145 Fun Facts About The 1990s

Which 1994 sitcom followed six twentysomethings in Manhattan and became one of the decade's most-watched shows?

Friends' six leads bargained over pay as a bloc from the third season, against the studio's wish for separate deals, and by the last two seasons each was earning $1 million an episode.

Kurt Cobain was the lead singer of which iconic grunge band?

Kurt Cobain fronted Nirvana, whose 1991 album Nevermind and its hit single "Smells Like Teen Spirit" are credited with bringing grunge into the mainstream.

Which egg-shaped virtual pet made by Bandai became a worldwide craze in 1997?

Tamagotchi pets had to be fed, played with and cleaned up after, or they died, which kept owners checking the egg all day; many schools ended up banning it.

Which 1997 film became the highest-grossing movie of all time, a record it held until 2010?

Titanic was the first film to gross $1 billion worldwide, and only its own director could dethrone it: James Cameron's next feature, Avatar, took the record in 2010.

Which recorded phrase told AOL users in the 1990s that new messages had arrived?

AOL's "You've got mail" greeting was recorded by Elwood Edwards in 1989 on a cassette deck in his own living room, and it lent its name to the 1998 Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan film.

Which basketball legend led the Chicago Bulls to six NBA championships during the 1990s?

Michael Jordan won three straight titles, quit in 1993 to play minor-league baseball for the Birmingham Barons, then returned in 1995 and won three more.

Which U.S. President was impeached by the House of Representatives in December 1998?

Bill Clinton was impeached on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice related to the Monica Lewinsky scandal. He was acquitted by the Senate in February 1999.

What collectible plush toys, made by Ty Inc., caused a massive buying frenzy in the late 1990s?

Beanie Babies became one of the biggest fads of the 1990s. Ty Inc. created artificial scarcity by retiring certain designs, leading to a speculative market where some were valued at thousands of dollars.

Steven Spielberg directed which 1993 dinosaur blockbuster based on a Michael Crichton novel?

Jurassic Park was meant to use puppet 'go-motion' dinosaurs for its wide shots until a computer-animated test changed Spielberg's mind; seeing it, animator Phil Tippett said, 'I think I'm extinct.'

Which computer scare of the late 1990s traced back to programmers saving memory in the 1960s?

Y2K came from dropping the '19' from every year to save costly memory, so 2000 could be misread as 1900; fixing the code in time cost an estimated $300 billion or more.

Which rapper, whose 1996 double album All Eyez on Me went Diamond, was fatally shot near Las Vegas that September?

Tupac Shakur was shot on September 7, 1996, in Paradise, Nevada, after attending the Bruce Seldon vs. Mike Tyson fight at the MGM Grand, and died six days later.

Which British royal died in a car crash in Paris on August 31, 1997?

Princess Diana's car crashed in the Pont de l'Alma tunnel with photographers in pursuit; a 2008 inquest ruled she was unlawfully killed through the gross negligence of driver Henri Paul and the paparazzi.

Which web browser, released in 1993, was the first to win a mass audience for the World Wide Web?

Mosaic, built at the University of Illinois's supercomputing center, was easy to install and showed pictures on the same page as text; by late 1993 it was being downloaded more than 5,000 times a month.

In the 1990s TV show "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air," who played the title character?

Will Smith was a rapper in deep trouble when NBC built the sitcom around him: he owed the IRS about $2.8 million in back taxes, and it was garnishing his income.

Which handheld console, released in 1989, dominated portable gaming in the 1990s?

Nintendo's Game Boy, launched in 1989, was the decade's best-selling handheld; Game Boy and Game Boy Color together sold about 118 million units, and Tetris, bundled with it in North America and Europe, was its killer app.

Which 1990s boy band sang "I Want It That Way"?

Backstreet Boys admit the lyrics make little sense, written when a Swedish co-writer's English was still limited; a clearer rewrite was recorded in 1999, but the original was the one released.

What verdict did the jury deliver in the O.J. Simpson murder trial on October 3, 1995?

Not guilty on both counts: with an estimated 100 million people or more tuned in, long-distance call volume fell 58 percent and NYSE trading dropped 41 percent as the verdict was read.

Oversized plaid shirts of which fabric became the unofficial uniform of early-1990s grunge?

Flannel shirts, cheap Pacific Northwest workwear worn loose and open over T-shirts, became the grunge signature once Seattle bands like Nirvana and Pearl Jam wore them, and the look spread from skaters into mainstream stores.

