1990: Nelson Mandela is freed from prison in South Africa after 27 years.

1990: The Chunnel, linking France and Britain by rail under the English Channel, is opened.

1990: Margaret Thatcher, known as the "Iron Lady," retires as British prime minister.

1990: Boris Yeltsin is elected president of Russia.

1990: Saddam Hussein invades Kuwait and U.S. troops fight the gulf war.

1991: A Serbian policy of "ethnic cleansing" in Bosnia shocks the world.

1991: Riots erupt in Los Angeles after four white police officers are acquitted of beating Rodney King.

1993: New York's World Trade Center is hit by a massive bomb that is later traced to terrorists.

1993: A stand-off in Waco, Texas, between followers of David Koresh and federal authorities ends in a compound fire that kills 40.

1994: Los Angeles is hit by an earthquake that kills 34, causes $7 billion in damage and disrupts the World Series.

1994: Ethnic battles break out in Rwanda, with some 100,000 killed in two weeks.

1994: Republicans take control of both houses of Congress for the first time in 40 years.

1995: Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin is assassinated.

1995: A bomb explodes in downtown Oklahoma City, killing 168. It was later found to be the work of Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols.

1995: O.J. Simpson is acquitted of the murder of his ex-wife, Nicole.

1996: A terrorist bomb attack in Saudi Arabia kills 19 U.S. soldiers and injures 300.

1996: Theodore J. Kaczynski, known as the notorious Unabomber is arrested at his Montana cabin by FBI agents.

1996: TWA Flight 800 crashes in the Atlantic Ocean killing all 230 aboard.

1997: The stock market plunges 554 points in one day, then climbs back up again, rising 20 percent for the third straight year.

1997: The LDS Church celebrates the sesquicentennial of the pioneer trek to Utah with a months-long re-enactment.

1997: Princess Diana is killed in a car crash in Paris.

1998: Two U.S. embassies are bombed by terrorist organizations in Sudan and Kenya.

1998: President Bill Clinton is impeached following disclosures of an affair with Monica Lewinsky, but he is acquitted by the Senate.

1998: Mark McGuire breaks Roger Maris' home-run record in baseball.

1999: An earthquake in Turkey leaves at least 15,000 dead.

1999: The U.S. hands control of the Panama Canal to Panama.