The 1990s produced far more than memorable music, movies, and technology. This collection explores overlooked events, unusual trends, failed business ideas, scientific breakthroughs, and cultural shifts that helped shape the decade in unexpected ways.
For more stories from the decade, read Part 1.
1 Shopping Malls Enter Historic Decline
In the mid-1990s, developers constructed shopping malls across the United States at a rate of about 140 per year. By 2001, a study found that underperforming and vacant properties, known as “greyfields” and “dead malls,” had become a growing problem. In 2007, developers built no new malls in the country for the first time in 50 years.
2. In 1991, the U.S. teen birth rate stood at more than four times its 2022 level. Apart from brief increases in 2006 and 2007, the rate declined steadily until it reached a record low of 13.5 births per 1,000 girls and women aged 15 to 19. Experts linked the decline to increased abstinence, wider access to contraception, and pregnancy-prevention programs.
3. Beginning in 1980, the Satanic Panic spread across the United States and continued into the 1990s, fueled by claims that organized cults were committing ritual abuse. Authorities documented more than 12,000 accusations, but police investigators failed to substantiate any allegation of organized Satanic cult abuse. Scholarly research later classified the phenomenon as a moral panic rather than evidence of a secret criminal network.
4. In the 1990s, Brussels sprouts still had a strong bitter taste caused by specific chemical compounds. A Dutch scientist named Hans van Doorn identified those compounds while working for the seed and chemical company Novartis, prompting breeders to search old varieties for naturally lower bitterness. They cross-pollinated those plants with modern, high-yield varieties, eventually producing better-tasting sprouts that helped fuel the vegetable’s culinary revival in the United States now.
5. In the 1990s, TSR introduced Sigil as the central city of the Dungeons & Dragons Planescape setting. American game designer Monte Cook later said that creator Zeb Cook designed much of Sigil as a metaphorical version of TSR itself, with the city ruled by the fearsome Lady of Pain. Cook joked that her gaze could kill either a person or a TSR product, reflecting the power TSR CEO Lorraine Williams and company management held over projects.
6 Wu Tang Faced FBI Scrutiny
From 1999 onwards for 5 years, the FBI and New York Police Department investigated American hip-hop group Wu-Tang Clan as a suspected major criminal organization. Investigators attempted to build a RICO case connecting the group to alleged drug trafficking, murders, and firearms purchased through contacts in Steubenville, Ohio, before reaching New York. Despite devoting substantial resources to the investigation, federal authorities never charged the group and closed the FBI case in July 2004.
7. In 1992, three men named Brad Barker, Larry Stanley, and Joe Wright founded the American Rocket Belt Corporation, and by 1994 they had built the functioning RB-2000 jetpack. The machine completed its only flight over Houston in 1995, but disputes over its ownership soon destroyed the partnership. Someone bludgeoned Wright to death shortly before a 1999 civil trial, and the murder remained unsolved. In 2000, Stanley arranged Barker’s kidnapping to force him to reveal the jetpack’s location, but Barker escaped after eight days and Stanley received a prison sentence.
8. After MCI made 1-800-COLLECT a major success in the 1990s, AT&T launched the competing 1-800-OPERATOR collect-calling service. Many customers misspelled “operator” as “operater,” and the corresponding 1-800-OPERATER number was owned by MCI who routed calls these calls to 1-800-COLLECT instead. After several months, AT&T discovered the mistake, discontinued 1-800-OPERATOR, and replaced it with 1-800-CALL-ATT.
9. When the environmental cartoon Captain Planet and the Planeteers debuted in 1990, its creators requested that all merchandise based on the series be produced sustainably. Manufacturers overhauled their production methods to create recycled and recyclable products. In 1991, series producer Barbara Pyle also helped establish the Captain Planet Foundation, which continues to support young people working on environmental projects worldwide.
10. While developing RollerCoaster Tycoon in the late 1990s, Scottish game designer Chris Sawyer had to optimize the game around the limited processing power and memory of contemporary PCs. When guests fell into water, he made them wave for help and eventually drown because the alternative required additional swimming animations, graphics, and programming. Sawyer decided that allowing them to swim to shore would demand too many resources for such a minor feature.
11 Mafia Cartel Controlled City Trash
Until the mid-1990s, organized crime controlled New York City’s private trash collection industry, enforcing a cartel that inflated prices and punished companies that challenged it with threats and violence. In 1995, NYPD detective Rick Cowen began a three-year undercover operation and secretly recorded hundreds of hours of cartel meetings, extortion demands, and payoffs. Authorities charged 72 defendants in 1997, convicted nearly all of them, closed their companies, and barred them from the garbage industry. Collection prices initially fell by 40 percent, producing an estimated $600 million reduction in costs across the city.
12. In the early 1990s, a mysterious nerve disorder impaired the vision of about 50,000 Cubans as the country suffered severe food shortages. American ophthalmologist Dr. Alfredo Sadun traveled to Cuba in May 1993 and concluded that poor nutrition and vitamin deficiencies had left people’s optic nerves vulnerable. After one patient admitted drinking homemade alcohol, Sadun also suspected that methanol contamination contributed to the illness. Cuba distributed vitamin supplements nationwide, and the epidemic rapidly subsided.