Which golfer won the 1997 Masters at 21 by a record 12 strokes?

Tiger Woods began with a shaky four-over-par 40 on his first nine holes, came home in 30, and never looked back, beating Tom Kite by 12 as the youngest Masters champion.

At midnight on 1 July 1997, the United Kingdom handed which territory over to China?

Hong Kong returned under the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration, in which China pledged to keep "one country, two systems" for 50 years; Macau followed from Portugal in December 1999.

Which 1998 Tiger Electronics toy seemed to learn English the longer you owned it?

Furby was simply programmed to swap its 'Furbish' for English over time and could not record a word, yet rumours that it could got it banned from U.S. government offices.

Which 1999 film made 'bullet time' famous, slowing the action to a crawl while the camera swings around it?

The Matrix popularized bullet time and, despite facing a Star Wars prequel, won all four Oscars it was nominated for, visual effects among them.

Which Soviet leader resigned as the USSR dissolved in December 1991?

Mikhail Gorbachev resigned as Soviet president, leaving Boris Yeltsin to lead an independent Russia; that evening the Soviet flag over the Kremlin was lowered for the last time and replaced by the Russian tricolour.

Which 1990s accessory, a goth-teen staple, did Gwyneth Paltrow wear in diamonds to the 1999 Oscars?

Choker necklaces go back to ancient Sumer and Egypt, where women wore them to protect the throat; around 1900 Queen Alexandra made broad ones fashionable by wearing them to hide a scar on her neck.

Whose single-season record of 61 home runs did Mark McGwire break in 1998?

Roger Maris's 61 had stood since 1961; McGwire hit number 62 against the Cubs with the Maris family watching from the stands, so his rival Sammy Sosa could congratulate him on the field.

Which Japanese franchise, conceived by Satoshi Tajiri, began with two handheld RPGs in February 1996?

Pokemon grew out of Satoshi Tajiri's childhood hobby of collecting insects; seeing two handhelds joined by a link cable gave him the idea of a game about collecting and trading creatures.

Which search engine did Stanford students Larry Page and Sergey Brin launch in 1998?

Google began as a research project called BackRub; in August 1998 Sun co-founder Andy Bechtolsheim wrote a $100,000 cheque to Google Inc., a company that did not yet exist, so the pair had to incorporate.

Which Seinfeld character was known for sliding through Jerry's apartment door?

Cosmo Kramer, played by Michael Richards, was loosely based on Kenny Kramer, a real former neighbor of co-creator Larry David; Richards' bursting, sliding entrances became the show's signature running gag.

What nickname was given to the 1992 US Olympic men's basketball squad, the first with active NBA players?

The Dream Team won gold in Barcelona in 1992, beating opponents by an average of 44 points, after FIBA voted in 1989 to admit professionals to the Olympics.

Who bombed the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City on April 19, 1995?

Timothy McVeigh's truck bomb killed 168 people; within 90 minutes a state trooper had pulled him over for driving without a licence plate, and he was executed in June 2001.

Which Notorious B.I.G. album, released 16 days after his 1997 murder, became a huge posthumous hit?

Life After Death came out on March 25, 1997, 16 days after Biggie was shot dead in Los Angeles; it entered the Billboard 200 at number 176 and leapt to number one the following week.

Which country hosted and won the 1998 FIFA World Cup?

France won the final 3-0 at the new Stade de France with two headed goals from Zinedine Zidane; that night his face was projected onto the Arc de Triomphe with the words 'Merci Zizou'.

Which 1994 Disney animated film featured the songs "Circle of Life" and "Hakuna Matata"?

The Lion King was Disney's less fancied project: most of the studio's animators chose to work on Pocahontas, expecting it to be the more prestigious hit, yet it became the top-grossing film of 1994.

Which programming language did Brendan Eich write in 10 days in 1995 for web pages?

JavaScript was written in ten days in May 1995 for a browser's next release; it was called Mocha, then LiveScript, and took its final name in a joint announcement with Sun, maker of the then-fashionable Java.

Which 1991 operation was the U.S.-led coalition's offensive to liberate Kuwait?

Desert Storm opened with five weeks of air strikes, then a ground assault that was halted after just 100 hours; retreating Iraqi troops set fire to more than 600 Kuwaiti oil wells, the last capped that November.

Which 1990s talk show host became famous for episodes that devolved into on-stage fights?

