Windows 95 dropped on August 24, 1995, and it was a game-changer—literally. It introduced the Start menu, taskbar, and true 32-bit support, making PCs feel way more user-friendly than DOS or Windows 3.1 ever could. Plug and Play became a thing, so you didn’t have to fight with IRQ settings every time you added hardware. It launched with Internet Explorer 1.0 (yep, the start of the browser wars) and sold 7 million copies in five weeks. Over the next few years, Microsoft rolled out updates like OSR1 (Feb ‘96), OSR2 (Aug ‘96), OSR2.1, and OSR2.5 (through ‘97), adding things like FAT32 and USB support. If you remember that cloudy sky wallpaper and the Rolling Stones’ “Start Me Up” ad, you know exactly how big this was.