20 Years Ago on AOL.com: Jan. 13, 1999 -- Michael Jordan Retires, Stocks Swing

January 13, 1999: We started the top spot with the news that broke the previous night that Michael Jordan was retiring... for the second time. The text promos are for Hometown AOL and CD-buying online; you can also see the My News block that references the stocks markets dropping; this foreshadowed the next few page updates (not surprisingly, we were kind of preoccupied on the state of tech stocks):

 

First, "Stocks Drop" at 11:04am: 

Then, "Stocks Swing" at 11:14am as stocks rebounded:

Finally, closing out the PM update with a recap of the day's dip and really:

[Series note: In the late 1990s, I programmed the content for the AOL.com home page, which relaunched with a new design on July 14, 1998. I printed screencaps and saved them. 20 years later, I'm scanning them in and posting them with a little commentary under the tag #20YearsAgoOnAOLcom.]