Jerry Springer had been mayor of Cincinnati, and his show began in 1991 as a sober talk show on politics and current events; only after a tabloid makeover did the brawls begin.

What was the name of the sheep born in 1996, the first mammal cloned from an adult cell?

Dolly was the only lamb to reach adulthood from 277 attempts, and her birth was kept quiet for seven months until the Roslin Institute published its paper in February 1997.

Which band's 1991 debut album "Ten" included the hits "Alive" and "Jeremy"?

Pearl Jam first called themselves Mookie Blaylock, after an NBA point guard; when they had to change the name, they titled the album Ten after his jersey number.

Which 1990s brand was known for jeans with leg openings so wide they dragged on the ground?

JNCO's parent company saw sales leap from $36 million in 1995 to $186.9 million in 1998, then fall by almost half the next year when the wide-leg fad faded as fast as it had arrived.

Which Mike Judge MTV series about two music-video-obsessed teens aired from 1993 to 1997?

Beavis and Butt-Head ran on MTV from 1993 to 1997, with Mike Judge voicing both title characters; the spin-off Daria, about their classmate Daria Morgendorffer, premiered in 1997.

Which browser dominated the early web before losing the "browser wars" to Microsoft's Internet Explorer?

Netscape Navigator held most of the browser market in the mid-1990s but had all but vanished by 2003; Microsoft's bundling of Internet Explorer with Windows to beat it was central to the 1998 U.S. antitrust case against Microsoft.

Which future president walked free in February 1990 after 27 years in prison?

Nelson Mandela left Victor Verster Prison hand in hand with his wife Winnie on 11 February 1990; four years later he was South Africa's president, with F. W. de Klerk, the man who had freed him, as a deputy.

Which Pierre Omidyar website's first sale, in 1995, was a broken laser pointer?

eBay began as AuctionWeb, a hobby page on Omidyar's personal site; the often-told tale that he built it so his fiancée could swap Pez dispensers was invented later by a publicist.

In which 1995 thriller does Brad Pitt's detective end up demanding to know what's in the box?

Se7en kept its head-in-the-box ending by accident and stubbornness: David Fincher was sent an old draft by mistake and insisted on filming it, and Brad Pitt agreed to star only if the ending stayed.

Which rover rolled off Mars Pathfinder after its July 4, 1997 landing?

Sojourner, named for abolitionist Sojourner Truth by a 12-year-old essay winner, was built to last 7 Martian days and kept working for 83.

Which 1990s R&B trio scored number-one hits with "Creep", "Waterfalls" and "Unpretty"?

TLC filed for bankruptcy in July 1995 while CrazySexyCool was selling by the million; the members said their contract left them too small a share to cover their debts.

Which treaty, in force from November 1993, created the European Union and introduced EU citizenship?

The Maastricht Treaty, signed by the twelve member states in February 1992, created the European Union and committed members to a single currency; Germany was the last to ratify before it took effect on 1 November 1993.

Which nonlinear 1994 Quentin Tarantino film won the Palme d'Or at Cannes?

Pulp Fiction won the Palme d'Or at Cannes in 1994 and was nominated for seven Academy Awards; its interwoven storylines and sharp dialogue revived John Travolta's career.

Who became the first woman to serve as U.S. Secretary of State in 1997?

Madeleine Albright, born in Prague and raised Catholic, learned only in 1997, the year she took office, that her parents had been Jewish and that three of her grandparents were murdered in the Holocaust.

Which NBC medical drama, launched in 1994, starred George Clooney as Dr. Doug Ross?

ER grew out of a screenplay Michael Crichton wrote in 1974 about his days as a medical student in a busy emergency room; producers ignored it for two decades before it reached the screen as a series.

Which free operating system kernel did a Finnish student first release in 1991?

Linux was announced by Linus Torvalds, a Helsinki student, as 'just a hobby, won't be big and professional'; he meant to call it Freax, but the volunteer running the server it was uploaded to named the folder Linux.

Which NFL team lost four consecutive Super Bowls from 1991 to 1994?

The Buffalo Bills lost the first of the four by a single point, 20-19 to the Giants, when Scott Norwood's 47-yard field goal attempt sailed wide right with seconds left.

Who sang "My Heart Will Go On", the Oscar-winning ballad from a 1997 blockbuster?

Céline Dion did not want to record it; her husband talked her into a demo, sung in one take, and that demo won over a director who had opposed putting any pop song in his film.

