Africa

• The Ethiopian Civil War ends in 1991, ending over twenty years of internal conflict. The end of the war coincides with the collapse of the communist government of Mengistu Haile Mariam and the establishment of a coalition government of various factions.

• Somali president Mohamed Siad Barre, who had ruled since 1969, was overthrown in 1991 and the country fell into a state of anarchy and civil war which has not ended as of 2009.

• End of apartheid in South Africa (1994) and election of ANC government of Nelson Mandela.

• In Algeria a long period of violence in the north African country starts by the cancellation of the first ever held democratic elections by a group of high ranking army officers.

• Eritrea gains independence from Ethiopia (1993).

• Military actions by the United States in Somalia in 1993 and the Battle of Mogadishu.

• Rwandan Genocide, a conflict between the Hutu and Tutsi, kills one million people in 1994.

• The Congo Wars break out in the 1990s. The First Congo War takes place in Zaire from 1996 to 1997, resulting in Zairian dictator Mobutu Sese Seko being overthrown from power on May 16, 1997, ending 32 years of his rule. Zaire is renamed the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The Second Congo War starts in 1998 in central Africa and includes 5 different cultures and 7 different nations. It goes on until 2003.

Americas

• Oka Crisis takes place in 1990 involving an armed standoff between people of the Mohawk nation (North American indigenous peoples in Canada), and the Canadian military over a dispute involving land held via treaty to the Mohawk people.

• Jean-Bertrand Aristide becomes the first democratically elected President of Haiti in 1990.

• United States president Bill Clinton was a dominant political figure in international affairs during the 1990s especially with his attempts to negotiate peace in the Middle East and end the ongoing wars occurring in the former Yugoslavia; his promotion of international action to decrease human-created climate change; and his endorsement of advancing free trade in the Americas.

• The bombings of the World Trade Center and the Oklahoma City bombing leads to awareness in U.S. of domestic and international terrorism as a potential threat.

• Canadian politics is radically altered in the 1993 federal election with the collapse of the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada, (a major political party in Canada since 1867) from being government to only 2 seats and the New Democratic Party collapsing from 44 seats to 9. The Liberal Party of Canada is the only genuine national political party that remains while the regionally based parties such as the Quebec-based Bloc Québécois and the almost entirely Western Canada-based Reform Party of Canada rise from political insignificance to being major political parties.

• A large number of the Zapatista indigenous people of Mexico join the Zapatista Army of National Liberation that begins armed conflict with the Mexican government in 1994 and continues through the 1990s.

• After the collapse of the Meech Lake constitutional accord in 1990, the province of Quebec in Canada experienced a rekindled wave of separatism by francophone Québécois nationalists, who sought for Quebec to become an independent country. In 1995, during a referendum on Quebec sovereignty, Quebec voters narrowly reject the vote for independence.

• Due to the internal conflict in Peru and the economic crisis, Alberto Fujimori rises to power in Peru and remains in office for eleven years. His administration is marked by economic development but also by numerous human rights violations (La Cantuta massacre, Barrios Altos massacre), and a rampant corruption network set up by Vladimiro Montesinos.

Asia

• With the end of the Soviet Union, Israel faced a mass influx of Russian Jews, many of whom had high expectations the country was unable to meet. Israel was also barred from participating in the Gulf War, so as to not disrupt the US-Arab alliance.

• Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy in Burma wins a majority of seats in the first free elections in 30 years in 1990, yet the Burmese military junta refuses to relinquish power, beginning an ongoing peaceful struggle throughout the 1990s to the present by Aung San Suu Kyi and her supporters to demand the end of military rule in Burma.

• Iraq was left in severe debt after the 1980s war with Iran. President Saddam Hussein accused Kuwait of flooding the market with oil and driving down prices. On August 2, 1990, Iraqi forces invaded and conquered Kuwait. The UN immediately condemned the action, and a coalition force led by the United States was sent to the Persian Gulf. Aerial bombing of Iraq began in January 1991, and a month later, the UN forces drove the Iraqi army from Kuwait in just four days. In the aftermath of the war, the Kurds in the north of Iraq and the Shiites in the south rose up in revolt, and Saddam Hussein barely managed to hold onto power. Until the US invasion in 2003, Iraq was cut off from much of the world.

• North Yemen and South Yemen merge to form Yemen (1991).

• Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Palestinian Prime Minister Yasser Arafat agree to the Peace Process at the culmination of the Oslo Accords, negotiated by the United States President Bill Clinton on September 13, 1993.

• In Japan, after three decades of economic growth put them in second place in the world's economies, the situation worsened after 1993. The recession went on into the early 2000s, bringing an end to the seemingly unlimited prosperity that the country had hitherto enjoyed.

• Less affluent nations such as India, Malaysia, and Vietnam also saw tremendous improvements in economic prosperity and quality of life during the 1990s. Restructuring following the end of the Cold War was beginning. However, there was also the continuation of terrorism in Third World regions that were once the "frontlines" for American and Soviet foreign politics, particularly in Asia.

• The Palestinian National Authority is created in 1994 in accordance with the Oslo Accords, giving Palestinian Arab people official autonomy over the Gaza Strip and West Bank, though not official independence from Israel.

• In 1994, a peace treaty is signed between Israel and Jordan.

• Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin is assassinated in 1995 by a radical Jewish militant who opposed the Oslo accords.

• The Taliban seize control of Afghanistan in 1996.

• South-East Asia economic crisis starting from 1997.

• The Spratly Islands issue became one of the most controversial in Southeast Asia.

• The Tibetan Freedom Concert brings 120,000 people together in the interest of increased human rights and autonomy for Tibet from China.

• Great Britain hands sovereignty of Hong Kong to the People's Republic of China on July 1, 1997.

• China started the '90s in a bad way, shunned by much of the world after the Tiananmen Square Massacre and controlled by hard line politicians who reigned in private enterprise and attempted to revive old-fashioned propaganda campaigns. Relations with the United States deteriorated sharply, and the Chinese leadership was further embarrassed by the disintegration of communism in Europe. In 1992, Deng Xiaoping travelled to southern China in his last major public appearance to revitalize faith in market economics and stop the country's slide back into Maoism. Afterwards, China recovered, and would experience explosive economic growth during the rest of the decade. In spite of this, dissent continued to be suppressed, and President Jiang Zemin launched a brutal crackdown against the Falun Gong religious sect in 1999. Deng Xiaoping himself died in 1997 at the age of 93. Relations with the US deteriorated again in 1999 after the death of a Chinese journalist during the bombing of Serbia by NATO forces, and allegations of Chinese espionage at the Los Alamos Nuclear Facility.

• Both India and Pakistan reveal their acquiring of nuclear weapons in two separate missile tests in both countries in 1998.

• After the bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania by Al-Qaeda militants, U.S. naval military forces launch cruise missile attacks against Al-Qaeda bases in Afghanistan in 1998.

• In May 1999, Pakistan sends troops covertly to occupy strategic peaks in Kashmir. A month later the Kargil War with India results in a political fiasco for Nawaz Sharif, followed by a military withdrawal to the Line of Control. The incident leads to a military coup in October in which the Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif is ousted by Army Chief Pervez Musharraf.

• Portugal hands sovereignty of Macau to the People's Republic of China on December 20, 1999.

• East Timor breaks away from Indonesian control in 1999, merely a year after the fall of Suharto from power, ending a twenty-four year guerrilla war with more than 200,000 casualties. The UN deploys a peace keeping force, spearheaded by the Australian and New Zealand armed forces. The United States deploys police officers to serve with the International Police element, to help train and equip an East Timorese police force.

• In July 1994, North Korean leader Kim Il-sung died, having ruled the country since its founding in 1948. His son Kim Jong-il succeeded him, taking over a nation on the brink of complete economic collapse. Famine caused a great number of deaths in the late '90s, and North Korea would gain a reputation for being a major source of money laundering, counterfeiting, and weapons proliferation. The country's ability to produce and sell nuclear weapons became a focus of concern in the international community.

Europe

• Germany reunified on October 3, 1990 and, after integrating the economic structure and provincial governments, focused on modernization of the former communist East. People who were brought up in a communist culture became integrated with those living in democratic western Germany.

• Margaret Thatcher who had been the United Kingdom's Prime Minister since 1979 resigned as Prime Minister on November 22 1990 after been challenged for the leadership of the Conservative Party by Michael Heseltine because of widespread opposition to the introduction of the controversial Community Charge and the fact that her key allies such as Nigel Lawson and Geoffrey Howe resigned over the deeply sensitive issues of the Maastricht Treaty and Margaret Thatcher's resistance to Britain joining the European Exchange Rate Mechanism. Less than two years later on the infamous Black Wednesday of September 1992, the pound sterling crashed out of the system after the pound fell below the agreed exchange rate with the Deutsche Mark.

