1993: The Quiet Year That Wrote Today's Rules

A country split without a shot, a market without borders, a web nobody owned and a handshake in Washington — all in one quiet year. On 1 January 1993, Czechoslovakia peacefully became two countries, and twelve European countries opened a single market. That November the Maastricht Treaty created the European Union, after referendums in Denmark and France it very nearly lost. In April, CERN gave the World Wide Web away free to anyone, and the Mosaic browser opened it to ordinary people. In September, Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat shook hands on the Oslo Accords, a promise of peace the accords could not keep. The year also had darker warnings, from the World Trade Center bombing to the war in Yugoslavia. We follow four clues — a divorce, a market, a web and a handshake — to answer one question: why do we still live by the rules of 1993? Chapters 0:00 Intro 0:22 The question 0:51 The Divorce 2:13 The Market 2:48 The Union 3:47 The Gift 4:41 The Browser 5:27 The Handshake 6:51 The Warnings 7:24 The answer The Long Answer: one question, eight minutes, the whole story. History, science, technology and strange events, explained clearly for curious people. Got a question you want answered? Leave it in the comments. *Sources:* Narration based on the English Wikipedia articles "1993", "Dissolution of Czechoslovakia", "Czechoslovakia", "Václav Havel", "Velvet Revolution", "European Single Market", "Maastricht Treaty", "European Union", "1992 Danish Maastricht Treaty referendum", "1993 Danish Maastricht Treaty referendum", "1992 French Maastricht Treaty referendum", "Copenhagen criteria", "2004 enlargement of the European Union", "World Wide Web", "Tim Berners-Lee", "CERN", "Gopher (protocol)", "Mosaic (web browser)", "Oslo Accords", "Oslo I Accord", "Assassination of Yitzhak Rabin", "1993 World Trade Center bombing", "STS-61", "Hubble Space Telescope" and "Yugoslav Wars" (CC BY-SA 4.0). Map data: Natural Earth (public domain). *Photo credits* (Wikimedia Commons): Public domain / CC0: Bratislava Castle and the Danube; CERN from the air; CERN Globe at night; Europe's city lights from space; Europe at night from space; Gaza City; Signing ceremony on the South Lawn, 1993; Ceremony on the South Lawn, 13 September 1993; Rabin, Clinton and Arafat, 13 September 1993; Signing of the Oslo Accord, 13 September 1993; STS-61 spacewalk on Hubble; Macintosh Centris 650 (1993); Masaryk welcomed in Prague, 1918; Macintosh Quadra 660AV (1993); Main Quad, University of Illinois; Brandenburg Gate, December 1989; World Trade Center from the air; Diagram of the 1993 bomb blast; World Trade Center from Battery Park JD Lasica (CC BY 2.0) – Marc Andreessen, 2013 EmDee (CC BY-SA 4.0) – Berlaymont building, Brussels KenSwe72 (CC BY 4.0) – Berlaymont building with flags BalticServers.com (CC BY-SA 3.0) – Data centre Uncle sam205 (CC BY-SA 4.0) – Czech–Slovak border stamp, 2001 Pudelek (Marcin Szala) (CC BY-SA 3.0) – Main Square, Bratislava Marc Ryckaert (MJJR) (CC BY 3.0) – Bratislava from above SimonWaldherr (CC BY-SA 4.0) – CERN Computer Centre Adam Nieman (CC BY-SA 2.0) – CERN Globe of Science and Innovation Moahim (CC BY-SA 4.0) – Christiansborg Palace, Copenhagen European Communities (CC BY 4.0) – Zheng Tuobin and Lord Cockfield, 1985 Lklundin (CC BY-SA 4.0) – Demonstration in Prague, April 1990 Rémih (CC BY-SA 4.0) – Danish–German border Jennifer Jacquemart (CC BY 4.0) – Berlaymont building, Brussels Thijs ter Haar (CC BY 2.0) – European flags, Brussels Marek Ślusarczyk (Tupungato) (CC BY 3.0) – National flags at the European Parliament Asurnipal (CC BY-SA 4.0) – Optical fibre cable Fortepan/Szalay Zoltán (CC BY-SA 3.0) – Václav Havel, 1990 Askii (CC BY-SA 3.0) – Dome of the Rock, Jerusalem Ian Scott (CC BY-SA 2.0) – Jerusalem's Old City Pudelek (CC BY-SA 4.0) – Old City walls, Jerusalem Davide Mauro (CC BY-SA 4.0) – Jericho from Tell es-Sultan Gerd Eichmann (CC BY-SA 4.0) – Federal Constitutional Court, Karlsruhe Péter Antall (CC BY-SA 3.0) – József Antall, José María Aznar, Jacques Chirac and Václav Klaus, 1993 Clema12 (CC BY-SA 4.0) – The Knesset, Jerusalem Efi Sharir (CC BY 4.0) – Knesset debate, 1990 Kleon3 (CC BY-SA 3.0) – Sint Servaas bridge, Maastricht Berthold Werner (CC BY-SA 4.0) – Vrijthof, Maastricht Ben Bender (CC BY-SA 3.0) – Vrijthof, Maastricht BáthoryPéter (CC BY-SA 3.0) – Mostar's Old Bridge at night Ragib (CC BY 2.5) – NCSA building, University of Illinois Coolcaesar (CC BY-SA 3.0) – The first web server, a NeXT computer Leandro Neumann Ciuffo (CC BY 2.0) – The first web server on display Geni (CC BY-SA 4.0) – NeXTcube, the first web server Saar Yaacov, GPO (CC BY-SA 3.0) – 1994 Nobel Peace Prize laureates in Oslo