It all started here 16 years ago! Get the fun from here and the comments from here:

When Debian turned 15 last year, I asked if they were still relevant. It’s a question that still can be asked now. Debian in some ways is arguably more relevant today, thanks to Ubuntu.

Ubuntu grabs the lion’s share of media hype thanks to its charismatic founder, tight release schedule, easy installation for noobs and snappy release names. Yet time and again, Ubuntu developers and spokespersons from founder Mark Shuttleworth on down sing Debian’s praises as the shoulder on which Ubuntu continues to be built.

Another comment is here

On August 16, 1993 one of the largest distributions of Linux was born: Debian. In a time when you were probably running Windows for Workgroups 3.11, playing Doom, and listening to the top album of the year: the soundtrack from The Bodyguard. A new type of operating system and new ways of thinking about software were slowing being built from the ground up and nobody was sure it would work.