The 1990

’

s

By: Ruosi Zhou, Connor O’Hern, Alan O’Donnell, Spencer Herrmann

Key People

Newt Gingrich,

a conservative Republican, was elected Speaker of the House of Representatives in 1994. His Contract of America was a direct opposition to President Clinton.

Bill Clinton

was elected the 42nd president of the US and passed such things as a $20 billion loan to Mexico to help them work out their financial instability, and he lifted the 19-year ban on trade with Vietnam. He is also known for being the second president in US history that had an impeachment trial.

Sen. Bob Dole

was the Senate Majority leader (1995) and ran against Clinton in 1996.

Key People

George Bush (Senior

) was the President of the U.S. between 1989 and 1992. He was a Republican and ran for a second term in 1992 but lost to Democratic candidate Bill Clinton.

Ross Perot

was the Third Party candidate in 1992. He was the reason George Bush lost and Bill Clinton won. He received 19% of the popular vote, leaving Bush with 38% and Clinton with 43%.

Key Events

April 29, 1992 jury acquitted four police officers of beating African American, Rodney King. The LA Riots were a direct result of the verdict.

Iraq, led by Saddam Hussein, invaded Kuwait. Hussein accused Kuwait of overproduction of oil and pumping oil illegally from Iraq’s Rumaila. The US joined forces with Europe to defend Kuwait against Kuwait. Their actions set off the Persian Gulf War in which the US troops were victorious.

There was a shooting at the Columbine High School on April 20,1999. Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold killed 10 students and a teacher and wounded 24 other students before committing suicide.

Key Events

The Oklahoma City Bombing happened on April 19, 1995 at around 9:03 a.m. A bomb inside a rental truck detonated, blowing up half of a 9-story high building. 168 people died, making it the worst terrorist attack on U.S. soil. Timothy McVeigh was blamed and arrested.

The bombing of the World Trade Center on February 29, 1993 was meant to topple the taller tower onto the other one. Fortunately, the plan did not work though 6 people died.

The Furby, first introduced in the 1990s, was an interactive electronic toy that could interact with each other and spoke their own language.

Pop Culture

OJ Simpson, a popular football player, was charged with the murder of his wife, Nicole and friend Ronald Goldman He was found not guilty in 1995. Princess Diana, the princess of Whales, died in a car accident in 1997. Her funeral attracted millions of mourners.

Pop Culture

Beanie Babies (1993) were stuffed animals with a tag with their name, birthday and a poem. They were a great success and started a collecting frenzy.

The Rachel haircut was a fad in the 1990s. Women started to cut their hair in the same style as Rachel (Jennifer Anniston) on the NBC sitcom, Friends.

Inventions and Technology

The Human Genome Project was founded in 1990 and cost $3 billion, the human genome project’s goal was to record the entire sequence of a human’s DNA. The goal was finally accomplished 2001. The Hubble Telescope was launched by the Discovery spacecraft in 1990 350 miles into space. The Hubble was designed to collect better data about the universe.

Inventions and Technology

In, 1995 Dr. Ian Wilmut and Dr. Keith Campbell created the world’s first cloned sheep (Megan and Morag) from embryo cells.

The expansion of the World Wide Web increased the use of dotcom companies, which enabled buying and selling online. The growth of web use created websites such as eBay (1995).

In 1995, Toy Story became the first fully computer animated movie to be released.

Entertainment

Austin Powers made its debut in 1997. Mike Myers played “Austin Powers”. The movie was a parody of 1960’s spy films, including James Bond.

Pokemon’s release in 1990 was a hit and games, trading cards, and movies were released along with the show.

J.K. Rowling wrote the Harry Potter novels, which first came out in 1997. The book is often credited for the increase of children’s reading in the 90’s.

Entertainment

The movie Titanic was released in 1997. The epic blockbuster was the most successful movie ever and the most expensive. Its budget was around $200 million.

The Simpson’s debut on FOX in 1990 was an instant success. The ½ hour show got an Emmy in its first year.

The

21

st

Century

George W. Bush was elected in 2001 and reelected in 2005.

The 2 nd Gulf War, also known as the Iraq war started in 2003 due to suspicions of weapons of mass destruction.

Ronald Wilson Reagan , the 40th president of the United States, died on Jun 5, 2004 at his home in California. He was 93 years old and had been suffering from Alzheimer's disease. Hurricane Katrina, a Category 5 hurricane of 2005, was one of the deadliest storms in American history. It did catastrophic damage along the coastlines of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. The storm killed around 1,604 people and was responsible for $75 billion dollars worth of damage.

On Tuesday, September 11, 2001, there were a series of terrorists attacks. The hijackers crashed two planes into the World Trade Center in Manhattan, New York City. There were 2,986 deaths including the 19 hijackers. the attack were affiliated with al-Qaeda, an Islamic terrorist group led by Osama bin Laden.