14 things you won't believe happened 30 years ago

NAFTA was a trade deal between three of the largest countries in North America: Mexico, the United States, and Canada. It was originally negotiated by President George H. W. Bush but later implemented on the first day of 1994, under President Bill Clinton.

The trade deal, which eliminated most tariffs among the three nations, was meant to encourage trade and increase economic prosperity.

NAFTA lasted from 1994 through 2020 when President Donald Trump signed the USMCA (United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement) into law in 2020.

It was the cry heard 'round the world: Kerrigan, one of America's top figure skaters, was clubbed in the leg during a practice session with a police baton, and the aftermath was caught on camera.

Eventually, it emerged that she'd been attacked by the ex-husband of rival skater Tonya Harding, Jeff Gillooly, and her bodyguard, Shawn Eckardt.

Both skaters made it to the 1994 Winter Olympics in Lillehammer. Kerrigan earned the silver medal, while Harding had trouble with her laces. She was granted the opportunity to re-skate and placed eighth.

The United States Figure Skating Association (USFSA) convened later in the year and determined that Harding was at least partially responsible for the attack on Kerrigan. She was stripped of her titles and banned from USFSA events for life.

Harding has always denied being involved in the attack, but in an ABC special that aired in 2018, she did reveal she'd heard the men discussing a potential attack on someone before Kerrigan was hurt.

After two decades in Hollywood and directing some of the most successful and beloved films of all time, such as "Jaws," "Raiders of the Lost Ark," "Close Encounters of the Third Kind," "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial," and "Empire of the Sun," Spielberg finally earned the most prestigious award in cinema in 1994.

In addition to winning best director for Spielberg, the Holocaust drama also won best picture, meaning Spielberg (also a producer) took home two trophies.

Even 30 years after his death, Cobain is one of the most well-known figures in rock history, and Nirvana's iconic yellow logo remains recognizable to Gen-Z teens.

Cobain, 27, was found dead due to a self-inflicted gunshot wound on April 8; the coroner's report estimated that he died three days prior.

His death hit fans hard. The New York Times obituary quoted a fan, who said, "It's hard to be a young person nowadays. He helped open people's eyes to our struggles."

Thirty years later, teenagers and young adults still turn to Cobain's lyrics to make sense of the world.

As we said goodbye to one musical icon, we were just getting introduced to another.

Nas was just 21 when his debut album "Illmatic" was unleashed on the world, and music has never been the same.

In the decades that followed, it's widely become a consensus pick for the greatest hip-hop album of all time. Billboard called it "a quintessential hip-hop opus" and "the Holy Bible for every buddying lyricist"; Rolling Stone put it at No. 44 on its list of the 500 greatest albums ever; and in 2021, it was selected for preservation in the National Recording Registry by the Library of Congress.

Apartheid, the systemic racial segregation practiced by the South African government, was in place for decades and seemed like it would be impossible to overcome.

But Mandela, an anti-apartheid activist, would not give up — not even after he was imprisoned for 27 years for his activism.

Upon his release in 1990, Mandela once again threw himself into the efforts to end apartheid. When he was finally elected president in 1994 — the first election in the country's history in which all races could vote — he made history as the first Black president of South Africa.

Undoubtedly, the event with the most media coverage of 1994 was the murder of Brown and her friend Goldman and the subsequent investigation of her ex-husband and former football player, Simpson.

Three days after the bodies were found, millions of people across the country were glued to their TV screens as Simpson and a friend engaged in a low-speed car chase with the LAPD for 90 minutes while driving a white Ford Bronco. Simpson eventually surrendered to authorities.

The case continued to captivate audiences for the rest of the year, through October 1995, when the trial finally concluded, and Simpson was found not guilty.

After over a decade of superhero movies ruling the box office — which were only dethroned by a film about a sentient doll — it seems quaint that the No. 1 movie of the year could have been an animated musical about lions, warthogs, toucans, and meerkats.

But "The Lion King" was a true phenomenon. In the year of its release, it made over $763 million worldwide ($1.58 billion in today's dollars), according to Box Office Mojo.

Bezos' website — which, at the time, solely sold books — went live a year later, in 1995.

Almost three decades and trillions of dollars later, Amazon is ubiquitous. You can buy almost anything you could ever want, get groceries, watch TV and movies, listen to music — the list goes on.

Bezos is now one of the richest people in the world, with a net worth of $168 billion, Forbes reported in January 2024.

Despite the pleas of these kids, baseball players did go on strike in August 1994, canceling the rest of the season, including the World Series, which had been played every year since 1904.

The strike eventually ended in April 1995, reported The Washington Post, after the cancellation of 948 games and the first time a professional sport lost an entire postseason (though not the last).

When TV viewers tuned into NBC on that Thursday night in September, it would have been impossible to know they were witnessing history: the first episode of a cultural juggernaut still relevant 30 years later.

By the time "Friends" ended 10 years later, it had spawned six stars, been watched by millions of people, and had added many phrases to the cultural lexicon — could we be any clearer?

Other iconic shows that premiered in 1994 include "My So-Called Life," "The Magic School Bus," "Party of Five," "Sister, Sister," and "Sweet Valley High."

When Palestinian leader Arafat, Israeli Foreign Minister Peres, and Israeli Prime Minister Rabin were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for their efforts to bring peace to Israel and Palestine, it would've been heartbreaking to tell them that 30 years later, peace had still not been achieved.

Just one year after the ceremony, Rabin was assassinated by an Israeli extremist who was opposed to the peace process, according to The New Yorker.

One of the most '90s couples of all time is Paltrow and Pitt, who met on the set of the 1995 film "Seven."

The two (remarkably similar-looking) actors went on to date and get engaged before calling it quits in 1997.

Bieber will turn 30 on March 1, Fanning on February 23, Styles on February 1, and Wolff on December 17.