In This Year50 randomly selected In This Year questions for quizmasters. New random selection made weekly. Next update: Monday 19th October 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 Some questions and answers may be outdated.)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 Sound of Music won Best Picture at the Academy Awards|Indira Gandhi was elected Prime Minister of India for the first time|Patrick Troughton replaced William Hartnell as Doctor Who |
| 2. | Serial killer Ted Bundy was captured in Pensacola, Florida|the oil tanker Amoco Cadiz ran aground off the coast of Brittany|Pope John Paul I died after only 33 days of papacy |
| 3. | The Iranian Embassy Siege took place in London|Robert Mugabe became Prime Minister of the newly independent Zimbabwe|Mount St. Helens erupted in Washington |
| 4. | two bombs were detonated at the Boston Marathon in Boston, Massachusetts|British Army soldier Lee Rigby was murdered by terrorists in Woolwich, southeast London|nearly 1500 were injured when a meteor exploded over the Russian city of Chelyabinsk |
| 5. | Jessica Alba|Fernando Alonso|Chris Evans|Roger Federer|Tom Hiddleston|Paris Hilton |
| 6. | The TV miniseries Roots first aired around the world|the Space Shuttle Enterprise made its first test free-flight from the back of a Boeing 747|Elvis Presley was found dead at his home in Graceland |
| 7. | Barack Obama was elected President of the United States|Kosovo formally declared independence from Serbia|the Summer Olympics were held in Beijing, China |
| 8. | Winston Churchill was re-elected Prime Minister of the United Kingdom|65 miles northwest of Las Vegas, a nuclear bomb was detonated at the Nevada Test Site for the first time|Alice in Wonderland, A Streetcar Named Desire, The Day the Earth Stood Still, and The African Queen all premiered worldwide |
| 9. | American Beauty won best picture at the Academy Awards|the Russian submarine Kursk sank in the Barents Sea, killing all 118 on board|the Summer Olympics were held in Sydney, Australia |
| 10. | Charles, Prince of Wales, and Lady Diana Spencer married at St Paul's Cathedral|riots in Toxteth (Liverpool), Handsworth (Birmingham), Moss Side (Manchester), and Chapeltown (Leeds) all took place in July|serial killer Peter Sutcliffe, the "Yorkshire Ripper", was arrested, found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment |
| 11. | 66 were killed in a stairway crush at a Rangers Celtic match in Glasgow, Scotland|The Ed Sullivan Show aired its final episode|a terrorist bomb exploded at the top of the Post Office Tower in London |
| 12. | Ted Cruz|Matt Damon|Minnie Driver|Ethan Hawke|Queen Latifah|River Phoenix |
| 13. | George H. W. Bush was televised vomiting into the lap of the Japanese Prime Minister and fainting|Denmark won the UEFA European Football Championship|Queen Elizabeth II gave her annus horribilis speech |
| 14. | Jason Bateman|Cate Blanchett|Jennifer Lopez|Marilyn Manson|Matthew McConaughey|Michael Sheen |
| 15. | Andre Agassi|Jennifer Connelly|Richard Osman|Simon Pegg|Vince Vaughn|Rachel Weisz |
| 16. | the FDA approved Viagra for use in erectile dysfunction|Titanic won 11 Academy Awards|the Winter Olympics were held in Nagano, Japan |
| 17. | Steve Fossett became the first to fly solo across the Pacific Ocean in a balloon|Barings Bank collapsed after Nick Leeson lost $1.4 billion on the Tokyo Stock Exchange|Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated at a peace rally in Tel Aviv |
| 18. | Pan Am began the first commercial 747 service, flying from New York to London|Black Sabbath released their self-named début album|the Aswan High Dam in Egypt was completed |
| 19. | Jackie Chan|Prayut Chan-o-cha|Elvis Costello|Howard Stern|Kathleen Turner|Oprah Winfrey |
| 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. | General John N. Mitchell, H. R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman were found guilty and sentenced over the Watergate scandal|Peter Gabriel left Genesis, replaced on lead vocals by drummer Phil Collins|The Rocky Horror Picture Show premièred in cinemas worldwide |
