1996, the back half of the '90s. And boy, things would get
pretty intense this year. From a royal divorce,
to English cattle disease, to the death
of a rising rapper. We're not going to make it! You are. Hang on, we've got the
goods for you this year. Hello, a little surprise
for you, my friends. We're going to talk about
the news, culture, sports, and entertainment, and all
that was weird in the '90s. This is Timeline. [MUSIC PLAYING] But before we get started, be
sure to subscribe to the Weird History channel, and let
us know in the comments below what you miss
about the '90S. Now, are you ready to
go back to the '96? That's your home. Are you to good for your home? Answer me! I hope so, because
that's where we're going. This is 1996. If you were a Flintstone's kid,
that meant you were one of-- (SINGING) 10 million
strong and growing. --kids that popped
Flintstones chewable vitamins every morning. There was one problem
though, no Betty. That all changed
on January 1, when Bayer introduced Mrs.
rubble, after a few choice words from Rosie
O'Donnell when she was promoting the live
action Flintstones film. Rosie wanted a Betty chewable,
and less than two years later she got one. Rosie gets what Rosie wants. Four days later, Yahya Ayyash,
also known as "the Engineer" was assassinated by Shin Bet,
Israel's internal security service. Ayyash was the main
bomb maker for Hamas during the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Shin Bet was able to give
Ayyash's friend, Kamil Hamad, a bugged phone to
hand off to him. What Hamad didn't
know was it the phone was also packed with
15 grams of explosives. When the Israelis were able to
confirm that Yahya Ayash was speaking on the phone, the
phone was detonated remotely, taking Ayyash out. Although President Clinton
and Monica Lewinsky's affair had started sometime in
1995, their real problems didn't begin until
1996, when Lewinsky, a 21-year-old unpaid
intern at the time, stated in an affidavit
that she never had a sexual relationship
with Clinton. Independent counsel
Kenneth Starr received around 20 hours worth
of recorded conversations from Linda Tripp, Lewinsky's
new, uh, friend and co-worker. These tapes contradicted just
about everything Lewinsky signed just days earlier. Two weeks later, the story
was all over the place. We'll hear more about the
Clinton-Lewinsky affair next year. Two days later, on January
9, 200 Chechen guerrillas launched a raid
on a military air base near the city of
Kizlyar, which unexpectedly turned into a hostage
crisis involving around 3,400 civilians. Although the guerrillas
released all but 120 captives, the raid started a nine-day
battle between them and Russian special forces. The Chechens were able to escape
from the Russian retaliation with a few hostages, but
ultimately 26 civilians and close to 200 soldiers
on both sides perished. In mid-January, renowned
billiard player Rudolf Wanderone, better known
as Minnesota Fats, died. Born in 1913 in
New York City, Fats quit school in the eighth
grade and hit the road as a traveling pool hustler. Sweet life. His reputation
became so legendary, novelist Walter Tevis based
his character in his 1959 book The Hustler on him and was
later portrayed in the film adaptation by Jackie Gleason. Wanderone wasn't always
known as Minnesota Fats. His first nickname
was Double Smart, then Triple Smart Fats, New
York Fats, Broadway Fats, and Chicago Fats. Moving on to February, Tupac
Shakur's All Eyes on Me was released. The album stayed number 1 on the
Billboard 100 for eight weeks. One of its singles earned
him a Grammy nomination, and to date has sold
over 6 million copies. Facing up to years
in prison, Shakur agreed to make this double
album for Death Row Records as repayment for Suge Knight
after the label boss put up his $1.4 million bond in 1995. We'll hear more on Tupac and
Suge later on in the year. Boxer Tommy Morrison,
who was probably more famous for his role
as Tommy "the Machine" Gunn in Rocky V, announced, during
a February 15 press conference, that he was HIV positive. Morrison went on to say
that he had contracted the virus due to a permissive,
fast, and reckless lifestyle. He also said that his
life as a boxer was over. Flash forward to
2006, when Morrison said all of his HIV tests
had been false positives. He even boxed a couple of times. But after allegations
of Morrison tampering with his
blood, his last last bout was in 2008 in a TKO
against Matt Weishaar. Coming back to music,
on February 20, rapper Snoop Dogg was acquitted,
along with his bodyguard, OF first and second
