1995
year
1995 (MCMXCV) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar, the 1995th year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 995th year of the 2nd millennium, the 95th year of the 20th century, and the 6th year of the 1990s decade.
1995 was designated as:
United Nations Year for Tolerance
World Year of Peoples' Commemoration of the Victims of the Second World War
This was the first year that the Internet was entirely privatized, with the United States government no longer providing public funding, marking the beginning of the Information Age. America Online and Prodigy offered access to the World Wide Web system for the first time this year, releasing browsers that made it easily accessible to the general public.
Events
January
January 1
The World Trade Organization (WTO) is established to replace the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT).
Austria, Finland and Sweden join the European Union.
Final The Far Side comic by Gary Larson is published.
January 9 – Valeri Polyakov completes 366 days in space while aboard the Mir space station, breaking a duration record.
January 10–15 – The World Youth Day 1995 festival is held in Manila, Philippines, culminating in 5 million people gathering for John Paul II's concluding mass in Quirino Grandstand.
January 17 – The 6.9 Great Hanshin earthquake strikes the southern Hyōgo Prefecture of Japan with a maximum Shindo of 7, leaving 5,502–6,434 people dead, and 251,301–310,000 displaced.
January 25 – Norwegian rocket incident: A rocket launched from the space exploration centre at Andøya, Norway, is briefly interpreted by the Russians as an incoming attack.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “1995” is year. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through year, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “year” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 21, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2068. The Library of Congress control number is sh2013002391. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1995.
A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.
- Subject orientation
- Search vocabulary
- Locating named sources
The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “1995”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow 1995 primary sources, 1995 archive and year research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “1995”?
- What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
- Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “1995” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.