62 Fun Facts About 1991: What Happened, When, And Why?

The year 1991 was indeed the year of significant happenings and a rich pop culture history.

Many major events of 1991, like the launch of Nirvana's 'Nevermind' album and popular song of the pop culture history, big five academy awards, and Iowa sugar bowl took place. The defeat of the Iraqi army in Kuwait by the United States under Operation Desert Storm remains at top of them all.

In November 1991, NASA launched the STS-44 mission. Astronauts Terence Henricks, Frederick Gregory, James Voss, Mario Runco, F. Story Musgrave, Jr., and Thomas Hennen were aboard the Space Shuttle Atlantis.

It was a defense department operation with the primary goal of installing a defense support program satellite. Several experiments were also included in the cargo. It ended after nearly seven days in space, and the crew successfully returned to Earth after landing at Edwards Air Force Base located in California.

It was the year when the phrase 'hasta la vista baby' was coined in the movie 'Terminator 2: Judgement Day'. The World Wide Web got online for the first time on August 6, 1991. Tim Berners Lee is the inventor of World Wide Web.

Cartoons like 'Naked Gun', 'The Addams Family', and songs of 1991 like 'Teen Spirit', 'Postman Song', 'Black Or White' by Michael Jackson, and 'Summertime' by Jazzy Jeff and 'The Fresh Prince' became very famous in the era. Also, Bohemian Rhapsody became number one that year which was Freddie Mercury's dying wish.

'Beauty And The Beast' got nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars, and it was the first animated movie to achieve this rare feat. The movie 'Silence Of The Lambs' by Anthony Hopkins became a sensational horror movie of the time. The Super Nintendo entertainment system got released in the USA.

In 1991, Rolling stone magazine gave 'Nevermind' by Nirvana a 3-star rating. Alexa Bliss, Evanna Lynch who played Luna Lovegood in the Harry Potter franchise, Hunter Hayes, Derek Carr, KiKi Layne, Dylan O’Brien, Kyle Massey, and Charlie Puth were some of the celebrities born in 1991.

Events That Took Place In 1991

Major world powers were witnessing a shift both economically and politically during the era of 1991.

US-Soviet START I Treaty, in July 1991 marked a new beginning in the relations between the United States and the Soviet Union. President George H.W.

Bush from the United States and the head of the Soviet Union Mikhail Gorbachev both signed the treaty, committing to limit each country's nuclear weapons to 7,950. Negotiations on the accord started in 1982 under President Ronald Reagan but were often stalled due to disagreements.

Following the signing of the pact in 1991, numerous additional START agreements were negotiated, further reducing nuclear arms between both countries.

START I came into force in 1994 with both parties complying with the constraints on the timeframe. However, it ended in 2009.

United States-Canada Air Quality Agreement went into effect immediately after the then Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney and then United States President George H. W. Bush signed it at March News Events. It was developed to address the concerns related to transborder air pollution and, over time, has cut the level of acid rain linked with the problem.

It is also known as the Acid Rain Treaty. The deal required the United States and Canada to reduce nitrogen oxide and sulfur dioxide emissions, which result in acid rain.

The Soviet Union undertook the first official measures to dismantle the USSR in September 1991, so the Congress of People's Deputies voted to dissolve the USSR. Several Soviet Republics declared their independence in the prior month, with Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Armenia departing in September 1991.

The disintegration became effective by the end of the year, and the Soviet Union disintegrated when Mikhail Gorbachev quit and was replaced by the new Russian government.

Facts About 1991 For Kids

President George H. W. Bush declared a successful ceasefire in the five-week Gulf War, after which, Kuwait got free and the army of Iraq was defeated.

The Soviet Union got dissolved by the end of 1991 and the countries of Armenia, Lithuania, Belarus, Azerbaijan, Estonia, Kazakhstan, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Ukraine got free from the control of the Soviet Union and announced their independence.

In 1991, the New York appellate court ruled that if a person has purchased a haunted house unknowingly, then they can break the real estate purchase contract.

In 1991, the world wide web was made available to the public and Microsoft.com also went online.

The movie 'Silence Of The Lambs' by Anthony Hopkins became a sensational horror movie at that time.