degree murder charges in connection with the death
of a rival gang member. Snoop was allegedly
behind the driver's wheel when his bodyguard shot rival
gang member Philip Woldemariam. Their lead lawyer,
Johnny Cochran-- yeah, that Johnnie Cochran-- stated that Snoop's bodyguard
shot in self-defense. A deadlocked jury eventually
cleared Snoop and his bodyguard of all counts. Five days later, on February
25, actor Gaing S. Ngor was shot and killed after
three members of a Los Angeles neighborhood gang had already
robbed him of the Rolex he was wearing. While you may recognize
Ngor from his role as Dith Pran in the 1984 film
The Killing Fields, in which he won the Oscar, an enormous
feat considering he'd never acted before in his life,
Ngor was a doctor in Cambodia until Pol Pot the
communist revolutionary, along with his Khmer
Rouge movement, seized control of the country. In late February,
Princess Diana announced that she had accepted
the terms of a divorce as requested by her
husband, Prince Charles. Th E were married in 1981
but had been separated since December of 1992. Diana would remain living
at Kensington Palace with an office at St James
Palace, co-parent her kids, Prince William and Prince
Harry, and retain the title of Diana, Princess of Wales. More news coming on Di in 1997. [MUSIC PLAYING] [PHONE RINGING] Hello? Hello, for $10,000-- Aaron Burr? Excuse me? Aaron Burr. Hold on, let me drink some milk. Oh, I'm sorry. Your time's up. Moving into March,
Sarah Ophelia Colley, the comedian better known
for her Minnie Pearl persona, passed away. Colley came up with her
Minnie Pearl character in 1939 after she met a mountain woman
in Alabama with the same look and characteristics. Colley's Minnie Pearl
thrived well into the '60s. And by the '70s and '80s
she was a regular guest star on Hee Haw, Match Game
PM, and Hollywood Squares. This little guy's
drinking, and he says, so where can a
guy find some action? I'm going crazy out
there at the lake. And I says, what kind of action? And he says, woman action. What do I look like? And I says, well,
what do I look like? I don't arrange
that kind of thing. The day after Fargo
debuted, George Burns said good night for the
last time on March 9, 49 days after he had
turned 100 years old. The New York comedian had
several waves of success, first with his wife Gracie from
the 1920s through the '50s, his '70s return in
The Sunshine Boys, and then as God in the
'70s Oh God trilogy. Of course, our favorite
burns performance was his portrayal of Mr Kite in
the 1976 film Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Big tobacco took its first punch
to their smoke-filled noses when on March 13 the Liggett
Group, one of the big five tobacco manufacturers,
accepted its share of the penalties brought on by
a massive class action lawsuit. Liggett agreed to pay out
millions over 25 years, as well as adhere to new,
strict federal regulations and to fund
anti-smoking programs. Which meant heavy restrictions
on marketing and no more cartoon characters
in cigarette ads. A little over a year
later, RJ Reynolds killed off Smoking Joe Camel
and his curiously-shaped snout. Joe Camel was only 10 years old. The comet Hyakutake made
its closest pass to Earth on March 25, when it got just
a tad over 9 million miles near us. The Hyakutake comment was
visible to the naked eye for three months, and it was
the brightest comment anyone had ever seen in 20 years-- until the following
year, on April 1, 1997, when the comet Hale-Bopp
was visible for a record 18 months. Take that Hyakutake. In late March,
the European Union imposed a worldwide
ban on all British beef after it was linked to bovine
spongiform encephalopathy, also known as mad cow disease. The ban on British beef
would last for 10 years before it was lifted in 2006,
but not before it claimed over 4 million destroyed
head of cattle and the death of 177 people
who ate the deadly, delicious infected beef. It's theorized that
the outbreak was sparked when cattle farmers
supplemented their feed by cutting it with meat and bone
meal, which contained remains of other animals. Moving into April,
we turn to sports, where the Cincinnati
Reds and Montreal Expos were seven pitches
into their opening day game when home plate umpire
John McSherry collapsed. He would later pass away that
afternoon from cardiac arrest. Later that day, Reds
owner Marge Schott said, "Snow this
morning and now this. I don't believe it. I feel cheated. This isn't supposed to happen
to us, not in Cincinnati. This is our history,