13. In 1995, doctors introduced the “AIDS cocktail,” a combination of antiretroviral drugs that attacked HIV at different stages of its replication cycle. Earlier single-drug treatments often failed because the virus quickly developed resistance, but combination therapy made that much harder. The treatment sharply reduced viral loads, restored immune function, and greatly improved survival for people living with HIV.
14. In the mid-1990s, a Montana helicopter repair businessman named Ron Garlick assembled a functioning AH-1 Cobra attack helicopter from supposedly demilitarized military surplus parts. Garlick equipped the aircraft with machine guns and rockets, then flew it near Missoula and used its weapons to hunt coyotes. Federal authorities considered seizing the helicopter after discovering that supposedly disabled military hardware had reached civilian buyers, but the FBI ultimately decided against raiding his property.
15. At the height of their popularity in the late 1990s, Australian children’s music group The Wiggles divided their members between two separate planes while traveling. They followed the precaution so that, if one aircraft crashed, half of the group could survive and continue touring.
16 South Africa Destroyed Nuclear Arsenal
In 1989, South African President F. W. de Klerk’s government ended the country’s secret nuclear weapons program and dismantled six completed bombs and a seventh still under construction. South Africa joined the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in 1991, and the International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed the destruction of the weapons in 1994. This made South Africa the only nation to develop its own nuclear arsenal and then voluntarily eliminate it.
17. Raw salmon was not a traditional sushi topping in Japan because local Pacific salmon often carried parasites and was usually cooked before eating. In the early 1990s, a Norwegian market researcher named Bjorn Eirik Olsen persuaded Japanese food company Nichirei to sell farmed Atlantic salmon specifically for raw consumption. Norway marketed the fatty, parasite-free fish to Japanese consumers, and salmon sushi became widely available across Japan by 1995.
18. During the 1990s, German candy brand Werther’s Original deliberately linked its caramel sweets with grandparents and grandchildren. Television commercials featured a kindly grandfather, played in the United States by American actor Robert Rockwell, sharing the candy with a young boy. The campaign established Werther’s as the treat a loving grandparent passed down to someone special.
19. After communism fell in 1989, Romania began selling state-owned houses and apartments to the tenants already living in them at extremely low prices. The mass privatization rapidly transferred most of the country’s public housing into private hands. By 2018, more than 96 percent of Romanians lived in owner-occupied homes, giving Romania the highest homeownership rate in the world.
20. Since the early 1990s, the share of American boys and girls who met friends almost every day outside school hours has fallen by nearly 50 percent. A 2019 study analyzed nationally representative data from 8.2 million adolescents and college entrants collected between 1976 and 2017, finding that face-to-face socializing declined as digital media use increased. The researchers also found that feelings of loneliness among adolescents rose sharply after 2011.
15 Most Controversial & Costly Blunders in History
21 Moving Families Raised Children’s Earnings
In the 1990s, the U.S. Moving to Opportunity experiment helped poor families relocate from high-poverty areas to wealthier neighborhoods. The move did not significantly increase the earnings of the adults who participated. However, children who moved at a young age eventually earned about 33 percent more as adults than comparable children whose families did not relocate.
22. During the 1990s and until 2004, Continental Express operated North America’s shortest commercial flight between Ellington Field and George Bush Intercontinental Airport, both in Houston. The aircraft covered just 24.28 miles in about 13 minutes, allowing passengers to connect with other Continental flights. Connecting travelers could even book the round trip at no additional cost.
23. Many American cartoons in the 1990s included conspicuous educational messages because of the Children’s Television Act, which took effect in 1991. The law required television broadcasters to serve children’s educational and informational needs as part of their programming obligations. Networks responded by adding lessons about safety, health, citizenship, and personal behavior to shows aimed at young viewers.
24. Before the 1990s, commercial dog food often contained large amounts of calcium-rich meat and bone meal that dogs could not fully absorb. The excess calcium passed through their bodies, and as the droppings dried in the sun, water evaporated and left behind a chalky white mineral coating. White dog poop became far less common after manufacturers reduced their use of cheap bone meal in pet food.
25. In the 1990s, Frito-Lay conducted market research to redesign and rebrand Doritos. The company gave the triangular chips rounded corners so they would break less easily during production and shipping. The change also reduced the amount of crushed scraps left at the bottom of each bag.
RE: Fact #19 (Romania Privatized Homes For Tenants) – I’m Romanian, and this dirt-cheap sellout was also used to justify selling off our entire industry for basically nothing. The oligarchs ruined this country, and now they are destroying our forests to sell to Switzerland through various companies. Calling it tragic is a massive understatement. This is the true face of those ‘too good to be true’ programs.
It was the same story in Bulgaria. My family owns three apartments, but most of them are Soviet-era junk. Everything was sold off the exact same way.
RE: Fact #17 (Norwegian Salmon Revolutionized Japanese Sushi) – There was a great episode of Planet Money that covered this.
You should check out the book ‘Four Fish’ if you like that topic. It covers the state of the industry for tuna, cod, salmon, and sea bass, including how we’ve damaged habitats and are trying to fix them. It’s a solid companion to the Planet Money episode or the classic 90s book, ‘Cod’.
