History UsefulNotes / The90s

* Professional UsefulNotes/{{basketball}} exploded in popularity, thanks in no small part to UsefulNotes/MichaelJordan, the man often called basketball's version of [[UsefulNotes/{{Baseball}} Babe Ruth]] or [[UsefulNotes/AssociationFootball Pele]]. It's no coincidence that the most watched basketball game of all time was in 1998. Also, thanks to a rules change the 1992 Olympics marked the debut of [[DreamTeam "The Dream Team"]] -- a US men's national basketball team composed almost entirely of NBA superstars who beat their opponents by an average of 43.8 points per game on their way to the gold medal.

* Banking was changed forever by digital technology. In 1990, [=ATMs=] were rare [[note]]and virtually always attached to, if not ''inside'', a bank[[/note]], by 1999, they were on every street corner. Ditto for in store debit, and the number of places that took credit cards. Many people made only minimum payments on their credit cards, as the Depression-era stigma against being in debt had almost completely faded away and banks were much more generous with cards and credit lines. Households were also highly leveraged with mortgages and car loans. No one anticipated that this level of debt would ever cause problems down the line. TheNineties became the decade where the only reason to actually talk to someone who worked at the bank was to get a loan or open an account. Until the very late 1990's it was unheard of to pay for fast food with a card. And you certainly wouldn't expect to be able to use your card at a vending machine. Credit cards were still mainly used for big-ticket items, in retail stores, for mail order, in gas stations, and in full-service restaurants. There were plenty of places to use them, with the peak of brick-and-mortar retail, the advent of e-commerce, and the general prosperity of the era.

* Creator/DreamWorks was formed as Dreamworks SKG in 1994 by director Creator/StevenSpielberg, ex-Disney executive Jeffrey Katzenberg and music producer David Geffen. It was one of the first new Hollywood studios in several decades due to the vast expense of operating a studio. The studio focused on live action and animation films (the latter handled by Creator/DreamworksAnimation). It also operated a television division and a [[Creator/DreamWorksRecords record label]].

** In the UK, [[UsefulNotes/TheTroubles the IRA]] continued to be a threat, albeit a diminishing one, until quite late in the decade, thanks to some political wheeling and dealing that required one of the Ulster Loyalist parties propping up UsefulNotes/JohnMajor's government, and the continued financial support of the IRA from Noraid in the US.

* MoralGuardians were at their most hot-and-bothered since TheFifties, as a result of shows like ''WesternAnimation/BeavisAndButthead'' and ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'', [[MurderSimulators violent video games]] (more on that below) and musicians like Music/MarilynManson and most GangstaRap artists. The guardianship was thought to have [[JumpTheShark jumped the shark]] in 1994 when a Jerry Falwell-produced video claimed that President UsefulNotes/BillClinton was a SerialKiller who had ordered hits on political enemies, but it came back with a vengeance after UsefulNotes/{{Columbine}} provided them with a holy grail of things to panic about -- [[TeensAreMonsters two teenagers]] who [[MurderSimulators played]] ''VideoGame/{{Doom}}'' and listened to [[TheNewRockAndRoll "violent" rock music]] shooting up their school while dressed in black.

* MoralGuardians were at their most hot-and-bothered since TheFifties, as a result of shows like ''WesternAnimation/BeavisAndButthead'' and ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'', [[MurderSimulators violent video games]] (more on that below) and musicians like Music/MarilynManson and most GangstaRap artists. The guardianship was thought to have [[JumpTheShark jumped the shark]] in 1994 when a Jerry Falwell-produced video claimed that President UsefulNotes/BillClinton was a SerialKiller who had [[ConspiracyTheorist ordered hits on political enemies]], but it came back with a vengeance after UsefulNotes/{{Columbine}} provided them with a holy grail of things to panic about -- [[TeensAreMonsters two teenagers]] who [[MurderSimulators played]] ''VideoGame/{{Doom}}'' and listened to [[TheNewRockAndRoll "violent" rock music]] shooting up their school while dressed in black.

