In This Year50 randomly selected In This Year questions for quizmasters. New random selection made weekly. Next update: Monday 16th November 2026 (Please note: Questions are taken from our database of previous quizzes. Some questions and answers may be outdated.) |
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| 1. | The children's television show Teletubbies made its debut on BBC 2|the first Harry Potter book was published in London|James Cameron's Titanic premiered in the United States |
| 2. | The Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated during re-entry over Texas|the Iraq War began when U.S. led forces invaded Iraq|Concorde made its last commercial flight |
| 3. | Construction of the Aswan High Dam in Egypt began|a mine collapse in Coalbrook, South Africa killed 500 miners|the Summer Olympic Games were held in Rome |
| 4. | Andy Warhol premièred his Campbell's Soup Cans exhibit in Los Angeles|The Rolling Stones made their début at London's Marquee Club|Telstar relayed the first live trans-Atlantic television signal |
| 5. | Stephen King published Carrie, his first novel under his own name|U.S. President Richard Nixon announced his resignation|Turkey invaded Cyprus, occupying 37% of the island |
| 6. | George W. Bush began his second term as President of the United States|Pope John Paul II died|the Prince of Wales married Camilla Parker Bowles |
| 7. | Lyndon B. Johnson was sworn in for his own full term as U.S. President|Cosmonaut Alexey Leonov, leaving his spacecraft for 12 minutes, became the first person to walk in space|Muhammad Ali's "Phantom Punch" knocked out Sonny Liston in the first round of their championship rematch |
| 8. | Alesha Dixon|James Franco|Katherine Heigl|Rachel McAdams|Zoe Saldana|Usher |
| 9. | Chester Bennington|Cat Deeley|Cillian Murphy|Ross Noble|Ryan Reynolds|Alicia Silverstone |
| 10. | Charles, Prince of Wales, and Lady Diana Spencer married at St Paul's Cathedral|Egyptian president Anwar Sadat was assassinated|Muhammad Ali, in his last-ever fight, lost to Trevor Berbick |
| 11. | John Howard was sworn in for the first time as Prime Minister of Australia|Braveheart won Best Picture at the 68th Academy Awards|an IRA bomb injured 212 in Manchester, England |
| 12. | The Space Shuttle Challenger disintegrated 73 seconds after launch|a Berlin discotheque bombing gave rise to the U.S. bombing of Libya|Prince Andrew married Sarah Ferguson at Westminster Abbey |
| 13. | Captained by Richard Phillips, the cargo ship MV Maersk Alabama was captured by Somali pirates|an outbreak of the H1N1 influenza virus ("swine flu") was declared a global pandemic|Michael Jackson died at the age of 50 |
| 14. | Richard Nixon was inaugurated as 37th President of the United States|Midnight Cowboy was released in cinemas worldwide|a coup d'état put Gaddafi in control of Libya |
| 15. | 125 million people watched the final episode of M*A*S*H, the most watched television broadcast in American history|Michael Jackson's Thriller video was aired on MTV for the first time|Return of the Jedi opened in theatres worldwide |
| 16. | The comet Hale-Bopp made its closest approach to Earth|Timothy McVeigh was sentenced to death for the Oklahoma City bombing|Diana, Princess of Wales died following a car crash in Paris |
| 17. | The Winter Olympics were held in Nagano, Japan|Titanic won 11 Academy Awards|the FDA approved Viagra for use in erectile dysfunction |
| 18. | Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom died aged 81|U.S. President William McKinley was assassinated in Buffalo, New York|Guglielmo Marconi received the first trans-Atlantic radio signal, a Morse code letter 'S' sent from England to Newfoundland |
| 19. | The Columbine High School massacre in Littleton, Colorado resulted in 15 deaths|Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace was released worldwide|the modern Scottish Parliament was opened |
| 20. | The Summer Olympics were held in Moscow|Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back was released|Ronald Reagan defeated Jimmy Carter in the U.S. presidential election |
| 21. | The Apple Macintosh went on sale for the first time|Konstantin Chernenko succeeded the late Yuri Andropov as leader of the Soviet Union|an IRA bomb killed 5 at the Grand Hotel in Brighton |
| 22. | Jackie Chan|Prayut Chan-o-cha|Elvis Costello|Howard Stern|Kathleen Turner|Oprah Winfrey |
| 23. | Boy George|Eddie Murphy|George Clooney|Meg Ryan|Michael J. Fox|Princess Diana |
| 24. | Noel Gallagher|Rhys Ifans|Guy Pierce|Liev Schreiber|Keith Urban|Emily Watson |
| 25. | The passenger cruise ship Costa Concordia sank off the coast of Italy|Queen Elizabeth II celebrated her Diamond Jubilee|Vladimir Putin was elected President of Russia for the second time |
