50 Fun Facts About 1993

Which claim from a 1637 margin note did Andrew Wiles announce he had proved at a Cambridge lecture in June?

Fermat's Last Theorem had resisted every attempt for three and a half centuries, and a flaw found in Wiles's argument that August took him and Richard Taylor until 1994 to repair.

Why did Intel name its new flagship chip Pentium rather than continuing the 286, 386, 486 sequence?

Numbers can't be trademarked, a judge had ruled when Intel lost a 1991 dispute over '386', so the company hired Lexicon Branding to coin a word instead.

What did the Purple Rain star adopt as his stage name during his contract dispute with Warner Bros.?

An unpronounceable symbol became his name in protest at Warner's insistence on releasing his backlog slowly, leaving the press to call him 'The Artist Formerly Known as Prince'.

Which pink, yellow-spotted Noel's House Party character topped the UK singles chart at Christmas?

Mr Blobby held number one for three weeks and is regarded by many as the worst single ever released, which did not stop a flood of Blobby dolls, slippers and egg cups.

Which race was voided for the only time in its history when 30 of 39 runners ignored a false start?

The Grand National's 'race that never was' saw Esha Ness cross the line first in the second-fastest time ever recorded, while bookmakers refunded an estimated £75 million.

Which royal residence first admitted paying visitors to its state rooms, to fund repairs after the Windsor Castle fire?

Buckingham Palace's summer openings have continued ever since, and the ticket money that once rebuilt Windsor's gutted staterooms now pays for Royal Collection conservation.

Which dairy slogan launched in October with a Michael Bay-directed ad about a peanut-butter-stuffed history buff?

Got Milk? was created for the California Milk Processor Board, and its first ad had a history buff lose a $10,000 radio quiz because his mouth was glued shut with peanut butter.

Which singer's seven-minute comeback single topped the UK chart for seven weeks and reached number one in 28 countries?

Meat Loaf's 'I'd Do Anything for Love (But I Won't Do That)' was his only solo number one almost everywhere, and at 7:52 it was the longest UK chart-topper since 'Hey Jude'.

Which pop star, born in Boca Raton, Florida in June, first found fame as Cat Valentine on the teen sitcom Victorious?

Ariana Grande was born on 26 June 1993, and her four-octave range, reaching into the whistle register, later made her one of the biggest names in pop.

Which striker, born in Leytonstone in July, grew up to become England's all-time top goalscorer?

Harry Kane was born on 28 July 1993 and attended the same Chingford school as David Beckham, later captaining England and scoring a record 14 World Cup goals for his country.

Which film finally won Al Pacino a Best Actor Oscar, for playing retired Lieutenant Colonel Frank Slade?

Scent of a Woman brought Pacino his first win at the March ceremony, the same night he was also nominated for supporting actor in Glengarry Glen Ross.

Which club won the inaugural Premier League by ten points, ending a 26-year wait for a league title?

Manchester United had slipped to mid-table after a slow start before overhauling Aston Villa, and Ryan Giggs collected a title medal alongside a second PFA Young Player award.

Whose first Ashes delivery, bowling Mike Gatting at Old Trafford, is remembered as the 'Ball of the Century'?

Shane Warne's leg break drifted one way in the air, spun sharply the other and clipped the top of off stump, a delivery credited with reviving leg spin bowling worldwide.

Which Nora Ephron romance ends atop the Empire State Building on Valentine's Day, echoing An Affair to Remember?

Sleepless in Seattle had to rebuild the Empire State Building's observation deck on a former naval base in Seattle, because the real skyscraper was unavailable for filming.

Which film about a boy and a captive orca starred Keiko, a whale found at a Mexico City amusement park?

Free Willy's success inspired a real campaign that moved Keiko to a rehabilitation tank in Oregon and then to Iceland, where he was released from a sea pen in 2002.

Which little-known Simpsons writer did Lorne Michaels pick to replace David Letterman as host of NBC's Late Night?

Conan O'Brien took the call during a Simpsons voice session, debuted on 13 September to savage reviews, and went on to host Late Night for a record 16 years.

Which Eric Clapton ballad, written after his four-year-old son's death, won Record of the Year at the February Grammys?

Tears in Heaven swept Record of the Year, Song of the Year and Best Male Pop Vocal Performance, and remains Clapton's best-selling US single at more than 2.8 million copies.

