NAFTA takes effect
The US, Canada and Mexico drop most tariffs
On 1 January 1994 the North American Free Trade Agreement between the US, Canada and Mexico came into force, creating one of the largest trading blocs in the world. The same day Zapatista rebels rose up in the Mexican state of Chiapas, calling the deal a death sentence for Indigenous farmers.
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Meanwhile around the world (±25 years)
Whole world
- 1980 Smallpox declared eradicated — 14 years earlier
- 1981 AIDS first described — 13 years earlier
- 1997 Kyoto Protocol — 3 years later
- 2008 Global financial crisis — 14 years later
Europe
- 1989 Invention of the World Wide Web — 5 years earlier
- 1989 Fall of the Berlin Wall — 5 years earlier
- 1990 German reunification — 4 years earlier
- 1991–2001 Yugoslav Wars — 3 years earlier
- 1992 Maastricht Treaty — 2 years earlier
Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1980 Solidarity — 14 years earlier
- 1985–1991 Perestroika — 9 years earlier
- 1986 Chernobyl disaster — 8 years earlier
- 1989 Revolutions of 1989 — 5 years earlier
- 1991 Dissolution of the Soviet Union — 3 years earlier
Middle East
- 1978 Camp David Accords — 16 years earlier
- 1979 Iranian Revolution — 15 years earlier
- 1980–1988 Iran–Iraq War — 14 years earlier
- 1990–1991 Gulf War — 4 years earlier
- 1993 Oslo Accords — 1 year earlier
Africa
- 1974 Lucy is discovered — 20 years earlier
- 1983–1985 The Ethiopian famine — 11 years earlier
- 1994 End of apartheid in South Africa — same year
- 1998–2003 Second Congo War — 4 years later
- 2011 Independence of South Sudan — 17 years later
Asia
- 1975–1979 The Khmer Rouge and the Cambodian genocide — 19 years earlier
- 1991 Eruption of Mount Pinatubo — 3 years earlier
- 1997 Handover of Hong Kong — 3 years later
- 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami — 10 years later
- 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami — 17 years later
Oceania
- 1992 The Mabo decision — 2 years earlier
Alive at the time
- Nelson Mandela (aged 76)
- Neil Armstrong (aged 64)
- Mother Teresa (aged 84)
- Ronald Reagan (aged 83)
- Richard Nixon (aged 81)
- Edmund Hillary (aged 75)
- Jimmy Carter (aged 70)
- Fidel Castro (aged 68)
- Elizabeth II (aged 68)
- Gabriel García Márquez (aged 67)