Year 1999: Fun Facts, Trivia, and History

This quick read presents a collection of fun facts, trivia, and history events from the year 1999. Discover the year’s top news stories, most influential people, sports facts, historic firsts, entertainment trivia, and much more.

Take a journey through history in just minutes.

1. In 1999, Bill Clinton was the president of the United States, and Al Gore was the nation’s vice president.
2. Unemployment hovered around 4.1%. According to BLS.gov, “Iowa reported the lowest 1999 annual average unemployment rate (2.5 percent), followed by New Hampshire (2.7 percent). The other states with rates below 3.0 percent were Minnesota and Virginia (2.8 percent each) and Colorado, Nebraska, and South Dakota (2.9 percent each).” The states with the highest unemployment rates were Alaska, California, the District of Columbia, Hawaii, Idaho, Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, and West Virginia.
3. The inflation rate was 2.21%, and the minimum wage was $5.15 per hour.
4. The average annual income in the U.S. was $40,810.00, and the average price of a new car was $21,050.00.
5. In 1999, the average ticket price for a Boston Red Sox game was $28.33, a one-day adult ticket at Disneyland cost $41.00, and the average ticket price for a Denver Broncos game was $49.00.
6. Walmart stock was $69.12 a share, 500 kWh of electricity cost $45.38, and the average cell phone bill was $40.24 a month.
7. The average cost of a wedding was $18,900.00, the average credit card APR was 15.07%, and the average domestic airfare was $329.00.
8. Throughout 1999, the world braced for computer chaos as the year 2000 approached. Would computer systems crash when the calendar switched over to 2000? As the clocks rolled over into the year 2000, the universe reported very few computer malfunctions, primarily because “the public and private sectors spent hundreds of billions of dollars on Y2K bug remediation, which prevented the feared widespread chaos.”
9. PayPal, one of the most widely used online payment platforms, was viewed as one of the ten worst business ideas of 1999.
10. On January 1, the euro became the official currency for 12 European nations—Austria, Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, and Spain.
11. On January 7, the impeachment trial of President Bill Clinton began in the U.S. Senate. On February 12, Clinton was acquitted of perjury and obstruction of justice.
12. On March 3, nearly 50 million people watched Monica Lewinsky's 20/20 interview with Barbara Walters. According to Variety.com, “the Lewinsky interview was the most-watched news program ever in terms of total viewers.” An estimated 74 million Americans watched at least six minutes of the broadcast.
13. On April 20, a mass shooting at the Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, left 15 dead, including the two students responsible for the attack. It was one of the deadliest school shootings in American history.
14. On April 27, the Chernobyl virus wiped out data in hundreds of thousands of computers in Asia and the Middle East. Both the U.S. and Europe largely escaped the damaging effects of the bug.
15. On June 28, Jack Ma founded China’s e-commerce company, Alibaba. Alibaba’s three main sites, Taobao, Tmall, and Alibaba.com, have hundreds of millions of users and host millions of merchants and businesses.
16. On July 20, the Liberty Bell 7 space capsule was raised from the ocean floor. CNN.com tells us that “The Mercury capsule, flown by astronaut Gus Grissom for 15 minutes in space on July 21, 1961, was hoisted to the surface at 2:15 a.m. Tuesday from the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. It was found at a depth of more than 15,000 feet—3,000 feet deeper than the wreck of the Titanic.”
17. On August 11, a total eclipse of the sun was visible in all of Europe, northern Africa, and the western half of Asia.
18. On October 11, Baidu, the first Chinese search engine, came online. “Baidu Knows” provides users with “a query-based searchable community to share knowledge and experience. “Baidu Image Search” enables users to search millions of images on the Internet.
19. In an abbreviated New Year’s Eve session, Wall Street ended 1999 at an all-time high. Money. CNN.com tells us that Wall Street capped “a century of unprecedented growth punctuated by two market crashes, the longest-running stock rally in history, and the emergence of technology companies as leaders for the 21st century. The Dow Jones Industrial Average, the only major indicator in existence 100 years ago, rose 44.26 points to 11,497.12. The Nasdaq Composite Index gained 32.44 to 4,069.31, while the S&P 500 Index rose 4.78 to 1,469.25.”
20. Until 1999, Montana didn't have a speed limit on the interstate and encouraged drivers instead to be "reasonable and prudent.”
21. Time magazine’s “Person of the Year” was Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon.com.
22. Fashion trends for women included bucket hats, wedge sandals, and blue eyeshadow. For men, black shirts, black ties, and black suits were all the rage.
23. Star Wars Episode One: The Phantom Menace was the most popular film, and Who Wants to Be a Millionaire was the top TV show.
24. Shakespeare in Love won an Oscar for Best Picture, and My Heart Will Go On won a Grammy for Record of the Year.
25. The crime drama Law & Order: Special Victims Unit premiered on NBC. Created by Dick Wolf, the show starred Mariska Hargitay and Christopher Meloni.
26. At the beginning of 1999, the number of worldwide Internet users reached 150 million. Over 50% were from the United States.
27. In 1999, Internet search engines included Excite, Yahoo!, WebCrawler, MetaCrawler, Lycos, Infoseek, HotBot, Dogpile, MSN Search (now Bing), AOL Search, Netscape Search, AltaVista, Inktomi, Ask Jeeves (now Ask.com), Google, and Overture.
28. Popular web searches in 1999 included Bill Clinton, Britney Spears, Carmen Electra, David Beckham, Days of Our Lives, Denise Richards, games, Harry Potter, Jennifer Lopez, John F. Kennedy Jr., Kama Sutra, Lolita, Martin Luther King Jr., Mia Hamm, Monica Lewinsky, NASCAR, Pamela Anderson, Pokémon, Sarah Jessica Parker, Sesame Street, South Park (sitcom), Star Wars, the Bible, The Simpsons, weather, and the World Cup.
29. Here are some sports facts from the year 1999: The Denver Broncos were the Super Bowl champs, the New York Yankees won the World Series, and the Dallas Stars clinched the Stanley Cup.
30. In 1999 as well, the words "adorkable," "bling," "blog," "blogger," "carbon footprint," "clickbait," "cord-cutting," "e-reader," "e-scooter," "e-waste," "FPS (feet per second)," "hoarding disorder," "padawan," "texting," and "vape" all appeared in print for the first time.

References:

1. https://www.boxofficemojo.com/year/1999/
2. https://www.computerhope.com/history/1999.htm
3. https://www.onthisday.com/date/1999
4. https://www.foodreference.com/html/html/food-history-1996.html
5. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1999_in_the_United_States
6. https://www.merriam-webster.com/time-traveler/1999

Disclaimer: In writing and editing this article, Gregory DeVictor has made every effort to ensure historical accuracy and not to mislead his audience. In addition, the contents of this article, including text, graphics, and captions, are for general informational purposes only.

© 2026 Gregory DeVictor