Which 1999 M. Night Shyamalan film gave Haley Joel Osment the line "I see dead people"?

The Sixth Sense cost its first champion his job: Disney's production chief bought the script for $3 million without approval and was removed, and Disney then sold on the production rights to 1999's second-biggest hit.

Which NBA star announced in November 1991 that he had tested HIV-positive and was retiring?

Magic Johnson made the announcement on November 7, 1991, after 12 seasons with the Lakers; he returned for the 1992 All-Star Game and the Barcelona Olympics that summer.

Who directed the 1994 prison drama The Shawshank Redemption?

Frank Darabont bought the film rights from Stephen King for $5,000; King never cashed the cheque, and years later returned it framed with a note: 'In case you ever need bail money.'

Which 1997 comedy stars Tommy Lee Jones as Agent K, policing aliens living secretly on Earth?

Men in Black turned its agents' sunglasses into a hit of their own: Ray-Ban said sales of the Predator 2 model tripled after the film came out.

Which rapper's Dr. Dre-produced major-label debut, The Slim Shady LP, came out in 1999?

Eminem was jobless and newly evicted when he finished second at the 1997 Rap Olympics; a copy of his demo travelled from that event to Dr. Dre, who said, 'Find him. Now.'

Which 1996 Wes Craven slasher opened with Drew Barrymore's character being killed by Ghostface?

Scream had Drew Barrymore lined up as its lead, Sidney, until she asked for the doomed opening role instead; killing off the best-known face in the first scene told audiences no one was safe.

In 1994, roughly 100 days of mass killings in which African country targeted the Tutsi ethnic group?

Rwanda's genocide began the day after President Juvénal Habyarimana's plane was shot down on 6 April 1994, and ended when the Rwandan Patriotic Front took the last government-held territory in July.

The 1992 Los Angeles riots erupted after four LAPD officers were acquitted over the beating of which man?

Rodney King's March 1991 beating was filmed by bystander George Holliday from his apartment balcony; the six days of unrest after the April 29, 1992 acquittals left more than 50 people dead and about $1 billion in damage.

Which April 1998 agreement ended most of the Troubles violence in Northern Ireland?

The Good Friday Agreement was signed in Belfast on 10 April 1998 and approved six weeks later in referendums held on the same day on both sides of the Irish border.

The Channel Tunnel, opened in 1994, links Folkestone in England to a terminal just outside which port?

Calais adjoins the terminal at Coquelles; when the two halves met under the sea on 1 December 1990, an English and a French tunneller shook hands through the gap and swapped flags.

After reunification in 1990, Germany's parliament voted narrowly to move the government to Berlin from which city?

Bonn lost the 1991 vote by just 338 to 320 after more than ten hours of debate; parliament and government completed the move to Berlin in 1999, though some ministries kept their main seats in Bonn.

Which reigning world chess champion did IBM's Deep Blue beat in a 1997 match?

Garry Kasparov had beaten Deep Blue 4-2 in their first six-game match in Philadelphia in 1996, then lost the May 1997 New York rematch 3½-2½.

The 1993 Oslo I Accord was an interim peace agreement between Israel and which organization?

Israel and the PLO signed the Oslo I Accord in Washington on 13 September 1993 after secret talks in Norway; it led to the creation of the Palestinian Authority to govern parts of the West Bank and Gaza.

The April 1999 school shooting at Columbine High School took place in which US state?

Colorado's Columbine High School attack was planned primarily as a bombing; the two seniors opened fire only after the homemade bombs they planted inside the school failed to detonate.

Which space telescope, launched in 1990, needed a 1993 shuttle mission to fix its flawed main mirror?

Hubble's main mirror had been ground too flat at its edge by about one-fiftieth the width of a human hair, blurring every image; shuttle astronauts fitted corrective optics in December 1993, in effect giving it glasses.

Which free-trade agreement did Bush, Mulroney and Salinas sign in December 1992?

NAFTA took effect on 1 January 1994; that same day Zapatista rebels seized towns in the Mexican state of Chiapas in protest at the agreement.

Which country missed the entry targets for the euro's launch in 1999 and joined two years later instead?

Greece was shut out in 1999 for failing the deficit and debt tests and joined in 2001; in 2004 it admitted that the budget figures it had qualified on understated its deficit.

The 51-day 1993 siege of David Koresh's Branch Davidian compound took place near which Texas city?

