In This Year50 randomly selected In This Year questions for quizmasters. New random selection made weekly. Next update: Monday 16th February 2026 (Please note: Questions are taken from our database of previous quizzes. Some questions and answers may be outdated.) |
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| 1. | U.S. presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles|English politician Enoch Powell delivered his controversial "Rivers of Blood" speech|the Winter Olympics were held in Grenoble, France |
| 2. | Daniel Day-Lewis|Gloria Estefan|Dawn French|Steven Fry|Dolph Lundgren|Donny Osmond |
| 3. | The first ever Major League Soccer season kicked off|Dolly the sheep became the first mammal to be successfully cloned from an adult cell|the Prince and Princess of Wales were formally divorced at the High Court of Justice in London |
| 4. | Abdullah II inherited the throne after King Hussein of Jordan died from cancer|London was hit with a 13-day bombing campaign by Neo-Nazi militant David Copeland|the Kosovo War came to an end after Yugoslav forces withdrew from Kosovo |
| 5. | Queen Elizabeth II celebrated her Golden Jubilee|the Winter Olympics were held in Salt Lake City, Utah|an Su-27 fighter crashed in Ukraine, killing 77, the deadliest air show accident in history |
| 6. | Return of the Jedi opened in theatres worldwide|Korean Air Lines Flight 007 was shot down by Soviet fighters|United States troops led the Invasion of Grenada |
| 7. | Windows XP was launched by Microsoft|George Harrison died at the age of 58|a Paris–Miami flight was diverted to Boston after passenger Richard Reid attempted to set light to his explosive-filled shoe |
| 8. | The Soviet Union launched the Mir space station|Argentina won the FIFA World Cup|Out of Africa won seven Academy Awards including Best Picture |
| 9. | 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 |
| 10. | Noel Gallagher|Rhys Ifans|Guy Pierce|Liev Schreiber|Keith Urban|Emily Watson |
| 11. | 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 |
| 12. | Leonid Brezhnev became General Secretary of the Soviet Union|Moors murderers Ian Brady and Myra Hindley were convicted and sentenced|Walt Disney died while producing The Jungle Book, the last animated feature under his personal supervision |
| 13. | Manuel Noriega surrendered to American forces in the wake of the U.S. Invasion of Panama|in the face of nationwide riots, the Poll Tax was introduced in England and Wales|Boris Yeltsin became the first ever elected Soviet president |
| 14. | 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 |
| 15. | Jackie Chan|Prayut Chan-o-cha|Elvis Costello|Howard Stern|Kathleen Turner|Oprah Winfrey |
| 16. | Patricia Arquette|Gary Coleman|Terry Crews|LL Cool J|Lisa Marie Presley|Naomi Watts |
| 17. | Princess Anne|Karen Carpenter|Huey Lewis|William H. Macy|Bill Murray|Steve Wozniak |
| 18. | The Winter Olympics were held in Turin, Italy|after writing When I'm Sixty-Four at age 16, former Beatle Paul McCartney turned 64|the social-networking service Twitter was officially launched |
| 19. | Tony Blair became Prime Minister of the United Kingdom|$18.9 million was stolen from the Dunbar Armored facility in Los Angeles, California, the largest cash robbery in U.S. history|the first computer to win a match against a World Chess Champion, IBM's Deep Blue defeated Garry Kasparov |
| 20. | "Liberty by Lily Allen" is a product launched by the singer in October 2020, garnering many 5-star reviews. What is it? |
| 21. | 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 |
| 22. | What rock star conceded defeat to 10-year-old Nandi Bushell after a series of online drum battles this year, prompting the former to write a song in her honour? |
| 23. | 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 |
| 24. | Jessica Biel|Kirsten Dunst|Billie Piper|Seth Rogan|Yvonne Strahovski|Prince William |
| 25. | 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 |
| 26. | The UK, Ireland and Denmark joined the EEC|George Foreman defeated Joe Frazier to win the heavyweight world boxing championship|the Sydney Opera House was opened by Elizabeth II after 14 years of construction work |
| 27. | The Winter Olympics were held in Lake Placid, New York|the arcade game Pac-Man was released by Namco|the album Back in Black was released by Australian band AC/DC |
| 28. | Shakespeare in Love won Best Picture at the Academy Awards|the withdrawal of Yugoslav forces ended the Kosovo War|Abdullah II inherited the throne after King Hussein of Jordan died from cancer |
| 29. | YouTube was founded|Hurricane Katrina hit the U.S. Gulf Coast|Hong Kong Disneyland Resort opened |
| 30. | The Sound of Music premièred worldwide|racing driver Jim Clark won the Indianapolis 500 and the Formula One world driving championship in the same year|Singapore gained independence by being expelled from Malaysia |
| 31. | 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 |
| 32. | Benedict Cumberbatch|Anna Faris|Peyton Manning|Ronaldo|Blake Shelton|Reese Witherspoon |
| 33. | The tallest man-made structure to date, the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, was officially opened|an earthquake in Haiti killed more than 316,000 people|the Deepwater Horizon oil spill discharged nearly 5 billion gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico |
| 34. | Hugo Chávez was elected President of Venezuela|"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 |
| 35. | Snoop Dogg|Missy Elliott|Elon Musk|Winona Ryder|Justin Trudeau|Mark Wahlberg |
| 36. | 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 |
| 37. | The Beatles released their début album Please Please Me|Lawrence of Arabia won Best Picture at the 35th Academy Awards|Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his I Have A Dream speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial |
| 38. | 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 |
| 39. | Jennifer Hudson|Alicia Keys|Beyoncé Knowles|Pitbull|Britney Spears|Justin Timberlake |
| 40. | Burma gained independence from the United Kingdom|US President Harry S. Truman signed the Marshall Plan|the first post-war Summer Olympics were held in London |
| 41. | A Man for All Seasons won Best Picture at the 39th Academy Awards|Muhammad Ali was arrested for refusing induction into the U.S. Army|the Six-Day War saw Israel capture land in Egypt, Jordan and Syria |
| 42. | What retired footballer spent 32 days in jail in March/April after allegedly entering Paraguay with a false passport? |
| 43. | 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 |
| 44. | Michael Caine|Jayne Mansfield|David McCallum|Willie Nelson|Joan Rivers|Gene Wilder |
| 45. | Czechoslovakia beat West Germany 5–3 on penalties to win the UEFA European Football Championship|China's Chairman Mao Zedong died of a heart attack|Jimmy Carter defeated the incumbent Gerald Ford in the U.S. presidential election |
| 46. | Jeff Goldblum|David Hasselhoff|Imran Khan|Liam Neeson|Mr. T|Harvey Weinstein |
| 47. | Magnus Carlsen|Jennifer Lawrence|Margot Robbie|Kristen Stewart|Emma Watson|The Weeknd |
| 48. | 2001: A Space Odyssey premièred around the world|the Summer Olympics took place in Mexico|Jacqueline Kennedy married Greek shipping tycoon Aristotle Onassis |
| 49. | The FIFA World Cup was hosted in Germany|Pluto was downgraded from a planet to a dwarf planet|Saddam Hussein was sentenced to death and executed by hanging |
| 50. | 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 |
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