49 Fun Facts About 90s and 2000s

Windows 95, released in August 1995, introduced which now-familiar feature to the desktop?

The Start button and taskbar: Windows 95 introduced both, and Microsoft licensed the Rolling Stones' 'Start Me Up' for its launch ads; a million copies shipped in four days.

Toy Story, released in 1995, was the first feature film made how?

Entirely with computer animation: Toy Story was the first fully computer-animated feature film, and director John Lasseter received a Special Achievement Oscar for it.

Which 1997 film was the first ever to gross $1 billion at the box office?

Titanic: James Cameron's film became the first to pass $1 billion worldwide in 1998 and won 11 Oscars, equalling Ben-Hur's record.

Which 1993 film held the title of highest-grossing movie of all time until 1997?

Jurassic Park: Spielberg's 1993 film, mixing ILM computer graphics with Stan Winston's animatronics, grossed more than $900 million and held the all-time box-office record for four years.

The Matrix (1999) made famous a slow-motion camera trick known as what?

Bullet time: an arc of cameras fires in sequence so the shot seems to orbit a frozen moment; the film won four technical Oscars.

Nirvana's Nevermind knocked which superstar's album off the top of the Billboard chart in January 1992?

Michael Jackson's Dangerous: Nevermind replaced Dangerous at number one on the Billboard 200 in January 1992, a moment often cited as grunge's arrival in the mainstream.

The Spice Girls' 1996 debut single went to number one in how many countries?

37: 'Wannabe' reached number one in 37 countries and spent seven weeks atop the UK chart in 1996.

The Backstreet Boys formed in 1993 in which city?

Orlando: the group was assembled in Orlando, Florida, in 1993 by promoter Lou Pearlman, who also put together NSYNC there.

Which sitcom, set in a Manhattan coffee house called Central Perk, ran on NBC from 1994 to 2004?

Friends: the NBC sitcom about six twentysomethings, with Central Perk as their hangout, ran ten seasons and 236 episodes from 1994 to 2004.

Seinfeld's 1998 finale was watched by roughly how many Americans?

76 million: the May 1998 finale drew about 76 million American viewers, one of the largest audiences for any series finale, behind M*A*S*H's 1983 send-off.

In The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Will Smith's character grew up in which city before moving to Bel-Air?

Philadelphia: the theme song tells how Will was 'born and raised' in West Philadelphia before being sent to live with his aunt and uncle in Bel-Air.

Which console, launched in 1996, stuck with cartridges while its rivals moved to CDs?

Nintendo 64: Nintendo kept cartridges for fast loading while the Sony PlayStation and Sega Saturn used CDs; Super Mario 64 and Pilotwings 64 were its only North American launch games.

The Tamagotchi's name combines the Japanese words for 'egg' and what?

Watch: the name blends tamago, Japanese for egg, with uotchi, the Japanese rendering of 'watch'; Bandai released it in November 1996.

In 1999 the NSA banned Furbies from its buildings over fears the toys could do what?

Record conversations: the NSA feared Furbies could record and repeat classified talk, but the manufacturer said the toy has no recording ability and merely swaps Furbish for English words on a schedule.

What were the first two Pokémon games, released for the Game Boy in Japan in 1996?

Red and Green: Pocket Monsters Red and Green launched in Japan in February 1996 with 151 Pokémon; the West got the revised Red and Blue in 1998.

Beanie Babies fuelled a 1990s collecting bubble largely because their maker Ty did what?

At the peak they made up a tenth of all eBay sales; most are worth almost nothing now.

Dolly the sheep, born in 1996, was the first mammal cloned from what?

An adult body cell: Dolly was cloned from a mammary gland cell of an adult ewe, hence the Dolly Parton name; her remains are displayed at the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh.

The first Harry Potter book was published in the UK in 1997 with an initial print run of how many copies?

500: Bloomsbury's first printing of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone in June 1997 was just 500 copies, around 300 of them for libraries.

Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin met as graduate students at which university?

Stanford: Page and Brin met at Stanford in 1995 and built the search engine there as a research project called BackRub before incorporating Google in 1998.

Napster, launched in June 1999, let people share what?

MP3 music files: Napster let users swap MP3s peer to peer, reaching about 80 million registered users before lawsuits by Metallica, Dr. Dre and the record labels shut it down in July 2001.

The Y2K bug arose because early programmers stored years using how many digits?

Two: storing years as two digits meant 2000 could be read as 1900; roughly $300 billion was spent worldwide on fixes and the actual failures were minor.

The Sopranos, which began on HBO in 1999, follows a mob boss who reluctantly starts doing what?

Seeing a psychiatrist: Tony Soprano starts therapy with Dr. Jennifer Melfi after panic attacks, and the sessions frame the series from its 1999 pilot.

The Nokia 3310, announced in 2000 and famously indestructible, sold roughly how many units?

126 million: Nokia sold about 126 million 3310s, a run that helped earn it a Finnish 'national emoji' in 2015 and a €49 remake in 2017.

The Razor scooter sold more than 5,000,000 units in how long after its 2000 launch?

Six months: the Razor sold more than five million scooters in its first six months of 2000 and was named Toy of the Year, while emergency rooms logged a spike in scooter injuries.

Roughly how many PlayStation 2 consoles were sold over its 2000-2013 production run?

160 million: Sony put PS2 lifetime sales at about 160 million units, helped by a built-in DVD player and a production run that lasted until 2013.

Which 2001 film won the very first Academy Award for Best Animated Feature?

Shrek: DreamWorks' ogre comedy beat Monsters, Inc. and Jimmy Neutron to the inaugural Best Animated Feature Oscar in March 2002; it was based on William Steig's 1990 picture book.

