In This Year50 randomly selected In This Year questions for quizmasters. New random selection made weekly. Next update: Monday 1st June 2026 (Please note: Questions are taken from our database of previous quizzes. Some questions and answers may be outdated.) |
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| 1. | 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 |
| 2. | David Lean's film of Doctor Zhivago was released|The Rolling Stones' (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction became their first number-one single in America|Ferdinand Marcos became President of the Philippines |
| 3. | David Duchovny|Hugh Grant|Nigella Lawson|Ayrton Senna|Tilda Swinton|Bradley Walsh |
| 4. | Joe Biden|Linda Evans|Harrison Ford|Jimi Hendrix|Terry Jones|Michael York |
| 5. | Eric Bana|Ricki Lake|Molly Ringwald|Guy Ritchie|Sam Rockwell|Shaggy |
| 6. | Kate Bosworth|Henry Cavill|Jesse Eisenberg|Andrew Garfield|Mila Kunis|Amy Winehouse |
| 7. | Sid Vicious was found dead of a heroin overdose, aged 21, in New York City|the first Sony Walkman went on sale in Japan|the Iran hostage crisis began with 90 hostages being taken at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran |
| 8. | The Winter Olympics were held in Innsbruck, Austria|Israeli airborne commandos freed 103 hostages at Uganda's Entebbe Airport|racing champion Niki Lauda suffered serious burns in the German Grand Prix |
| 9. | 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 |
| 10. | The Summer of Love began in the U.S. and spread around the world|the supertanker Torrey Canyon ran aground between Land's End and the Scilly Isles|Elvis Presley and Priscilla Beaulieu married in Las Vegas |
| 11. | Luke Evans|Olga Kurylenko|James McAvoy|Rosamund Pike|Pink|Will Young |
| 12. | the Winter Olympics were held in Lillehammer, Norway|Schindler's List won seven Oscars including Best Picture and Best Director|the car ferry MS Estonia sank in the Baltic Sea, killing 852 people |
| 13. | George W. Bush was sworn into office, succeeding Bill Clinton as President of the United States|Russian space station Mir re-entered the atmosphere to end its 15 year service in the Pacific Ocean|the first iPod was introduced by Apple |
| 14. | The Beatles performed at the Cavern Club for the first time|The Apartment won Best Picture at the Academy Awards|President Kennedy announced his goal to put a man on the Moon before the end of the decade |
| 15. | 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 |
| 16. | 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? |
| 17. | The first generation Apple iPhone went on sale in the USA|British child Madeleine McCann disappeared from an apartment in Praia da Luz, Portugal|the final Harry Potter book, The Deathly Hallows, became the fastest selling book in history |
| 18. | The PlayStation 2 was released worldwide|an Air France Concorde crashed into a hotel near Paris|the U.S. Supreme Court stopped the Florida presidential recount, effectively handing the Presidency to George W. Bush |
| 19. | "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 |
| 20. | President Bill Clinton was acquitted at the conclusion of impeachment proceedings in the U.S. Senate|British journalist Jill Dando was murdered outside her home in West London|David Beckham and Victoria Adams married in Ireland |
| 21. | Eleven thieves stole more than $2 million from the Brink's armoured car company headquarters in Boston, Massachusetts|the first race in the inaugural FIA Formula One World Championship was held at Silverstone, England|North Korean troops crossed the 38th parallel into South Korea, marking the start of the Korean War |
| 22. | Ben Affleck|Cameron Diaz|Idris Elba|Eminem|Dwayne Johnson|Zinedine Zidane |
| 23. | Woody Allen|Julie Andrews|Jerry Lee Lewis|Dudley Moore|Elvis Presley|Donald Sutherland |
| 24. | Alice Cooper|Olivia Newton-John|Ted Nugent|Robert Plant|Cat Stevens|Steven Tyler |
| 25. | Daniel Day-Lewis|Gloria Estefan|Dawn French|Steven Fry|Dolph Lundgren|Donny Osmond |
