1997 Facts: Internet Boom, Technology And Big Corporates!

The year 1997 saw big technological inventions and discoveries.

In 1997, Madeleine Albright became the first female Secretary of State in the history of the United States. With its slogan 'New Labour', the Labour Party under Prime Minister Tony Blair achieved a landslide victory in the United Kingdom on May 2, earning the most seats the party has ever had and ending its 18-year opposition period.

Tony Blair served as Prime Minister for 10 years until resigning in 2007. Bill Clinton was declared president of the United States for the second time in 1997.

Heart-throbs like Keanu Reeves, Brad Pitt and Will Smith were on the cover of many magazines, like 'The Globe' tabloid paper, as were the Jennifers: Aniston, Love-Hewitt, Lopez, and Garner. Princess Diana, Kate Moss, and Alek Wek were all hailed as fashion icons in 1997.

Seinfeld, Friends, Monday Night Football, Union Square, and Veronica's Closet were the most popular television shows in the U.S. in 1997. While the biggest pop artists of 1997 included Destiny's Child, Mariah Carrey, Elton John, Aliyah, Foxy Brown, and Lil Kim, among others.

In the world of literature, Bloomsbury released the first book in the Harry Potter series in June of 1997 in the United Kingdom. The novel 'Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone' was an instant hit.

'The Philosopher's Stone' was renamed 'Harry Potter And The Sorcerer's Stone' in the United States in September 1998. The seven-book series was written by J.K. Rowling, who had tried for years to get it published, and it became a popular franchise among both children and adults.

Princess Diana of Wales died in a car crash in Paris while being followed by photographers in the dawn of August 31, 1997. Princess Diana was traveling around Paris in a limo with lover Dodi Fayed, the son of an Egyptian businessman who once owned Harrods, when they were involved in a car accident.

The car crash happened in a tunnel under the Pont de l'Alma after the princess and her boyfriend were allegedly pursued by photographers.

At the scene, Fayed and their driver were declared dead, while Princess Diana was promptly taken to a nearby hospital, where she died two hours later after emergency surgery.

She was only 36 years old. Diana's burial was seen by an estimated 2.5 billion people globally.

If you like reading about 1997, you should read these trivia and fun facts further to learn about it in detail. Read more about how we entered the computer age, and find out more about the pop-culture history of 1997.

An Immense Development In Computing

The decade of the '90s saw great technological advancement, and 1997 saw many developments in this domain.

In the U.S., the Advanced Strategic Computing Initiative (ASCI) Red was made operational. Following a moratorium on underground nuclear testing, the ASCI required a supercomputer to aid with the management of U.S. nuclear weapons.

IBM created the ASCI Red, based on the Intel Paragon design and supplied to Sandia National Laboratories. It was the world's fastest supercomputer until the year 2000, with a peak speed of 1.3 teraflops (about 1.3 trillion calculations per second).

The Compact Disc-ReWritable (CD-RW) format was unveiled in 1997. This optical disc was used to store data, and transfer information to other devices.

It wasn't as durable as modern storage media, and it could only be rewritten around 1,000 times. On the other hand, this aspect was seldom a problem for users who rarely overwrote data on a single disc.

CD-RWs manufactured on CD-RW drives were frequently incompatible with CD-ROM drives, though and, as a result, DVDs surpassed CD-RWs in terms of market share.

IBM's chess supercomputer Deep Blue defeated reigning world champion Garry Kasparov, on May 11, 1997. Deep Blue was capable of moving 200 million positions per second, and won two of the six games, with Kasparov winning one, while three games were all drawn.

The games were held over many days in a television studio, with a sold-out crowd of 600 viewers 'attending' each match on TV screens several floors below.

Because Kasparov had beaten an older version of Deep Blue in 1996, these matches were deemed a rematch.

Kasparov claimed foul play when he lost, leading to claims of human meddling, but later admitted he was fairly beaten. Following the match, IBM decommissioned Deep Blue, and a piece of the system is currently on exhibit at the Computer History Museum, California.

