6. Harry Potter And The Chamber of Secrets
Harry Potter has remained a constant force in popular culture for the past decade or so, but it's amazing to think that fifteen years ago the second book was hitting bookshelves everywhere (well, in the UK). Actually, the first Harry Potter - Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone - landed in US bookshops in 1998, which means that Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (the US renamed and we'll never understand why) is 15 years olds. So that's technically Harry Potter things that are a decade and a half old. The second adventure of the bespectacled boy wizard and his friends, which involved flying cars, angry spiders, a horrifying snake-like creature, and a vicious tree (we should write the blurbs for these books), captured the imaginations of kids everywhere, an author J.K. Rowling won a ton of awards for her work.
Obscure Facts: The character of Dean Thomas originally had far more written about him, but Rowling's publishers pretty much said "nobody cares about Dean Thomas" and it was cut.
5. Sex And The City
Yep, the first time we were ever acquainted with the sound of Carrie Bradshaw's fingers frantically tapping on her keyboard was all the way back in 1998 (did they even have computers then?). Since then, the Sex and the City franchise has amassed a fairly sizeable following, and there have even been two Godawful movies in the wake of the show's final episode in 2004. Wait, the show actually ended almost TEN YEARS AGO?
Obscure Fact: In the first season of the show, Carrie speaks directly to the camera and natters on about all those things she'd later tell you in that cloying voice-over. This device was eventually dropped, presumably because it made viewers uncomfortable having Sarah Jessica Parker looking at them in the eyes all the time.