| 26. | Brigitte Bardot|Leonard Cohen|Judi Dench|George Segal|Maggie Smith|Frankie Valli |
| 27. | Jackie Chan|Prayut Chan-o-cha|Elvis Costello|Howard Stern|Kathleen Turner|Oprah Winfrey |
| 28. | Northern Rock became the first bank in Europe to be taken into state control due to the U.S. subprime mortgage crisis|Dmitry Medvedev replaced Vladimir Putin as President of Russia|Michael Phelps won a record eight Gold Medals at a single Olympics |
| 29. | Robert Downey Jr.|Sarah Jessica Parker|J.K. Rowling|Charlie Sheen|Brooke Shields|Ben Stiller|Shania Twain |
| 30. | Marilyn Monroe died from an overdose of sleeping pills and chloral hydrate|the Cuban Missile Crisis came, and went|Lawrence of Arabia premièred around the world |
| 31. | 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 |
| 32. | Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first human in space|the failed Bay of Pigs Invasion of Cuba took place|Barack Obama was born in Honolulu, Hawaii |
| 33. | Brenda Ann "I don't like Mondays" Spencer opened fire at a school in San Diego, killing two|Carter and Brezhnev signed the SALT II agreement in Vienna|11 fans were killed in a crush before The Who rock concert in Cincinnati, Ohio |
| 34. | 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 |
| 35. | Simon Cowell|Magic Johnson|Hugh Laurie|Kevin Spacey|Emma Thompson|Morrissey |
| 36. | Petr Čech|Anne Hathaway|Kate Middleton|Nicki Minaj|Eddie Redmayne|Matt Smith |
| 37. | Fred and Rosemary West were arrested in England after police excavated human bones in their back garden|between 500,000 and 1 million people were slaughtered in the Rwandan Genocide|Formula One world champion Ayrton Senna was killed in an accident at the San Marino Grand Prix |
| 38. | In May 2020, what market town near Durham, England came to national attention when the chief advisor of the British Prime Minister, Dominic Cummings, was discovered to have driven there with his family during the COVID-19 pandemic? |
| 39. | Jimmy Carter succeeded Gerald Ford as President of the United States|Red Rum won a record third Grand National at Aintree racecourse|the first Apple II and Commodore Pet computers went on sale |
| 40. | The Winter Olympics were held in Nagano, Japan|Titanic won 11 Academy Awards|the FDA approved Viagra for use in erectile dysfunction |
| 41. | Mike Tyson made his professional début in New York|Greenpeace's Rainbow Warrior was bombed and sunk in Auckland harbour by French agents|the wreck of the Titanic was finally located |
| 42. | Kevin Bacon|Tim Burton|Jamie Lee Curtis|Bruce Dickinson|Sharon Stone|Ice T |
| 43. | Hank Aaron surpassed Babe Ruth's MLB home run record|the FIFA World Cup was hosted by West Germany|Turkey twice invaded Cyprus, occupying more than a third of the country |
| 44. | Tim Allen|Kim Basinger|Michael Bolton|Griff Rhys Jones|Rick Moranis|Leon Spinks |
| 45. | Idi Amin deposed Milton Obote in a coup to become president of Uganda|East Pakistan became Bangladesh after gaining independence from Pakistan|Jim Morrison of The Doors was found dead in a bathtub in Paris, France |
| 46. | In the 2020 U.S. presidential election, to the nearest million, how many million more people voted for Joe Biden than Donald Trump? |
| 47. | Ted Cruz|Matt Damon|Minnie Driver|Ethan Hawke|Queen Latifah|River Phoenix |
| 48. | Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds premiered around the world|John F. Kennedy delivered his "Ich bin ein Berliner" speech in West Berlin|Cleopatra premiered around the world |
| 49. | U.S. President Ronald Reagan was shot in the chest by John Hinckley, Jr.|the first Mario game, Donkey Kong, was released| Muhammad Ali was beaten in his last-ever fight by Trevor Berbick |
| 50. | The Ayatollah Khomeini seized power in Iran|an accident at Three Mile Island, Pennsylvania, caused a partial meltdown|The Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan |
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