* As stated above, TheNineties was the era in which the MoralGuardians were always in a tizzy. While it was brewing in the '80s and early '90s (UsefulNotes/DanQuayle's complaints about ''Series/MurphyBrown'', the [[MediaScaremongering moral panics]] over [[RockMeAsmodeus heavy metal]] and [[UsefulNotes/ConspiracyTheories Satanic cults]]), the presence of conservative Presidents UsefulNotes/RonaldReagan and UsefulNotes/GeorgeHWBush meant that the Christian Right felt itself to have a friend in the White House (regardless of how Reagan and Bush felt), and never felt truly pressured. However, the rise of UsefulNotes/BillClinton (the sax-playing, Creator/{{MTV}}-loving horndog who "[[LoopholeAbuse smoked but didn't inhale]]") in 1992 and the high profile of [[UsefulNotes/HillaryRodhamClinton his wife Hillary]] (who, during the election, gave off the image of a textbook StrawFeminist thanks to her [[DeadpanSnarker snarky quotes]] about baking cookies and "standing by my man like Tammy Wynette") set off many religious conservatives. The first real shot was fired by Patrick Buchanan in his infamous [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_war "culture war"]] speech at the 1992 Republican National Convention, which became a rallying point for millions on the Christian Right who made "public morality" a major issue throughout the '90s.

* The death of [[UsefulNotes/DianaPrincessOfWales Lady Diana Spencer, former Princess of Wales]], on August 31 1997, dominated headlines for several weeks (if not months). A fashion icon and beloved celebrity known as "The People's Princess" due to her down-to-earth personality and extensive charity work, her accidental death via car crash brought an unprecedented spasm of grief and mourning not just in the UsefulNotes/UnitedKingdom, but the world over. Numerous UsefulNotes/ConspiracyTheories would arise over the nature of her demise.

* Gender politics began to seriously change throughout the decade in ways that suggested the feminist movement of the late 1960's had been ahead of its time. Social attitudes and patterns of thought that had previously been acceptable were challenged and opposed as more women got into positions of power and influence, especially in TV and the media. There were some notable hangovers of "male chauvinist" hegemony: the PageThreeStunna in UsefulNotes/BritishNewspapers, for instance, and the emergence of "lads' mags" as a sort of backlash against against the new reality, such as the controversial ''Magazine/{{Loaded}}'' and its wave of imitators such as ''GQ'' and ''Maxim''. And in the mainstream, comedy had to move on from sexist cheap laughs and jokes at the expense of women, minorities and gays. ValuesDissonance became obvious when considering older TV and radio comedy thought these groups were [[OnceAcceptableTargets perfectly acceptable joke fodder]].

* In UsefulNotes/{{Canada}}, the country came within a hair's breath (within ''1%'') of the country splitting apart, with Quebec voting to separate from the rest of Canada in a provincial referendum. Fortunately, while the Federalists side despaired that all they seemed to do is delay the inevitable, the frustrated separatist Quebec premier inadvertently prevented that when he went into a SoreLoser tirade complaining about he was thwarted by "Money and the ethnic vote." At that rash statement, his comrades gave themselves a massive FacePalm while minorities got a forceful reminder at how brazenly ethnocentric the separatist side was, and thus the "winning conditions" to have a third separation referendum have proved frustratingly out of reach.

* Meanwhile, in the music world, it was the domain of the CD, and to a lesser extent the cassette; vinyl had been pushed into obscurity and at most was only really used by [=DJs=], collectors, people who wanted to listen to albums unavailable on CD, audiophiles, and the hopelessly backward. Cassettes were the main means of recording audio and listening to it on the move, although portable CD players existed and by the end of the decade, recordable CD formats (CD-R and CD-RW) had become affordable for consumers. A whole host of technologies had previously tried to replace the analogue audio cassette; besides a whole host of not-very-successful digital tape formats, by far the most well-known was probably Minidisc, though even that never really caught on and the players/recorders remained quite expensive compared to cheaper cassette machines. The CD had already been introduced in UsefulNotes/TheEighties, but was considered an expensive luxury for audiophiles. It was only around the turn of the decade that the format finally began to take off, thanks to dropping prices of players and discs.

