriviaIn 1999, America spent the entire year worrying about whether every computer on Earth would simultaneously malfunction at midnight on December 31, ushering in a civilization-ending cascade of failures. The Y2K bug turned out to be largely a non-event, the result of thousands of programmers quietly fixing things that nobody noticed

1998 Pop Culture HistoryIn 1998, Google was founded in a garage, Titanic was still making money on its 58th day in theaters, Bill Clinton told the world what the definition of “is” is, and Elton John spent the first two weeks of January at number one with a song about Princess Diana that he had

1997 Trivia, History, and Fun FactsIn 1997, the world stopped for a princess. When Diana, Princess of Wales, died in a Paris tunnel on August 31, an estimated 2.5 billion people watched her funeral six days later — the largest television audience for a single event in history to that point. Elton John rewrote Candle

1996 History, Facts, and TriviaQuick Facts from 1996World Changing Event: Dolly the sheep was born on July 5, 1996 — the first mammal successfully cloned from an adult cell. She was named after Dolly Parton because her DNA came from a mammary gland cell. Dolly herself apparently had no opinion on the matter.Top Song: “Don’t

1995 History, Facts, and TriviaQuick Facts from 1995World-Changing Event: The internet went from curiosity to culture in 1995. JavaScript, Java, Windows 95, eBay, and Match.com all launched within the same 12-month window. Newsweek published an article mocking the idea that anyone would get news, shop, or learn online. The internet did not care.Top Song: One

1994 History, Facts, and TriviaQuick Facts from 1994Game Changer: Sony PlayStation launched in Japan on December 3, 1994, selling 100,000 units on its first day. Gaming was never quite the same afterward.Top Song: I’ll Make Love to You by Boyz II Men, which spent 14 consecutive weeks at #1 on the Billboard Hot 100Must-See Movies:

1993 History, Facts, and TriviaQuick Facts from 1993World-Changing Event: Intel introduced the Pentium microprocessor, and the Mosaic web browser — the first graphical browser accessible to ordinary users — was released. The internet went from an academic and military tool to something anyone could navigate. The world had no idea what it had just been

1992 Trivia, History, and Fun FactsIn 1992, Bill Clinton played saxophone on The Arsenio Hall Show, said he didn’t inhale, and won the presidency anyway. The LA riots erupted after four officers who beat Rodney King on camera were acquitted, killing 63 people and causing over a billion dollars in damage. The 1992 Olympic Dream

1990 History, Facts, and TriviaQuick Facts from 1990World-Changing Event: On November 12, 1990, Tim Berners-Lee submitted his formal proposal for the World Wide Web at CERN, outlining the HTTP protocol and the HTML language. On December 20, the world’s first website went live at info.cern.ch. The internet as we know it was born. Nobody was

 1988 Trivia, Fun Facts, and Pop Culture HistoryIn 1988, a graduate student at Cornell released a self-replicating program onto the internet from an MIT terminal, and by morning, a significant portion of the connected internet had ground to a halt. Die Hard arrived and settled the question of what a Christmas movie could be. Steffi

1987 Trivia, Fun Facts, and Pop Culture HistoryQuick Facts from 1987World Changing Event: Black Monday — on October 19, 1987, the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 508 points, a 22.6% single-day loss, the largest percentage drop in stock market history.Top Song: “Faith” by George MichaelMust-See Movies: The Princess Bride, Good Morning Vietnam, Moonstruck, Dirty Dancing,

1986 History, Facts, and TriviaQuick Facts from 1986World Changing Event: The Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant reactor #4 exploded on April 26, 1986, in the Soviet Union. The blast and resulting radiation exposed an estimated 500,000 to 6,000,000 people to dangerous levels of radiation. The USSR actively suppressed information about the severity of the disaster —

1985 History, Facts, and TriviaQuick Facts from 1985World-Changing Event: Mikhail Gorbachev became Soviet Premier in March 1985, launching the era of “Glasnost,” a policy of openness and transparency that began unraveling the Soviet Union from the inside. The Cold War had a new character, and he was surprisingly reasonable.Top Song: Careless Whisper by Wham! featuring

1984 Trivia, History, and Fun FactsQuick Facts from 1984World-Changing Event: Apple Computer unveiled the Macintosh personal computer on January 24, 1984, introduced by one of the most celebrated commercials in advertising history and priced at $1,995. Nearly 250,000 were sold that year. Personal computing had a face.Top Song: Like a Virgin by Madonna, which launched

1983 History, Facts, and TriviaQuick Facts from 1983World-Changing Event: President Reagan called the Soviet Union an “Evil Empire” in a speech to the National Association of Evangelicals in Orlando, Florida, on March 8, 1983 — the most confrontational framing of U.S.-Soviet relations by an American president in decades, and a signal that the Cold War’s

1981 History, Facts, and TriviaIn 1981, MTV launched with Video Killed the Radio Star and immediately began transforming how music was sold, consumed, and experienced. Raiders of the Lost Ark arrived in theaters, and Harrison Ford became the dominant action hero of his generation. Prince Charles married Lady Diana before a television audience of 750

1980 Fun Facts, Trivia, and HistoryQuick Facts from 1980World Changing Event: On February 22, the U.S. Olympic hockey team defeated the Soviet Union 4-3 at the Lake Placid Winter Olympics. The Soviets had won every Olympic gold medal since 1964. The Americans were college kids. Sportscaster Al Michaels asked: “Do you believe in miracles?” The