October 11, 1990

That fall of 1990, gas ran $1.16 a gallon and Bush was in the White House — the U.S. had hundreds of thousands of troops stationed in Saudi Arabia as the standoff with Iraq over Kuwait held the attention of the entire country. On television, "Cheers" was the Emmy-winning comedy Americans were tuning into each week, and on the radio George Michael's "Praying For Time" was sitting at number one. The Cincinnati Reds swept the favored Oakland Athletics to win the World Series that October, and just weeks earlier the United Nations World Summit for Children had brought more than 70 heads of state to New York City in what was the largest gathering of world leaders in history to that point.