* What was rock music like in the '90s? Well, HairMetal hung on for the first couple of years in bold defiance of changing tides, but was soon acid-washed from history by {{grunge}}. Grunge, in turn, suffered a backlash as Music/KurtCobain [[DrivenToSuicide killed himself]] and increasingly derivative bands partook in a lyrical style that Creator/NathanRabin dubbed "Hunger-Dunger-Dang." However, even though grunge itself was out, the musical style influenced many bands in what is now known as "PostGrunge", which became prevalent late in the decade and remained so until UsefulNotes/TheNewTens. NuMetal arose and peaked around the same time as post-grunge, and Music/{{emo}} was first starting to get mainstream attention thanks to Music/{{Weezer}}.

* From our perch in TheNewTens, the '90s can seem hopelessly primitive. In fact, dramatic change was the norm throughout the decade: it began with a handful of people on Usenet or text-only [=BBSes=][[note]]Bulletin Board Systems, tiny message boards usually run by someone out of his basement and/or bedroom, to which you dialed in directly (as in "Come check out my kewl BBS! 555-1212, 8 bits, parity, no stop bit.")[[/note]], and ended with everyone and their dog having web pages and sharing music on Napster. We even had viral videos -- [[WesternAnimation/{{SouthPark}} "The Spirit of Christmas"]] came out in 1995, and [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troops_%28film%29 "Troops"]] came out in 1997. (You had to download them in pieces, because they were too large to be downloaded all at once.)

* The Nineties was also a decade in which CountryMusic rode a new wave of popularity outside its rural demographic, fueled by superstar "hat acts" and crossover performers like Music/GarthBrooks, Music/RebaMcEntire, Music/TravisTritt, Music/AlanJackson, Music/ClintBlack, Music/VinceGill, Music/ShaniaTwain, Music/FaithHill (and her future husband, Music/TimMcGraw) and Music/BillyRayCyrus (yes, [[Music/MileyCyrus Miley's]] father), along with country groups like Music/{{Lonestar}}, Music/TheMavericks and Music/BrooksAndDunn who found a way to market the style to modern, baby-boomer rock audiences while retaining a country/rural image and style. Albums like Garth's ''Ropin' The Wind'' and ''No Fences'' and Billy Ray's ''Some Gave All'' competed mightily with {{Music/Nirvana}} and Music/MichaelJackson on the Billboard album charts, and line dancing was a widespread trend. It helped that [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luminate_Data#History Nielsen's [=SoundScan=] system\\ reinvented how music sales were being counted, revealing a huge interest in crossover country with Walmart shoppers.

* The Nineties was also a decade in which CountryMusic rode a new wave of popularity outside its rural demographic, fueled by superstar "hat acts" and crossover performers like Music/GarthBrooks, Music/RebaMcEntire, Music/TravisTritt, Music/AlanJackson, Music/ClintBlack, Music/VinceGill, Music/ShaniaTwain, Music/FaithHill (and her future husband, Music/TimMcGraw) and Music/BillyRayCyrus (yes, [[Music/MileyCyrus Miley's]] father), along with country groups like Music/{{Lonestar}}, Music/TheMavericks and Music/BrooksAndDunn who found a way to market the style to modern, baby-boomer rock audiences while retaining a country/rural image and style. Albums like Garth's ''Ropin' The Wind'' and ''No Fences'' and Billy Ray's ''Some Gave All'' competed mightily with {{Music/Nirvana}} and Music/MichaelJackson on the Billboard album charts, and line dancing was a widespread trend. It helped that [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luminate_Data#History Neilsen's [=SoundScan=] system reinvented how music sales were being counted, revealing a huge interest in crossover country with Walmart shoppers.

* The Nineties was also a decade in which CountryMusic rode a new wave of popularity outside its rural demographic, fueled by superstar "hat acts" and crossover performers like Music/GarthBrooks, Music/RebaMcEntire, Music/TravisTritt, Music/AlanJackson, Music/ClintBlack, Music/VinceGill, Music/ShaniaTwain, Music/FaithHill (and her future husband, Music/TimMcGraw) and Music/BillyRayCyrus (yes, [[Music/MileyCyrus Miley's]] father), along with country groups like Music/{{Lonestar}}, Music/TheMavericks and Music/BrooksAndDunn who found a way to market the style to modern, baby-boomer rock audiences while retaining a country/rural image and style. Albums like Garth's ''Ropin' The Wind'' and ''No Fences'' and Billy Ray's ''Some Gave All'' competed mightily with {{Music/Nirvana}} and Music/MichaelJackson on the Billboard album charts, and line dancing was a widespread trend. It helped that Walmart's Soundscan system reinvented how music sales were being counted, revealing a huge interest in crossover country with Walmart shoppers.

