1990

1984–1994	UK [television]	Spitting Image, a programme satirizing contemporary politics using puppets created by Peter Fluck and Roger Law, is shown on British television.
1987–1993	UK [television]	French and Saunders, a comic sketch series starring comedians Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders, is shown on British television.
1988–1994	USA [ecology]	The amount of chlorofluorocarbons released into the air in the USA is reduced by 52%.
1990	USA [cinema and film]	The Motion Picture Association of America attempts to introduce a No Children Under 17 rating as a guideline in the USA. However, cinemas refuse to show such films, so the rating is dropped for major films.
1990	UK [clubs and societies]	The 1st Wark Troop in Northumberland, England, becomes the first mixed scout group.
1990	Japan, UK [companies and organizations]	The Japanese company Taurus Business Systems markets the first personal videophone in Britain, at a cost of around £1,000 for two.
1990	England [fiction]	The English writer A S Byatt publishes her novel Possession: A Romance, which wins the Booker Prize.
1990	USA [health and medicine]	A four-year-old girl in the USA has the gene for adenosine deaminase inserted into her DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid); she is the first person to receive gene therapy.
1990	Germany [opera]	The opera Das verratene Meer/The Revealed Sea by the German composer Hans Werner Henze is first performed, in Berlin, Germany. Based on a novel by the Japanese novelist Yukio Mishima, it was completed in 1989.
1990	USA [physics]	Researchers at IBM's Almaden Research Center in California, USA, are the first to manipulate individual atoms on a surface; they use a scanning tunnelling microscope and spell out the initials ‘IBM’.
1990	UK [popular music]	A pop concert is held at Wembley Stadium in London, England, to celebrate the release from detention of South African leader Nelson Mandela.
1990	Netherlands, UK [consumer products]	The Dutch electronics company Philips launches Carvision, the first in-car television in Britain. It has a 10-cm/4-in LCD screen.
1990	Japan, UK [consumer products]	The Japanese electronics company Sharp introduces the first colour fax machine in Britain. It costs around £14,000.
1990	USA [statistics and demography]	The population of the USA is 249,632,692.
1990	Asia, Europe, Africa, USSR, South America, North America [statistics and demography]	World population distribution by continents, in percentages of the total world population (compared with percentages in 1950) is as follows: Asia, 58.8 (54.7); Europe, 9.4 (15.6); Africa, 12.1 (8.8); USSR, 5.4 (7.2); Latin America, 8.5 (6.6); North America, 5.2 (6.6)
1990	UK [statistics and demography]	Estimated population of Great Britain and Ireland/Northern Ireland: England 47,838,000; Wales 2,881,000; Scotland 5,102,000; Ireland/Northern Ireland 1,589,000.
1990	USA [statistics and demography]	According to the US Census Bureau, 28% of Americans are obese, including 30% of women and 38% of black Americans.
1990	UK [technology]	The British company Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI) develops the first practical biodegradable plastic, Biopal.
1990	USA [technology]	The US telecommunications equipment company PhoneMate launches the digital answering machine ADAM, the first with messages stored on a silicon chip rather than tape.
January 1990	UK [newspapers]	A new quality Sunday newspaper, the Independent on Sunday, is launched in Britain.
15 January 1990	Bulgaria [political events]	The Bulgarian National Assembly votes to end the communist monopoly on power.
22 January 1990	Yugoslavia [political events]	Yugoslavia's Communist Party votes to abolish its monopoly on power.
1 February 1990	Bulgaria [law and government]	The Bulgarian government resigns. On 8 February, a new all-communist government is formed, dominated by the reformed Bulgarian Socialist Party.
7 February 1990	USSR [political events]	The Soviet Communist Party votes to end its monopoly on political power.
11 February 1990	South Africa [political events]	The African National Congress (ANC) leader, Nelson Mandela, is released in South Africa after almost 26 years in prison.
16 February 1990	Namibia [elections]	The SWAPO leader Sam Nujoma is elected the first president of independent Namibia. On 21 February, the Republic of Namibia becomes an independent sovereign state.
11 March 1990	Lithuania [political events]	Lithuania declares its independence from the USSR.
11 March 1990	Chile [elections]	General Augusto Pinochet, dictator of Chile since 1973, hands over power to elected president Patricio Aylwin.
15 March 1990	USSR [political events]	Mikhail Gorbachev is sworn in as the first executive president of the USSR.
20 March 1990	UK [television]	The chancellor of the Exchequer's budget is televised for the first time in Britain.
15 April 1990	Sweden, USA [births and deaths]	Greta Garbo, Swedish-born US film star of the 1920s and 1930s, then a legendary recluse after 1941, dies in New York City (84).
24 April 1990	USA [space exploration]	The space shuttle Discovery places the Hubble Space Telescope in Earth orbit; the main mirror proves to be defective.
May 1990	Germany [ecology]	In Germany, Wella Shampoo is the first product packaged in Biopal, the first fully biodegradable plastic.
4 May 1990	Latvia, USSR [political events]	Latvia declares itself an independent sovereign state.
8 May 1990	Estonia, USSR [political events]	Estonia declares its independence from the USSR.
10 May 1990	Europe [newspapers]	English newspaper and publishing magnate Robert Maxwell publishes The European, a weekly English-language newspaper for circulation throughout Europe.
15 May 1990	UK [plagues and epidemics]	Home-produced beef is banned in UK schools and hospitals as a result of concern about bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE or ‘mad cow disease’).
22 May 1990	North Yemen, South Yemen,Yemen [diplomacy]	The traditionally antagonistic North and South Yemen merge to form the Yemen Republic.
8 June 1990	USSR [political events]	The Russian parliament votes that its laws should take precedence over those of the USSR; on 12 June, the Russian Federation formally declares itself a sovereign state.
25 June 1990	USA [gay rights]	Active homosexuals are admitted to the rabbinate by the Central Conference of American Rabbis, but the Evangelical Lutheran Church suspends two churches that have ordained homosexuals.
July 1990	Japan [media and communication]	Japanese electronics manufacturer Sony launches the Data Discman, an electronic book player that runs 8.8-cm/3.5-in disks, capable of storing up to 2,500 pages of text.
1 July 1990	East Germany [political events]	East Germany cedes sovereignty over economic, monetary, and social policy to the West German government and the Bundesbank, with the Deutschmark becoming its official currency.
September 1990	Japan [communications]	The Japanese company Sony launches the first DAT recorder for domestic use, the Sony DTC 55ES.
8 September 1990	UK [political events]	On the final day of the Labour Party Conference, the British Conservative government announces the entry of sterling into the European Exchange Rate Mechanism.
10 September 1990	Cambodia [diplomacy]	Political and military groups in Cambodia, including the pro-Vietnamese government and the Khmer Rouge, agree on a peace formula to end the country's civil war.
2 October 1990	East Germany [political events]	The German Democratic Republic (East Germany) ceases to exist at midnight, and on 3 October, East and West Germany are formally reunited.
7 November 1990	Ireland [elections]	Mary Robinson wins the Irish presidential election to become the country's first woman president.
28 November 1990	UK [political events]	Margaret Thatcher resigns as British prime minister, to be succeeded by John Major.
1 December 1990	UK, France [other structures]	British and French tunnelling engineers, working from opposite sides of the English Channel to build the Channel Tunnel, break through the last few yards of ground separating their excavations.