Which boy band scored the first of its twelve UK number ones with the Gary Barlow ballad 'Pray' in July?

Take That's 'Pray' stayed on top for four weeks and began a streak of four consecutive number ones, with a video shot in Mexico.

Which document format did Adobe launch with Acrobat 1.0, competing with rivals such as WordPerfect's Envoy?

PDF stands for Portable Document Format, and the basic Acrobat Reader, which only views, prints and annotates files, became freeware that carried the format everywhere.

Who read 'On the Pulse of Morning' at January's presidential inauguration, the first inaugural poet since Robert Frost?

Maya Angelou was only the second poet ever to read at a US inauguration, and her recording of the poem won the 1994 Grammy for Best Spoken Word.

Which city lost the vote to host the 2000 Olympics to Sydney by 45 to 43 in Monte Carlo in September?

Beijing's narrow defeat after four rounds of voting was avenged eight years later, when the IOC handed it the 2008 Games, and it later added the 2022 Winter Olympics too.

Which actress died at her Swiss home in January, a month after a Presidential Medal of Freedom for her UNICEF work?

Audrey Hepburn had spent her last years on UNICEF field missions, beginning in Ethiopia in 1988, and died of appendix cancer at her home in Tolochenaz.

In which film does Robert Redford's billionaire offer a struggling couple a million dollars for one night with the wife?

Indecent Proposal was panned by critics yet became a national talking point, and Redford took the part only after John Gage was rewritten to be less of a villain.

Which Wallace & Gromit film, first shown on BBC Two on Boxing Day, pits the pair against the penguin Feathers McGraw?

The Wrong Trousers turns a gift of ex-NASA robotic trousers into a diamond heist, and its model-train chase helped it win the Oscar for Best Animated Short Film.

Which Birmingham reggae band spent seven weeks at US number one with a cover of Elvis's 'Can't Help Falling in Love'?

UB40's version, recorded for the Sharon Stone thriller Sliver, also topped the charts in 11 other countries and gave the band its last US top-ten hit.

Which Miami prosecutor, confirmed 98–0 by the Senate in March, became the first woman to serve as US Attorney General?

Janet Reno had already been Florida's first female state attorney, and she went on to serve eight years, the second-longest tenure of any attorney general.

Which sealed glass complex near Oracle, Arizona released its crew of eight in September after exactly two years inside?

Biosphere 2's crew grew their own food and lost an average of 16% of their body weight, yet their cholesterol and blood pressure readings improved.

Which Apple handheld shipped in August with handwriting recognition that Doonesbury mocked as reading 'Egg Freckles'?

Newton coined the term 'personal digital assistant', and The Simpsons piled on too, with a MessagePad turning 'Beat up Martin' into 'Eat up Martha'.

Kary Mullis won a share of the Chemistry Nobel for which DNA-copying technique, an idea that struck him while driving?

PCR, the polymerase chain reaction, became the central technique of molecular biology, and Mullis shared the prize with Michael Smith while also collecting the Japan Prize.

What did the world's first webcam, at Cambridge University's computer lab, show when it went on the web in November?

A coffee pot in the Trojan Room had been watched over the lab's internal network since 1991, to spare staff a wasted trip downstairs, and stayed online until 2001.

Which Michigan star called a timeout his team didn't have in the last seconds of the NCAA final, trailing 73–71?

Chris Webber's technical foul handed North Carolina the title, yet weeks later he went first overall in the NBA draft, and his father's licence plate now reads 'timeout'.

Which eighth seed lost a 4–1 final-set lead in the Wimbledon women's final and wept on the Duchess of Kent's shoulder?

Jana Novotná had a game point serving at 4–1 in the third set before a double fault let Steffi Graf take five straight games, and the Duchess comforted her at the presentation.

Which Red Sea country declared independence from Ethiopia after a UN-supervised referendum backed it overwhelmingly?

Eritrea had held de facto independence since 1991, and the new state's nine recognised ethnic groups each speak their own language, with Tigrinya the most widely spoken.

Which imperial heir wed diplomat Masako Owada in a Tokyo Shinto ceremony in June, having proposed to her three times?

Naruhito's wedding, held before 800 guests including much of Europe's royalty, followed a courtship that began at a 1986 tea party for Spain's Infanta Elena.