The Mount Carmel compound lay a few miles outside Waco; the ATF's planned surprise raid was blown when a tipped-off reporter asked a mail carrier for directions, and the carrier was Koresh's brother-in-law.

The Dayton Agreement of November 1995 ended a three-and-a-half-year war in which country?

Negotiated at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton, Ohio, the deal split Bosnia and Herzegovina into two entities, Republika Srpska and a Croat-Bosniak federation, and was formally signed in Paris on 14 December 1995.

Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated in November 1995 at the end of a peace rally in which city?

Rabin was shot in Tel Aviv's Kings of Israel Square on 4 November 1995 by Yigal Amir, a far-right law student who opposed the peace accords Rabin had signed with the Palestinians.

In February 1993, a van bomb in the garage of which New York landmark killed six people?

The February 26, 1993 World Trade Center bomb was meant to topple the North Tower into the South Tower; it failed, but six people died and about 50,000 were evacuated that day.

Which Category 5 hurricane devastated South Florida in August 1992?

Andrew stripped homes around Homestead down to their foundations and exposed shoddy construction, which led Florida to replace its patchwork of local rules with a strict statewide building code.

The 1994 attack on skater Nancy Kerrigan was arranged by the ex-husband of which rival?

Tonya Harding finished eighth at Lillehammer, where Kerrigan recovered to win silver; Harding then pleaded guilty to hindering the investigation and was banned from U.S. figure skating for life.

Which sprinter won both the 200 m and 400 m at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics?

Michael Johnson, laid low by food poisoning before the 1992 Games, ran in gold-coloured spikes in Atlanta: 43.49 in the 400 m, then a world-record 19.32 in the 200 m.

Whose record for consecutive games played did Cal Ripken Jr. break in September 1995?

Lou Gehrig's 2,130 straight games had stood since 1939; when number 2,131 became official, a 22-minute ovation stopped the game until teammates pushed Ripken out of the dugout for a lap of the field.

Which security guard was wrongly hounded as a suspect after the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Park bombing?

Richard Jewell found the backpack bomb and helped clear the area before it went off, then spent 88 days as the public's prime suspect; the real bomber, Eric Rudolph, was not caught until 2003.

Napster, launched in June 1999, was founded by Shawn Fanning and which future Facebook president?

Sean Parker, then 19, co-founded Napster with Shawn Fanning and became Facebook's first president in 2004; Napster's centralised song index made it easy to shut down, which lawsuits did in July 2001.

The Blair Witch Project (1999) sends three film students into the Appalachian woods near Burkittsville, in which state?

Maryland's Burkittsville is the setting; the film's website carried fake police reports about the 'missing' students, and for a time IMDb listed its three actors as 'missing, presumed dead'.

Which film beat The Shawshank Redemption to the Best Picture Oscar for 1994?

Forrest Gump won six Oscars; Winston Groom's 1986 novel is wilder than the film, sending Forrest into space as an astronaut and into the ring as a professional wrestler.

Who wrote Britney Spears's 1998 debut single "...Baby One More Time"?

Max Martin had offered the song to two established groups, who both turned it down; Jive then cut the opening words 'Hit Me' from the title for fear they would seem to condone violence.

Which 1996 dance-craze single spent 14 weeks atop the US Hot 100?

Macarena began in 1992 as a chorus Los del Río improvised at a party in Venezuela to praise a flamenco dancer; a Miami remix with added English lyrics turned it into a 14-week US number one.

Which Canadian singer's 1995 album Jagged Little Pill included "You Oughta Know" and "Ironic"?

Alanis Morissette had made two dance-pop albums as a teenager in Canada before reinventing herself with producer Glen Ballard; the album won Album of the Year, making her, at 21, the youngest winner to that point.

Toy Story (1995), the first fully computer-animated feature, was which studio's first film?

Pixar nearly lost the film in November 1993, when Disney halted production after a story reel showed a Woody so nasty that Tom Hanks called him a jerk; the script was then rewritten.

Which nation won the 1994 World Cup in the USA, the first final decided on penalties?

The Rose Bowl final finished 0-0 after extra time. Roberto Baggio skied the decisive kick, handing Brazil a record fourth title.

Whitney Houston's 1992 hit 'I Will Always Love You' was written and first recorded by whom?

Dolly Parton wrote it in 1973 as a farewell to her mentor Porter Wagoner, and later refused to let Elvis Presley record it when his manager demanded half the publishing rights.

