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The 1990s Portal

From top left, clockwise: The Hubble Space Telescope orbits the Earth after it was launched in 1990; American jets fly over burning oil fields in the 1991 Gulf War; the Oslo Accords on 13 September 1993; the World Wide Web gains massive popularity worldwide; Boris Yeltsin greets crowds after the failed August Coup, which leads to the dissolution 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 died in a 1997 car crash, and was mourned by millions; hundreds of thousands of Tutsi people are killed in the Rwandan genocide of 1994

The 1990s (pronounced "nineteen-nineties"; shortened to "the '90s") was a decade of the Gregorian calendar that began on 1 January 1990, and ended on 31 December 1999.

Culturally, the 1990s are characterized by the rise of multiculturalism and alternative media, which continues into the present day. Movements such as hip hop, the rave scene and grunge spread around the world to young people during that decade, aided by then-new technology such as cable television and the World Wide Web.

In the absence of world communism, which collapsed in the first two years of the decade, the 1990s was politically defined by a movement towards the right-wing, including increase in support for far-right parties in Europe[1] as well as the advent of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party[2] and cuts in social spending in the United States,[3] Canada,[4] New Zealand,[5] and the UK.[6] The United States also saw a massive revival in the use of the death penalty in the 1990s, which reversed in the early 21st century.[7] During the 1990s the character of the European Union and Euro were formed and codified in treaties.

A combination of factors, including the continued mass mobilization of capital markets through neo-liberalism, the thawing of the decades-long Cold War, the beginning of the widespread proliferation of new media such as the Internet from the middle of the decade onwards, increasing skepticism towards government, and the dissolution of the Soviet Union led to a realignment and reconsolidation of economic and political power across the world and within countries. The dot-com bubble of 1997–2000 brought wealth to some entrepreneurs before its crash between 2000 and 2001.

The 1990s saw extreme advances in technology, with the World Wide Web, the first gene therapy trial, and the first designer babies[8] all emerging in 1990 and being improved and built upon throughout the decade.

New ethnic conflicts emerged in Africa, the Balkans, and the Caucasus, the former two which led to the Rwandan and Bosnian genocides, respectively. Signs of any resolution of tensions between Israel and the Arab world remained elusive despite the progress of the Oslo Accords, though The Troubles in Northern Ireland came to a standstill in 1998 with the Good Friday Agreement after 30 years of violence.[9]

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The Cranberries performing in Paris, France in 2010. From left to right: Noel Hogan, Dolores O'Riordan, Fergal Lawler, and Mike Hogan.

The Cranberries were an Irish rock band formed in Limerick, Ireland, in 1989. The band was originally named The Cranberry Saw Us and featured singer Niall Quinn, guitarist Noel Hogan, bassist Mike Hogan, and drummer Fergal Lawler; Quinn was replaced as lead singer by Dolores O'Riordan in 1990, and the group changed their name to the Cranberries. The band classified themselves as an alternative rock group, but incorporated aspects of indie rock, jangle pop, dream pop, folk rock, post-punk, and pop rock into their sound.

In 1991, the Cranberries signed with Island Records, and released their debut album, Everybody Else Is Doing It, So Why Can't We? (1993), to commercial success. Their second album, No Need to Argue (1994), brought the band to international fame, and included the single "Zombie", which became a stadium anthem and one of the band's most recognizable songs. The band continued this success with the albums To the Faithful Departed (1996) and Bury the Hatchet (1999), and were transferred to MCA Records in 2000. Their fifth album, Wake Up and Smell the Coffee (2001), did not meet the commercial success of their preceding albums, and the band cited their dissatisfaction with the label's promotion. (Full article...)
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Logo of Windows 95, the most popular OS of the decade

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Christopher George Latore Wallace (May 21, 1972 – March 9, 1997), better known by his stage names The Notorious B.I.G. or Biggie Smalls, was an American rapper. Rooted in East Coast hip hop and particularly gangsta rap, he is widely considered to be one of the greatest rappers of all time. Wallace became known for his distinctive laid-back lyrical delivery, offsetting the lyrics' often grim content.

Born and raised in Brooklyn, New York City, Wallace signed with Sean "Puffy" Combs' label Bad Boy Records as it launched in 1993, and gained exposure through features on several other artists' singles that year. His debut studio album Ready to Die (1994) was met with widespread critical acclaim and supported by his signature songs, "Juicy", "Big Poppa", and "One More Chance". The album made him the central figure in East Coast hip hop, and restored New York's visibility at a time when the West Coast hip hop scene was dominating the genre. "Big Poppa" earned a nomination for Best Solo Rap Performance at the 38th Annual Grammy Awards, while Wallace himself won Rap Artist of the Year at the 1995 Billboard Music Awards. That same year, he introduced and led his protégé group Junior M.A.F.I.A., which included Lil' Kim, to chart success with executive production on their debut album, Conspiracy (1995). (Full article...)

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Sources

  1. ^ Merkl, Peter; Leonard, Weinberg (2 August 2004). Right-wing Extremism in the Twenty-first Century. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-135-76421-0.
  2. ^ "India – The Bharatiya Janata Party and the Rise of Hindu Nationalism".
  3. ^ ROSEN, RUTH (27 December 1994). "Which of Us Isn't Taking 'Welfare'? : Poor children rank low in government largess; why is the comfortable class so mean?". Los Angeles Times.
  4. ^ Séguin, Gilles. "Provincial Welfare Reforms in the 1990s – Canadian Social Research Links".
  5. ^ Maloney, Tim (1 May 2002). "Welfare Reform and Unemployment in New Zealand". Economica. 69 (274): 273–293. doi:10.1111/1468-0335.00283.
  6. ^ "Policy Exchange – Shaping the Policy Agenda" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 21 January 2014.
  7. ^ https://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2013/12/19/report-us-executions-dipped-in-2013
  8. ^ Handyside, AH; Kontogianni, EH; Hardy, K; Winston, RM (1990). "Pregnancies from biopsied human preimplantation embryos sexed by Y-specific DNA amplification". Nature. 344 (6268): 768–70. Bibcode:1990Natur.344..768H. doi:10.1038/344768a0. PMID 2330030.
  9. ^ Stiglitz, Joseph E. (2004). The Roaring Nineties. W. W. Norton. ISBN 978-0-393-32618-5.
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