Timeline of the history of the United States (1990–2009)
This section of the Timeline of United States history concerns events from '1990 to the present.
1990s
- 1990 — Hubble Space Telescope launched during Space Shuttle Discovery mission.
- 1991 — The Gulf War is waged in the Middle East, by a U.N.-authorized coalition force from thirty-four nations, led by the U.S. and United Kingdom, against Iraq.
- 1991 — The World Wide Web is publicly debuted as an Internet service.
- 1991 — Cold War ends as the USSR dissolves.
- 1992 — Los Angeles riots result in over 50 deaths and $1 billion in damage, spurred by the acquittal of four Los Angeles Police Department officers accused in the videotaped beating of black motorist Rodney King
- 1992 — U.S. presidential election, 1992 (Bill Clinton defeats President George H. W. Bush)
- 1992 — Hurricane Andrew, a Category 5 hurricane, kills 65 people and causes $26 billion in damage to Florida and other areas of the U.S. Gulf Coast, and will be the costliest natural disaster until Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
- 1993 — Truck Bomb explodes in the parking garage, under the World Trade Center in New York City, killing 6 people and injuring thousands.
- 1993 — Branch Davidians standoff and fire near Waco, Texas, resulting in the deaths of 76 people including their leader, David Koresh.
- 1993 — The "Storm of the Century" strikes the Eastern Seaboard, with blizzard conditions and severe weather, killing 300 people and causing $6 billion in damage.
- 1993 — Massive flooding along the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers kill 50 people and devastate the Midwest with $15–$20 billion in damage.
- 1993 — President Clinton signs 'Don't ask, don't tell' into law which prohibits openly gay or bisexual people from serving in the military.
- 1994 — North American Free Trade Agreement goes into effect.
- 1994 — 1994 Northridge earthquake kills 72 and injures 9,000 in the Los Angeles area and causes $20 billion in damage.
- 1995 — Oklahoma City bombing kills 168 and wounds 800. The bombing is the worst domestic terrorist incident in U.S. history, and the investigation resulted in the arrests of Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols
- 1995 — Retired professional football player O. J. Simpson is acquitted of two charges of first-degree murder in the 1994 slayings of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and Ronald Goldman. The trial, which lasts nine months, receives worldwide publicity.
- 1995 — A heat wave kills 750 in Chicago, bringing to attention the plight of the urban poor and the elderly in extreme weather conditions.
- 1995-1996 — A budget crisis forces the federal government to shut down for several weeks.
- 1996 — TWA Flight 800 explodes off Long Island killing all 230 aboard.
- 1996 — Khobar Towers bombing leaves 19 U.S. servicemen dead in Saudi Arabia
- 1996 — Centennial Olympic Park bombing at Summer Olympics in Atlanta kills 1 and injures 111
- 1997 — Sparked by a global economic crisis scare, the Dow Jones Industrial Average follows world markets and plummets 554.26, or 7.18%, to 7,161.15
- 1998 — Former Arkansas state employee Paula Jones accuses President Clinton of sexual harassment
- 1998-1999 — Lewinsky scandal: President Clinton is accused of having a sexual relationship with 22-year-old White House intern Monica Lewinsky. This leads to the impeachment of Clinton later in the year by the U.S. House of Representatives. Clinton is acquitted of all impeachment charges of perjury and obstruction of justice in a 21-day Senate trial
- 1999 — The Dow Jones Industrial Average closes above the 10,000 mark for the first time, at 10,006.78
- 1999 — Two teenage students murder 13 other students and teachers at Columbine High School. It sparked debates on gun control and bullying.
- 1999 — A violent tornado outbreak in Oklahoma kills 50 people and becomes the first to produce a tornado that causes $1 billion in damage.
- 1999 — The first officer deliberately crashes EgyptAir Flight 990 south of Nantucket, Massachusetts, killing 217.
- 1999 — Along with the rest of the world, the U.S. prepares for the possible effects of the Y2K bug in computers, which was feared to cause computers to become inoperable and wreak havoc.
2000s
- 2000 — The Arleigh Burke-class destroyer, the USS Cole (DDG-76) is bombed in Yemeni waters, killing seventeen U.S. Navy sailors.
- 2000 — U.S. presidential election, 2000; incumbent Texas governor George Walker Bush wins by 537 votes in Florida in a highly contested election against the incumbent Vice President Al Gore. He is thus elected 43rd President of the United States.
