"That year (1995) was also when Linux was first ported to a new architecture by Linus. He'd been given a DEC Alpha machine." This is not fully correct: The first port ever was on Motorola M68k in 1993 for the Amiga platform. https://www.tech-insider.org/linux/research/1993/0915.html
I think the Alpha port stands out in memory because that was the cause for overcoming 32-bitness.