100 Fun Facts About 1993

Which claim from a 17th-century 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 within months 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 began as a prank, a fake children's TV star used to fool celebrities in the show's 'Gotcha' segment, before his single spent three weeks at number one.

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 trimmed from a twelve-minute album track, yet the single still took the record for longest UK chart-topper from '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 bleached and dyed her hair red for the role for years, and the damage is why she adopted her trademark high ponytail.

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

Harry Kane was let go by Arsenal's academy after a single season, aged eight, and went on to become the record scorer for their rivals Tottenham as well.

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, after he prepared by interviewing blind New Yorkers about the moment they lost their sight.

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 debuted on 13 September, came so close to cancellation in his first year that his writers thought the show was over, and went on to host Late Night for 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 also won Song of the Year and Best Male Pop Vocal Performance, yet Clapton stopped performing it in 2004, saying he no longer felt the loss.

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

Take That had released eight singles without topping the chart before Gary Barlow's 'Pray' stayed there for four weeks and began a run of four straight number ones.

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

PDF caught on so slowly that Adobe's own board tried to cancel it for lack of demand, and it spread only after the Reader was given away free.

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

Maya Angelou's reading sent sales of her paperbacks up by 300 to 600 percent within a week, and her recording of the poem won a Grammy.

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 said her gratitude to UNICEF went back to her own childhood, when she was among the hungry children given food and medical relief after the Second World War.

Which film cast Robert Redford as billionaire John Gage opposite Demi Moore and Woody Harrelson?

Indecent Proposal turns on Gage's offer of a million dollars for one night with Moore's character, and the film took $266 million worldwide.

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

The Wrong Trousers has the penguin hijack Wallace's robotic Techno-Trousers, a birthday gift for Gromit, to steal a diamond, and it won 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 was recorded for the 1992 comedy Honeymoon in Vegas, lost its place there to Bono's version of the song, and was rescued a year later by the soundtrack of the thriller Sliver.

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

Janet Reno was Clinton's third choice for the post: his first two picks, Zoë Baird and Kimba Wood, fell away because both had employed undocumented immigrants as nannies.

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 led Apple chief John Sculley to coin 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 earned Mullis a $10,000 bonus from his employer Cetus, which later sold the patent to Roche for $300 million.

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 colleagues elsewhere in the building a wasted trip to an empty pot, 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 sealed North Carolina's 77–71 win, yet weeks later he was the first player picked in the NBA draft.

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's vote, 99.8% in favour, capped a thirty-year war of independence and left Ethiopia landlocked.

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

Naruhito first met her at a 1986 tea for Spain's Infanta Elena, and she turned him down twice rather than give up her career before accepting.

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

Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha is set in Barrytown, the name Doyle invented for the north Dublin area where he grew up and spent years as a schoolteacher.

Which Simpsons episode has the smooth-talking Lyle Lanley win over Springfield with a Music Man-style song?

Marge vs. the Monorail began when its writer saw a sign for a monorail; the showrunners thought the idea too crazy to pitch first, yet producer James L. Brooks loved it.

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 recast Coltrane, a comedian known for sketch shows and farces such as Nuns on the Run, as a dramatic lead, and the role won him 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 gave up the throne in 1955 to go into politics, so the restoration made him king a second time.

Which microstate's first written constitution, approved by referendum in March, kept a bishop and the French president as joint heads of state?

Andorra's constitution passed with 74.2% support and declared the Andorran people sovereign, while keeping the Bishop of Urgell as co-prince alongside France's head of state.

The tanker Braer ran aground in a January storm off which islands, spilling almost 85,000 tonnes 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 was the first 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 beat Dublin and Galway to become the smallest settlement yet 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 it left Dallas three points short of the record for most points scored in a Super Bowl.

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.

Which film overtook E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial in 1993 as the highest-grossing ever, a record it held until Titanic?

Jurassic Park gives its dinosaurs only about 15 minutes on screen, and just six of those minutes are computer-generated; the rest are animatronics.

In which 1993 comedy does Robin Williams play a divorced father posing as an elderly British nanny to see his children?

Mrs. Doubtfire's make-up took four hours to apply each time, and it won the film the Academy Award for Best Makeup.

Which 1993 comedy traps a cynical TV weatherman in a time loop while covering a festival in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania?

Groundhog Day was shot almost entirely in Woodstock, Illinois, after its makers had scouted more than 60 towns to stand in for the real Punxsutawney.

Which Fox series, first aired in September 1993, sends FBI agents Mulder and Scully to investigate paranormal cases?

The X-Files drew chiefly on the 1970s horror series Kolchak: The Night Stalker, and its first five seasons were filmed in Vancouver.

Which country star wrote the ballad that Whitney Houston kept at US number one for a then-record 14 weeks into 1993?

Dolly Parton wrote it in 1973 as a goodbye to her mentor Porter Wagoner, and turned Elvis Presley down when his manager asked for half the publishing rights.

Which New York landmark survived a truck bomb that exploded in its underground garage on 26 February 1993?

The World Trade Center blast killed six people but failed to topple the tower, and its planner Ramzi Yousef fled to Pakistan within hours.

