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.

1990 (redirected from January 1990)

1990

1990
(redirected from January 1990)