#Millennium

3 items

The taxidermied body of Dolly the Sheep on display at the National Museum of Scotland, her woolly head lit against a dark background
Trends 1996–2003

Dolly the Sheep

The most famous sheep in history — the first mammal cloned from an adult cell, and the moment cloning jumped from science fiction to the dinner-table conversation. When Dolly was unveiled in 1997, she landed on magazine covers, triggered ethics panics, and made 'clone' a word every kid suddenly knew.

Comet Hale-Bopp in the night sky in March 1997, its blue ion tail and white dust tail streaming above a bare tree at twilight
Trends 1995–1997

Comet Hale-Bopp

The Great Comet of 1997 — the bright, hanging smudge of light that had entire families standing in the driveway looking up. Visible to the naked eye for a record stretch, Hale-Bopp was the comet everyone actually saw, a shared sky-watching moment that also collided with one of the decade's strangest tragedies.

A circa-1690 engraving of Nostradamus seated at his writing desk with a quill and book, an armillary sphere beside him, above a four-line French verse
Trends 1994–1999 resurgence

Nostradamus

A 16th-century French seer who came roaring back as the year 2000 approached, thanks to one ominous quatrain about '1999, seventh month' and a King of Terror falling from the sky. Paperbacks, TV specials, and a spooky old Orson Welles documentary made Nostradamus the patron saint of millennium dread — and scared a lot of kids in the process.