RE: Fact #44 (BASIC Training Defined Child Computers) – Computers back then were pretty useless without BASIC. There wasn’t an operating system; the machine just ran a BASIC interpreter. You were basically handed raw hardware with no way to load software unless you had a disk or tape drive. You had to write every single program yourself. Magazines would print out the code and you’d have to type it in line by line just to run anything.
I spent a ton of time doing exactly that. It wasn’t always easy to track down magazines or books with code to type in, but I learned a massive amount about programming that way.
RE: Fact #5 (Sigil Satirized TSR Office Politics) – I’m pretty sure she was the one constantly pushing for more Buck Rogers content because her family owned the rights to it, even though the Buck Rogers stuff was failing.
You’ve got the right lady in mind. She supposedly even banned the staff from testing their own games because she didn’t want them playing on company time. She was… let’s just say… a real piece of work.
RE: Fact #23 (Children’s Television Act Changed Cartoons) – Those segments were also a reaction to 80s cartoons that existed purely to sell toys, like Transformers or He-Man.
Which only happened because of the deregulation of children’s advertising laws during the Reagan era. The history of Saturday morning cartoons is surprisingly tied up in federal politics.
RE: Fact #46 (Ozzy Osbourne Quickly Abandoned Retirement) – I caught Black Sabbath in 1999 because they swore it was the last time the four original members would tour together. I wanted to see a legend before they called it quits. Then, later that same year, they announced an Ozzfest headlining slot. They’ve done plenty of other tours since then, too. Moral of the story: never take Ozzy’s word on a final tour.
RE: Fact #2 (Teen Birth Rates Reach Record Lows) – This is a silver lining to a pretty troubling trend. People aren’t socializing as much, friend groups are smaller, and there’s less dating. We’re seeing fewer marriages and children overall. I’m glad teen pregnancy is down, but it’s sad that it seems linked to kids being glued to their phones, struggling with mental health, and lacking real connections. I’d rather this be about better parenting and sex education than a byproduct of a society that feels like it’s unraveling.
RE: Fact #18 (Werther’s Original Marketed Grandparent Nostalgia) – In France, there is a dish called tartiflette. Everyone assumes it is a traditional meal from Savoie, but it was actually a marketing campaign in the 80s designed to boost sales for local cheese. The recipe was created specifically for that purpose and marketed at ski resorts.
RE: Fact #47 (Dockers Popularized American Casual Fridays) – Thanks for making office summers bearable, Levis.
RE: Fact #12 (Cuba Faced Mysterious Blindness Epidemic) – > As Cuba faced a devastating economic crisis in the early 1990s, leading to severe food shortages and malnutritiion, some 50, 000 Cubans were inexplicably struck down with sight loss. But health officials on the communist-led island as well as experts at WHO initially believed it was caused by a viral infection spreading through the population. Despite hostile relations between his country and Cuba, the American eye specialist Dr Alfredo Sadun was asked to go to the island in May 1993 to investigate.
Reading things like this makes me understand why liquor distillation at home is illegal, even if brewing beer or wine is fine.
On a more serious note, as long as you aren’t selling it or giving it away to a bunch of people, distilling for yourself is generally considered fine.
It is actually very hard to get dangerous levels of methanol in homemade ethanol if you know what you are doing. Most cases happen when someone tries to sell cheap moonshine as high-quality by cutting it with methanol or distilling rubbing alcohol. Methanol isn’t created during distillation; it’s just present in the original batch. As long as you toss out the foreshots, you’re fine.
RE: Fact #11 (Mafia Cartel Controlled City Trash) – I really don’t understand why we glamorize mobsters in movies. They were terrible people who caused real pain and economic destruction. They were just common crooks, not some kind of folk heroes.
It comes down to the aesthetic. People find that contrast between the suave suits, celebrity connections, and fancy lifestyle versus the cold-blooded violence and theft completely fascinating. That’s why we see so many shows and movies about them.
The more rigged you feel the system is, the more you end up rooting for the underdog who beats it. But you’re right, they’re ultimately just criminals building their success on the backs of people with less power.
People romanticize everything from wars to the apocalypse. They’re just generally bored and hungry for excitement, so they attach to anything that looks dramatic.
RE: Fact #26 (Frasurbane Captured Nineties Suburban Sophistication) – This brings back so many memories. It reminds me of that ‘global village’ coffeehouse aesthetic, which felt really comforting since it was everywhere in the books, toy stores, and restaurants from my childhood.
Same. It also reminds me of my first computer. The Packard Bell machines in the late 90s had an OS built around that exact style. Simpler times.
RE: Fact #13 (AIDS Cocktail Transformed HIV Treatment) – I lived in San Francisco’s Castro neighborhood between 1996 and 1998. It was the heart of the gay community back then. I still vividly remember the pharmacy counter at Walgreens, lined with rows of brown paper grocery bags, each holding a month’s worth of meds for a single AIDS patient. Seeing those stacks of prescriptions was heartbreaking, but it also gave me hope that these people might actually survive and see a cure one day.
We’ve definitely come a long way. The medication regimens are so much simpler now.
