i agree...i was thinking about this, too. in terms of global consequence, i can't imagine anything more significant in my lifetime.
*cue Mark Hamill, future expert* The Future Long after everyone here is gone. Long after the Rockets is a footnote in the sporting annals, long after United States of America is remembered as an ancient defunct nation together with the likes of Rome and the Mongolian Empire, somewhere on distant stars, humans (or robots who have overthrown human rule and left them to rot on the decaying earth) will remember the era when an invention originally designed for communication after a nuclear holocaust enabled collaborative thinking like never before, which, once greedy humans got over its economic implications (which wasted a good part of half century in unrealized potential -- not much unlike the gold rush of California failed to uncover California's true potential), enabled a quantum leap in researching, developing and sharing... ...p*rn.
Now that I think about it, I used to think the Challenger and Tienamen Square incident (plus the Berlin Wall) were really huge things to remember. Now with the Internet, it's really tough to know where to watch and who to believe. Another President got impeached, OJ prempted the freakin Rockets Finals, and finally free music and p*rn made remote control/microwave nation even more picky.
Madmax is right, this probably is the most significant event in the last 25 years. I guess I just didn't pick it because I was too young at the time to remember its significance. People used to live in fear of nuke attacks and stuff...
