1996 in history
Here are some light-hearted facts about 1996, designed to serve as a prep sheet for a radio feature on 1996.
I created this page because when I needed some notes to create a few talking points about 1996 in Ireland I couldn't find any suitable sources, so I thought I'd share what I did find. It applies to 1996 in Britain too.
You can also look at years other than 1996:
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1996
Beanie Babies were the must-have toy [NB: they had been on sale for a few years by now, but were really starting to take hold].
Boyband Take That split up. Many fans needed counselling.
Nelson Mandela visited the UK.
Dolly the Sheep, the first mammal to have been successfully cloned from an adult cell, is born in Scotland. She was named after Dolly Parton.
The EU imposed a worldwide ban on exports of British beef, to halt the spread of BSE ('Mad Cow Disease').
At a Chicago zoo, a 3-year-old boy fell into the 20-foot deep gorilla enclosure. Binti Jua, a female lowland gorilla sat with the injured boy until he was rescued.
Environmental protests were a common topic of the news. 'Swampy' became a national celebrity after digging tunnels under the planned path of the A30, preventing the bulldozers from moving in.
In Sweden, McDonald's launched a drive thru restaurant for people on skis. Called McSki, it saved diners from having to take their ski gear off.
Pulp, Paul Weller, Supergrass and The Charlatans played the first V Festival.
The last Happy Eater restaurants closed.
The Olympic Games were held in Atlanta.
1996 Launches
Ask Jeeves was formed. Nine years later Jeeves was sacked as it became Ask.
DVDs were created.
The email service Hotmail launched. It offered freedom from your internet provider's email address.
The UK driving theory test was introduced as a written exam.
Subway opened its first British store in Brighton.
Books published this year include A Game of Thrones, The Notebook and Bridget Jones's Diary.
Electrolux introduced the first robotic vacuum cleaner.
The Wayback Machine began saving copies of websites. They can show you what almost any website used to look like, but they can only go back to this year.
The Motorola StarTAC was released. It was the first flip phone, and sold well.
Ireland's first Argos opened in Nutgrove Shopping Centre.
1996 in Film
Independence Day was the biggest film of the year.
Other big films include Twister, Mission: Impossible, The Rock, The Nutty Professor, 101 Dalmatians and Space Jam.
Fargo, Trainspotting, Scream, Michael Collins and The Cable Guy were released.
Braveheart won five awards at the Oscars, including Best Director for Mel Gibson and Best Picture.
1996 in TV
Big TV shows of the year (not premiers): Only Fools and Horses, Casualty, Touch Of Frost, Heartbeat, One Foot In The Grave, You've Been Framed! and ER.
PJ & Duncan re-branded to form The Ant & Dec Show. The BAFTA-winning children's show featured a game called Beat the Barber, where wrong answers caused the child contestant to get their head shaved. Hundreds of complaints were received when a girl took part, but she later said she found it funny, and even agreed to do it again 20 years later!
Hey Arnold!, 3rd Rock From The Sun, Changing Rooms, Ballykissangel and Sabrina the Teenage Witch were new on TV.
Jarvis Cocker from Pulp invaded the stage at the Brit Awards during a performance of Earth Song by Michael Jackson and mooned the TV cameras.
Eimear Quinn won the Eurovision Song Contest for Ireland, with The Voice.
Ireland's first Irish language television station, Teilifís na Gaeilge, was launched. Grainne Seoige was the newsreader. Ros na Rún is its longest-running program.
While these facts about 1996 have been checked against third-party sources (and have been used on air before!), they are provided in good faith to inspire your research and no guarantee is made about their accuracy or their uniqueness. You can use the facts however you wish: most people just take a couple of points they remember and talk around then.
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