| 1990s | Internet revolution |
| 1990–1991 | War in Persian Gulf |
| 1991 | Civil war erupts in former Yugoslavia; failed coup by Communist hard-liners in Soviet Union |
| 1992 | Soviet Union is dissolved |
| 1993 | Toni Morrison wins Nobel Prize for Literature; Czechoslovakia splits into Czech Republic and Slovakia |
| 1994 | Nelson Mandela is elected president of South Africa; Russian troops invade Chechnya; European Union is officially formed |
| 1999 | European Union introduces the euro; world population reaches six billion |
| 2000 | Vladimir Putin becomes president of Russia |
| 2001 | September 11 terrorist attacks; United States declares “war against terrorism,” attacks Afghanistan |
| 2003 | United States invades Iraq; the West divides on this policy |
| 2004 | Ten countries join European Union |
| 2005 | Emissions reductions of Kyoto Protocol go into effect |
| 2007 | Bulgaria and Romania are admitted to European Union; world economic crisis begins |
| 2009 | Barack Obama becomes the first African American president of the United States |
| 2010 | China overtakes Japan to become world's second largest economy |
| 2014 | Russia annexes Crimea and sends military assistance to anti-Ukraine forces |