| 26. | Pamela Anderson|Kurt Cobain|Vin Diesel|Nicole Kidman|Julia Roberts|Jason Statham |
| 27. | Bradley Cooper|Tiger Woods|Milla Jovovich|will.i.am|Mel B|Tara Reid |
| 28. | Mikhail Gorbachev became leader of the Soviet Union|at a football match in England, the Bradford City stadium fire killed 56|Live Aid pop concerts in London and Philadelphia raised over £50 million for famine relief in Ethiopia |
| 29. | "Liberty by Lily Allen" is a product launched by the singer in October 2020, garnering many 5-star reviews. What is it? |
| 30. | Elvis Presley entered the U.S. charts for the first time with Heartbreak Hotel|the film version of The King and I was released, starring Deborah Kerr and Yul Brynner|The United Kingdom and France bombed Egypt during the Suez Crisis |
| 31. | Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak formed the Apple Computer Company|Nadia Comăneci scored seven perfect 10s at the Summer Olympics|Viking 1 successfully landed on Mars |
| 32. | "Unabomber" Theodore Kaczynski was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole|U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya were bombed, killing 224 and injuring more than 4,500|Hugo Chávez was elected President of Venezuela |
| 33. | Tony Abbott|Seve Ballesteros|Michael Clarke Duncan|Caroline Kennedy|Paul Merton|Jayne Torvill |
| 34. | the Winter Olympics were held in Sapporo, Japan|16 people survived an air crash in the Andes mountains by resorting to cannibalism|Apollo 17 marked the last time man set foot on the moon |
| 35. | John Glenn became the first American to orbit the Earth|West Side Story won Best Picture at the Academy Awards|Beatles drummer Pete Best was fired and replaced by Ringo Starr |
| 36. | Sophie Ellis-Bextor|Heath Ledger|Kourtney Kardashian|Michael Owen|Flo Rida|Leo Varadkar |
| 37. | Lewis Hamilton|Carly Rae Jepsen|Keira Knightley|Rooney Mara|Cristiano Ronaldo|Deontay Wilder |
| 38. | King Edward VIII succeeded, and abdicated, the throne of the United Kingdom|the Summer Olympics were held in Berlin, Germany|the Crystal Palace in London was destroyed by fire |
| 39. | The centennial of the Statue of Liberty's dedication was celebrated in New York Harbor|British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher officially opened the M25 Motorway| and Mike Tyson won his first world boxing title by defeating Trevor Berbick in Las Vegas |
| 40. | Nelson Mandela was released from prison|Driving Miss Daisy won Best Picture at the Academy Awards|the Gulf War began with Iraq invading Kuwait |
| 41. | In the 2020 U.S. presidential election, to the nearest million, how many million more people voted for Joe Biden than Donald Trump? |
| 42. | Tom Cruise|Jim Carrey|Steve Carell|Demi Moore|Ralph Fiennes|Jodie Foster |
| 43. | film director Roman Polanski skipped bail and fled to France, after pleading guilty to having sex with a 13-year-old girl|Superman, starring Christopher Reeve, was released worldwide|Kate Bush's Wuthering Heights topped the charts in the UK, Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand |
| 44. | Bill Clinton succeeded George H.W. Bush as President of the United States|James Bulger was abducted, tortured and murdered by two 10 year old boys in Liverpool, England|the Sunset Limited train crash in Alabama killed 47 |
| 45. | Harald V became King of Norway|the first Sonic the Hedgehog game was published by Sega|Queen lead singer Freddie Mercury died from pneumonia induced by AIDS |
| 46. | Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 disappeared over the Gulf of Thailand with 239 people on board|Russia were suspended from the G8 after formally annexing Crimea|the Royal Thai Army overthrew Thailand's caretaker government after its failure to resolve political unrest |
| 47. | the tallest man-made structure to date, the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, was officially opened|the Smolensk air disaster killed all 96 people on board, including President of Poland Lech Kaczyński|the FIFA World Cup was won by Spain in South Africa |
| 48. | U2 released their studio album The Joshua Tree|The Simpsons cartoon first appeared as a series of shorts on The Tracey Ullman Show|the last remaining prisoner at Spandau Prison, Rudolf Hess, was found dead in his cell |
| 49. | Slovenia and Croatia became the first republics to declare independence from Yugoslavia|the body of publishing tycoon Robert Maxwell was found floating in the Atlantic Ocean|Boris Yeltsin became 1st President of the Russian Federation |
| 50. | the Netherlands became the first country in the world to allow same-sex couples to legally marry|Wikipedia was launched|Timothy McVeigh was executed for the Oklahoma City bombing |
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