- 2001 — George Walker Bush inaugurated as the 43rd President of the United States.
- 2001 — Democrats gains narrow control of Senate after James Jeffords defects from the Republican Party.
- 2001 — No Child Left Behind Act education reform bill passed.
- 2001 — Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001 institutes the smallest tax cut in U.S. history.
- 2001 — September 11th terrorist attacks; 19 terrorists hijack four planes and crash them into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania killing nearly 3,000 people and injuring over 6,000. All civilian air traffic is suspended for 3 days, the first time an unplanned suspension had occurred in U.S. history.
- 2001 — Congress passes an emergency bailout package for the airline industry as a result of the attacks
- 2001 — Anthrax attacks kill 5 and infect a further 17 through the U.S. Mail system.
- 2001 — The United States launches the invasion of Afghanistan marking the start of Operation Enduring Freedom.
- 2001 — Patriot Act, increasing law enforcement agencies' ability to conduct searches in cases of suspected terrorism. Agencies were enforced.
- 2001 — American Airlines Flight 587 crashes in Queens, New York, killing 265.
- 2002 — The Department of Homeland Security is created in the wake of the September 11 attacks.
- 2002 — The United States withdraws from Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.
- 2002 — 10 people are killed and 3 are injured in the Beltway sniper attacks around the Washington D.C. area.
- 2003 — Republicans retake narrow control of the Senate following 2002 elections.
- 2003 — Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrates upon re-entry to the Earth's atmosphere, killing all 7 astronauts and resulting in a 29-month suspension of the space shuttle program.
- 2003 — A series of incidents occur that institute a crackdown on building, fire, and safety code violations across the United States, including the E2 nightclub stampede which killed 21, The Station nightclub fire which killed 100, and a porch collapse which killed 13.
- 2003 — The United States, United Kingdom, Australia and Poland invades Iraq marking the start of Operation Iraqi Freedom.
- 2003 — U.S. forces continue fighting an insurgency in Iraq while helping the Iraqis build a new army of their own and develop a democratic form of government
- 2003 — In Iraq, deposed Iraqi president Saddam Hussein is captured by U.S. special forces.
- 2004 — The social networking website Facebook is launched.
- 2004 — The 2004 Atlantic hurricane season produces four deadly and damaging hurricanes which impact Florida, Charley, Frances, Ivan, and Jeanne, which kill a combined 100 people in the U.S. and produce over $50 billion in damage
- 2004 — Massachusetts becomes the first state to legalize same-sex marriage in compliance with a ruling from the state's Supreme Court ruling in Goodridge v. Department of Public Health
- 2004 — Former U.S. President Ronald Wilson Reagan dies from complications resulting from Alzheimer's Disease. He lies in state at the U.S. Capitol building before being interred.
- 2004 — U.S. presidential election, 2004; George W. Bush re-elected to second-term; Republicans solidify control in both houses of Congress.
- 2005 — George W. Bush is inaugurated to his second-term
- 2005 — Hurricane Katrina devastates the Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama coastlines killing at least 1,836 people and causing $81 billion in damage, making it the costliest natural disaster in U.S. history. Weeks later, Hurricane Rita causes $10 billion damage along the Louisiana and Texas coastlines. In October, Hurricane Wilma kills 35 and causes $20 billion in damage in Florida.
- 2006 — The Democratic Party retakes control of both houses of Congress, and gains a majority of state governorships (28-22).
- 2007 — Democrat Nancy Pelosi becomes the first female Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives
- 2007 — George W. Bush orders a troop surge which substantially increases the number of U.S. troops in Iraq and ultimately leads to reductions in casualties and major victories for coalition and Iraqi forces, against the insurgency.
- 2007 — A South Korean student shoots and kills 32 other students and professors in the Virginia Tech massacre before killing himself. It stands as the worst mass-shooting in U.S. history until 2012 and spurs a series of debates on gun control and journalism ethics.
- 2007 — The I-35W Mississippi River bridge in Minneapolis, Minnesota collapses, killing 13 people. The bridge collapse brings to national attention the need to rehabilitate the aging U.S. infrastructure system.
- 2007 — The late-2000s recession officially begins in December.
- 2008 — The Super Tuesday tornado outbreak kills over 60 people and produces $1 billion in damage across Arkansas, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Alabama.
- 2008 — A student kills 5, injures 21, and then kills himself in the Northern Illinois University shooting. After this incident, calls are made for more focus on mental health services and interest grows substantially in the group Students for Concealed Carry on Campus.
