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Born in 1995? Here's the world you arrived into

In 1995, "Gangsta's Paradise" topped the charts, Toy Story packed theaters, a stamp cost 32¢, the average home went for about $133,900.

What things cost in 1995

A $1.15 gallon of gas in 1995 has the buying power of roughly $2.35 in 2024 dollars. A 32¢ stamp is around 66¢ today, and a $4.35 movie ticket is about $8.95.

The biggest moments of 1995

• Pixar released Toy Story — the first fully computer-animated feature film.
• eBay was founded in September.
• Yahoo! was incorporated as a search engine.

• Cal Ripken Jr. played his 2,131st consecutive game in September 1995, breaking Lou Gehrig's "unbreakable" record as baseball celebrated.
• A little online bookstore called Amazon.com sold its very first book in July 1995 from a Seattle garage.
• Michael Jordan announced his return to basketball in March with a famous two-word fax: "I'm back."

Toys, TV & trends of 1995

• Toy Story became the first fully computer-animated movie, and Buzz Lightyear toys sold out everywhere that Christmas.
• The Sony PlayStation launched in America in September 1995, bringing CD-based gaming into living rooms.
• People lined up at midnight for Windows 95, while kids kept trading pogs and hunting for Beanie Babies.

• Sky Dancers spun off their launchers and into every toy aisle, the pull-string pixies becoming one of the decade's biggest-selling girls' toys.
• AOL free-trial CDs began arriving in seemingly every mailbox in America, each promising hours of that unforgettable dial-up handshake.
• Nintendo's Virtual Boy arrived with red-and-black "3D" goggles and flopped so memorably that it became a legend in its own right.

The music scene

Alanis Morissette's Jagged Little Pill arrived in June 1995 and gave a generation its confessional, shout-along soundtrack, on its way to becoming one of the best-selling albums ever. Hootie & the Blowfish's friendly bar-band rock made Cracked Rear View the year's biggest album. And in a first for hip-hop, "Gangsta's Paradise" finished as Billboard's No. 1 single for the entire year — a milestone no rap song had ever reached.

At the movies

Braveheart stormed to Best Picture among five Oscar wins for 1995. Apollo 13 earned its realism the hard way: Ron Howard filmed the weightless scenes in real zero gravity aboard NASA's "Vomit Comet" airplane, 23 seconds at a time. And a small Australian film about a polite pig named Babe charmed its way to seven Oscar nominations, including Best Picture, with talking-animal effects that felt like magic.

Cartoons kids loved

• The Simpsons
• Animaniacs
• Pinky and the Brain

The cartoon landscape kept expanding in 1995: the WB network launched its Kids' WB block, giving the Spielberg-produced Warner shows a splashy new home. Just as importantly, Sailor Moon arrived in American syndication, giving many kids their first taste of Japanese anime — serialized stories, transformation sequences and all. The anime wave that would crest with Pokémon was quietly rolling in.

The world in 1995

• World population: about 5.7 billion
• U.S. President: Bill Clinton
• The World Trade Organization began operations

• The space shuttle Atlantis docked with Russia's Mir station in June 1995, the first shuttle-station linkup and a symbol of post-Cold War teamwork.
• The Dayton Accords were signed in late 1995, ending the war in Bosnia after nearly four years.
• Nelson Mandela donned a Springbok jersey as host South Africa won the Rugby World Cup, a beloved moment of national unity.

1995 birthday questions

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