our tradition, our team. Nobody feels worse than me." And if you know
Marge Schott, that's the least offensive
thing she's ever said. Two days later, FBI agents
arrested Ted Kaczynski, aka the Unabomber,
in his Montana cabin after nearly two
decades of mailing a series of homemade bombs
to people that he believed were destroying the environment
with modern technology. What made headlines was his
35,000-word essay titled, "Industrial Society
and Its Future," which stated that the Industrial
Revolution and everything that resulted from it had
set back the human race. Ultimately, Kaczynski received
eight consecutive life sentences without the
possibility of parole. On Saturday, April 6,
1996, Major League Soccer began its inaugural season when
the San Jose Clash were paired up against the D.C. United. The match was relatively well
attended for American soccer in the mid '90s, with an
audience of 31,683 spectators. Yet that crowd was treated
to a spectacular winning goal by Eric Wynalda, which would
be nominated as that season's goal of the year. James Burke, who you may
know is "Jimmy the Gent, " died on April 13 in the middle
of serving two sentences, one 12-year stretch after he
got pinched for his involvement in the Boston College
point-shaving scandal in the late '70s, along with an
additional 20 years for an old murder he was tied to. Jimmy the Gent was
the real-life gangster that inspired writer Nicholas
Pileggi's Jimmy "the Gent" Conway in his 1985
bestseller Wiseguy, which was later adapted by
Martin Scorsese in Goodfellas. On April 20, a Los Angeles
jury recommended life in prison without the chance
of parole for Lyle and Eric Menendez for the 1989
murders of their parents, Jose and Kitty. It was a decision
their jury deliberated on for three days after
a six-month trial, which tribe the brothers
simultaneously after their initial solo
trials were rendered invalid due to deadlocked juries. When Planet Hollywood
launched in 1991, its unique marketing
hook was that it was a celebrity-themed
restaurant chain owned by A-list actors like Bruce
Willis, Demi Moore, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and
Sylvester Stallone. On April 22, 1996, Planet
Hollywood International Incorporated went public on
the New York Stock Exchange. Sadly, overpriced burgers
surrounded by movie memorabilia didn't do as well as expected,
and the stock plummeted. It was worth less than
$1 a share at one point, and on October 12, 1999, the
company filed for bankruptcy. [MUSIC PLAYING] I wish this could all night. All night. Duracell. Oh, it can. And tomorrow night, and
maybe the next night, and the following day. The copper top. No battery is stronger, longer. Moving into May, and in the
wake of mostly negative reviews of his movie, a Thin Line
Between Love and Hate, Martin Lawrence jumped into the
middle of a busy intersection and waved a pistol. Encino Police Department
called to the scene eventually tackled Lawrence. Martin's publicist
admitted in a statement that he had been suffering
from complete exhaustion and dehydration. On May 11, tragedy struck
the airline industry when ValuJet Flight 592 took
off from Miami International Airport when a fire
ignited in the cargo hold of a 27-year-old DC-9-32. According to investigators,
one of the airplane's loose spare tires
collided with illegally stored oxygen generators
in the cargo hold, which exploded, causing a fire. Pilots attempted to fly
back to Miami International. The DC-9 banked
and flew nose first into the Florida Everglades. All 105 passengers and
five crew members on board lost their lives. That son of a-- jumped ship. Welcome to the Rock. The Michael Jordan
era Chicago Bulls were back, when they won
their fourth NBA League title on June 16. It was also the first win
of their second 3-peat championship run. The Bulls won the
series 4 games to 2 over the Seattle SuperSonics. And naturally, MJ was crowned
the NBA Finals MVP, his fourth. We flash forward to 2008, when
the Sonics moved to Oklahoma and became the Thunder, when
former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz sold the team to a group
of Oklahoma City investors. Born on July 1, the
sinister Tickle Me Elmo didn't make many waves
for its first few months. It sold steadily
throughout the summer. But it wasn't until Black Friday
that everyone wanted a piece of Sesame Street's Elmo. Following in the footsteps of
Cabbage Patch dolls and Teddy Ruxpin, Tickle Me Elmo became
the hottest holiday toy of 1996. Sales people were
getting trampled by desperate parents who'd spend