* To listen to Top 40 radio in the 1990s would mean being buried under endless waves of Sixpence, Music/SuzanneVega, and tons of more mellow vocal artists. In the late '90s, {{boy band}}s and [[IdolSinger pop princesses]] became extremely popular and started blanketing the airwaves.

** Disney fans frequently cherish the decade as the studio's second GoldenAge, an era known as the "Disney Renaissance". After a brief DorkAge in TheEighties, the Mouse Factory came roaring back with a string of hits in ''WesternAnimation/{{The Little Mermaid|1989}}'', ''WesternAnimation/BeautyAndTheBeast'', ''WesternAnimation/{{Aladdin}}'', ''WesternAnimation/{{The Lion King|1994}}'', and ''WesternAnimation/ToyStory1''. As a child growing up in TheNineties, you were ostracized if you had not seen ''WesternAnimation/{{The Lion King|1994}}'' yet.

A number of noteworthy trends took place in early-mid '90s gaming. Creator/{{Sega}}'s ''[[VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehog1 Sonic the Hedgehog]]'' pioneered the MascotWithAttitude in 1991, bringing a TotallyRadical flair into gaming and spawning a legion of [[FollowTheLeader copycats]] who would often take digs at [[Franchise/SuperMarioBros Mario]] and [[Franchise/SonicTheHedgehog Sonic]]. This trend went out of fashion by the end of the decade, as the Sonic franchise went through its [[UsefulNotes/SegaSaturn Saturn]]-era DorkAge and many of its copycats poorly handled their {{Video Game 3D Leap}}s, with 2001's ''VideoGame/ConkersBadFurDay'', a ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark''-esque parody of the genre, providing the denouement. FullMotionVideo and virtual reality were also hyped up, with many people predicting that the future of gaming was in interactive movies and the ability to actually be ''in'' the game, man. After a few years of grainy, sub-VHS-quality video with [[DullSurprise production]] [[SpecialEffectFailure values]] [[NoBudget to match]], [[SensoryAbuse eye strain]], and bombs like the UsefulNotes/VirtualBoy and ''VideoGame/NightTrap'', gamers realized that, no, this was not the future.\\\

** As stated elsewhere, Creator/{{Fox}} [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6oR89IE6k8 shocked the entire industry]] by nabbing the rights to the NFC football package from CBS (who had broadcast it since ''1956'') for a record $1.58 million. In addition to that, they also poached CBS' announcers ''and'' many of their stronger affiliates -- Rupert Murdoch had seen how sports rights helped fuel his Sky satellite service in the UK, and to that end was determined to make Fox a sports powerhouse. By 1996, Fox had acquired rights to the NHL ''and'' MLB too (the latter coming off the [[DorkAge disastrous]] "Baseball Network" experiment), and had ascended to become the true fourth network. Though many feared how Fox would mess with their football (ie. having Bart Simpson be an announcer), what they did change included, for the very first time, a permanent score box/timer in the corner of the screen, and parabolic microphones (as to hear the fans in the stands and the coaches/refs on the sidelines). Not to mention, the introduction of what the producers dubbed "[[https://deadspin.com/batman-on-steroids-how-the-nfl-on-fox-theme-song-was-b-1481367234 Batman owning a sports team]]", in the form of the now-legendary ''NFL on Fox'' theme.

