90s Kids Toys
These small, colorful plush animals filled with plastic pellets became a massive collector's craze starting in the mid-90s.
What are Beanie Babies?
In this 1984 sci-fi classic, Arnold Schwarzenegger plays a cyborg assassin sent back in time to 1984 to kill Sarah Connor.
What is The Terminator?
This 2011 "sandbox" game by Mojang allows players to build with 3D cubes and became the best-selling video game of all time.
What is Minecraft?
While he was famously mocked by British cartoonists for being tiny, this French Emperor was actually about 5'7", which was slightly above average height for a Frenchman at the time.
Who was Napoleon Bonaparte?
This "effervescent" candy was originally marketed as a cocktail mixer before it was realized that kids loved the "explosive" sensation of pressurized carbon dioxide bubbles escaping from the sugar.
What are Pop Rocks?
This animatronic toy with pointy ears and large eyes spoke its own language, "Furbish," before eventually learning English.
What is a Furby?
This 1999 animated film tells the story of a young boy who befriends a giant metallic being from outer space that eats scrap metal.
What is The Iron Giant?
This 2011 "unforgiving" RPG from FromSoftware launched a new sub-genre of action games known for their extreme difficulty and "You Died" screen.
What is Dark Souls?
While famously depicted as a signature "Founding Father" achievement, Benjamin Franklin did not actually "discover" electricity during his kite experiment; he was simply proving that this was a form of it.
What is Lightning?
This "filling" inside a Twinkie isn't actually cream; it’s a shelf-stable vegetable shortening emulsion that was originally flavored with banana until WWII rations forced a switch to vanilla.
What is Hostess Creme?
This 1995 washable bear allowed kids to use markers to draw directly on its fur before it was thrown in the laundry.
What is a Doodle Bear?
In this 1982 cult classic, Harrison Ford plays a man tasked with "retiring" bioengineered humanoids known as replicants.
What is Blade Runner?
In 2016, this mobile sensation had players walking around their real-world neighborhoods to "catch 'em all" using augmented reality.
What is Pokémon GO?
This Italian explorer is often credited with "discovering" America in 1492, despite the fact that Leif Erikson arrived 500 years earlier not to mention the millions of Indigenous people that already lived there.
Who is Christopher Columbus?
This specific ingredient, found in Diet Coke, is roughly 200 times sweeter than sugar but breaks down at high temperatures, which is why you’ll never see it in baked goods.
What is Aspartame?
This egg-shaped keychain from Japan required kids to feed, clean, and play with a digital pet to keep it alive.
What is a Tamagotchi?
In this 1986 film, an experimental military robot named "Number 5" becomes sentient after being struck by lightning.
What is Short Circuit?
Set in the underwater city of Rapture and the flying city of Columbia, the third installment of this franchise, titled Infinite, was released in 2013.
What is BioShock?
Despite the popular image of this as a brutal torture device from the Middle Ages, there is no evidence they actually existed before the 18th century; they were hoaxes created by museums to make the medieval period look more "barbaric" and attract tourists.
What is the Iron Maiden?
Developed in 1966 to solve the problem of broken, greasy chips in bags, these snacks are technically "crisps" because they are made from dehydrated potato flakes pressed into a hyperbolic paraboloid shape.
What are Pringles?
This 1992 handheld voice recorder, famously used by Kevin McAllister in Home Alone 2: Lost in New York, became a real-life must-have toy after the film's success.
What is the Talkboy?
This 2024 animated film features a robot named Roz (ROZZUM unit 7134) who becomes shipwrecked on an island and must learn to communicate with animals to survive.
What is The Wild Robot?
This 2013 mobile game became a global phenomenon for its extreme difficulty and simple one-tap mechanics, only to be famously removed from app stores by its creator at the height of its popularity.
What is Flappy Bird?
Legend states that this great tragedy in 1871 was started by a cow kicking over a lantern in Mrs. O'Leary's barn, but the reporter who wrote the story later admitted he made the whole thing up to create a more colorful scoop.
What is the Great Fire of Chicago?
The "cool" sensation you get from eating Junior Mints or peppermint gum isn't a change in temperature; it's because the chemical Menthol binds to a protein called TRPM8, which tricks your nerves into sending a "cold" signal to your brain is known as this.
What is Thermal Illusion (or Chemical Cooling)?