The Cincinnati Bengals are going to the Super Bowl for the first time in over 30 years. In order to really understand that amount of time, we decided to look back at the things that have happened since then. From the Gulf War to Tamagotchis to the birth of three top Bengals players, a lot has gone down since 1989. 

Tamagotchis were born (1997) — and many have been left to die Photo: Tomasz Sienicki/Wikimedia Commons
Three Bengals stars were born: Joe Burrow (1996), Joe Mixon (1996) and Evan McPherson (1999) Photo: twitter.com/Bengals
The Great American Tower was built (2008) Photo: Ynsalh/Wikimedia Commons
We got our first Black President (2009) Photo: Wikimedia/Pete Souza
Ohio Can’t Kick COVID-19 In year one of the pandemic, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine spurned his Republican colleagues and ordered a number of public safety protocols — mandatory masks, resident curfews, limited business hours, industry closures — to slow the spread of the coronavirus. For a while, it worked, and Ohio’s cases dropped in January after a horrible fall and winter spike. But once DeWine took all of those measures away this spring — even before hitting expert-recommended benchmarks — the virus came roaring back in the form of much more deadly variants, including ones that harm kids more than ever before. Doctors and scientists continue to warn that the state’s — and the region’s — case numbers are rising toward last year’s numbers and are begging for relief, and the CDC labels every county in Ohio as having the highest level of community transmission. In mid-December, DeWine finally assigned 1,000 National Guard members to hospitals to relieve exhausted medical staff. Read CityBeat’s latest story about what local health experts anticipate in the coming weeks from COVID-19. Photo: Fusion Medical Animation/Unsplash
Friends debuted on NBC (1994) Photo: IMDb.com
The Bengals got their own stadium: Paul Brown Stadium (2000) Photo: Facebook.com/Paul-Brown-Stadium
Bill Clinton became the second American president to be impeached (1999) Photo: Kenneth C. Zirkel/Wikimedia Commons
The Hubble Space Telescope launched (1990) Photo: NASA/Wikimedia Commons
The iPhone was invented (2007) Photo: Paul Hanaoka/Unsplash
Michael Jordan retired from the NBA, three times (1993, 1999 and 2003) Photo: Wikimedia Commons/Public Domain
AIM happened: A/S/L? (1997) Photo: juxta/con•vâri/Flickr
The Star Wars prequels (1999-2005) and sequel trilogies were released (2015-2019). Photo: Hailey Bollinger
CityBeat was founded (1994) Photo: Hailey Bollinger
All of the Harry Potter books were published (1997-2007) Photo: Artem Maltsev/Unsplash
Movie viewers have gone through VHS, DVDs, Blu-Ray and now streaming (Netflix launched streaming services in 2007) Photo: Sean Benesh, Unsplash
The Gulf War (1990-1991) Photo: PHC HOLMES/Wikimedia Commons
O.J. Simpson was acquitted of murder (1995) Photo: William J Sisti/Wikimedia Commons
We found out the Y2K bug wasn’t real (2000) Photo: Federica Galli/Unsplash
We were introduced to Beyoncé (1990s) Photo: Asterio Tecson/Wikimedia Commons
Princess Diana died (1997) Photo: Sahaib3005/Wikimedia Commons
Pluto was demoted to a dwarf planet (2006) Photo: NASA/Bill Dunford
Friendster (2002) and Myspace (2003) came and went. Facebook (2004), Twitter (2006), Instagram (2010), TikTok (2018)… well, all of social media was invented. Photo: Adem AY/Unsplash
Multiple recessions have happened, including The Great Recession (2007-2009) Photo: Nick Chong/Unsplash
Amazon launched its empire (1994) Photo: Facebook.com/Amazon4Star