On February 22, 1997, the world was mesmerized by Dolly the sheep, the first fully cloned mammal.

On July 17, 1997, Microsoft published DirectX 5.0 (4.05.00.0155).

Intel launched the Advanced Graphics Port, or AGP, for video cards in August 1997.

Nero, a CD-burning program, was the first to be launched, and HDML was created by Unwired Planet.

In 1997, Connectix released Virtual PC, and the first successful quantum teleportation was completed, bringing quantum computers closer to reality.

Controversial game 'Grand Theft Auto: Vice City' was released. 'Grand Theft Auto' is set in Liberty City, a fictitious American city modeled after New York, and was created by David Jones and Mike Dailly.

The game had a free-form framework, or ARPG (action role-playing game), that allowed players to do whatever they wished in the city while also rewarding them with points for causing mayhem, like running over civilians and completing tasks.

The Internet Age

The 1990s truly embraced the genesis of the internet and the interconnectivity that it brought with it was truly embraced by people worldwide.

In June 1997, the IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) released the 802.11 wireless (wi-fi) network standard.

ECMAScript, a client-side scripting language, was released, and 'The Wall Street Journal' was the first to implement a paywall.

In 1997, the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) adopted the ATA-3 standard, and the Slashdot website was founded.

The Java Database Connectivity API was initially introduced in 1997 by Sun Microsystems.

Establishment Of Big Corporates

Even today, some big companies that rule the corporate world were established in 1997. Read on to find out more about these companies and what they achieved in 1997.

On September 15, 1997, Sergey Brin and Larry Page agreed to change the title of their BackRub search engine to Google, and the google.com domain name was registered.

On June 9, 1997, Sierra Semiconductor confirmed a new title for the company PMC-Sierra, Inc. As a result, the company's public trading symbol on the NASDAQ national market has likewise switched from 'SERA' to 'PMCS'.

Visual Studio was announced as a new product from Microsoft, which was intended to provide a single environment where developers could utilize multiple programming languages. The goal of visual programming was to enable programmers to create software using built-in visual features (such as those found in a block diagram) rather than text.

After a 12-year break from the business he created, Steve Jobs returned to Apple in August 1997 when the company purchased NeXT, a technological firm Jobs had built in the meantime.

Development In Aerospace Technology

The year 1997 saw developments in aerospace technology as well. As a result, venturing into space was considered an even bigger avenue than before. Keep reading to learn all about different developments in aerospace technology in 1997.

On July 4, 1997, the amazing Mars Pathfinder landed safely on Mars. The NASA Pathfinder website, which displays real-time photographs relayed from the Pathfinder on Mars, had more than 100 million visits during its first four days, setting a new record for hits. NASA put up 25 mirror sites to accommodate the load due to the popularity.

Pop-Culture History Facts

We have curated a few more fun facts for you about the events of 1997:

'Titanic', directed by James Cameron, was the second-highest-grossing picture of all time when released on December 19, 1997. In 1998, it was then nominated for 14 Academy Awards.

The 167th episode of 'The Simpsons' aired on Fox on February 9, 1997, making it the longest-running animated television series in history.

The Spice Girls were the greatest pop music sensation in the world in 1997. According to HotPress.com, the debut album 'Spice', which was released in 1996, reached number one in 19 countries and sold more than 24 million copies worldwide.

The Spice Girls were so popular that Spice Girls dolls were sold at public stores and became a must-have toy for young girls. They serve as inspiration to several girl bands even today.

' Men In Black', 'The Lost World: Jurassic Park', 'Air Force One', 'Good Will Hunting', 'The Fifth Element', 'As Good As It Gets', 'Star Wars (Special Edition)', 'My Best Friend's Wedding', and 'Tomorrow Never Dies' were all released in 1997.

Many movies made their entry into the national film registry in 1997, including classics 'Harold and Maude', 'Music Box', 'How The West Was Won', and Hindenburg disaster newsreel footage.

