19751999

1975–1999 refers to the 25-year span from 1975 through 1999. This period encompassed the final stages of the Cold War, significant economic and cultural shifts, and rapid advances in technology that helped shape the modern information age.

Geopolitically, the era began with the end of the Vietnam War in 1975 and included ongoing Cold War tensions, the Iranian Revolution in 1979, and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan (1979–1989). Mikhail Gorbachev’s reforms of the mid-to-late 1980s, namely glasnost and perestroika, contributed to the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. The 1990s saw the Maastricht Treaty in 1992, which established the European Union, and ongoing NATO expansion. The decade also witnessed conflicts in the Balkans, including the Yugoslav Wars, and major geopolitical realignments across Europe and the former Soviet sphere.

Economically and technologically, the period experienced the aftershocks of the 1970s oil crises, followed by deregulation and liberalization in the 1980s and a rapid rise in globalization during the 1990s. The personal computer revolution accelerated with the 1980s and 1990s, and the Internet and the World Wide Web emerged and expanded after 1991. In science, notable developments included the repair and use of the Hubble Space Telescope (1993) and the cloning of Dolly the sheep (1996), alongside early milestones of the Human Genome Project.

Culture and society underwent transformations in media, entertainment, and communication, driven by cable and satellite television, the spread of video games, and the growing ubiquity of digital devices. The late 1990s also brought concerns over Y2K and the emergence of a global digital economy, shaping trends into the early 2000s.