anything to make their kids Christmas wishes come true. Crafty Tickle Me Elmo hoarders
were buying the toy for $28.99 and marking it up,
sometimes to $1,000. That might just earn
you a place in hell. We're going to survive. Today, we celebrate
our Independence Day. Dolly, the world's
most famous sheep was born, or rather
cloned, on July 5, in a lab at the Roslin
Institute in Scotland, led by Professor Sir Ian Wilmut. He and his research
team were trying to develop a better
method for producing genetically-modified livestock. Although she wasn't the
first mammal ever cloned, Dolly was the
first mammal cloned from an adult somatic
cell using the process of nuclear transfer. Up until 1996, using adult cells
was thought to be impossible. Dolly would die at the age
of six on February 14, 2003. But thanks to her, many
other large mammals were closed, including pigs,
horses, deer, cats, bulls, and, in 2018, Barbra Streisand's
two Coton de Tulears, Scarlet and Violet I'm Craig Kilborn. This is a Daily Show newsbreak. Tragedy struck the
Centennial Olympic Park in Atlanta, Georgia
on July 27th, when three homemade
explosives were detonated. The devices were the work of
Eric Rudolph, who would go on to set several more
at nearby abortion clinics and an LBGTQ nightclub. However, for weeks
after the tragedy, all eyes were mistakenly
on Richard Jewel. Jewel was working
security that night and was the first to
find Rudolph's bomb. Initially, jewel
was called a hero. But when news
organizations later reported that the FBI considered
Jewel a person of interest, life got complicated for him. The intense police and media
scrutiny of Richard Jewel lasted almost three months. Jewel would eventually be
exonerated of all charges, but he would pass away
from complications of diabetes in 2007. Moving into August,
George R. R. Martin's A Game of Thrones hit
bookstore shelves. It would be the first novel in
his seven-book "A Song of Ice and Fire" series, which
became an instant bestseller. The BBC has since
listed it as one of the 100 most influential
novels ever written. The only complaint fans had
with Martin was-- and still is-- years of waiting between books. I mean, what are you doing
with all your time, George? Flash forward to
April 17, 2011, when HBO satiated the
appetite of fans, debuting the Game
of Thrones series. Let's just forget
about that last season. [MUSIC PLAYING] Meet the proud creators of
new Post Waffle Crisp Cereal. No rocking chairs or bingo
parlors for these gals. No, sir. Just look at them go. [INAUDIBLE] you read? Pour! Coming back to the
'90s, on August 3, Los Del Rio scored the
first and only number one song on the Billboard
100 with "Macarena." The song stayed at
number one for 14 weeks. But "Macarena" was
not an overnight hit. Los Del Rio released the song as
a deep cut on their 1993 album to little fanfare. It wasn't until the song
got a dance remix in 1995 with some additional English
lyrics by the Bayside Boys that anyone took notice. Soon, every wedding and party
featured a rousing rendition of "Macarena,"
marginally more dignified than the chicken dance. Several years before
9/11, Osama bin Laden issued his first
declaration of war against the United States
and Israel on August 23, in the form of a
30 page manifesto. He titled it "Declaration of War
Against the Americans Occupying the Land of the
Two Holy Places." Nearly seven months after
All Eyes On Me was released, Tupac Shakur and
Suge Knight were ambushed at a red light in
Las Vegas, on their way home after attending a
Mike Tyson match. Knight survived the
attack, but the Shakur took four shots at close range
by an unidentified assailant. Tupac passed away
six days later. To this day, his killers
have never been identified. [SCREAMING] Cookie, cookie, and cookie. [LAUGHTER] Hi, honey. On September 17, the
band Tool released Aenima, their
second studio album, which sold 148,000 within the
first week of its release. It also debuted at number
2 on the Billboard 200, almost an impossible feat
from a progressive metal band at the time or any time. The band dedicated the album
to comedian Bill Hicks, who passed away two years earlier. Hicks used to open for the
band during Lollapalooza '93. Rolling Stone would rank
the album at number 18 on a list of the 100 greatest
metal albums of all time, although we're not sure if
Aenima could be restricted to just the metal genre. Just in time for the
holiday gift-giving season, the Nintendo 64 was
launched in North America in late September. The console, which
had a $199 price tag, included games Pilotwings
64 and Super Mario 64. The N64 was also the