KFC was the new name given to Kentucky Fried Chicken.

In 1991, the Super Bowl Champs were the New York Giants.

The fivemost popular TV series of the time were 'Roseanne' (ABC), '60 Minutes' (CBS), 'Cheers' (NBC), 'Murphy Brown' (CBS), and 'Major Dad'.

1991 Trivia

The year 1991 was the year of major global events and happenings, be it historical, sports, or in entertainment. We have put together some significant facts here for you.

George H.W. Bush became the president of the United States.

The median household income in the United States increased to $30,126.

The United Nations announced the assault on the military of Iraq to free Kuwait from its control. This operation was launched after six months of Saddam Hussein’s dictatorship and refusal to leave Kuwait.

Huge amounts of oil were released into the Persian Gulf by the Iraqi forces in order to prevent the US forces from entering Kuwait.

Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney and the US president signed the Canada-United States Air Quality Agreement.

Queen Elizabeth II was at the Oakland A’s Baltimore Orioles game, happening at the Memorial Stadium, Baltimore by president Bush. The Baltimore Orioles completed their final game at Memorial Stadium on September 11.

The year 1991 has been a memorable year for the world of sports.

Some of the sports events and the champions are: Minnesota Twins were World Series Champions, Stefan Edberg won the US Open Tennis men's category, Monica Seles won the US Open Tennis women's category, Duke stood as the NCAA Basketball Champions, Orange Bowl was taken by Colorado, Pittsburgh Penguins were the Stanley Cup Champs, New York Giants won Super Bowl XXV (where Whitney Houston sang Star Spangled Banner), Michael Stitch won Wimbledon men's category, Steffi Graf won Wimbledon women's category, Payne Stewart won US Open Golf, Tennessee stood as the champions of Sugar Bowl, Washington captured the Rose Bowl, and Miami and Washington were national champions in NCAA Football.

Fashion icons and heartthrobs of 1991 were Candice Bergen, Jennifer Connelly, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Angie Everhart, Robin Givens, Kathy Ireland, Madonna, Priscilla Presley, Ashley Richardson, Katey Sagal, Stephanie Seymour, Niki Taylor, Christina Applegate, Naomi Campbell, Cindy Crawford, Elvira, Jodie Foster, Rachel Hunter, Elle Macpherson, Kate Moss, Princess Diana, Tanya Roberts, Claudia Schiffer, Sharon Stone, and Vanessa Williams.

Marjorie Vincent won the Miss America crown. Kelli McCarty was the Miss USA.

The famous and sensational movie 'Robin Hood: Prince Of Thieves' was released featuring Bryan Adams. Bryan Adams won many awards for this movie.

'Silence Of The Lambs' by Anthony Hopkins was declared a sensational horror movie of the time.

'Beauty And The Beast' became the first animated movie to be nominated to the Oscars.

The shows which had the most grossing were 'Miss Saigon', 'Cats', 'Lost In Yonkers', 'City Of Angels', 'The Secret Garden', 'The Phantom Of The Opera', 'Les Misérables', 'Will Rogers’ Follies', 'Grand Hotel', and 'Six Degrees Of Separation'.

Whitney Houston sang at the Super Bowl that year.

1991 Inventions

Technology has always been important since the industrial revolution, and the year 1991 witnessed many great inventions, some of which are discussed below.

The internet has always influenced every aspect of technology, including how we work, shop, acquire information and news, learn, relax, and interact with friends, family, and coworkers.

There isn't much that people were not able to do after this invention, which allowed the computer on somebody's table or in their house to be connected to servers and millions of other PCs all over the world.

If you're using a high-speed DSL service, think about individuals who were surfing the web in 1991, when 14.4 kbps modems had first been launched. What is the speed (slowness) of that?

It will take 9 minutes and 15 seconds for a 14.4 kbps modem to download a one MB file at full speed. A 1 GB file would take 154 hours, 19 minutes, and 15 seconds to download. In 1991, the first website got built at CERN labs and went online.

In 1991, Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) released the AMD 386 microprocessor, which was designed to compete directly with Intel's 386 chips rather than serve as a supplementary supply of x86 processors. This set the path for long-term CPU competition, which was beneficial to consumers.