* ProfessionalWrestling experienced some significant changes in the 1990s. Interest in pro wrestling in the eighties was immense, but patchwork, with the then-WWF as the frontrunner, but with the [[Wrestling/AmericanWrestlingAssociation AWA]], Mid-South, and the [[Wrestling/NationalWrestlingAlliance NWA]] and its territories all commanding large fanbases. The nineties saw a great deal of contraction, as the [[Wrestling/{{WWF}} WWF]] solidified its hold as the top name in wrestling and many other regional companies withered away. The final demise of the true territory system also came as the remaining established [=NWA=] territories consolidated into [[Wrestling/{{WCW}} World Championship Wrestling]] throughout '92 and '93. An attempt at revival was made with the second-tier territory [[Wrestling/{{ECW}} NWA Eastern Championship Wrestling]], which after WCW's breakaway was the largest remaining in the [=NWA=], staging a championship tournament in August '94 billed as the [=NWA's=] grand revival. This territory, too, broke away in famously grandiose fashion, rebranding itself as Extreme Championship Wrestling, producing groundbreaking television but almost completely off the radar except by word of mouth[[labelnote:*]]Except for a one time only crossover episode of Raw in 1997 held in Philadelphia, ECW's home city, which featured several [=ECW=] stars and matches on [=WWF=] television, one of many pre-Attitude Era moves by [=WWF=] to counter WCW's surging fortunes. It did very little for [=WWF=], as the common fan had never seen nor heard of these wrestlers, but it did wonders for [=ECW=], as they wanted to find out, and on searching the embryonic internet traced these new names to a tiny regional territory airing shows on late-night pay-for-air television, which caused interest to surge[[/labelnote]]. Television shows ''[[Wrestling/{{WWERaw}} Monday Night Raw]]'' and ''Wrestling/WCWMondayNitro'' made their debuts in 1993 and 1995, respectively, the second of which would be the first wrestling show to match [=WWF's=] top quality production values, miles above the dark and grainy video marketed by most competitors to date. Both companies in the mid-90s went through a brief DorkAge before late '96, when at WCW's ''Bash at the Beach'' [=PPV=], [[Wrestling/HulkHogan Hulk Hogan]] performed the most famous FaceHeelTurn in history, the sheer unexpectedness of wrestling's ultimate good guy going bad garnering widespread media attention, and launching the [[Wrestling/NewWorldOrder New World Order]] angle. For the first time in over a decade, [[=WWF=] faced serious competition and floundered in ratings and attendance, until going DarkerAndEdgier with what would be known as the Wrestling/AttitudeEra, which generally featured a lot of black, swearing, and sex appeal, and the first appearances of [[Wrestling/StoneColdSteveAustin "Stone Cold" Steve Austin]] and [[Wrestling/DwayneJohnson Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson]], the former of which would be the biggest moneymaker in the industry and the latter in the Top 5, but by the mid-2010s would be the biggest action star in Hollywood. The ratings war between the two companies, called the Wrestling/MondayNightWars (as the flagship show for both companies aired on Monday evenings, generally head to head) would propel wrestling back into the mainstream with the largest fanbase in decades, with the combined audience of the two shows exceeding those of the [=NFL's=] Monday Night Football. The war largely ended in 1999, as [=WCW=] took a sharp downturn while being seen as creatively stagnant, unable to follow up on its nWo angle in the face of [=WWF's=] own ambitious creative risktaking; losing money by the truckload and UsefulNotes/TedTurner (who had protected WCW in gratitude for wrestling saving his bacon in the 70s) being KickedUpstairs did it no favors with the [=TimeWarner=] higher-ups; the arrival of [[ExecutiveMeddling Jamie Kellner]] as head of Turner Broadcasting proved the final death knell, as he sold WCW's assets to the WWE. As for [=ECW=], they had immense cult popularity, but never had the exposure to become anything more than a bit player between the two juggernauts, though many top level performers in both companies saw action in [=ECW=] rings.

** Prior to that, alternative, proprietary standards (most notably the Apple Mac, as well as, at least outside the US, the UsefulNotes/{{Amiga}} and that stalwart of British schools post-UsefulNotes/BBCMicro, the UsefulNotes/AcornArchimedes), were still modestly successful, and to their supporters, vastly superior to your average "PC clone". As IBM-clones rose in popularity, Apple went through a DorkAge and struggled to keep up until Steve Jobs returned and the iMac was launched, ending the preconception of computers as boring beige boxes with its iconic case design, as well as having such revolutionary things as built in USB ports and the CDR-R/RW drive replacing the floppy drive altogether. The fate of Commodore and Acorn was not so rosy: they both went out of business, although the Amiga and RISCOS platforms were still kept alive by enthusiasts, and the ARM processors found in the UsefulNotes/AcornArchimedes evolved into that which power our mobile phones, tablets and Raspberry Pis today. Scientists and engineers used UsefulNotes/{{UNIX}} RISC workstations from companies like Sun Microsystems, Silicon Graphics, and HP, until they started to be displaced by Windows NT and free Linux distributions running on Intel hardware; more on that below.

