Events from 1996

Congressman Henry Hyde's prophetic floor speech: 'What kind of people have we become that this procedure is even a matter for debate? Can we not draw the line at torture, and baby torture at that?...Our moment in history is marked by a mortal conflict between a culture of death and a culture of life, and today, here and now, we must choose sides'

Cell phone usage begins rapid expansion

Fair value accounting concepts gain prominence - FASB begins requiring market value measurements for certain investments, shifting from historical cost to current market values

Deep Blue defeats world chess champion using mathematical game theory algorithms - AI achieves superhuman performance in strategic thinking

DVD technology commercialized, requiring advanced optical materials

Fiber cement siding (HardiePlank) becomes widely available

OCaml released from INRIA - Objective Caml combines functional, imperative, and object-oriented programming