The Am386 was launched in 1991, but it had been in development for several years before that due to legal litigation by Intel.

AMD was able to get a lot more performance out of the 386 design than Intel, pushing it up to 40MHz versus Intel's best of 33MHz. In fact, in tests and real-world trials, AMD's 40MHz 386 outperformed Intel's 486SX-25.

The Intel i486SX chip was released in April 1991, offering a relatively low processor to the PC industry. It was an i486DX that had the FPU (floating-point unit) turned off.

In reality, all of the early chips were i486DX chips with a faulty FPU, which had its energy and bus connections removed with a laser. The i486SX was available at three speeds: 16, 20, and 25 MHz.

Owners of some computers were able to update the preinstalled i486SX to a CPU with an FPU. The i487 FPU upgrade chip was actually a whole i486DX chip.

Notebook introduced by most PC vendors. Notebooks are taken for granted nowadays, but they were large, heavy, and pricey in 1991.

Despite these drawbacks, business users, as well as tech enthusiasts, continued to invest in them. In addition, notebooks were becoming so widespread that by 1991, almost all of the major hardware manufacturers offered notebooks. Apple also debuted the PowerBook this year.

The PowerBook 100, 140, and 170 were available in three different configurations, each with up to 8MB of RAM and a 25MHz Motorola 68030 processor. A monochrome LCD panel with a resolution of 640 x 400 pixels, and a 20MB, 40MB, or 80MB SCSI hard drive Depending on the specifications, the bundle cost from $2,299-4,599.

Another piece of technology that is taken for granted now is scanners. Scanners are no longer stand-alone devices; instead, they are coupled with fax machines and printers to form a single all-in-one gadget. Things were different in 1991.

It was also the year that HP released the HP Scanjet IIc, the first color scanner. Single-pass color scanning at 400 dpi resolution was used, with software interpolation techniques raising the resolution to 800 dpi. It may not seem all that spectacular today, but back in 1991, this was very remarkable. The cost was fixed at $1,995.

In May of 1991, the launch of the first-ever stereo sound card was made. The Blaster Pro, CT1330 was released and also was the first important redesign of the core features of Sound Blaster.

Sound Blaster Pro had a very fast digital sampling rate of 22.05 kHz and also had a mixer to give control of the master volume.

The Sound Blaster Pro had a fully backward compatible feature with an original AdLib and Sound Blaster sound card. This was the first-ever creative sound card that had a built-in CD-ROM interface.

Symantec released Norton anti-virus software. Viruses had an active year in 1991.

Michelangelo, a stoned version, was released for PC users. This was a virus that lay dormant for the most part, but on March 6, it would replace the first 100 bits of the hard disc.

It was also the year that the Virus Construction Set was released, allowing virtually anyone with a PC to develop a virus.

It was also the year that Tequila was released, a virus that was not only stealthy, multipartite, and polymorphic but also could also work on anti-virus-protected systems. It was a terrific period for security firms, having so much malware attacking PCs.

Symantec released the Norton anti-virus software in 1991, following the acquisition of Peter Norton Computing by Peter Norton. Norton antivirus is still around 30 years later, and it is still one of the most popular and effective desktop antivirus solutions.

Microsoft modified the name OS/2 v3.0 to Windows NT. In August of 1985, OS/2 was born as a cooperative IBM/Microsoft project.

The real plan was for it to be a protected-mode successor to PC-DOS.

But, the cooperation began to deteriorate in 1990, as Microsoft saw triumph with Windows 3.0, a medium that marketed millions of licenses in its first year and handled a broader variety of hardware than OS/2.

In 1991, Microsoft rebranded OS/2 v3.0 as Windows NT and outsourced all further OS/2 work to IBM.

It was a watershed moment in Microsoft's history since it led to the release of Windows NT 3.1 in 1993 and the eventual merger of consumer and commercial computer systems with the launch of Windows XP in 2001, which led to the current release of Windows 7.

Linus Torvald used to work on the Linux kernel when Microsoft was developing MS-DOS and Windows, motivated by his dissatisfaction with the approval of the MINIX operating system, which confined the use to academic purposes only. Linus Torvald finished work on the initial Linux kernel around August 25, 1991.