* The '90s was more or less the decade of the {{sitcom}}. ''Series/{{Cheers}}'', ''Series/MarriedWithChildren'', and ''Series/{{Seinfeld}}'' led the way, followed by ''Series/{{Frasier}}'' and ''Series/{{Friends}}''. The two most popular setups for sitcoms in the era seemed to be either a) {{dysfunctional famil|y}}ies (taking after ''Married...'', ''Series/{{Roseanne}}'', and ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons''), or b) "hip" singles in the city, often [[FriendsRentControl living together]] (taking after ''Friends'' and ''Series/LivingSingle''; ''Frasier'' was a different sort of beast). SturgeonsLaw, of course, was in full effect, and since the aforementioned shows were so popular, a deluge of uninspired copycats trying to cash in on the trend. The worst sitcoms today would seem positively mediocre compared to some of the things that aired back then, like ''Charlie Hoover''.

* In the middle of the decade, when the final selected host city for the Centennial 1996 Olympics was hustling and bustling Southern city {{Atlanta}}, which was, and still is, a major center for the African-American civil rights movement, it was a chance to show that the people of the city was behind the racial stigma that loomed over American history. While detractors stated that the '''Centennial''' Olympics should've been in Athens, the actual home country of the Olympics, and that Atlanta wasn't very modern, but nevertheless it went underway.

* As for the US {{networks}}, Creator/{{NBC}} was the king of the roost thanks to its lineup of {{sitcom}}s. Creator/{{Fox}} had ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'', ''Series/TheXFiles'', and its massive sports contracts to fall back on, and Creator/{{CBS}} (after Fox took away its' sports rights, and to add insult to injury, plundered their affiliate base {which in turn caused a DisasterDominoes effect across the entire industry}) and Creator/{{ABC}} were neck-and-neck at the bottom. ABC did have a success story with TGIF, though. 1995 saw the birth of Creator/TheWB and Creator/{{UPN}}, and while neither would reach the mass appeal of the Big Four, they would ultimately be successful within their own niches (teenagers and young adults for the WB, and African-Americans for UPN).

** Action cartoons also began to try and break out of the ghetto with Creator/HannaBarbera's ''WesternAnimation/SwatKats'', ABC's ''WesternAnimation/SonicTheHedgehogSatAM'' (based off the mega-popular [[Franchise/SonicTheHedgehog video game]]), and Creator/{{Universal}}'s ''WesternAnimation/{{Exosquad}}'' having lots of rather violent action and dark plots for kids' cartoons; ultimately this, along with a bunch of other factors (''What-A-Cartoon'' (see below) causing ''SWAT Kats'' to be canceled, Disney acquired ABC and remade it's Saturday AM lineup, resulting in ''Sonic'' getting the boot; ''Exosquad'', being syndicated, was placed in crappy timeslots) caused them to end before they should've. All three series still retain an immense following (with ''Sonic'' continuing in a way via the [[ComicBook/SonicTheHedgehogArchieComics Archie Comics series]], and the creators of ''SWAT Kats'' creating a Kickstarter in 2015 for a rebooted series).

** Creator/CarolcoPictures and Vestron were two other casualties. The former made its' name with big budget action flicks like the ''Rambo'' franchise, while the latter was a video distribution company that found unexpected success with the B-movie ''Dirty Dancing''. Carolco still had a number of hits early in the decade (''Film/Terminator2JudgmentDay'' especially), but soon began sinking under the weight of flops and a changing marketplace. ''Film/CutthroatIsland'' proved to be the final blow, and killed Carolco off for good. As for Vestron, they weren't able to keep pace with the changing tastes of the consumer, as they mostly continued with the B-movie shlock that fueled their rise to begin with. They were bought by rival Live Entertainment in 1991, and today their name is used by Artisan successor Creator/{{Lionsgate}} for a line of Blu-rays featuring their cult favorite releases.