Microsoft's Windows 95 launch ads were built around which 1981 Rolling Stones single?

Microsoft licensed the Rolling Stones' 1981 single "Start Me Up", from Tattoo You, for Windows 95's August 24, 1995 launch campaign, playing on the operating system's new Start button.

Which group released the nerve agent sarin on the Tokyo subway during rush hour in March 1995?

Aum Shinrikyo members released sarin in five coordinated attacks on three lines on 20 March 1995, killing more than a dozen people and injuring thousands; the cult had begun in 1984 as a yoga and meditation class.

Who scored the winning penalty for the US against China in the 1999 Women's World Cup final?

Brandi Chastain buried the fifth US kick past Gao Hong, then whipped off her shirt before 90,185 at the Rose Bowl; the image made the covers of Sports Illustrated, Time and Newsweek.

The 1997 Heaven's Gate mass suicide was timed to the closest approach of which comet?

Marshall Applewhite and 38 followers died in Rancho Santa Fe in late March 1997, believing a UFO trailing Comet Hale-Bopp would carry them away; the group's website had announced the 'closure'.

FBI agents arrested 'Unabomber' Ted Kaczynski in 1996 at his remote cabin in which state?

The Montana cabin was found because Kaczynski's brother David recognised the ideas and language of the published manifesto and told the FBI; inside, agents found a live bomb and 40,000 pages of journals.

In 1995's 'Battle of Britpop', whose 'Country House' outsold Oasis's 'Roll with It'?

Blur's "Country House" sold 274,000 copies to 216,000 for "Roll with It" in August 1995, but as NME later put it, Blur had won the battle while Oasis were winning the war.

Whose solo debut won five Grammys in one night in 1999, then a record for a woman?

Lauryn Hill's The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill was the first hip-hop album to win Album of the Year, and as of 2025 it is still the only solo studio album she has released.

What two-word greeting was the first SMS text message, sent to a Vodafone phone in December 1992?

"Merry Christmas" was typed on a personal computer, not a phone, by test engineer Neil Papworth. A Vodafone colleague read it on an Orbitel 901 handset.

Which cardboard-disc craze was named after a Hawaiian juice made from guava, orange and passionfruit?

Pogs came back after teacher Blossom Galbiso taught her Oahu class the old milk-cap game as a gentler alternative to dodgeball. Players stack the discs and drop a heavier 'slammer' on them.

Which Pfizer drug, approved in the late 1990s, was first tested as a heart medicine for angina?

Viagra did little for angina in early trials, but volunteers reported an unexpected side effect. Pfizer changed course and sold it as the first pill for erectile dysfunction.

Which Disney musical was the first animated film nominated for the Best Picture Oscar?

Beauty and the Beast had already become the first animated film to win the Golden Globe for best musical or comedy. Three of its songs were up for the Oscar at once.

Which toy did a NASA engineer invent after an experiment shot a jet of water across his bathroom?

The Super Soaker first reached shops with the name Power Drencher. Its inventor had been working on a new kind of refrigeration system, not a toy, when the idea struck.

Which games console grew out of a failed deal to build a CD-ROM add-on for the Super NES?

PlayStation began as Sony's disc drive for a rival's machine, until that rival walked on stage and announced it was siding with Philips instead. Sony turned the work into a console of its own.

Which boxing legend, living with Parkinson's disease, lit the cauldron at the Atlanta Olympics?

Muhammad Ali was the last of more than 10,000 torch bearers. During those Games he was also handed a replacement for the gold medal he had won in Rome in 1960.

Which beach drama, cancelled by NBC after one season, became the world's most-watched TV show?

Baywatch was rescued by its own star, David Hasselhoff, who helped revive it for syndication. There it drew a weekly audience of more than a billion viewers.

Which Europop group's hit single 'Barbie Girl' prompted a trademark lawsuit from toymaker Mattel?

Aqua's record label won when an appeals court ruled the song a protected parody. The judge closed his opinion with the line 'The parties are advised to chill.'

Which Irish dance show began as a seven-minute interval act at the Eurovision Song Contest?

Riverdance was led that night by champion dancers Jean Butler and Michael Flatley. Within a year its producers had stretched the short routine into a full stage show.

Which child actor starred in Home Alone, the top-grossing live-action comedy for two decades?

Macaulay Culkin became a child star through a film that almost died in production. Warner Bros. shut it down for running over budget, and 20th Century Fox picked it up.

