1990s facts for kids

From left, clockwise: The Hubble Space Telescope orbits the Earth after it was launched in 1990; American F-16s and F-15s fly over burning oil fields in Operation Desert Storm, also known as the 1991 Gulf War; The signing of the Oslo Accords on 13 September 1993; The World Wide Web becomes more popular worldwide; Boris Yeltsin and followers stand on a tank against the August Coup, which leads to the end of the Soviet Union on 26 December 1991; Dolly the sheep is the first mammal to be cloned from an adult somatic cell; The funeral procession of Diana, Princess of Wales, who dies in 1997 from a car crash in Paris, and is mourned by millions; Hundreds of thousands of Tutsi people are killed in the Rwandan genocide of 1994.

Millennium:	2nd millennium
Centuries:	19th century – 20th century – 21st century
Decades:	1960s 1970s 1980s – 1990s – 2000s 2010s 2020s
Years:	1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999
Categories:	Births – Deaths – Architecture Establishments – Disestablishments

The 1990s was a decade of big changes. It started on January 1, 1990, and ended on December 31, 1999. During this time, the world saw major political shifts, new technologies, and exciting trends in music and entertainment. It was a time when the internet began to connect people globally.

Major World Events
- Political Changes
Famous People
Technology and Pop Culture
- New Technologies
- Popular Culture
Images for kids
See also

Major World Events

The 1990s brought many important changes around the world. Countries changed, and new agreements were made.

Political Changes

1990 — The Gulf War began. This was a conflict in the Middle East.
1991 — The Cold War officially ended. This was a long period of tension between the United States and the Soviet Union.
1991 — The country of Yugoslavia started to break apart. This led to new independent nations.
1991 — The Soviet Union also dissolved. Many new countries formed from its former parts.
1992 — The European Union was officially created. This group of European countries works together on many issues.
1993 — Czechoslovakia separated into two new countries: the Czech Republic and Slovakia.
1994 — Apartheid ended in South Africa. This was a system of racial segregation. Nelson Mandela became the country's first Black president.

Famous People

Many people became famous in the 1990s. They made their mark in movies, sports, and music.

Actors and Directors

The 1990s had many popular actors and directors. They created some of the most memorable movies and TV shows.

Athletes

Sports stars were also very popular in the 1990s. They broke records and inspired many fans.

Basketball

Boxing

Football (Soccer)

Ice Hockey

Other Sports

Tiger Woods (Golf)
Michael Schumacher (Formula 1)
Andre Agassi (Tennis)
Pete Sampras (Tennis)
Steffi Graf (Tennis)
Lance Armstrong (Cycling)

Musicians

The 1990s had many different types of music. Pop, hip hop, and rock music were very popular.

Technology and Pop Culture

The 1990s was a time of big changes in technology. It also saw new trends in how people spent their free time.

New Technologies

The Internet: The World Wide Web became available to more people. This allowed for new ways to share information.
Mobile Phones: Cell phones became much more common. They were still big, but more people started using them.
CD Players: Portable CD players were popular for listening to music. They offered better sound quality than cassette tapes.
Gaming Consoles: Video games became a huge part of entertainment. Consoles like the Super Nintendo, Sega Genesis, and PlayStation were very popular. The Nintendo 64 also came out later in the decade.

Popular Culture

TV Shows: Shows like Seinfeld and Friends were huge hits. Cartoons like Rugrats and The Simpsons were also very popular.
Movies: Films like Titanic broke box office records.
Fashion: Grunge style, with flannel shirts and ripped jeans, was popular.
Toys and Games: Tamagotchi digital pets and Pogs were popular toys for kids.

Images for kids

Yitzhak Rabin.
Hurricane Georges downed trees in Key West along the old houseboat row on South Roosevelt Blvd.
The crash site of El Al Flight 1862 in 1992.
The Dow Jones Index of the 1990s.
Bush and Gorbachev at the 1990 Helsinki summit.
Boris Yeltsin and Bill Clinton share a laugh in October 1995.
The logo created by The President's Council on the Year 2000 Conversion, for use on Y2K.gov.
A pair of Eurostar trains at the former Waterloo International.
Dolly the sheep is the first mammal to be cloned from an adult somatic cell.
Hubble Space Telescope.
Women's rights demonstration in Paris, November 1995.
Funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales, 1997.
The highest-grossing film of the decade was Titanic (1997).
Seinfeld premiered on NBC in 1989, becoming a commercial success and cultural phenomenon by 1993.
Friends, which premiered on NBC in 1994 became one of the most popular sitcoms of all time. From left, clockwise: Lisa Kudrow, Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Matthew Perry, Matt LeBlanc, and David Schwimmer, the six main actors of Friends.
Grunge-style flannel shirt and curtained hair.
Will Smith donning a Hi-top fade in 1993.
The Petronas Twin Towers were the world's tallest buildings when completed in 1999.
Fireworks in the SkyDome after Joe Carter's World Series-winning home run, as the Canadian Toronto Blue Jays won their second straight World Series title in 1993 against the US' Philadelphia Phillies.
Michael Jordan, the most popular NBA player of the 1990s.
A typical early 1990s Personal Computer.
An early portable CD player, a Sony Discman model D121.
Mobile phones gained massive popularity worldwide during the decade.
Pagers became widely popular.
The Super Nintendo was a hit in the 1990s.
The European PAL version of the Mega Drive launched in 1990, later becoming the highest-selling fourth-gen console in Europe.
Grunge styles were popular in the 1990s, as modelled here by Krist Novoselic (left) and Kurt Cobain of the band Nirvana, one of the most influential bands of the decade.
The internet was created and in its infancy in the 1990s.
The Nintendo 64 was released in 1996. Super Mario 64 was the best-selling game of the decade.
Crystal Pepsi was a popular drink in the 1990s, which was re-released in 2016.
Rugrats and other cartoons like Beavis and Butt-Head, The Simpsons, and Ren & Stimpy were popular in the 1990s.
A VHS-C tape as would be used in the 1990s.
One of the sets used in the television show Star Trek: The Next Generation, was popular in the 1990s.
The handheld digital pet device Tamagotchi became an especially popular game among children around the world during the decade.
Pogs was an especially popular game among children around the world during the decade.
In the 1990s, Dr. Martens shoes became a popular fashion item heavily influenced by the grunge scene and the prominent grunge musicians who wore them.
Nintendo's Game Boy was a popular handheld game console during the 1990s.
The PlayStation was released in the mid-1990s and became the best-selling gaming console of its time.
The game Tomb Raider, launched in 1996, became particularly popular during the decade and as a result Lara Croft's character eventually became a cultural icon in the video game industry.
Private LAN 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.