• The collapse of Yugoslavia begins in 1991 with the secession of the republics of Croatia, Slovenia, and the Republic of Macedonia from the federation. The Yugoslav wars begin with the short Ten-Day War in Slovenia and the longer and more brutal Croatian War between Croat and Serb military and paramilitary forces.

• By 1990, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev's reforms were causing major inflation and economic chaos. A coup attempt by hard-liners in August 1991 failed, marking the effective end of the Soviet Union. All its constituent republics declared their independence in 1991, and on Christmas, Gorbachev resigned from office. After 73 years, the Soviet Union had ceased to exist. The new Russian Federation was headed by Boris Yeltsin, and would face severe economic difficulty. Oligarchs took over Russia's energy and industrial sectors, reducing almost half the country to poverty. With a 3% approval rating, Yeltsin had to buy the support of the oligarchs to win reelection in 1996. Economic turmoil and devaluation of the ruble continued, and with heart and alcohol troubles, he stepped down from office on the last day of 1999, handing power to Vladimir Putin.

• The republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina secedes from Yugoslavia in 1992. The Bosnian War immediately erupts amongst the Bosniak, Croat, and Serb ethnic factions. The war would become known for numerous war crimes and human rights violations such as ethnic cleansing and genocide.

• The European Community becomes the European Union on January 1, 1993.

• Severe political deadlock between Russian President Boris Yeltsin and the Supreme Soviet (Russia's parliament at this time) result in Yeltsin ordering the controversial shelling of the Russian parliament building by tanks in 1993.

• Dissolution of Czechoslovakia into Czech Republic and Slovakia (1993).

• The birth of the "Second Republic" in Italy, with the Mani Pulite investigations of 1994.

• Russian financial crisis in the 1990s results in mass hyperinflation and prompts economic intervention from the International Monetary Fund and western countries to help Russia's economy recover.

• The First Chechen War 1994 – 1996;

• The final fighting in Croatian and Bosnian wars ends in 1995 with the success of Croatian military offensives against Serb forces and the mass exodus of Serbs from Croatia in 1995; Serb losses to Croat and Bosniak forces; and finally the signing of the Dayton Agreement which internally partitioned Bosnia and Herzegovina into a Serb republic and a Bosniak-Croat federation.

• Kosovo War between ethnic-Albanian separatists and Yugoslav military and Serb paramilitary forces in Kosovo begin in 1996 and escalates in 1998 with increasing reports of atrocities taking place. In 1999, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) led by the United States launches air attacks against Yugoslavia. The war ends when the Yugoslav government submits to allow NATO and later UN peacekeeping forces to take control of Kosovo.

• Second Chechen War starts in 1999, and is ongoing.

Significant events

• A magnitude 7.8 earthquake hit the Philippines on July 16, 1990 and killed around 1000 people in Baguio City.

• In 1990 the process of dismantlement of apartheid political system in South Africa begins with the release of bans on political parties supported by black South Africans as well as the release of African National Congress leader Nelson Mandela from jail.

• The European Union forms in 1992 under the Maastricht Treaty.

• The Oklahoma City bombing in 1995, the bombing of a federal building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, killed 168. Bombing suspect Timothy McVeigh claimed he bombed the building in retaliation for the 1993 Waco massacre.

• In France, Princess Diana dies in a car accident in 1997. Debates of accident vs. assassination rage well into the 2000s.

• Nelson Mandela is elected President of South Africa in 1994, becoming the first black-President in South African history ending a long-legacy of apartheid white-rule in the country.

• The 1992 Los Angeles riots occurred, with 53 deaths and 5,500 property fires in a riot zone. The riots were a result of the state court acquittal of three White and one Hispanic L.A. police officers by an all-white jury in a police brutality case involving motorist Rodney King, but in 1993, all four officers were convicted in a federal civil rights case.

• The Siege of Sarajevo from 1992 to 1994 in the city of Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina marks the most violent urban warfare in Europe since World War II at that time as Serb forces bombard and attack Bosniak controlled and populated areas of the city. War crimes occur including ethnic cleansing and destruction of civilian property.