Which Clarice Starling thriller swept the top Oscars, a feat managed only twice before?

The Silence of the Lambs won Best Picture, Director, Actor, Actress and Adapted Screenplay. Only It Happened One Night and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest had done the same.

Which blockbuster, the top-grossing film of 1996, blew up a scale model of the White House?

Independence Day earned more than $817 million worldwide, the second-highest total ever at the time. Its White House interiors were sets left over from The American President.

Which Alicia Silverstone teen comedy was loosely adapted from Jane Austen's Emma?

Clueless grew out of writer-director Amy Heckerling's memory of reading the novel at college. She loved a heroine who was sure nothing could go wrong.

Tom Hanks won back-to-back Best Actor Oscars for Forrest Gump and which earlier film?

Philadelphia cast Hanks as a lawyer with AIDS who sues his firm for discrimination. He became only the second actor ever to win the Best Actor award two years running.

Which black-and-white Holocaust drama won Steven Spielberg his first Best Director Oscar?

Schindler's List breaks its monochrome for one image, a little girl's red coat during the clearing of the Kraków ghetto. Spielberg wanted the feel of documentary footage from the era.

In which comedy does Robin Williams play a divorced father who dons a disguise to see his children?

Mrs. Doubtfire won the Academy Award for Best Makeup. Williams later recalled walking around San Francisco in the full costume and prosthetics.

Which thriller puts Sandra Bullock at the wheel of a Los Angeles bus wired with a bomb?

Speed's bomb goes off if the bus drops below 50 mph. The first script set the limit at 20 mph until a friend told the screenwriter to raise it, and the working title was Minimum Speed.

Which sci-fi series paired believer Fox Mulder with sceptical doctor Dana Scully?

The X-Files ended most of its opening sequences with the tagline 'The Truth Is Out There'. Creator Chris Carter deliberately made the man the believer and the woman the scientist.

Which David Lynch series opens with homecoming queen Laura Palmer found dead in a small town?

Twin Peaks sends FBI agent Dale Cooper to investigate. His visions include a giant offering the clue 'the owls are not what they seem'.

Which adult cartoon about four schoolboys grew out of shorts made with construction-paper cutouts?

South Park kept the hand-cut look but dropped the scissors. After the pilot, every episode has been made on computers that imitate the paper style.

Which BBC series for toddlers made stars of Tinky Winky, Dipsy, Laa-Laa and Po?

Teletubbies made headlines when an American preacher objected to Tinky Winky, the largest of the group, carrying what looks like a handbag.

Which Cheers spin-off moved a Boston psychiatrist home to Seattle to host a radio call-in show?

Frasier won the Emmy for Outstanding Comedy Series year after year, a winning streak that only Modern Family has matched.

Which children's action series built its fights from stock footage of Japan's Super Sentai shows?

Power Rangers was first pitched under the title Galaxy Rangers. Its pilot was assembled around battle footage from the newest Japanese season.

Which actress took over as Buffy the Vampire Slayer on television from the film's Kristy Swanson?

Sarah Michelle Gellar played Buffy Summers, the latest in a long line of young women chosen to fight evil. Writer Joss Whedon revived the idea after his 1992 film script.

Which singer's duet with Boyz II Men, 'One Sweet Day', led the Hot 100 for a record 16 weeks?

Mariah Carey and the group held that record for 23 years. The ballad also entered the chart at number one, which only three songs had done before.

Which country singer's debut hit 'Achy Breaky Heart' pushed line dancing into the mainstream?

Billy Ray Cyrus was not the first to record it. The Marcy Brothers had released the song a year earlier under the title 'Don't Tell My Heart'.

Which rapper's 'U Can't Touch This' was built on the opening riff of Rick James's 'Super Freak'?

MC Hammer was sued for copyright infringement over the sample. Rick James ended up with a songwriting credit on the hit.

Which rock classic's bassline drives 'Ice Ice Baby', the first hip-hop single to top the Hot 100?

Under Pressure earned Queen and David Bowie no songwriting credit or royalties until after the rap single had become a hit.

Which singer's Come On Over became the best-selling studio album ever released by a woman?

Shania Twain's third album has sold more than 40 million copies worldwide. That also makes it the best-selling country album and the top seller by any Canadian artist.

Which trio of young brothers from Tulsa topped charts around the world with 'MMMBop'?

