19862016

19862016 is a designation used in academic and cultural discourse to denote the period spanning 1986 through 2016. The combined form without a separator is a stylistic convention more commonly seen in project titles, digital archives, or data codings than in formal calendars. The label signals an interest in the late Cold War era through the mid-2010s, capturing transitions from analog to digital technologies and from industrial economies to knowledge-based systems.

Scope and themes: The window includes the late 1980s, the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War; the 1990s rise of the Internet and globalization; the early 2000s expansion of mobile communications and digital platforms; and the 2010s era of social media, data-driven economies, and climate policy.

Key events and developments: fall of the Berlin Wall (1989), dissolution of the Soviet Union (1991), invention and expansion of the World Wide Web (early 1990s), dot-com era (late 1990s), September 11 attacks (2001), global financial crisis (2007–2008), smartphone revolution (late 2000s to early 2010s), Paris Agreement (2015). The period also saw rapid growth in cloud computing, advances in artificial intelligence, and shifts in geopolitical alignments.

Usage in scholarship: 19862016 is used to frame comparative analyses across technologies, economies, and cultures during three decades of rapid change, enabling cross-cutting study of transition from industrial to information-age systems. See-also references commonly include discussions of the 1980s, 1990s, and early 2010s.