Google was founded.
Only 26% of homes in the U.S. had access to the internet.
And if you had internet, it was dial-up and it charged you by the hour (once you went over your monthly limit).
The average median income of households in the US was $38,885.
Teen People published its very first issue with teen queen Jennifer Love Hewitt on the cover.
E.R. was the most popular show on television.
Seinfeld aired its final episode.
Around 76 million people tuned in for the finale.
While Sex and the City premiered on HBO...
...Dawson's Creek premiered on the then-WB network...
...Will & Grace made its debut and was part of NBC's Must See TV Thursday night lineup...
...and MTV premiered TRL.
And this is what the average TV looked like.
Flat screen TVs were just being introduced and cost over $10,000.
A new $20 bill was introduced into circulation to help deter counterfeits.
Saving Private Ryan, Armageddon, and There's Something About Mary were among the five biggest films of the year.
Saving Private Ryan was actually the highest-grossing movie released that year.
Titanic not only became the first movie to gross over a billion dollars at the box office, it also spent the first 13 weeks of 1998 at No. 1.
The movie actually spent 15 consecutive weeks at No. 1, but two of them were in 1997.
The Titanic soundtrack (of course, fueled by Céline Dion's "My Heart Will Go On") was the biggest-selling album of the year.
It sold an impressive 9.2 million copies.
Titanic also took home the Academy Award for Best Picture at that year's Oscars.
It won 11 awards out of its 14 Oscar nominations.
Matt Damon and Ben Affleck won the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay for their film Good Will Hunting.
DVD players were the height of movie watching technology and cost about $300.
The Denver Broncos were the Super Bowl champions.
Harrison Ford was named People's Sexiest Man Alive...
...while Leonardo DiCaprio topped People's Most Beautiful People in the World.
Volkswagen's New Beetle had everyone doing double takes.
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone was published in the US for the first time. While Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets was published in the UK.
Lauryn Hill released her seminal debut album, The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill.
Next's "Too Close," Will Smith's "Gettin' Jiggy wit It," and Aerosmith's "I Don't Want to Miss a Thing" all topped the charts in 1998.
Furby was the hottest toy on the market.
Probably what every kid wanted for Christmas or their birthday that year.
Nintendo released its Game Boy Color.
Disney released its 36th animated feature, Mulan.
Pixar released its second full-length feature, A Bug's Life.
TGIF's most popular shows were Sabrina the Teenage Witch and Boy Meets World.
Geri Halliwell left the Spice Girls while they were in the middle of a world tour!
The remaining members released a new single, "Goodbye," a few months later.
NSYNC released their US debut single, "I Want You Back."
The song had been released in Europe two years earlier.
Starbucks had only 1,886 stores and people actually hung out in them to talk ('cause WiFi didn't exist).
Today they have over 28,000.
People shopped for clothes out of catalogs.
Amazon announced it would start selling more things (at the time they sold only books and music).
Apple released its revolutionary and now iconic iMac.
At the time Apple wasn't doing well and the iMac would save the company.
Cell phone plans cost around $90 for 600 minutes and all you could do was talk on your phone or play Snake.
Gillette released its three-blade razor, the Mach3 — which was a big game-changer at the time.
The oh-so-delicious cereal Oreo O's hit supermarket shelves.
Viagra was approved by the FDA.
The very first trailer for Star Wars: The Phantom Menace was released in theaters (it was the first footage from a new Star Wars movie in 15 years).
And many Star Wars fans bought tickets to movies they didn't care about just to catch the trailer.
Sony bought the rights to Spider-Man, but turned down the offer to buy the rights to the rest of Marvel's characters.
Sony could have but the rights to all the Marvel characters for $25 million, but they believed Spider-Man was the only character that people cared about.
And finally, The Simpsons began airing its 10th season and predicted that one day they would be owned by Disney!
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