The 1990s, also known as "the Nineteen Nineties" or abbreviated as "the Nineties" or "the '90s", was the decade that started on 1 January 1990, and ended on 31 December 1999. It was the tenth and final decade of the 20th century and the last full decade of the 2nd millennium. The '90s is often considered the true dawn of the Information Age. Though info-age technologies predate the 1980s, it was not until the late 1980s and the 1990s that they became widely used by the general public. A combination of factors, including the mass mobilization of capital markets through neoliberalism, the... beginning of the widespread proliferation of new media such as the Internet, and the dissolution of the Soviet Union led to a realignment and reconsolidation of economic and political power across the world, and within countries. The 1990s is often considered the end of Modernity and the dawn of the current Postmodern age, even though the first traces of postmodernity takes place as far back as the 1940s. Living standards and democratic governance generally improved in many areas of the world, notably East Asia, much of Eastern Europe, Latin America, and South Africa.
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