I diagnose people with HIV from time to time, and the first thing I tell them is that it is no longer a death sentence. We have treatments now that are just one pill once a day. If people stay consistent with their meds and doctors, they can live long lives and we can effectively stop the spread.
Accessing those medications was a real struggle. During the height of the crisis, the government dragged its feet on research and kept trials way too limited. AIDS activists actually had to experiment with and sometimes even manufacture their own treatments, which is how they figured out the cocktail worked long before it got the official green light.
RE: Fact #29 (McTrain Served McDonald’s Meals Onboard) – They had a riverboat in St. Louis that opened in 1980, and a McBarge in BC, Canada around 1985.
RE: Fact #10 (RollerCoaster Tycoon Let Guests Drown) – > ‘Particularly for the drowning guests, it was laziness on my part , the alternative would have been that guests would swim to shore and climb out of the water, but this would have involved a lot more programming than a simple animation of the guest waving for help and finally disappearing.’ LOL.
RE: Fact #44 (BASIC Training Defined Child Computers) – It’s funny how things come full circle. Now we have the Raspberry Pi, which is basically the modern equivalent for teaching kids Python.
RE: Fact #27 (Jurassic Park Inspired Korean Entertainment) – Look at where we are now. Films like Parasite have won major awards, Squid Game has become a cultural phenomenon, and K-pop is a household name. Korean history is more recognized, and South Korea is a major travel destination. It seems like the bureau in charge of promoting their culture really did its job.
RE: Fact #29 (McTrain Served McDonald’s Meals Onboard) – Yikes, deep fryers on a train sounds like a recipe for someone getting burned.
RE: Fact #3 (Satanic Panic Produced No Evidence) – Growing up in a small town in Pennsylvania, there was one week where rumors flew that a satanic cult had moved into the woods nearby. It ended when a kid brought a hatchet onto the school bus to “fight off the Satan worshippers.” The bus driver just smacked him, took the hatchet, and told us all we were being idiots. This was back in ’88 or ’89.
RE: Fact #34 (Turbo Buttons Slowed Computers Down) – I used to have a 486dx2 running at 100MHz. I constantly had to hit that turbo button to downclock it to 66MHz just so FIFA 95 would actually be playable.
RE: Fact #11 (Mafia Cartel Controlled City Trash) – Republic Services clearly didn’t get the memo about lowering prices. When I first moved, I used them and it cost nearly $200 a month, plus they constantly missed pickups. I switched to Queens, and now I pay about $57 for three months, and they never miss a pickup, or if they do, they send an apology, a coupon, and come back the next day.
Is that for a business, or are you actually paying for private trash service yourself?
RE: Fact #19 (Romania Privatized Homes For Tenants) – I should read up more on the transition from communism in the Eastern Bloc; this is really interesting stuff. From what I’ve gathered, this process is what led to the rise of the oligarch class in Russia, as they managed to buy up resources and industries for next to nothing.
RE: Fact #3 (Satanic Panic Produced No Evidence) – Do you remember the whole craze about playing records backwards to find secret satanic messages?
They actually played Black Sabbath in a courtroom to prove there were hidden messages. I think it was Dio who gave the best response: “If we could actually control kids with our music, don’t you think we’d sell more records?”
It was definitely Dio. People also claimed there was a hidden “devil” word if you flipped the logo upside down.
I heard if you play Nickelback backwards you hear Satan. Even worse, if you play it forward, you hear Nickelback.
RE: Fact #3 (Satanic Panic Produced No Evidence) – I remember Dungeons & Dragons being ostracized back then for supposedly being demonic. I was just a kid and thought it looked interesting, but my parents scared me by calling it evil without explaining why. I was too young to question it at the time, but I realized later that the whole scare was total nonsense.
RE: Fact #24 (Bone Meal Whitened Dog Droppings) – I definitely remember seeing white dog poop everywhere when I was a kid in the 80s and 90s. I never really noticed when it stopped, though.
It definitely lasted through the 90s. I know because I mowed plenty of lawns back then.
RE: Fact #35 (In Living Color Changed Halftime) – It’s been over twenty years and I still wonder how Jim Carrey managed to apply all those facial prosthetics so fast during that live sketch where he kept getting hit with darts.
There were probably people hiding just out of frame. As soon as the camera cut, Carrey would freeze, they’d stick the darts on his face with adhesive, and then duck back out. The timing was definitely impressive, though.
Oh man, the “Men on Football” skit was the absolute best. My buddies and I were dying laughing through the entire rest of the game after that aired. I miss the 90s sometimes.
That sketch wasn’t actually live; it was pre-recorded and edited. The darts were one thing, but look at the end when Fire Marshall Bill blows everything up, his makeup, wardrobe, and location all change in a split second. Did anyone else notice a young Leo in the intro for that one?
RE: Fact #14 (Cobra Helicopter Hunted Montana Coyotes) – Basically, ‘demilitarized’ just means it’s a huge headache for the average person to put the weapons back on.
I mean, with enough drive and some know-how, you can turn just about anything into a weapon.
RE: Fact #16 (South Africa Destroyed Nuclear Arsenal) – The government at the time dismantled them because they were terrified of what the incoming leadership would do with those weapons once they took power.
Given that the current president of South Africa has been known to recite chants about killing white farmers, it seems like that fear was justified.