Which country split peacefully into two new states on 1 January 1993 in what became known as the Velvet Divorce?

Czechoslovakia dissolved without a referendum: in a September 1992 poll only 37% of Slovaks and 36% of Czechs favoured the split.

Which tuxedo cat moved into the White House in January 1993 as the pet of Bill Clinton's family?

Socks was a stray who jumped into Chelsea Clinton's arms as she left her piano teacher's house in Little Rock, two years before the family moved to Washington.

Which id Software shooter, released as shareware in December 1993, sends a lone space marine to fight demons from hell?

Doom drew so many eager downloaders that id Software could not connect to the University of Wisconsin server to upload the game on launch night.

Which line of pellet-filled plush animals did Ty Warner unveil at the New York toy fair in 1993?

Beanie Babies were deliberately under-stuffed so they could be posed, and buyers later hoarded them as a financial investment.

Which 1993 Steven Spielberg film, shot in black and white, picks out one little girl's coat in red?

Schindler's List paid its director nothing: Spielberg refused a salary for the film and believed that it would fail.

Which NBC sitcom ended in May 1993 with a finale that the network estimated 93 million Americans watched?

Cheers was nearly cancelled in its first season, when its premiere ranked 74th out of 77 shows; eleven seasons later it left as a ratings giant.

Which MTV cartoon, launched in 1993, follows two couch-bound teenagers from Highland, Texas as they mock music videos?

Beavis and Butt-Head grew out of Mike Judge's short film Frog Baseball, which MTV broadcast on its animation showcase Liquid Television.

Which band hired producer Steve Albini to give their 1993 album In Utero a harsher sound than Nevermind?

Nirvana saw In Utero debut at number one in the US even though the retail chains Wal-Mart and Kmart refused to sell it.

Which playground craze of 1993, played with stacked cardboard discs, took its name from a Hawaiian fruit juice brand?

Pogs borrowed the name of POG, a drink of passionfruit, orange and guava whose bottle caps were used to play the game before anyone sold it as a toy.

Which burrito chain began in 1993 in a former ice cream shop near the University of Denver, on an $85,000 family loan?

Chipotle was meant as a stepping stone: founder Steve Ells planned to use its profits to open a fine-dining restaurant, then stuck with burritos.

Which chipmaker, founded in 1993, was first sketched out by three engineers meeting at a Denny's diner in California?

Nvidia takes its name from invidia, the Latin word for envy, and a plaque marks the corner booth where the company was planned.

Which dance hit did Spanish duo Los del Río first release in 1993, three years before its remix topped the US chart?

Macarena was inspired by a flamenco teacher who danced for the duo at a party in Venezuela, and its title honours the songwriter's daughter.

Which Fox Kids series, launched in August 1993, was built around stock fight footage from a Japanese superhero show?

Power Rangers kept the Japanese battle scenes and filmed new ones with American actors playing a team of teenagers from a fictional Californian town.

Which Disney film casts Bette Midler as one of three witch sisters resurrected in Salem on Halloween night?

Hocus Pocus opened in mid-July 1993, far from Halloween, and it was the yearly holiday that later turned the film into a cult classic.

Which 1993 thriller puts Harrison Ford on the run as Dr Richard Kimble, a surgeon convicted of murdering his wife?

The Fugitive won Tommy Lee Jones an Oscar as the marshal on Kimble's trail, and the wreckage of its train crash was left beside a North Carolina tourist railway.

Which Hollywood actress eloped with country singer Lyle Lovett in June 1993 after a romance of three weeks?

Julia Roberts married him in Marion, Indiana, far from Hollywood, and the couple divorced in March 1995 after less than two years of marriage.

Which Colombian drug lord was shot dead on a Medellín rooftop in December 1993, a day after his 44th birthday?

Pablo Escobar gave himself away by phoning his family: American tracing technology let Colombian special forces pin down the house he was hiding in.

Which judge, confirmed 96–3 by the Senate in August 1993, became the second woman to sit on the US Supreme Court?

Ruth Bader Ginsburg knew the Court well: as an ACLU lawyer in the 1970s she argued six sex-discrimination cases before it and won five.

Which Stand by Me actor collapsed and died outside the Viper Room, a Hollywood club part-owned by Johnny Depp, in 1993?

River Phoenix, elder brother of Joaquin, was 23 and in the middle of filming Dark Blood when he died of a drug overdose on Halloween morning.

Which gothic comic-book film was Brandon Lee shooting in March 1993 when a prop gun fatally wounded him on set?

The Crow needed its star for only three more days of filming, so the makers finished it with script rewrites, a stunt double and digital effects.

Which gory fighting game reached home consoles in September 1993 and helped prompt US Senate hearings on game violence?

Mortal Kombat and the horror game Night Trap so alarmed senators that the games industry set up the ESRB to put age ratings on its own products.

Which Texas city gave its name to the 51-day siege of David Koresh's Branch Davidians that ended in fire in April 1993?

Waco lay a short drive from the Mount Carmel ranch, where the standoff began when federal agents tried to serve a weapons warrant in a daylight raid.

