In 1994, the world was a different place.
There was no Google yet. Or 208.116.50.174, for that matter.
In 1994, the year of your birth, the top selling movie was The Lion King. People buying the popcorn in the cinema lobby had glazing eyes when looking at the poster.
People were indeed watching movies in the cinema, and not downloading them online. Imagine the packed seats, the laughter, the excitement, the novelty.
Do you know who won the Oscars that year? The academy award for the best movie went to Forrest Gump. The Oscar for best foreign movie that year went to Burnt by the Sun. The top actor was Tom Hanks for his role as Forrest Gump in Forrest Gump. The top actress was Jessica Lange for her role as Carly Marshall in Blue Sky. The best director? Robert Zemeckis for Forrest Gump.
In the year 1994, the time when you arrived on this planet, books were still popularly read on paper, not on digital devices. Trees were felled to get the word out. The number one US bestseller of the time was The Chamber by John Grisham. Oh, that's many years ago. Have you read that book? Have you heard of it? Look at the cover!
In 1994... The North American Free Trade Agreement, NAFTA, is established. U.S. President Bill Clinton and Russian President Boris Yeltsin sign the Kremlin Accords, which stop the preprogrammed aiming of nuclear missiles toward each country's targets. A photo by Marmaduke Wetherell, previously touted as 'proof' of the Loch Ness monster, is confirmed to be a hoax. The Church of England ordains its first female priests. U.S. troops are withdrawn from Somalia. Apple Computer, Inc releases the first Macintosh computers to use the new PowerPC Microprocessors. TV tycoon Silvio Berlusconi's right-wing coalition wins the Italian general election. Michelangelo's Universal Judgement is reopened to the public after 10 years of restorations. Commodore International, makers of the C64 and the Amiga computers, declares bankruptcy. The Channel Tunnel, which took 15,000 workers over 7 years to complete, opens between England and France, enabling passengers to travel between the 2 countries in 35 minutes. Mortal Kombat II is released for home consoles. It is the first Mortal Kombat title to contain blood and gore on Nintendo platforms. In Slovakia, populist leader Vladimir Meciar wins the general election. The 1994 FIFA World Cup begins in the United States. NASA loses radio contact with the Magellan spacecraft as the probe descends into the thick atmosphere of Venus. Civil unions between homosexuals are legalized in Sweden. The video game of the day was Tekken.
That was the world you were born into. Since then, you and others have changed it.
The Nobel prize for Literature that year went to O-e Kenzaburo-. The Nobel Peace prize went to Yasser Arafat, Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres. The Nobel prize for physics went to Bertram Brockhouse from Canada for the development of neutron spectroscopy and for pioneering contributions to the development of neutron scattering techniques for studies of condensed matter. The sensation this created was big. But it didn't stop the planets from spinning, on and on, year by year. Years in which you would grow bigger, older, smarter, and, if you were lucky, sometimes wiser. Years in which you also lost some things. Possessions got misplaced. Memories faded. Friends parted ways. The best friends, you tried to hold on. This is what counts in life, isn't it?
The 1990s were indeed a special decade. The Nineties saw the beginnings of the World Wide Web, originating at CERN. Email becomes popular. The Soviet Union dissolved. Living standards in East Asia and Europe generally improved. The Cold War ends. Iraqi forces invade Kuwait. A UN coalition force led by the US was sent to the Persian Gulf, and aerial bombing of Iraq began. The Kosovo War took place. The Ethiopian Civil War ends. Dolly, a sheep, is cloned. The Global Positioning System GPS becomes fully operational. Genetically engineered crops are developed for commercial use. Intel develops the Pentium processor. The Java programming language is created. Microsoft released Windows 95. In Los Angeles, riots occur after the police brutality case involving Rodney King. Great Britain hands sovereignty of Hong Kong to China. East Timor breaks away from Indonesian control. US president Bill Clinton was involved in the Lewinsky scandal. Dogme 95 becomes an important artistic movement in European film. Teen soap Beverly Hills 90210 has its long run. Baywatch becomes the most watched show in history. On MTV, reality television makes its beginning. Nelson Mandela is elected president of South Africa. Germany was reunified. The prediction of computer bug Y2K spreads fear.