'The Lion King' musical made its Broadway premiere in October 1997, at the New Amsterdam Theatre. The musical, which Disney produced, was based on the blockbuster Disney-animated feature of the same name, 'The Lion King', from 1994. The musical recreated the tale of a royal lion using extravagant puppetry, costumes, and dancing.

Apples cost $0.99 (73p) per pound; bananas cost $0.49 (36p) per pound, whereas chicken fryers cost $1.05 (77p) per pound in 1997. Dinosaur Eggs oatmeal, Ellio's Pizza, Dunkaroos, and Dippin' Dots were popular food and beverages in the United States in 1997.

'South Park', the contentious comedy animation with vulgar language, and dubious subject matter, sparked controversy. Trey Parker and Matt Stone created the program in 1992, and it premiered in 1997 and is still going strong.

In 1997, September 29 was designated as National Coffee Day to celebrate the popular caffeinated beverage. Since then, people have celebrated National Coffee Day every year with their favorite coffee type and flavor.

For the 20th anniversary of 'Star Wars, the Special Edition of the original trilogy was released in theaters from January to March 1997. The first important alterations were included in this version, which were meant to demonstrate that Industrial Light & Magic could successfully manufacture CGI visual effects for the prequel trilogy.

'The Lost World: Jurassic Park' was also released in 1997, which was famed for its amazing CGI effects.

Space shuttle 'Atlantis' made a successful return to Earth on January 22, 1997.

Singer Richard Berry, Jr., actors Brian Keith and Joanna Moore, and Jimmy Stewart, the famous actor who featured in many a CBS Sunday movie, and was also a WW II hero, all died that year.

The Super Bowl champions were the Green Bay Packers, the Florida Marlins were the World Series champions, and the Stanley Cup champions were the Detroit Red Wings in 1997.

Lottie Williams, of Tulsa, Oklahoma, was the first human to be hit by re-entering space debris. Williams was walking through a park on January 22, 1997, when she saw what seemed to be a shooting star.

She then felt a touch on her shoulders a little time later, which turned out to be a tiny piece of charred mesh. The mesh was later discovered to be part of a Delta II rocket that had returned to Earth.

'For diverting millions of person-hours of labor towards the care of virtual pets', the Tamagotchi's designers received the 1997 Ig Nobel Prize in Economics.

For his science fair project, 14-year-old Nathan Zohner convinced 43 out of 50 of his classmates to vote to prohibit dihydrogen monoxide in 1997. His project aimed to demonstrate how applying factual data might lead to incorrect judgments among the public. He took first place in the competition.

Andy Green, in sports car 'Thrust SSC', achieved the first supersonic World Land-Speed Record, recording an average speed of 763.035mph (12,278 kph) in the Black Rock Desert, Nevada, on October 15, 1997.

In 1929, food consumed 23.9% of a family's income, compared to 10.7% in 1997.

Fen-Phen, a weight-loss drug made up of two prescription pharmaceuticals, was popular in the 1990s but was taken off the market in 1997 owing to possibly deadly adverse effects.

'No Way Out' was the debut album of American rapper Sean Combs, who went by the professional name of 'Puff Daddy' (now P Diddy). Bad Boy Records and Arista Records released it on July 22, 1997. Puff Daddy has produced many record-breaking songs, including his 'I'll Be Missing You' with Faith Evans featuring Puff Daddy.

'Evolution' was released in September 1997, and was the fourth album by American R&B quartet Boyz II Men but their final album released on Motown Records.

In 1997, Antioch, now Turkey, was struck by 84 earthquakes of magnitude four or higher. The magnitude of Turkey's largest earthquake in 1997 was 5.7 on the Richter scale.

To stem the spread of a potentially fatal influenza type known as avian flu, Hong Kong slaughtered about 1.2 million chickens. Until the first human cases were discovered on May 19, 1997, in Hong Kong, avian flu was assumed to affect all the chickens solely.