Which capital hosted the secret talks that led Israel and the PLO to sign a peace accord in Washington in 1993?

Oslo's secret negotiations led Israel and the PLO to recognise each other, and earned Yasser Arafat, Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres the 1994 Nobel Peace Prize.

Which city sits near the meeting point of the Mississippi and Missouri, which both crested at record levels in 1993?

St. Louis saw the two record crests arrive within days of each other, in a Midwestern flood that lasted from April to October and closed both waterways to shipping.

Which orbiting telescope, launched with a flawed mirror, did shuttle Endeavour astronauts repair in December 1993?

Hubble took a then-record five spacewalks to fix, as the crew fitted a new main camera and a package of corrective optics.

Which English band broke through worldwide in 1993 when its debut single Creep was reissued and became a hit?

Radiohead had to share the writing credit for Creep with the authors of The Air That I Breathe after legal action over the two songs' likeness.

Which debut novel by Irvine Welsh, published in 1993, follows a circle of heroin users in Leith, Edinburgh?

Trainspotting takes its ironic title from the disused Leith Central railway station, a place its characters frequent long after the last locomotive left.

Which actress won an Oscar in March 1993 for playing Mona Lisa Vito opposite Joe Pesci in My Cousin Vinny?

Marisa Tomei's win gave rise to a minor Hollywood myth, after critic Rex Reed suggested that the presenter had read out a name that was not in the envelope.

Which city gave its name to the treaty that founded the European Union when it took effect on 1 November 1993?

Maastricht almost failed: Danish voters first rejected the treaty by 50.7% to 49.3%, and only opt-outs such as keeping the krone allowed a second referendum.

Which planet was Comet Shoemaker–Levy 9 already orbiting when astronomers discovered it in March 1993?

Jupiter had probably captured the comet 20 to 30 years earlier and torn it into fragments, which crashed into the planet in July 1994.

Which fantasy trading card game, designed by Richard Garfield, did Wizards of the Coast first publish in 1993?

Magic: The Gathering began when publisher Peter Adkison asked for a portable game that could fill the downtime at gaming conventions.

Which 1993 puzzle game by brothers Rand and Robyn Miller carries the player to a strange island through a special book?

Myst was the best-selling PC game for nearly a decade, until The Sims overtook it in 2002, and it helped drive the adoption of the CD-ROM drive.

Which web browser, released in 1993 by Marc Andreessen and Eric Bina, was the first to show images inline with text?

Mosaic made the web visual, and Andreessen went on to co-found the company behind Netscape Navigator, which took most of its users within a few years.

Which Trinidadian-born singer's 1993 debut single What Is Love reached number one in 13 countries?

Haddaway's hit found a second life in the late 1990s, when Will Ferrell's head-bobbing Roxbury Guys danced to it in a run of Saturday Night Live sketches.

Which former Sugarcubes singer moved to London and made the 1993 solo album Debut with producer Nellee Hooper?

Björk found her own sound in London's underground club scene, having felt that the Sugarcubes' rock music never fitted her taste.

Who became Canada's first female prime minister in June 1993, then lost her own seat in that October's election?

Kim Campbell's Progressive Conservatives went into that election with a majority government and came out of it holding just two seats.

Which American fast-food chain sold the undercooked burgers behind a deadly E. coli outbreak in early 1993?

Jack in the Box served the contaminated beef patties at 73 restaurants in four western states; four children died and hundreds of people fell ill.

Which two-part Tony Kushner play, subtitled A Gay Fantasia on National Themes, won the 1993 Pulitzer Prize for Drama?

Angels in America took the prize for its first part, Millennium Approaches, and the work went on to win the Tony Award for Best Play as well.

Which Florence art gallery was damaged in May 1993 when a Sicilian Mafia vehicle bomb exploded in the street outside?

The Uffizi was hit in retaliation for the arrest of Mafia boss Salvatore Riina, and several paintings there and in the Vasari Corridor were wrecked or badly damaged.

Which console did Atari launch in 1993 and promote as the world's first 64-bit game system?

The Jaguar's 64-bit claim was disputed, and the console struggled to win players away from the older Sega Genesis and Super NES.

Which English band was spotted by Creation Records boss Alan McGee at King Tut's Wah Wah Hut in Glasgow in May 1993?

Oasis had been invited to the gig by a band that shared their rehearsal rooms, and the group and McGee later gave conflicting accounts of how they got into the club.

Which Bosnian city's 16th-century Ottoman bridge was shelled and destroyed in November 1993, then rebuilt by 2004?

Mostar's Old Bridge had been commissioned by Suleiman the Magnificent in 1557; Croat forces destroyed it because the Bosnian army was using it as a supply line.

Which Russian president ordered army tanks to shell his own parliament building, Moscow's White House, in October 1993?

Boris Yeltsin won the standoff when the army, which had stayed neutral, stormed the building with special forces and arrested the leaders of the resistance.

Which American retailer announced in January 1993 that it would scrap its famous mail-order catalogue, the big book?

Sears had begun in the 1880s as a mail-order business selling watches, and the same 1993 announcement closed 113 stores and cut 50,000 jobs.