• The Omagh bombing in Omagh, County Tyrone, Northern Ireland which kills 29 civilians and injures hundreds more.

• The signing of the Oslo Accords by Israeli and Palestinian representatives in Oslo, Norway on August 20, 1993. By signing the accord, Yasser Arafat of the Palestinian Liberation Organization recognizes Israel's right to statehood, while Prime Minister Yitzak Rabin allowed for the creation of an autonomous Palestinian National Authority consisting of the Gaza Strip and West Bank which was implemented in 1994. Israeli military forces withdraw from the Palestinian territories in compliance with the accord, which marked the end of the First Intifada (a period of violence between Palestinian Arab militants and Israeli armed forces from 1987 to 1993).

• The Channel Tunnel across the English Channel opens in 1994, connecting France and England. As of 2007 it is the second-longest rail tunnel in the world, but with the undersea section of 37.9 km (23.55 miles) being the longest undersea tunnel in the world.

• Israeli Prime Minister Yitzak Rabin is assassinated by a radical Zionist who opposed the Oslo Accords.

• O. J. Simpson's trial, described in the U.S. media as the "trial of the century" and enormous U.S. media attention is focused on the trial. On October 3, 1995, Simpson was found "not guilty" of double-murder of ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend, Ronald Goldman.

• The 1995 Quebec referendum on sovereignty is held in the predominantly francophone province of Quebec in Canada, a majority anglophone country. If accepted Quebec would become an independent country with an economic association with Canada. The proposal is narrowly rejected by Quebec's voters by 50.4% no, and 49.6% yes.

• In the United Kingdom, the first cloned mammal, Dolly the sheep was confirmed by the Roslin Institute, and was reported by global media on February 26, 1997. Dolly would trigger a raging controversy on cloning and bioethical concerns regarding possible human cloning continue to this day.

• US president Bill Clinton was caught in a media-frenzied sex scandal over his intern Monica Lewinsky, first announced on January 21, 1998. After the U.S. House of Representatives impeached Clinton on December 19, 1998 for perjury under oath, following an investigation by federal prosecutor Kenneth Starr, the Senate acquitted Clinton of the charges on February 12, 1999 and he finished his second term.

• The Columbine High School massacre occurred on April 20, 1999, in Littleton, Colorado when two student gunmen killed 12 students and a teacher before committing suicide, making it the deadliest high school shooting in United States history.

• The Euro is adopted by the European Union on January 1, 1999, which begins a process of phasing out national currencies of EU countries.

• In 1999, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) launched air raids against Yugoslavia (then composed of only Serbia and Montenegro) to pressure the Yugoslav government to end its military operations against ethnic Albanian separatists in Kosovo due to accusations of war crimes being committed by Yugoslav military forces working alongside nationalist Serb paramilitary groups. After weeks of bombing Yugoslavia submits to NATO's demands and NATO forces occupy Kosovo and form a UN administration over the territory. The NATO action is seen as highly controversial at the time due to repeated reports of NATO attacks on non-military facilities, including destruction of civilian property and civilian deaths. NATO is criticized for working alongside the Kosovo Liberation Army which was accused of committing atrocities against Serbs.

• Y2K spread fear throughout the United States and eventually the world in the last half of the decade particularly 1999. Many feared that it would cause a massive computer crash on January 1, 2000. It became huge in popular culture and many people stocked up on supplies for fear of a disaster. One year later, January 1, 2001 was the beginning of the 3rd millennium, as well the 21st century and the official end of the 20th century.

Other significant events

• Third-wave feminism

• With help from clinical fertility drugs, an Iowa mother, Bobbie McCaughey, gave birth to the first surviving septuplets in 1997. There followed a media frenzy and widespread support for the family.

• In August 1995, NASA scientists announced, then debunked a big "discovery" of "martian" microscopic life on an asteroid originated from Mars, found in Antarctica and examined to only find mineral formation, not alien bacteria.

• UK radio DJ and television entertainer Kenny Everett dies (in April 1995) shortly after confirming that he has AIDS.

• Freddie Mercury, Kurt Cobain, Tupac Shakur, and The Notorious B.I.G. are the most publicized music-related deaths of the decade, in 1991, 1994, 1996, and 1997 respectively.

• Divorce and scandal rocked the British Royal House of Windsor. Princess Diana and her Arab fiancee were killed in August 1997, when under mysterious circumstances, their car crashed in a tunnel in France.

