May 24, 1999

Gas cost $1.17 a gallon in the spring of 1999, and the Dow Jones stood at 11,497 — a NATO air campaign against Yugoslavia was entering its second month, as alliance forces struck targets across Serbia in an effort to halt the humanitarian crisis unfolding in Kosovo. On American screens and airwaves, Keanu Reeves was drawing massive crowds to "The Matrix," a science fiction action film that would go on to become the top-grossing release of the season, while TLC's "No Scrubs" held the number one position on the pop charts for weeks at a stretch. The San Antonio Spurs claimed the NBA championship that June by defeating the New York Knicks, and just weeks earlier, on May 3rd, a tornado tearing through the Oklahoma City metropolitan area was measured at 301 miles per hour — the highest wind speed ever recorded on Earth.