last major gaming console to use cartridges. Blowing on cartridges,
it's a lost art now. Moving into October,
Australia implemented a gun buyback program called
the National Firearms Agreement. The program was kick-started by
Australia's Prime Minister John Howard, after a 28-year-old
walked into a Tasmanian cafe on April 28 and opened
fire, killing 35 people and wounding another 28. Howard convinced Australians
to sell over 650,000 weapons in the first year
of the program. Did the buyback work? Well, it's hard to say. Suicide and homicide rates
have declined by 57 and 42% respectively since the buyback. Baby, don't talk about way. Can we just go, please? Can we go? Baby, look at me, look at me. You're money. You know what else? You're a big winner tonight. I want to leave. You're a big winner. The Discovery Channel
launched The Crocodile Hunter on October 25. The Crocodile Hunter only lasted
for 64 episodes spread out over five seasons, but
the original series launched several
spin-offs, including Croc Files and The
Crocodile Hunter Diaries. And it made Steve Irwin a
global overnight sensation. Flash forward to
September 4, 2006, when Irwin was filming
Ocean's Deadliest, a documentary with
Philippe Cousteau Jr, the grandson of Jacques. In between takes,
Irwin attempted to get some footage of
a 6 and 1/2 foot long short-tail stingray, which
went into defense mode, attacking Irwin,
stabbing his chest, which Irwin would succumb to. Kobe Bryant would
make his NBA debut as a Los Angeles
Laker on November 3 against the Minnesota
Timberwolves. Bryant didn't do
much that night. He came off the bench and
recorded 1 rebound and 1 block in six minutes on the wood. It would also be Bryant's
first of 11 scoreless games he had his rookie season. We fast forward
to April 13, 2016, when the Black Mamba
played the final game of his 20-season career. Bryant scored 60 points against
the Utah Jazz on his home court and finished his career
with 33,643 points, the fourth highest
in NBA history. Three days later, we go to
Egypt where archeologists found the lighthouse or Pharos
of Alexandria, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world,
off the Coast of Alexandria, Egypt. The lighthouse is said to
have been built around 246 BC by the Ptolemaic kingdom
during the reign of Ptolemy II Philadelphus. The 330-foot tower was used
to help guide ships into port at night, but it was
ultimately abandoned after sustaining structural
damage from five earthquakes over several hundred years. The french fries
are pretty good. French fried potaters? Yeah, French fries. How much you want for 'em? Moving into December, General
Motor's fully electric EV1 rolled out of their factories. It was the first electric
car produced by a major car manufacturer in the modern era. The two-seat sedan featured
awkward aerodynamic curves, and a power pedal
for easy recharging, and was lease only, with
a $33,000 price tag. While customers
loved their cars, the company stopped
production in '99 and destroyed all unsold stock. In 2002, GM canceled the
leases of all EV1 owners, and the company destroyed
all those cars too. To this day, the EV1 remains
one of the rarest finds. Jay Leno doesn't even have one. And the only intact EV1 is in
the Smithsonian Institution. I only eat popcorn
at the movies. Well, I'm getting
ready to watch a video. Really? What? Oh, just some scary movie. Do you like scary movies? Uh-huh. What's your favorite
scary movie? And finally, on Christmas
morning, six-year-old JonBenet Ramsey was found. Although Boulder police
and the rest of the world suspected that the ransom
note had been written by Patsy and that JonBenet's
whose parents covered up her death after an
accidental death, Boulder district
attorney Alex Hunter determined that there
was insufficient evidence to pursue a case he could win. Decades later and
investigators are still no closer to solving
the Ramsey murder than they were in the '90s. And that is how 1996 would end. 1997 was just days
away, where it would be a year where a
boxer would take a bite, the world would lose a princess,
and the end of Heaven's Gate. I'm peaking. It's my time now. But that is for next year. You're just going to have
to wait until next time. Don't blame yourself. It's not your fault. Coming soon, 1997. So what do you think? What was your
favorite '90s memory? Let us know in the
comments below. And while you're
at it, check out some of these other Weird
History timeline videos. [MUSIC PLAYING]
Watched the entire thing, very well done.
That was nuts.
I was 13 all over again.