The president has definitely used ‘Kill the Boer’ and ‘Get my Machine Gun’ during his rallies. Plus, you’ve had members of parliament calling for white farmers to be buried alive. It’s pretty clear they shouldn’t have nukes.
RE: Fact #22 (Houston Flight Lasted Thirteen Minutes) – And the flight between Westray and Papa Westray in Scotland’s Orkney Islands is only about 90 seconds. It’s the shortest commercial flight on earth at just 1.7 miles.
RE: Fact #27 (Jurassic Park Inspired Korean Entertainment) – The government here in Finland is cutting culture funding, despite studies showing that every euro invested brings eight back. The main argument is that it needs to be self-sufficient, but it’s hard for 5.5 million people to compete against countries that heavily fund their own culture. Sweden increased their funding with great results. The current ‘culture war’ is so damaging because it treats arts and media like the enemy rather than a potential economic benefit.
It really comes down to the mindset. Swedish murder mysteries are an entire book genre now, and that’s a pretty successful cultural exchange, even if there are way more books than actual murders.
RE: Fact #20 (Teen Socializing Declined Across Generations) – I’m surprised the decline isn’t even steeper. In the 90s and 00s when I was growing up, I remember seeing groups of teens everywhere. Nowadays, you rarely see that.
If you check an age population chart, you’ll see there are significantly fewer kids than there are adults in their 30s and 40s.
RE: Fact #5 (Sigil Satirized TSR Office Politics) – >”What were the initial feelings behind-the-scenes about the product line? Was it popular at TSR, left on its own, or something else?” >”Monte:” I think a lot of people were intimidated by itbecause it was so different and so intricate. But different and intricate are my wheelhouse so it was perfect for me. >What most people don’t know is that much of Sigil was Zeb’s metaphorical analog for TSR itself. I mean, it was literally run by the Lady of Pain, whose very gaze could kill you. So behind the scenes, the setting had a very different meaning for everyone there.
Being a female leader in the gaming industry and not someone to mess with really checks out, especially back in the day.
I don’t know how old you are, but being a tabletop gaming nerd in the late 80s and early 90s carried a huge stigma. I remember going on a high school date and the girl said to me, “Can you imagine? People are saying you play D&D.” Just the rumor that a guy played with fantasy miniatures could knock you from the cool crowd to the bottom of the social ladder. People love to forget how that period really was.
RE: Fact #50 (Loudness War Crushed Musical Dynamics) – It definitely kills the audio fidelity. You only have so much range to work with, and once you go past that, everything just flattens out. It’s like overexposing a photo and losing all the detail in the bright areas.
RE: Fact #27 (Jurassic Park Inspired Korean Entertainment) – That’s true for K-dramas, too, though I don’t think the original goal was to reach beyond Asia. BoA and many dramas definitely took off in Japan and China during the 2000s. Manhwa and webtoons are gaining traction globally now, and given the number of animation studios in Korea, I wouldn’t be surprised if they start pushing for an anime-style export soon.
RE: Fact #21 (Moving Families Raised Children’s Earnings) – That surprises nobody. They had better schools, were surrounded by more privileged peers, and likely formed connections that helped them out later on.
Millions of people in this country believe success is just about hard work and drive, ignoring how much luck and circumstance play a part.
Hard work matters, but I interviewed for several jobs out of college and couldn’t land anything until my brother happened to be in a meeting with a guy from another company and mentioned they were hiring. People say you make your own luck, but that opportunity definitely wasn’t my doing.
RE: Fact #49 (Nintendo Sony Partnership Spawned PlayStation) – Secret of Mana was actually supposed to be on that console. I think they had to cut over half the game because of the platform changes.
RE: Fact #36 (Woolworth Transformed Into Foot Locker) – I live in Australia, and Woolworths is our main grocery store chain here. I’m not sure if it’s the same company or just the same name.
RE: Fact #30 (Blockbuster Misread Japan’s Video Market) – It would have been tough, since we already have something like Blockbuster here called Tsutaya, which is still around. Only since COVID have more people switched to streaming. Even back in 2016, when I lived with my stepdad, we still went to Tsutaya every week to rent DVDs.
RE: Fact #45 (Emu Breeding Boom Collapsed Quickly) – Emu meat might be better than beef, but emus are significantly more dangerous than cows. Pound-for-pound, the meat is great, but they are just not safe or practical farm animals. I shouldn’t even have to bring up the Emu War in Australia to prove that point.
Why is everyone here acting like they’ve eaten so much emu? I feel like I’m missing out. Maybe it’s time for an emu meat revival.
RE: Fact #4 (Brussels Sprouts Lost Their Bitterness) – It’s even more interesting that only about half the population has the gene that makes them perceive that bitterness at all.
RE: Fact #34 (Turbo Buttons Slowed Computers Down) – When I was a teen, I was one of the top MechWarrior 2: Mercenaries players in the world in a league called MAUL. I remember the jump-jets had a recharge bar that filled up when you weren’t using it. When I eventually upgraded to a faster, modern PC, I noticed my jump-jets depleted much faster. I suspect my competitive edge came from using a slower, bare-bones computer that tied the fuel depletion rate to the processor speed. I’ve often wondered if I would’ve been as successful if I’d upgraded my computer sooner.