* After years of planning, HDTV began to take its' first steps in the mid-90s, with some models available by the end of the decade. However, these early HD sets were huge and costly, and you couldn't find much in the way of HD content at the time either.

* Banking was changed forever by digital technology. In 1990, [=ATMs=] were rare [[note]]and virtually always attached to, if not ''inside'', a bank[[/note]], by 1999, they were on every street corner. Ditto for in store debit, and the number of places that took credit cards. Many people made only minimum payments on their credit cards, as the Depression-era stigma against being in debt had almost completely faded away and banks were much more generous with cards and credit lines. Households were also highly leveraged with mortgages and car loans. TheNineties became the decade where the only reason to actually talk to someone who worked at the bank was to get a loan or open an account. Until the very late 1990's it was unheard of to pay for fast food with a card. And you certainly wouldn't expect to be able to use your card at a vending machine. Credit cards were still mainly used for big-ticket items, in retail stores, for mail order, in gas stations, and in full-service restaurants. There were plenty of places to use them, with the peak of brick-and-mortar retail, the advent of e-commerce, and the general prosperity of the era.

* Banking was changed forever by digital technology. In 1990, [=ATMs=] were rare [[note]]and virtually always attached to, if not ''inside'', a bank[[/note]], by 1999, they were on every street corner. Ditto for in store debit, and the number of places that took credit cards. Many people made only minimum payments on their credit cards, as the Depression-era stigma against being in debt had almost completely faded away and banks were much more generous with cards and credit lines. Households were also highly leveraged with mortgages and car loans. TheNineties became the decade where the only reason to actually talk to someone who worked at the bank was to get a loan or open an account. Until the very late 1990's it was unheard of to pay for fast food with a card. And you certainly wouldn't expect to be able to use your card at a vending machine. Credit cards were still mainly used for big-ticket items, in retail stores, in gas stations, and in full-service restaurants. There were plenty of places to use them, with the peak of brick-and-mortar retail, the advent of e-commerce, and the general prosperity of the era.

* Banking was changed forever by digital technology. In 1990, [=ATMs=] were rare [[note]]and virtually always attached to, if not ''inside'', a bank[[/note]], by 1999, they were on every street corner. Ditto for in store debit, and the number of places that took credit cards. Many people made only minimum payments on their credit cards, as the Depression-era stigma against being in debt had almost completely faded away and banks were muych more generous with cards and credit lines. Households were also highly leveraged with mortgages and car loans. TheNineties became the decade where the only reason to actually talk to someone who worked at the bank was to get a loan or open an account. Until the very late 1990's it was unheard of to pay for fast food with a card. And you certainly wouldn't expect to be able to use your card at a vending machine. Credit cards were still mainly used for big-ticket items, in retail stores, in gas stations, and in full-service restaurants. There were plenty of places to use them, with the peak of brick-and-mortar retail, the advent of e-commerce, and the general prosperity of the era.

* Banking was changed forever by digital technology. In 1990, [=ATMs=] were rare [[note]]and virtually always attached to, if not ''inside'', a bank[[/note]], by 1999, they were on every street corner. Ditto for in store debit, and the number of places that took credit cards. Many people made only minimum payments on their credit cards, as the Depression-era stigma against being in debt had almost completely faded away and banks were muych more generous with cards and credit lines. TheNineties became the decade where the only reason to actually talk to someone who worked at the bank was to get a loan or open an account. Until the very late 1990's it was unheard of to pay for fast food with a card. And you certainly wouldn't expect to be able to use your card at a vending machine. Credit cards were still mainly used for big-ticket items, in retail stores, in gas stations, and in full-service restaurants. There were plenty of places to use them, with the peak of brick-and-mortar retail, the advent of e-commerce, and the general prosperity of the era.