| 22. | Ferdinand Marcos became "President for Life of the Philippines"|U.S. President Richard Nixon was inaugurated for his second term|Bobby Riggs played Margaret Court and Billie Jean King in tennis' first two Battles of the Sexes |
| 23. | Ben-Hur won 11 Oscars at the 32nd Academy Awards|the Great Chilean Earthquake, at 9.5, was, and still is, the strongest ever recorded|the Soviet Union beat Yugoslavia in the final of football's first ever European Nations Cup |
| 24. | The Paris Peace Accords ended U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War|the World Trade Center was officially opened in New York City|Bruce Lee died in Hong Kong |
| 25. | Racing driver Jim Clark was killed in a Formula 2 race at Hockenheim|Richard Nixon won the U.S. presidential election|the Beatles released their self-titled album, popularly known as the White Album |
| 26. | Nirvana lead singer Kurt Cobain was found dead|the Channel Tunnel was officially opened|Nelson Mandela became South Africa's first black president |
| 27. | Richard Nixon died at the age of 81|Tony Blair was elected leader of the British Labour Party|Woodstock celebrated its 25th Anniversary |
| 28. | Kristen Bell|Macauley Culkin|Steven Gerrard|Ryan Gosling|Kim Kardashian|Zachary Levi |
| 29. | Daniel Craig|Celine Dion|Hugh Jackman|Kylie Minogue|Will Smith|Owen Wilson |
| 30. | Jeff Bezos|Don Cheadle|Chris Cornell|Prince Edward|Earl of Wessex|Bridget Fonda|David Spade |
| 31. | Halle Berry|Patrick Dempsey|Janet Jackson|Gordon Ramsay|Adam Sandler|Mike Tyson |
| 32. | 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 |
| 33. | Described by doctors as "dangerous" and "ridiculous"; in a rambling speech in April 2020, what two things did Donald Trump suggest as treatments for coronavirus? |
| 34. | the Aswan High Dam officially opened in Egypt|The United Kingdom and Ireland both switched to decimal currency|Bahrain, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates gained independence from the United Kingdom |
| 35. | Björk|Kevin James|Jeremy Kyle|Martin Lawrence|Chris Rock|Slash |
| 36. | 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 |
| 37. | Racing driver Jim Clark was killed in a Formula 2 race at Hockenheim|Richard Nixon won the U.S. presidential election|The Beatles released their self-titled album, popularly known as the White Album |
| 38. | Phil Collins|Mark Hamill|Michael Keaton|Kurt Russell|Sting|Robin Williams |
| 39. | Indira Gandhi was elected Prime Minister of India for the first time|The Sound of Music won Best Picture at the Academy Awards|Patrick Troughton replaced William Hartnell as Doctor Who |
| 40. | The Kobe earthquake in Japan killed 6,434 people|the Oklahoma City bombing claimed the lives of 168|O. J. Simpson was found not guilty of double murder in his criminal trial |
| 41. | The War in Darfur began|an arsonist destroyed a train in Daegu, South Korea, killing more than 190|the SARS virus was declared to be contained by the World Health Organization |
| 42. | YouTube was founded|Hurricane Katrina hit the U.S. Gulf Coast|Hong Kong Disneyland Resort opened |
| 43. | Paula Abdul|Matthew Broderick|MC Hammer|Rosie O'Donnell|Phillip Schofield|Wesley Snipes |
| 44. | McDonald's opened restaurants in Russia and Mainland China for the first time|a U.S. District Court acquitted Imelda Marcos on racketeering and fraud charges|Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman married |
| 45. | 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 |
| 46. | 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 |
| 47. | Petr Čech|Anne Hathaway|Kate Middleton|Nicki Minaj|Eddie Redmayne|Matt Smith |
| 48. | The Docklands bombing in London's Canary Wharf District marked the end of an IRA ceasefire|Pokémon Red and Green were released in Japan, the first in the world famous series|Ethiopian Airlines Flight 961 was hijacked, then later filmed by a tourist as it crashed into the sea off the coast of Comoros after running out of fuel |
| 49. | Snoop Dogg|Missy Elliott|Elon Musk|Winona Ryder|Justin Trudeau|Mark Wahlberg |
| 50. | Josh Duhamel|Geri Halliwell|Alyssa Milano|Thandiwe Newton|Vanessa Paradis|Karl Urban |
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