Seeing the word ‘MechWarrior’ took me back. What a hit of nostalgia!
It was less about CPU speed and more about frame rate. Higher FPS meant slower recharge, up to the point where it stopped recharging entirely. Older systems didn’t have real-time clocks to sync with, so developers relied on the time difference between frames to calculate things. Games like Hitman or Messiah used that delta value for AI reactions, if you play them now without a patch, the AI is basically omniscient. Some devs used framerate locks or sliders to future-proof this, but even modern games like Fallout 76 have issues where your character moves faster if your FPS is higher.
The physics engine being tied to FPS is the worst. Running Skyrim at 120fps? Good luck watching items fly across the room at supersonic speeds the second you touch them.
I watched a streamer who was pretty good at chess play an old DOS game called ‘Terminator 2: Judgment Day – Chess Wars.’ We were all shocked by how tough the AI was. He had beaten other 90s games like ‘Chessmaster’ in seconds, but this one took him hours of saving and loading. We figured the game was programmed to let the AI think for a certain number of seconds, but on a modern PC, that time window allowed it to play at a much higher level than originally intended.
RE: Fact #31 (Pyramid Schemes Armed Albanian Streets) – It’s worth noting that it was less of a civil war and more like a descent into anarchy, with violent gangs fighting over turf. They weren’t fighting the government; they were fighting each other. An Albanian friend told me his city was taken over by a bunch of 15-year-olds with military weapons who played ‘Lord of the Flies’ and ruled like warlords for a year until the Marines showed up.
RE: Fact #33 (Global Crime Rates Fell Mysteriously) – General prosperity and better quality of life, thanks to advances in technology, education, and manufacturing, usually lead to lower crime rates.
That’s likely the reason. Globally, living standards have risen over the last 40 years. Aside from isolated pockets, starvation and food insecurity have largely been eradicated.
That overlooks the rising crime rate from the 40s to the 80s, even though quality of life was improving globally during that time.
RE: Fact #25 (Doritos Rounded Corners Reduced Breakage) – Apparently, in 1994, they spent $50 million to make the chips 20% larger, 15% thinner, and rounded off the edges. I think I’m in the wrong line of work.
RE: Fact #34 (Turbo Buttons Slowed Computers Down) – I remember those days. I kept the button on all the time and honestly wondered why the feature was even there.
The coolest part was definitely the CD caddy you had to use before inserting a disc. As a kid, that just felt awesome for some reason.
I grew up during the floppy and CD era and even messed around with Zip and Jazz drives, but I somehow missed out on those caddy cases. Checking them out online, they do look pretty neat.
RE: Fact #45 (Emu Breeding Boom Collapsed Quickly) – I remember that era well. There was an emu farm right next to the horse stable where I lived and worked. When the owners realized the emus were worthless, they tried to kill them off using guys with clubs. That was a terrible idea, as they quickly found out. One guy got kicked in the chest and ended up in the hospital, and once the birds started panicking, the rest just climbed or flailed over the fences to escape. A bunch of them roamed around rural Northern California for the rest of my time there. I later met a woman in Texas who had escaped emus show up on her land, and she just let them stay. Those birds are tough.
RE: Fact #28 (FCC Bumpers Separated Shows Commercials) – Right, and note that thanks to ‘lobbying’ by toy and food companies, those bumpers have largely disappeared.
RE: Fact #12 (Cuba Faced Mysterious Blindness Epidemic) – Is this kind of damage reversible, or is it permanent once it happens?
Unfortunately, the body turns methanol into formic acid, which is what ruins the optic nerve. It is a real tragedy.
So wait, does that mean we shouldn’t eat those giant ants from that old black and white movie, “Them!”, because of the formic acid?
It is easy to avoid, though. Since methanol boils at a lower temperature than ethanol, it is the first thing out of the still. Dumping that first bit is just basic moonshining safety.
As far as I know, the damage is irreversible, but giving the person vodka can prevent it from getting worse. The liver will prioritize processing the ethanol over the methanol.
RE: Fact #37 (American Passport Ownership Remained Rare) – Americans didn’t used to need a passport to visit Canada or Mexico, and traveling to other countries was super expensive. There really wasn’t much reason to get one.
Also, don’t forget you can go on plenty of cruises departing from the U.S. and visit dozens of different countries without a passport.
Plus, you can travel nearly 10, 000 miles without ever leaving the U.S.
RE: Fact #43 (McDonald’s Replaced Its Warming Bins) – Can someone please go tell the current McDonald’s employees about this?
RE: Fact #40 (Franklin Trusts Matured After Centuries) – Why is there such a massive gap between the Boston and Philly funds? 4.5 million versus 500k?
RE: Fact #23 (Children’s Television Act Changed Cartoons) – I won’t lie, I genuinely liked the segments at the end of every G.I. Joe episode.
Because of those PSAs, I still make sure to turn pot and pan handles away from the edge of the stove to avoid spills!
RE: Fact #42 (Henan Blood Banks Spread HIV) – Are you kidding me? They were pooling blood from different people in the same container, taking the plasma, and pumping the rest back into the donors? That is absolutely horrifying.
