On February 8th, 1993, toy company, Ty, Inc., unveiled Beanie Babies at the 1993 New York Toy Fair. Initially, only nine different Beanie Babies were released and unveiled, with MANY more coming in the next few months and years. Beanie Babies became one of the biggest collecting fads of the 1990's, as well as one of the biggest collecting fads in history, as people scrambled and fought to find the Beanie Babies they needed to complete their collections. Beanie Babies are also cited as being the world's first internet sensation, with Ty being an early adopter to the ever-growing World Wide Web. The Beanie Baby fad came to a close in the new Millennium.
