And oh yes, the collapse of the Soviet Union. I was alive during the entirety of the Cold War, and nobody expected it to end without a serious nuclear confrontation.
A nearly complete version of Fritz Lang’s Metropolis.
The discovery of exoplanets came rather sooner than I thought it would. (Though other space stuff, like a manned mission to Mars, has, conversely, been slooooow in coming).
Also, GoogleEarth/GoogleMaps is ASTOUNDING. To be able to instantly “visit” anywhere on this planet, and (in many cases) enjoy it in detail, at just about any scale, at any angle, seeing it as it appeared maybe two months ago…Wow. I still use a real globe and atlas sometimes, but it’s hard to recreate in my mind the time – TEN YEARS AGO! – when that was the ONLY way to “visit” these places, without getting on a friggin’ airplane.
The rise of video rental places.
The decline of video rental places.
When they remake back to the future, with 1995 as the past, they’ll have to insert and explain these businesses.
Oh, yeah. I should have added: Being able to put my camera bag on the conveyer for the x-ray without first removing all the film, and hoping I don’t get an argument about hand inspection.
Ditto on the note taking. Thanks to EXIF data, I not only have all my shooting information embedded in the file, it’ll even tell me what lens I used, and the exact focal length. Plus include the serial number of the camera, and my copyright notice.
I remember seeing a pushbutton telephone on some TV show or another and hoping I’d live to see the day where I had such futuristic devices in my home.
Steve Martin Playing Banjo.
Hey! I’m a screamin’ Chicago Blues Junkie !!!
:eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek:
:D:D:D:D:D:D:D
The show was wonderful. Especially because I know next to zilch about bluegrass and banjos.
79.9 cents a gallon in the middle of nowhere Oklahoma in November of 1997. I stared at that marque for a full three minutes, burning that price into my mind knowing that I would never, ever see this again.
Never thought I see:
- Calling someone in Ireland, Belgium, and India the same day from the eastern Tennessee in the course of business and not worrying about the price nor the reliability of a phone call. (Recalling the days of a dial phone and long-distance calls being big bucks; especially overseas calls).
That’s when globalization really hit me.
- The World Wide Web. It’s impact has helped me and hurt me in ways I never dreamed nor anticipated.
Several people have already named mine- the dissolution of the Soviet Union. But I will add to one modification- “…peacefully!”
Slightly different from the tone of the OP, but when I was a Monster Kid eagerly devouring my latest copy of Famous Monsters of Filmland, I never thought I would get to see the AckerMansion- the collection of fantasy, SciFi, horror film memoribilia that FMF editor Forrest J Ackerman stored at his house.
Yet I did in his last decade of life… twice!
Same for meeting Vincent Price… then he came to my college.
I like something Jerry Pournelle said. He knew he would live to see the first man on the moon, but he never thought he would see the last man on the moon.
What happened on 9/11. I NEVER thought I would see anything like that. It was a surreal day. I still can’t believe it.
Please explain. He’s played banjo since he began performing.
I’ll bet the poster is, um, younger than you and me, and only knows Steve from his 1990s-2000s film roles.
As a former long-time Colorado resident, I can tell you that firecrackers are not legal for possession or use by Colorado residents. Sure you can see firework stores and stands around July 4, but they can only be purchased by people with out of state ID and must be transported out of the state. Colorado residents may neither buy nor use them.
http://www.rmindependent.com/2009/07/colorado-lowers-the-boom-on-fireworks/
I wasn’t talking about firecrackers. 
Like on HIMYM, they refer to reefer as sandwiches.
That must explain the air turbulence directly overhead when I posted that.
HEY Homie…
I go to your neck of the woods a LOT. When you having a Spfld DopeFest? 
tsfr
When I was a wee lass, we had a home telephone. It was one phone, affixed to the kitchen wall. It had a rotary dial, and we were on a party line. That I walk around with a 8 megapixel camera, instant communication, as much music as I could want, and the flippin’ internet (and more) in a tiny device boggles me when I think of the change.
I did not expect to see home computers become a standard item. My brother said back in 1982, “one day, everyone will have one,” I didn’t believe him. I couldn’t do without mine, now. My three–home computer, laptop, and basically the little computer that’s the smartphone.