Steve Jobs launched the first iPod in October 2001 with which slogan?

1,000 songs in your pocket: the first iPod's 5 GB hard drive held about a thousand songs; Apple retired the last iPod, the touch, in 2022 after roughly 450 million sales.

The Bratz dolls, launched in 2001, originally came as Cloe, Jade, Sasha and who?

Yasmin: the original 2001 quartet was Cloe, Jade, Sasha and Yasmin, designed by Carter Bryant for MGA Entertainment, whose founder Isaac Larian named Yasmin after his daughter.

The Fox singing contest that crowned Kelly Clarkson its first winner in 2002 was based on which British show?

Pop Idol: Simon Fuller's ITV show, won by Will Young in early 2002, was the template for American Idol, which Kelly Clarkson won over Justin Guarini that September.

Crocs, the foam clogs launched in 2002, were first sold at what kind of event?

A boat show: Crocs debuted the 'Beach' clog at the Fort Lauderdale Boat Show in November 2002, selling all 200 pairs; the charms for its holes are called Jibbitz.

Which 1998 Apple computer, designed by Jony Ive, came in translucent 'Bondi Blue'?

iMac: the all-in-one iMac G3 of August 1998, Jony Ive's first hit design for Apple, came in translucent Bondi Blue and dropped the floppy drive in favour of USB.

The Motorola Razr V3, released in 2004, became the best-selling phone of which type ever?

About 130 million were sold; it ruled the US market until the iPhone 3G arrived in 2008.

Which 2004 comedy, written by Tina Fey, gave the world an unofficial holiday on 3 October?

Mean Girls: Tina Fey adapted Rosalind Wiseman's parenting book Queen Bees and Wannabes; the film grossed about $130 million on a $17 million budget.

Lost, which premiered in 2004, follows the survivors of which fictional airline's Flight 815?

Oceanic: Oceanic Airlines Flight 815 from Sydney to Los Angeles crashes on the island in the pilot, which was shot on Oahu for as much as $14 million.

The Livestrong wristband of 2004 was yellow in reference to what?

The Tour de France leader jersey: the band echoed the yellow jersey Lance Armstrong wore as Tour leader; Nike and Wieden+Kennedy designed the $1 band and about 80 million were sold.

The 2004 dual-screen DS handheld was the first mainstream console to feature what?

A touchscreen: the DS's lower screen was touch-sensitive and came with a stylus, and games like Nintendogs and Brain Age drew in non-gamers; about 154 million DS units were sold.

The US version of The Office, which began in 2005, is set at a paper company in which Pennsylvania city?

Scranton: Dunder Mifflin's branch is in Scranton, Pennsylvania, and the opening credits use real footage of the city; Greg Daniels adapted Ricky Gervais's British original.

YouTube's first video, uploaded in April 2005, was titled what?

Me at the zoo: co-founder Jawed Karim's 19-second clip in front of the elephants at San Diego Zoo went up on 23 April 2005; Google bought YouTube for $1.65 billion in 2006.

In August 2006 astronomers voted to reclassify Pluto as what?

A dwarf planet: the IAU's August 2006 definition demoted Pluto because it has not cleared the neighbourhood around its orbit, the third of three tests for a planet.

The Wii console of November 2006 came bundled with which game that became its killer app?

Wii Sports: bundled with the console outside Japan, its tennis, bowling, golf, baseball and boxing mini-games sold the motion remote to families; the Wii went on to more than 101 million sales.

Steve Jobs unveiled the 2007 iPhone as three devices in one: an iPod, a phone and what?

An internet communicator: Jobs's January 2007 keynote repeated 'an iPod, a phone and an internet communicator' before revealing they were one device; it went on sale that June at $499.

Heelys inventor Roger Adams worked as what?

A psychologist: inventor Roger Adams, a psychologist by profession, devised the wheeled shoe in 1999 and patented it; Heelys reached shops in 2000.

The Channel Tunnel, opened in 1994, links Folkestone with which French town?

Coquelles: the French terminal sits at Coquelles, just outside Calais; the 50.46 km tunnel opened in May 1994, with 37.9 km running under the sea.

'Macarena', the 1996 US chart phenomenon, was originally recorded by which Spanish duo?

Los del Río: the Seville duo Antonio Romero Monge and Rafael Ruiz Perdigones first recorded 'Macarena' in 1993; the Bayside Boys remix spent 14 weeks at No. 1 in 1996.

Where was the first season of Survivor, first broadcast on May 31, 2000, set?

Borneo: the first season was shot on Pulau Tiga, an island off Borneo in Malaysia, in March and April 2000, and Richard Hatch won the $1 million.

Wikipedia began in 2001 as a feeder project for which expert-written encyclopedia?

Nupedia: Jimmy Wales's peer-reviewed Nupedia was so slow that Larry Sanger proposed a wiki to feed it on 10 January 2001; the wiki launched five days later.

Which game did The Sims overtake in 2002 to become the best-selling PC game at the time?

Myst: Cyan's 1993 puzzle adventure had been the top-selling PC game for years until The Sims passed it in March 2002 with more than six million copies sold.

Which launch game became the signature title of the Xbox's November 2001 debut?

Halo: Combat Evolved: Bungie's shooter launched alongside the Xbox on 15 November 2001 and sold more than a million copies in five months, becoming the console's signature franchise.

The controller for 2005's Guitar Hero was modelled on which real guitar?

Gibson SG: the original controller was a three-quarter-scale Gibson SG replica; Harmonix developed the game and RedOctane published it for the PlayStation 2 in 2005.