- 2008 — Hurricane Ike kills 100 people along the Texas coast, produces $31 billion in damage, and contributes to rising oil prices.
- 2008 — U.S. oil prices hit a record $147 per barrel in the wake of—among other factors—international tensions and the falling U.S. dollar vs. the Euro.
- 2008 — Global financial crisis in September 2008 begins as the stock market crashes. In response, U.S. President George W. Bush signs the revised Emergency Economic Stabilization Act into law to create a 700 billion dollar Treasury fund to purchase failing bank assets.
- 2008 — U.S. presidential election, 2008; Barack Obama elected 44th President of the United States.
- 2009 — Barack Obama is inaugurated as the 44th President of the United States. He is also the first African-American to hold the office.
- 2009 — The first of a series of Tea Party protests are conducted across the United States, focusing on smaller government, fiscal responsibility, individual freedoms and conservative views of the Constitution.
- 2009 — U.S. President Barack Obama obtains Congressional approval for the $787 billion stimulus package, the largest since President Dwight D. Eisenhower.
- 2009 — Pop icon Michael Jackson dies, creating the largest public mourning for an entertainer since the death of Elvis Presley.
- 2009 — Nidal Malik Hasan kills 12 servicemen and injures 31 in the 2009 Fort Hood shooting
2010s
- 2010 — The Deepwater Horizon oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico explodes, spilling millions of gallons of oil into the sea. The spill becomes the worst oil spill in American history.
- 2011 — U.S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords is targeted in an assassination attempt, when a gunman went on a shooting spree, critically injuring Giffords, killing federal judge John Roll and five other people, and wounding at least 13 others, at a "Congress on Your Corner" event Giffords was hosting in suburban Tucson, Arizona.
- 2011 — The ATF gunwalking scandal emerged, wherein thousands of guns were allowed to "walk" through interdiction to Mexico, supposedly to aid in the capture of criminals.
- 2011 — A series of tornadoes cause heavy damage in the South, Alabama being the hardest hit. 344 people are killed in the deadliest natural disaster in the US since Hurricane Katrina.
- 2011 — Osama bin Laden, leader of al-Qaeda and mastermind of the September 11 attacks, is killed in Abbottabad, Pakistan by soldiers from the United States Naval Special Warfare Development Group.
- 2011 — Flooding devastates the Mississippi River valley causing $2 to $4 billion in damage.
- 2011 — A tornado devastates Joplin, Missouri, killing 154 and injuring 1,000, making it the deadliest single U.S. tornado since the advent of modern weather forecasting
- 2011 — STS-135: The Space Shuttle Atlantis touches down at the Shuttle Landing Facility at Kennedy Space Center, ending the 30 year shuttle program, which began with the launch of shuttle Columbia on April 12, 1981.
- 2012 — A gunman kills 12 and injures 58 at a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado.
- 2012 — President Barack Obama is re-elected over Republican candidate Mitt Romney in the presidential election.
- 2012 — A gunman kills 26, including 20 children, at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.
- 2013 — Christopher Dorner murders three people in Southern California, starting the largest manhunt in Los Angeles history. His spree ends in Big Bear Lake, California where he barricades himself in a cabin, kills a second officer, before committing suicide.
- 2013 — Terrorists attack the Boston Marathon by detonating two bombs at the finishing line of the race, killing three and injuring 283 runners and spectators. Suspects Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev then led Boston police on a high-speed chase, killing one officer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Tamerlan was killed in a shootout with police and Dzhokhar was detained the day after.
- 2013 — A tornado devastates suburbs near Oklahoma City, killing at least 51.
- 2013 — The most destructive wildfire in Colorado history burns nearly 16,000 acres and killing two.
- 2013 — The Supreme Court strikes down the Defense of Marriage Act, which banned the federal recognition of same-sex marriages and refused to recognize the legal standing of proponents of Proposition 8, which resulted in the re-legalization of same-sex marriage in California.
- 2014 — A grand jury decides not to charge Officer Darren Wilson in the shooting death of Michael Brown inciting protests and riots against racism and police brutality in the St. Louis area.
- 2015 — Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is convicted and sentenced to death for committing the Boston Marathon bombing.
- 2015 — Same-sex marriage is legalized in all 50 US states.
- 2016 — Omar Mateen kills 49 people and injures 53 at the Pulse gay nightclub, in the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history.
- 2016 — Donald Trump elected 45th President of the United States.