• The murder of Selena Quintanilla, Tejano superstar from Texas.

• Sex and violence in the media increase, especially in the late part of the decade. Profanity in music reaches peak in the late 1990s.

• Models Pamela Anderson, Silvia Saint, and Anna Nicole Smith become major sex symbols during the 1990s.

• Cindy Crawford becomes the most successful supermodel of the decade.

• The movie Titanic becomes a cultural phenomenon throughout the world, and eventually becomes the highest grossing movie of all time grossing over $1.8 billion, worldwide.

• Major League Baseball players went on strike in August 12, 1994, thus ended the season, canceled the World Series the first time in 90 years, and went on until March 29, 1995 when players and team owners in agreement.

• The Vieques controversy.

• Crime levels in the U.S. peak in 1991, begin to fall afterwards, reaching the lowest levels since the late 1960s by end of decade.

• In the U.S. drug use reaches an all-time low in 1992 before increasing, reaching its peak in 1997 before declining again.

• Examples of the decade's worst natural disasters: Hurricane Andrew strikes South Florida in August 1992, the crippling super storm of March 1993 along the Eastern Seaboard, the devastating 1994 Northridge earthquake in Los Angeles, the Great Hanshin earthquake in Kobe, Japan in January 1995, the Blizzard of 1996 in the eastern U.S., the March Superstorm of 1993 in the eastern U.S., the US drought of 1999, the deadly Hurricane Mitch which struck Central America in October 1998, and the destructive F-5 Oklahoma City tornado in May 1999, the August 1999 İzmit earthquake in Turkey, and the September 1999 Chi-Chi earthquake in Taiwan.

• People are evacuated from the volcanic Caribbean island of Montserrat, a British overseas territory. The Soufirre Hills erupt in 1995 and continued on until 2002.

• Mount Pinatubo, a dormant volcano in the island of Luzon in the Philippines erupted in 1991 to decimate nearby towns and an American air force base permanently abandoned by hot ash fall and under mudslides.

• Mother Teresa, the Roman Catholic nun who won the Nobel Peace Prize, dies at age 87.

• 21-year-old golfer Tiger Woods wins the Masters Tournament by a record 12 strokes; becoming both the youngest and the first American of multiracial descent to win the Masters.

• The Olympic Park Bombing on July 27, 1996 at that year's Summer Olympics in Atlanta, Georgia which kills 1 (who later dies from a heartattack) and injures 111.

• School violence in the US is brought into the national spotlight with numerous incidents, such as the Columbine High School massacre.

• John F. Kennedy, Jr., his wife Carolyn Bessette and sister-in-law Lauren Bessette are killed when Kennedy's private plane crashes off the coast of Martha's Vineyard in July 1999.

• American cyclist Lance Armstrong wins his first Tour de France in 1999, less than two years after battling testicular cancer.

• Debate on assisted suicide highly publicized by Michigan doctor Jack Kevorkian, charged with multiple counts of homicide of his terminally ill patients through the decade.

• Beer keg registration becomes popular public policy in U.S.

• California voters passed Proposition 215 in 1996, to legalize cannabis only for medical purposes, the debate over legalization of marijuana in the U.S. goes on today.

• The Rachel, Jennifer Aniston's hairstyle on the hit show Friends, becomes a cultural phenomenon with millions of women copying it worldwide.

• Controversy surrounded The Prodigy with the release of the track 'Smack My Bitch Up'. The National organization for Women(NOW) claimed that the track was "advocating violence against women" due to the lyrics of that song. The music video (directed by Jonas Åkerlund) featured a first-person POV of someone going clubbing, indulging in large amounts of drugs and alcohol, getting into fist fights with men, abusing women and picking up a prostitute. At the end of the video the camera pans over to a mirror, revealing the subject to be a woman.

• The model 1300 Wonderbra style has a resurgence of popularity in Europe in 1992 which kicks off a multinational media sensation, the 1994 re-introduction of "The Wonderbra" brand, and a spike in push-up, plunge bras around the world.

See also

• 1990s in music

• 1990s in fashion

• 1990s in television

• 1990s in science and technology

• 1990s in video gaming

• 1990s in literature

• Culture of the 1990s

• Generation X were young adults or teenagers during this decade.

• The Millennial Generation were children, preteens, teenagers, young adults, or those born in this decade.

• 20th century

• 21st century