Which Roddy Doyle novel, narrated by a ten-year-old boy in 1960s Barrytown, won the Booker Prize?

Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha was mocked by some as an 'easy', 'populist' Booker winner, yet was hailed as one of the truest and funniest portraits of childhood in recent fiction.

Which Simpsons episode has the smooth-talking Lyle Lanley sell Springfield a transit system in a Music Man-style song?

Marge vs. the Monorail sprang from a Los Angeles billboard bearing only the word 'Monorail', and Leonard Nimoy's cameo as himself helped make it a fan favourite.

Which Game Boy adventure, the first handheld Zelda, strands its hero on Koholint Island to wake the Wind Fish?

Link's Awakening began as an after-hours attempt to port A Link to the Past, and it is the rare Zelda with no Princess Zelda or Triforce in sight.

In which ITV drama did Robbie Coltrane play Fitz, a gambling, chain-smoking criminal psychologist in Manchester?

Cracker's creator Jimmy McGovern named Fitz after the poet Edward FitzGerald, and Coltrane's performance won the BAFTA for Best Actor three years running.

Which Texas particle accelerator did Congress cancel after 22 km of tunnel had been bored and about $2 billion spent?

Superconducting Super Collider, nicknamed Desertron, was planned as the world's largest and most energetic accelerator at 20 TeV per proton, and its unfinished tunnels near Waxahachie remain.

Which NASA spacecraft fell silent on 21 August, three days before it was due to enter orbit around the Red Planet?

Mars Observer was most likely lost when fuel vapours leaked through a faulty check valve and ruptured its propulsion system as the tanks were pressurised for arrival.

Which tiny nation scored against England after just 8.3 seconds in a World Cup qualifier in Bologna in November?

San Marino's Davide Gualtieri pounced on Stuart Pearce's under-hit back pass for what stood as the fastest World Cup goal, qualifying or finals, until 2016; England still won 7–1.

Which former king returned to the Cambodian throne after UN-run elections produced a coalition led by his own son?

Norodom Sihanouk had first been crowned in 1941, and the coalition he returned to reign over was jointly led by his son Norodom Ranariddh and Hun Sen.

Which Pyrenean co-principality adopted its first written constitution by referendum in March, then joined the UN?

Andorra's constitution passed with 74.2% support and kept the Bishop of Urgell and the French president as joint heads of state, while vesting sovereignty in its people.

The tanker Braer ran aground in a January storm off which islands, spilling 84,800 tons of crude into Quendale Bay?

Shetland's violent weather actually limited the damage, as wave action and evaporation dispersed the light North Sea crude, though 23,000 sheep had to be moved off the land.

Who became King of the Belgians after his childless elder brother Baudouin died of a heart attack on holiday in Spain?

Albert II inherited the crown after Baudouin's 42-year reign, and the late king's cause for beatification was opened by the Holy See in 2024.

Which Microsoft operating system, led by DEC veteran Dave Cutler, launched in July with flat 32-bit memory addressing?

Windows NT 3.1 was Microsoft's entry into corporate computing, compiled for Intel x86 and DEC Alpha chips among others, and Cutler had joined after DEC cancelled his PRISM project.

Which Chen Kaige film about two opera performers shared the top prize at Cannes with The Piano?

Farewell My Concubine remains the only Chinese-language film to win the Palme d'Or, and Harvey Weinstein's Miramax cut fourteen minutes from it for the US release.

Which Irish town of 1,500 people staged Eurovision in a venue a BBC reporter dismissed as a 'cowshed'?

Millstreet remains the smallest settlement ever to stage the contest, and Ireland won it for the second year running with Niamh Kavanagh's 'In Your Eyes'.

Which Cowboys lineman was run down by Don Beebe while showboating on a 64-yard fumble return in Super Bowl XXVII?

Leon Lett's lost touchdown mattered little in a 52–17 rout, but Beebe's chase became a celebrated piece of sportsmanship, and Lett's 64 yards still stand as a record fumble return.

Which British actress won Best Actress at the March Oscars for the Merchant Ivory drama Howards End?

Emma Thompson collected the BAFTA for the same role, and she later added an Oscar for adapting Sense and Sensibility, making her a winner for both acting and writing.