Hanson first recorded the song at a slower tempo on an independent album. The Dust Brothers then reworked it into the upbeat pop track that became the hit.

Which rapper's 'Gangsta's Paradise' led the soundtrack of the school drama Dangerous Minds?

Coolio built the track on Stevie Wonder's 1976 song 'Pastime Paradise'. The borrowing earned Wonder a credit for the composition and lyrics.

Which singer's dance hit 'Believe' pioneered the warbling Auto-Tune vocal sound named after her?

Cher had her voice run through pitch-correction software at extreme settings it was never designed for. Auto-Tune's own manual later named its most extreme setting the 'Cher effect'.

Which band's biggest US hit, 'Losing My Religion', grew from a riff improvised on a mandolin?

R.E.M. guitarist Peter Buck was teaching himself the instrument and taping his practice. The riff turned up when he listened back the next day.

Which band's 'Tubthumping' gave the 1990s the chorus 'I get knocked down, but I get up again'?

Chumbawamba took the song's inspiration from a Leeds pub called the Fforde Grene. The lyric was later set in neon on the Leeds Playhouse.

Which blue video game mascot did Sega design in the early 1990s to compete with the plumber Mario?

Sonic the Hedgehog was coloured to match Sega's cobalt blue logo. His shoes were inspired partly by Michael Jackson's boots.

Which id Software shooter, set on the moons of Mars and in hell, gave gaming the word 'deathmatch'?

Doom spread as shareware, with its first episode given away free. Only about 1% of downloaders were thought to pay for the rest, yet that still brought in $100,000 a day at first.

Which fighting game's gory 'Fatality' moves helped prompt the creation of the ESRB ratings board?

Mortal Kombat caused controversy because its digitised graphics made the gore look realistic. The home releases of Night Trap and Lethal Enforcers were blamed alongside it.

Which heroine debuted in Tomb Raider, racing a rival archaeologist to an Atlantean artefact?

Lara Croft holds a Guinness World Record as the most recognised female video game character. She was also among the first game characters to be successfully adapted to film.

Which island puzzle adventure was the best-selling PC game until The Sims took the title?

Myst sold more than six million copies and helped persuade people to buy a CD-ROM drive. Players reach its island through a special book.

Which Blizzard strategy game became a televised professional sport in South Korea?

StarCraft was the best-selling PC game of 1998. Korean players and teams went on to earn sponsorships like athletes.

Which festival did Perry Farrell create as a farewell tour for his band Jane's Addiction?

Lollapalooza got its name from an antiquated word Farrell liked the sound of. He claimed to have heard it in a Three Stooges short, though a search of their films found nothing.

Which Pulitzer-winning rock musical moved Puccini's La bohème to New York's East Village?

Rent lost its creator, Jonathan Larson, who died suddenly the night before the first preview. The cast sang through the show in his memory instead.

Which Japanese role-playing game stunned players by killing off flower seller Aerith midway through?

Final Fantasy VII's developers chose Aerith because her loss would be the most devastating. They then created Tifa so the story still had a heroine.

Which British artist suspended a shark in formaldehyde for a work funded by Charles Saatchi?

Damien Hirst paid £6,000 for the shark, which was shipped from Australia. It decayed so badly that a new specimen had to replace it in 2006.

Which gymnast landed a vault on an injured ankle to clinch team gold for the US 'Magnificent Seven'?

Kerri Strug had to be carried onto the medal podium by coach Béla Károlyi. Her teammates had refused to walk out for the ceremony without her.

Which nation won football's Euro 92 after being invited only when Yugoslavia was disqualified?

Denmark had finished second in Yugoslavia's qualifying group. The late call-ups knocked out the reigning champions, the Netherlands, on penalties, then beat Germany 2–0 in the final.

Which Apple handheld, mocked in Doonesbury for misreading handwriting, did Steve Jobs kill off?

Newton became a punchline when the comic strip showed it turning 'Catching on?' into 'Egg Freckles'. It was still the device that gave the world the term PDA.

Which MTV series opened with 'the true story of seven strangers picked to live in a house'?

The Real World is credited with launching modern reality television. It ran on MTV for a quarter of a century and spun off The Challenge, which has outlasted it.

Which computer scientist invented the World Wide Web at CERN, publishing the first website there?

Tim Berners-Lee's first website simply described the project itself. He later appeared in the London 2012 Olympic opening ceremony, working at a vintage NeXT computer.