RE: Fact #17 (Norwegian Salmon Revolutionized Japanese Sushi) – I can’t imagine sushi without salmon now. It’s my absolute favorite, I definitely prefer it raw over cooked. So good.
Salmon is just consistently buttery. When you’re at a top-tier place, the tuna is better, but at a standard spot, salmon is the safe, delicious bet while tuna can be hit or miss.
Totally. The spot near me has a salmon combo, six pieces of sashimi, six nigiri, and a six-piece roll, for $20. It’s a killer deal and the quality is great.
There’s an all-you-can-eat Japanese spot I go to for £22 a head. You can order five plates at a time and just keep going. They do sushi rolls, seaweed salad, grilled stuff, curries, ramen, and dessert. Also, pro tip: eel sushi is the best thing on the menu.
RE: Fact #11 (Mafia Cartel Controlled City Trash) – Funny enough, the trash industry in Italy is still one of the sectors most heavily influenced by organized crime.
RE: Fact #4 (Brussels Sprouts Lost Their Bitterness) – I hated Brussels sprouts as a kid in the 90s, probably because my mom always boiled them. My mother-in-law roasts them with oil and seasoning at 400 degrees, and they’re amazing. I’ve been eating them for about five years now; I just thought it was the cooking method that changed everything.
That is exactly my experience with Brussels sprouts, word for word.
kids usually dislike bitter flavors while adults are more likely to enjoy them. I definitely would have hated a hoppy IPA when I was young.
RE: Fact #6 (Wu Tang Faced FBI Scrutiny) – That sounds a lot like the Navy investigation looking for someone named Dorothy. People thought she was a real person, but ‘A Friend of Dorothy’ was just secret slang for being gay, not a Soviet spy.
RE: Fact #19 (Romania Privatized Homes For Tenants) – This explains why Transylvania has such a small homeless vampire population.
RE: Fact #43 (McDonald’s Replaced Its Warming Bins) – I really miss the 70s setup where you could just grab a quarter pounder from the bin, get some fries, and have your drink already filled in under a minute. That’s what fast food was supposed to be.
RE: Fact #29 (McTrain Served McDonald’s Meals Onboard) – We had them in Switzerland too. There was also a collaboration between McDonald’s and a Swiss airline back then.
RE: Fact #9 (Captain Planet Enforced Sustainable Merchandise) – I still remember that Captain Planet tip about turning off the water while brushing your teeth. I’ve been doing that ever since. I wonder how many thousands of gallons that’s actually saved over the last 25 years.
Average sink faucets flow at 2.2 gallons per minute, and you should brush for two minutes, twice a day. So, 2.2gpm x 2min x 2 brushes/day x 365 days x 25 years comes out to about 80, 300 gallons. That’s not even counting leap years.
Make that 160, 600 gallons if you factor in the habit. I was also heavily influenced by Captain Planet when I was a kid.
RE: Fact #15 (Wiggles Split Flights To Survive) – The Wiggles also started using that trademark finger-pointing gesture to avoid any false claims of inappropriate touching. It keeps their hands visible in every photo they take with kids.
What’s stopping someone from just making those accusations anyway for the times they weren’t being photographed?
RE: Fact #2 (Teen Birth Rates Reach Record Lows) – I remember seeing a study claiming that 60% of teen pregnancies involved fathers over 25. It makes me wonder if our culture has shifted regarding those kinds of age gaps.
It definitely has. I work with teens, and they are genuinely horrified by guys in their 20s trying to date them.
If you watch episodes of “16 and Pregnant, ” you notice they often leave out the father’s age because he’s an adult.
It was weirdly common when I was growing up for high school girls to date college guys or someone even older. Looking back, it’s super creepy.
RE: Fact #25 (Doritos Rounded Corners Reduced Breakage) – Those sharp corners on the old taco-flavored Doritos used to hurt the roof of my mouth so much when I was a kid. The redesign was the best thing they ever did! They should really bring back that retro taco flavor, too.
RE: Fact #22 (Houston Flight Lasted Thirteen Minutes) – I used to fly that route from Ellington to IAH. For Continental, it counted as a flight segment, so you could earn platinum status really quickly without having to deal with the crowds at security. Every road-warrior consultant in Houston was doing it at the time.
Man, that was a real mileage factory. I worked in reservations for Continental back then, and I had more than one customer who flew that route back and forth all day just to rack up miles. Parking was easier, security was a breeze, and bags were checked through to the final destination. It was way better than driving all the way up to IAH. I bet a lot of people miss that Ellington to IAH route.
I was a kid back then and remember taking that flight on the way to Mexico City. Since we lived right by Ellington, it was the easiest way to reach Bush Intercontinental for our connecting flight, and I’m pretty sure the leg was free. Boarding at that tiny airport was such a cool experience for a kid; we actually walked out onto the tarmac and up the stairs to the plane. It felt like a one-room schoolhouse version of an airport.
RE: Fact #7 (Jetpack Partnership Ended In Murder) – The jetpack never turned up, either. It’s probably rotting away somewhere in the desert.
