O que aconteceu no ano que você nasceu? whathappenedinmybirthyear/ In 1991, the world was a different place. There was no Google yet. Or Yahoo. Or Unhasinspiradas, for that matter. In 1991, the year of your birth, the top selling movie was Terminator 2: Judgment Day. People buying the popcorn in the cinema lobby had glazing eyes when looking at the poster. Remember, that was before there were DVDs. People were indeed watching movies in the cinema, and not downloading them online. Imagine the packed seats, the laughter, the excitement, the novelty. Do you know who won the Oscars that year? The academy award for the best movie went to The Silence of the Lambs. The Oscar for best foreign movie that year went to Mediterraneo. The top actor was Anthony Hopkins for his role as Hannibal Lecter in The Silence of the Lambs. The top actress was Jodie Foster for her role as Clarice Starling in The Silence of the Lambs. The best director? Jonathan Demme for The Silence of the Lambs. In the year 1991, the time when you arrived on this planet, books were still popularly read on paper, not on digital devices. Trees were felled to get the word out. The number one US bestseller of the time was Scarlett by Alexandra Ripley. Oh, thats many years ago. Have you read that book? Have you heard of it? Look at the cover! In 1991... Soviet forces storm Vilnius to stop Lithuanian independence. The United Nations deadline for the withdrawal of Iraqi forces from occupied Kuwait expires, preparing the way for the start of Operation Desert Storm. Four Los Angeles, California police officers are indicted for the videotaped March 3 beating of motorist Rodney King during an arrest. Albania has its first multi-party elections. Comedy Central is launched. The Pittsburgh Penguins defeat the Minnesota North Stars 8-0 in Game 6 to win their first Stanley Cup in franchise history. Croatia and Slovenia declare their independence from Yugoslavia. The Super Nintendo Entertainment System is released in the United States. Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev is put under house arrest while vacationing in the Crimea during a coup. The attempted coup, led by Vice President Gennady Yanayev and 7 hard-liners, collapses in less than 72 hours. The Huntington Library makes the Dead Sea Scrolls available to the public for the first time. The American Galileo spacecraft makes its closest approach to 951 Gaspra, becoming the first probe to visit an asteroid. Freddie Mercury, the lead singer and frontman of British rock group Queen dies. The first report on Carbon nanotubes is published by Sumio Iijima in the journal Nature. The video game of the day was Super Mario World. That was the world you were born into. Since then, you and others have changed it. The Nobel prize for Literature that year went to Nadine Gordimer. The Nobel Peace prize went to Aung San Suu Kyi. The Nobel prize for physics went to Pierre-Gilles de Gennes from France for discovering that methods developed for studying order phenomena in simple systems can be generalized to more complex forms of matter, in particular to liquid crystals and polymers. The sensation this created was big. But it didnt stop the planets from spinning, on and on, year by year. Years in which you would grow bigger, older, smarter, and, if you were lucky, sometimes wiser. Years in which you also lost some things. Possessions got misplaced. Memories faded. Friends parted ways. The best friends, you tried to hold on. This is what counts in life, isnt it? The 1990s were indeed a special decade. The Nineties saw the beginnings of the World Wide Web, originating at CERN. Email becomes popular. The Soviet Union dissolved. Living standards in East Asia and Europe generally improved. The Cold War ends. Iraqi forces invade Kuwait. A UN coalition force led by the US was sent to the Persian Gulf, and aerial bombing of Iraq began. The Kosovo War took place. The Ethiopian Civil War ends. Dolly, a sheep, is cloned. The Global Positioning System GPS becomes fully operational. Genetically engineered crops are developed for commercial use. Intel develops the Pentium processor. The Java programming language is created. Microsoft released Windows 95. In Los Angeles, riots occur after the police brutality case involving Rodney King. Great Britain hands sovereignty of Hong Kong to China. East Timor breaks away from Indonesian control. US president Bill Clinton was involved in the Lewinsky scandal. Dogme 95 becomes an important artistic movement in European film. Teen soap Beverly Hills 90210 has its long run. Baywatch becomes the most watched show in history. On MTV, reality television makes its beginning. Nelson Mandela is elected president of South Africa. Germany was reunified. The prediction of computer bug Y2K spreads fear. Do you know what was on the cover of Life that year? Theres a kid outside, shouting, playing. It doesnt care about time. It doesnt know about time. It shouts and it plays and thinks time is forever. You were once that kid. When you were 9, the movie Dungeons & Dragons was playing. When you were 8, there was Inspector Gadget. When you were 7, there was a Disney movie out called Tarzan. Does this ring a bell? 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1... its 1991. Theres TV noise coming from the second floor. Someone turned up the volume way too high. The sun is burning from above. These were different times. The show playing on TV is Clarissa Explains it All. The sun goes down. Someone switches channels. Theres The Red Green Show on now. Thats the world you were born in. Progress, year after year. Do you wonder where the world is heading towards? The technology available today would have blown your mind in 1991. Do you know what was invented in the year you were born? The Memory Card. Well, the year its 1991 It seems that freedom is dead and gone The power of the rich is held by few They keep the young paralyzed Educated by your lies Keep the old ones happy with the news ... Thats from the song Sell Out by The Levellers. Its 2014. The world is a different place. What path have you taken?
Posted on: Wed, 14 May 2014 03:25:34 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015