1990 - 1999

A year-by-year chronology of the 1990s.

The Channel Tunnel, often called the Chunnel, is a railway tunnel that lies underneath the water of the English Channel and connects the island of Great Britain with mainland France. The Channel Tunnel, completed in 1994, is considered one of the most amazing engineering feats of the 20th century.

On April 20, 1999, in the small, suburban town of Littleton, Colorado, two high-school seniors, Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris, enacted an all-out assault on Columbine High School during the middle of the school day. The boys' plan was to kill hundreds of their peers. With guns, knives, and a multitude of bombs, the two boys walked the hallways...

On April 19, 1993, after a 51-day siege, the ATF and the FBI attempted to force David Koresh and the other remaining Branch Davidians out of their Waco, Texas compound. However, when the cult members refused to leave the buildings after being tear gassed, the buildings went up in a blaze and all but nine died in the fire.

On November 25, 1999, a little five-year-old boy named Elian Gonzales was found floating in an inner tube in the Atlantic Ocean. The story of this little Cuban boy stirred heated debate - was he a refugee in fear of his life or was he a son who had been torn away from his father? Read the stirring story of Elian Gonzales.

Though the 1999 Melissa virus warned us not to open attachments, we were still unprepared for the ILOVEYOU virus that hit on May 4, 2000.

Iqbal Masih was a young Pakastani boy who was forced into bonded labor at age four. After being freed at age ten, Iqbal became an activist against bonded child labor. He became a martyr for his cause when he was murdered at age 12.

On August 12, 2000, the Russian Oscar-II class nuclear submarine, the Kursk, sank in the Barents Sea during naval exercises. The world watched and waited to find out if any of the 118 crew were still alive.

Lorena Bobbitt made headlines around the world when she cut off half her husband's penis and threw it out a car window on the night of June 23, 1993. Find out what led up to this brutal act.

On June 26, 2000, two rival teams of scientists announced that they had begun mapping the human genome.

Microsoft, the creator of the world's most popular operating system (Windows), was accused of being a monopoly and taken to trial. In 2000, a judge ordered Microsoft to split onto two separate companies. Microsoft appealed the decision. Find out what happened.

At 9:02 a.m. on April 19, 1995, a large bomb decimated the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, killing 168 people.

They didn't realize it, but on September 19, 1991, two German tourists made history when they found the remains of Europe's oldest known mummy. Otzi, as the Iceman is now know, had been stuck in the ice for approximately 5,300 years. Otzi is now telling the story of what life was like in the Copper Age.

On August 31, 1997, Diana, Princess of Wales died after being involved in a car accident. Diana had been riding in the Mercedes-Benz with her boyfriend (Dodi Al Fayed), bodyguard (Trevor Rees-Jones), and chauffer (Henri Paul) when the car crashed into a pillar of the tunnel under the Pont de l'Alma bridge in Paris while fleeing from paparazzi.

Although some thought the election between Vice President Al Gore (Democrat) and Texas Governor George W. Bush (Republican) would be close, no one imagined that it would be that close. Find out what happened during the 2000 Presidential election.

The Y2K (Year 2000) problem existed because most dates in computers were programmed to automatically assume the date began with 19 as in 1977. But when the date was to turn from December 31, 1999 to January 1, 2000, it was prophesied that computers would be so confused that they would shut down completely. Find out more about the Y2K bug that...

On October 12, 2000, the U.S.S. Cole was bombed after a small craft pulled up beside the Cole while it was at port in Yemen. Find out what happened during and after the Cole bombing.