* Banking was changed forever by digital technology. In 1990, [=ATMs=] were rare [[note]]and virtually always attached to, if not ''inside'', a bank[[/note]], by 1999, they were on every street corner. Ditto for in store debit, and the number of places that took credit cards. Many people made only minimum payments on their credit cards, as the Depression-era stigma against being in debt had almost completely faded away and banks were muych more generous with cards and credit lines. TheNineties became the decade where the only reason to actually talk to someone who worked at the bank was to get a loan or open an account. Until the very late 1990's it was unheard of to pay for fast food with a card. And you certainly wouldn't expect to be able to use your card at a vending machine. Credit cards were still mainly used for big-ticket items, in gas stations, and in full-service restaurants. There were plenty of places to use them, with the peak of brick-and-mortar retail, the advent of e-commerce, and the general prosperity of the era.

* Banking was changed forever by digital technology. In 1990, [=ATMs=] were rare [[note]]and virtually always attached to, if not ''inside'', a bank[[/note]], by 1999, they were on every street corner. Ditto for in store debit, and the number of places that took credit cards. Many people made only minimum payments on their credit cards, as the Depression-era stigma against being in debt had almost completely faded away and banks were muych more generous with cards and credit lines. TheNineties became the decade where the only reason to actually talk to someone who worked at the bank was to get a loan or open an account. Until the very late 1990's it was unheard of to pay for fast food with a card. And you certainly wouldn't expect to be able to use your card at a vending machine. Credit cards were still mainly used for big-ticket items, in gas stations, and in full-service restaurants. There were plenty of places to use them, with the peak of brick-and-mortar retail and the advent of e-commerce.

* Banking was changed forever by digital technology. In 1990, [=ATMs=] were rare [[note]]and virtually always attached to, if not ''inside'', a bank[[/note]], by 1999, they were on every street corner. Ditto for in store debit, and the number of places that took credit cards. Many people made only minimum payments on their credit cards, as the Depression-era stigma against being in debt had almost completely faded away. TheNineties became the decade where the only reason to actually talk to someone who worked at the bank was to get a loan or open an account. Until the very late 1990's it was unheard of to pay for fast food with a card. And you certainly wouldn't expect to be able to use your card at a vending machine. Credit cards were still mainly used for big-ticket items, in gas stations, and in full-service restaurants. There were plenty of places to use them, with the peak of brick-and-mortar retail and the advent of e-commerce.

* Banking was changed forever by digital technology. In 1990, [=ATMs=] were rare [[note]]and virtually always attached to, if not ''inside'', a bank[[/note]], by 1999, they were on every street corner. Ditto for in store debit, and the number of places that took credit cards. Many people made only minimum payments on their credit cards, as the Depression-era stigma against being in debt had almost completely faded away. TheNineties became the decade where the only reason to actually talk to someone who worked at the bank was to get a loan or open an account. Until the very late 1990's it was unheard of to pay for fast food with a card. And you certainly wouldn't expect to be able to use your card at a vending machine. Credit cards were still mainly used for big-ticket items, in gas stations, and in full-service restaurants.

* Banking was changed forever by digital technology. In 1990, [=ATMs=] were rare [[note]]and virtually always attached to, if not ''inside'', a bank[[/note]], by 1999, they were on every street corner. Ditto for in store debit, and the number of places that took credit cards. TheNineties became the decade where the only reason to actually talk to someone who worked at the bank was to get a loan or open an account. Until the very late 1990's it was unheard of to pay for fast food with a card. And you certainly wouldn't expect to be able to use your card at a vending machine.

* The UsefulNotes/{{Algeria}}n [[UsefulNotes/AlgerianCivilWar Civil War]], which lasted from 1991 to 2002. It caused over 150,000 deaths and several terrorist attacks, such as two [[HostageCrisis hostage crises]] onboard airliners in France.

* [[WhyWeAreBummedCommunismFell As Communism had begun to fall]] in many countries around 1989, the UsefulNotes/ColdWar is said to have truly ended in '91 with the dissolving of the Soviet Union.
* The death of [[UsefulNotes/TheHouseOfWindsor Diana Spencer, former Princess of Wales]], on August 31 1997, dominated headlines for several weeks. A fashion icon and beloved celebrity known as "The People's Princess" due to her down-to-earth personality and extensive charity work, her accidental death via car crash brought an unprecedented spasm of grief and mourning not just in the United Kingdom, but the world over. Numerous UsefulNotes/ConspiracyTheories would arise over the nature of her demise.