- America's trials and tribulations
- The End of the Cold War
- Berlin Wall fell in 1989
- America became the only superpower
- 1991 Gulf War was a major victory for President George Bush
- The Clinton Years
- The economy boomed
- Reelected in 1996
- Worst presidential scandal since Watergate
- Sexual affair with a White House intern
- Lying about it to Congress under oath
- Congress impeached him
- Clinton survived it and led the country to economic success
- The American economy
- Explosion of the high-tech industry
- Computer sales soared
- 1990s businesses rushed to tap into the internet oriented concepts
- High tech innovators achieved rock star status
- Bill Gates (co-founder of Microsoft)
- Steve Case (co-founder of America Online)
- The music industry and internet economy
- In 1999 Shawn Fanning created Napster
- File-sharing service -- allowed users to exchange music free of charge over the internet
- Cut record labels and artists out of the process
- The Record Industry Association of America sued Napster
- Napster forced to shut down
- Reborn as a legal downloadable music company
- The violence and the splendor
- Racial tension in Los Angeles
- In 1992 four white police officers in Los Angeles stopped Rodney King and beat him senseless
- Caught on videotape and broadcast around the country
- Riots ensued when they were acquitted on nearly all charges
- Columbine High School in Colorado
- In 1999 two students killed classmates, teachers, and themselves
- Parents blamed youth culture:
- Grunge music
- Gothic clothing
- Video games
- Violent television and movies
- Everyone realized that young people were extremely angry at the establishment
- O. J. Simpson
- Football-star-turned-actor
- Accused and acquitted of the murder of his ex-wife and friend
- The world followed it all on TV and radio:
- Police chase through southern California
- Trial
- Verdict
- Violence on the screens
- Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction (1994)
- Featured John Travolta and Samuel L. Jackson
- Thugs who would rather kill than see their boss's valuables stolen
- The Blair Witch Project (1999)
- Marketed as actual footage recovered from three missing student filmmakers
- Scariest movie of the decade
- Mainstream films used digital special effects to combine fiction and reality
- Jurassic Park (1993)
- Forest Gump (1994)
- Titanic (1997)
- Reality Television
- In 1992 MTV launched The Real World
- Group of young people from varied backgrounds living together
- The cast fought over many issues
- CBS's hit "reality" show, Survivor (2000)
- Strangers on a tropical island
- Fought, backstabbed, and negotiated
- $ 1 million prize
- September 11, 2001: The global tragedy
- Members of Osama Bin Laden's Al Qaeda terrorist network hijacked four airliners
- Two struck the World Trade Center in New York
- One struck the Pentagon in Washington D.C.
- One crashed in a field in Pennsylvania
- Over 3,000 people killed
- President George W. Bush sent American troops to Afghanistan
- Also to Iraq
- He believed President Saddam Hussein was hiding weapons of mass destruction
- Americans no longer felt confident about their place in the world
