30 things turning 30 in 2019

Ay Caramba! Bart Simpson and his fam made their series debut on FOX on December 17, 1989.

The animated sitcom created by Matt Groening began as a series of shorts incorporated into The Tracey Ullman Show in 1987.

The Simpsons is the longest running American sitcom with more than 650 episodes to date.

Not bad for a ragtag bunch from Springfield, however they are not too good at settling family disputes. Sometimes a little more than tact and delicacy is necessary to resolve family issues.

It took 38 years, but in 1989 the Berlin Wall, which separated East and West Germany, came tumbling down as the Cold War began to thaw.

It was November 9, 1989, to be exact that East Berlin’s Communist Party said at midnight their citizens were allowed to cross the border.

According to History.com, more than 2 million East Berliners flocked to the checkpoints that once held them back to visit West Berlin that weekend.

For some, it’s hard to believe the Berlin Wall even existed. It’s even harder to believe these 11 events shaped history as we know it.

We often take GPS (Global Positioning System) navigation for granted.

It’s so easy to bring up directions on our phones, we don’t even need a separate device for guidance on the road anymore.

But it was February 14, 1989, that the first of 24 satellites to make up the global positioning system was put into orbit.

Using the GPS on your phonecan be a handy life saver. It can also suck all your data and become an expensive exercise.

From charging the battery faster to taking a hands-free photo, these are the secret iPhone hacks you wish you knew about sooner.

What could be more hilarious than watching people do downright silly things in the comfort of their own home while a friend or family member captured it on camcorder?

Comedian Bob Saget hosted the first America’s Funniest Home Videos special in 1989 before it went to series in 1990.

Saget continued to host the show for its initial eight seasons.

Funny home videos used to be the bread and butter of television but they are now perfect fodder for Facebook.

Follow our expert tips to avert your own Facebook faux pas and improve your social media encounters.

The self-proclaimed “show about nothing” became a whole lot of something… but not right away.

Initially called The Seinfeld Chronicles when it premiered in 1989, the show wasn’t well received at first, according to Entertainment Weekly.

But it wasn’t long before fans caught on to the antics of Jerry, Elaine, George, and Kramer.

One thing Seinfeld offered were characters chock full of neuroses, phobias and eccentricities. Are these conditions normal?

Yes, Baywatch, with its revolving cast of sightly lifeguards, turns 30 this year.

It was September 22, 1989, that Lt. Mitch Buchannon and his team hit the beach in Malibu, perfecting the slow-mo run on the sand that is still parodied in other TV shows and movies to this day.

The series aired until May 14, 2001.

The comic book superhero had, of course, already been around for decades, but Batman first hit the big screen in 1989.

Michael Keaton took the first stab at playing the man who keeps Gotham City’s Caped Crusader.

Actors Val Kilmer, George Clooney, Christian Bale, and Ben Affleck have played Batman in subsequent films.

The 1989 film was directed by Tim Burton.

The Material Girl has never been one to shy away from controversy, but her 1989 single “Like a Prayer” put her in hot water with a number of religious organizations and even PepsiCo.

The problem?

The video for the track featured burning crosses and stigmata, angering many. Pepsi paid the pop star to use “Like a Prayer” in a television commercial, but the negative attention turned the deal sour.

Can you imagine a time without access to the world wide web?

Its very existence goes back 30 years when Sir Tim Berners-Lee, a British computer scientist, was credited with inventing it.

Berners-Lee put his thoughts on paper in a proposal titled Information Management. Interestingly, the proposal was not initially accepted.

Thankfully the concept moved forward otherwise you wouldn’t be reading this right now.

Kids today have a slew of personal devices to choose from when it comes to playing video games, but back in 1989 Nintendo’s debut of the Game Boy was cutting edge.

Released in the United States in July of that year, the handheld device was packaged with the highly-addictive game Tetris.

It used an 8-bit Z80 processor with a monochrome LCD display and 4-channel stereo sound to make gaming on the go a reality.