Born in 1994

If you were born in 1994, you arrived in the year that blew apart the American sense of comfortable routine in several directions at once. Kurt Cobain died in April, and something about the grief—the flowers outside his Seattle home, the radio stations playing nothing else—signaled that grunge had been more than a fashion. The Northridge earthquake hit Los Angeles in January at 4:30 in the morning, $20 billion in damage, the freeways crumpled like aluminum foil.

O.J. Simpson led the LAPD on a slow-speed chase down the 405 in his white Ford Bronco in June while 95 million people watched on live television—the first great American television spectacle of the cable era.

The trial would start the next year. The assault weapons ban was passed. The Republicans swept Congress in the midterms and Newt Gingrich had his Contract with America and the word "revolution" was used without irony.

*The Lion King* was the summer film and its opening sequence made children cry with beauty. *Pulp Fiction* came from nowhere and remade American independent film in a single Tarantino afternoon. "The Sign" by Ace of Base, "All I Wanna Do" by Sheryl Crow, "Fantastic Voyage" by Coolio—the radio was alive.

The internet was arriving at dial-up speed, the modem's handshake screech the sound of connection.