In May 1991 in Cambridge, three people felt there was a gap in the market for better marketing teaching so they acted on it!


In this podcast episode, our Chairman and Founder, Charles Nixon, talks about the College's journey and how he grew the business into the internationally recognised marketing training facility that it is today (from 13 minutes 45 secs).

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As we celebrate the College's 30th birthday this month, we take a look back at what else was happening in the world in 1991, what was changing and what was new. We're sure some of these events will make you realise just how much the world has moved on during our three decades.

We're older than Amazon, Google and DVDs!

  • Amazon was founded in 1994
  • Channel Tunnel opened in 1994, though tunnelling began in 1984
  • DVDs were mass produced in 1995
  • EasyJet launched in 1995
  • Google was founded in 1998
  • Facebook launched in 2004 as TheFacebook
  • Starbucks only had US branches, opening its first non-US store in Tokyo in 1996 and entering the UK in 1998

Worldwide politics

  • John Major was in his first full year as Prime Minister of Britain
  • George Bush senior was President of the USA
  • Boris Yeltsin was elected the first President of the Russian Federation following the resignation of Mikhail Gorbachev
  • Ang Sung Suu Kyi was awarded the Nobel Peace prize
  • Croatia and Slovenia declared their independence from Yugoslavia

Travel and tourism

  • The International Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) was closed following raids by police forces in seven countries
  • PamAm airlines filed for bankruptcy

Advertising

  • Benetton continued its series of shocking adverts with a poster of a blood-smeared new born baby which the ASA (Advertising Standards Authority) noted "attracted more complaints than we have ever previously known."

Music and film

  • Freddie Mercury, lead singer of the band Queen, died of AIDS.
  • The UK and US charts were dominated by Bryan Adam's "Everything I do, I do it for you".
  • Cinema goers were scared by Silence of the Lambs and charmed by Disney's cartoon Beauty and the Beast.
  • The Oscar for Best Picture went to Dances with Wolves.

Sport

  • Manchester United floated on the Stock Market.
  • It was the last year of the league championship before the FA Premier Division was formed: Leeds United won.
  • Michael Stich beat Boris Becker to win his only Wimbledon championship with Steffi Graf winning the women's title.
  • Michael Schumacher made his Formula One debut at the Belgian Grand Prix.

Tech

  • The world of personal computing lept forward at Microsoft when Bill Gates released MS DOS 5 (Microsoft Disk Operating System), which included a full screen editor. The Operating System could be loaded via 5.25 inch floppy disks, though Commodore's DCTV (an all-in-one multimedia device) offered a CD Rom drive.
  • Linus Torvalds launched the first version of the open source software Linux.
  • Tim Berners-Lee introduced the world to the WorldWideWeb (what happened to that?) and the first website info.cern.ch was created.
  • Sega launched the first Sonic the Hedgehog game.