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Portal:1990s

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The 1990s Portal

From top left, clockwise: The Hubble Space Telescope orbits the Earth after it was launched in 1990; American jets fly over burning oil fields in the 1991

The 1990s (pronounced "nineteen-nineties"; shortened to "the '90s") was a decade of the Gregorian calendar that began on 1 January 1990, and ended on 31 December 1999.

Culturally, the 1990s are characterized by the rise of multiculturalism and alternative media, which continues into the present day. Movements such as hip hop, the rave scene and grunge spread around the world to young people during that decade, aided by then-new technology such as cable television and the World Wide Web.

In the absence of world communism, which collapsed in the first two years of the decade, the 1990s was politically defined by a movement towards the right-wing, including increase in support for far-right parties in Europe[1] as well as the advent of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party[2] and cuts in social spending in the United States,[3] Canada,[4] New Zealand,[5] and the UK.[6] The United States also saw a massive revival in the use of the death penalty in the 1990s, which reversed in the early 21st century.[7] During the 1990s the character of the European Union and Euro were formed and codified in treaties.

A combination of factors, including the continued mass mobilization of capital markets through neo-liberalism, the thawing of the decades-long Cold War, the beginning of the widespread proliferation of new media such as the Internet from the middle of the decade onwards, increasing skepticism towards government, and the dissolution of the Soviet Union led to a realignment and reconsolidation of economic and political power across the world and within countries. The dot-com bubble of 1997–2000 brought wealth to some entrepreneurs before its crash between 2000 and 2001.

The 1990s saw extreme advances in technology, with the World Wide Web, the first gene therapy trial, and the first designer babies[8] all emerging in 1990 and being improved and built upon throughout the decade.

New ethnic conflicts emerged in Africa, the Balkans, and the Caucasus, the former two which led to the Rwandan and Bosnian genocides, respectively. Signs of any resolution of tensions between Israel and the Arab world remained elusive despite the progress of the Oslo Accords, though The Troubles in Northern Ireland came to a standstill in 1998 with the Good Friday Agreement after 30 years of violence.[9]

The Big Lebowski (/ləˈbski/) is a 1998 crime comedy film written, directed, produced and co-edited by Joel and Ethan Coen. It follows the life of Jeffrey "The Dude" Lebowski (Jeff Bridges), a Los Angeles slacker and avid bowler. He is assaulted as a result of mistaken identity then learns that a millionaire, also named Jeffrey Lebowski (David Huddleston), was the intended victim. The millionaire Lebowski's trophy wife is supposedly kidnapped and millionaire Lebowski commissions the Dude to deliver the ransom to secure her release. The plan goes awry when the Dude's friend Walter Sobchak (John Goodman) schemes to keep the ransom money for the Dude and himself. Sam Elliott, Julianne Moore, Steve Buscemi, John Turturro, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Tara Reid, David Thewlis, Peter Stormare, Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Jon Polito, Flea, and Ben Gazzara also appear in supporting roles.

The film is loosely inspired by the work of Raymond Chandler. Joel Coen stated, "We wanted to do a Chandler kind of story – how it moves episodically and deals with the characters trying to unravel a mystery, as well as having a hopelessly complex plot that's ultimately unimportant." The original score was composed by Carter Burwell, a longtime collaborator of the Coen brothers. (Full article...)

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MC Hammer in 2010

Stanley Kirk Burrell (born March 30, 1962), better known by his stage name MC Hammer (or simply Hammer), is an American rapper known for hit songs such as "U Can't Touch This", "2 Legit 2 Quit", and "Pumps and a Bump", flashy dance movements, extravagant choreography, and his namesake Hammer pants. Remembered for a rapid rise to fame, Hammer has also been an entrepreneur and celebrity spokesperson. A multi-award winner, he is considered a "forefather" and pioneering innovator of pop rap (incorporating elements of freestyle music).

Born and raised in Oakland, California, Hammer served three years in the United States Navy before independently releasing his debut album Feel My Power in 1986. After signing a contract with Capitol Records, Hammer released his second album Let's Get It Started in 1988, which became his first multi-platinum hit. Hammer became the first hip hop artist to achieve diamond status with his next album Please Hammer Don't Hurt 'Em (1990), helping him become one of the most prominent media celebrities of the early 1990s. After being labeled a sellout by the changing landscape of hip hop music which led to declining record sales for his fourth album, Too Legit To Quit (1991), Hammer unsuccessfully attempted to appeal to the rise of gangsta rap with his next album, The Funky Headhunter (1994). However, due to commercial overexposure, Hammer's popularity waned by the mid-1990s, which led to a highly publicized bankruptcy beginning in 1996. He has since released five more albums. (Full article...)

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Sources

  1. ^ Merkl, Peter; Leonard, Weinberg (2 August 2004). Right-wing Extremism in the Twenty-first Century. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-135-76421-0.
  2. ^ "India – The Bharatiya Janata Party and the Rise of Hindu Nationalism".
  3. ^ ROSEN, RUTH (27 December 1994). "Which of Us Isn't Taking 'Welfare'? : Poor children rank low in government largess; why is the comfortable class so mean?". Los Angeles Times.
  4. ^ Séguin, Gilles. "Provincial Welfare Reforms in the 1990s – Canadian Social Research Links".
  5. ^ Maloney, Tim (1 May 2002). "Welfare Reform and Unemployment in New Zealand". Economica. 69 (274): 273–293. doi:10.1111/1468-0335.00283.
  6. ^ "Policy Exchange – Shaping the Policy Agenda" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 21 January 2014.
  7. ^ https://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2013/12/19/report-us-executions-dipped-in-2013
  8. ^ Handyside, AH; Kontogianni, EH; Hardy, K; Winston, RM (1990). "Pregnancies from biopsied human preimplantation embryos sexed by Y-specific DNA amplification". Nature. 344 (6268): 768–70. Bibcode:1990Natur.344..768H. doi:10.1038/344768a0. PMID 2330030.
  9. ^ Stiglitz, Joseph E. (2004). The Roaring Nineties. W. W. Norton. ISBN 978-0-393-32618-5.
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