RE: Fact #8 (Misspelled Operator Redirected Collect Calls) – How did that business model ever make money? Imagine calling collect, trying to cram a whole sentence into the ‘name’ field so your mom would know to pick you up without actually paying the charge, only to hear: ‘We’re sorry. The person you called did not accept the charges.’
No kidding. I wasn’t a troublemaker, but I made a bad call drinking at 23 and ended up in the drunk tank on New Year’s Eve. The jail stripped the phone book of every lawyer and bondsman, leaving only the option to make local or collect calls. I had to use the name field to keep calling home and tell them where I was. Guess who got bailed out by his grandma? This guy.
I tried that trick too, but it was risky. You never knew if the person on the other end actually got the message, so you’d end up just waiting at the train station hoping they showed up.
RE: Fact #13 (AIDS Cocktail Transformed HIV Treatment) – I recall how some investors were buying up life insurance policies from AIDS patients for pennies on the dollar, just betting on them dying sooner rather than later. Once that cocktail came out and people stopped passing away, those investors were actually annoyed.
That’s why we have the concept of ‘insurable interest’, you generally need to have a stake in someone’s wellbeing so their loss causes you actual hardship. It’s why term life insurance doesn’t work the way you described. Usually, it’s older people cashing out old whole life policies because the cash value is lower than the payout and they need the money for day-to-day bills.
RE: Fact #7 (Jetpack Partnership Ended In Murder) – Classic case of a friend group imploding over a jetpack. When will people ever learn?
RE: Fact #28 (FCC Bumpers Separated Shows Commercials) – I still explain to my grandkids the difference between shows and commercials. I make sure they understand that toys don’t fly and dolls don’t really dance, and that it’s just the manufacturers trying to make their products look cool so kids will want them. – Signed, your local realistic grandma.
By ‘still’, do you mean they’re older now and don’t need the reminders?
RE: Fact #39 (Nets Rejected Their Swamp Dragons) – The Nets voting down their own name change is the most “Nets” thing that has ever happened.
RE: Fact #37 (American Passport Ownership Remained Rare) – Those were the days before 9/11 when border crossings between the U.S. and Canada were a lot more relaxed.
RE: Fact #22 (Houston Flight Lasted Thirteen Minutes) – The flight from Birmingham to Atlanta is about an hour, and because you’re crossing a time zone, your departure and arrival times often look the same. Sometimes you even land before you technically took off.
You mean Atlanta to Birmingham, right? Otherwise, you’d lose an hour, and the flight would basically take two.
RE: Fact #10 (RollerCoaster Tycoon Let Guests Drown) – I still fire this game up once or twice a year. It’s easily my favorite management sim. Pretty cool to learn the story behind that.
I really want to play this again, but I haven’t owned a computer that could run it in years. Any tips on how to get it working these days?
RE: Fact #32 (Prune Burgers Invaded School Lunches) – Jam on meat? Well, if it’s good enough for Spongebob and the Scandinavians, why not?
RE: Fact #7 (Jetpack Partnership Ended In Murder) – There’s a great documentary called ‘Own the Sky’ about a guy obsessed with building his own working jetpack with modern parts.
RE: Fact #48 (AOL CDs Dominated Global Production) – Funny enough, that also meant the world suddenly had an endless supply of free frisbees.
RE: Fact #23 (Children’s Television Act Changed Cartoons) – Fun fact: a huge chunk of 80s cartoons are owned by the same company.
RE: Fact #38 (American Fisheries Recovered From Overfishing) – Commercial fishing in the U.S. is heavily regulated, and the penalties for exceeding catch limits or keeping bycatch are really strict. I know this because I’m a commercial fisherman.
RE: Fact #35 (In Living Color Changed Halftime) – MTV’s Beavis and Butthead had a halftime special that included a countdown clock for the second half kickoff. The thing was completely off, though; if you switched back when the clock hit zero, you’d already missed several minutes of the game.
RE: Fact #20 (Teen Socializing Declined Across Generations) – People talk about how it’s easier to stay home, but few discuss how kids aren’t really allowed to just hang out outside anymore. They’re either accused of loitering or they have to spend money that their parents might be struggling to afford. There are very few options that aren’t school extracurriculars or staying home. The pandemic definitely didn’t help either.
At the mall near me, kids aren’t even allowed in without a parent during weekend afternoons or evenings. It’s wild.
RE: Fact #1 (Shopping Malls Enter Historic Decline) – It is wild how quickly a cultural hub can rise and fall in just about 30 years.
RE: Fact #18 (Werther’s Original Marketed Grandparent Nostalgia) – Such smart marketing. They basically cornered the market by targeting grandparents, ensuring the candy gets passed down to kids and building brand loyalty for life. Plus, Werther’s are just addictive.
The marketing strategy seems flawed. Do many people actually buy them on their own, or do they only have them because their grandparents give them away? I’ve never picked them up myself.
RE: Fact #30 (Blockbuster Misread Japan’s Video Market) – A clear lesson in researching the market and matching it to your target audience. 😂
RE: Fact #28 (FCC Bumpers Separated Shows Commercials) – In Canada, we had the House Hippo to explain the difference. I still want one 🙁
RE: Fact #23 (Children’s Television Act Changed Cartoons) – Is that also the reason Looney Tunes and Tom and Jerry seemed to vanish from TV around that time?