In This Year50 randomly selected In This Year questions for quizmasters. New random selection made weekly. Next update: Monday 14th September 2026 (Please note: Questions are taken from our database of previous quizzes. Some questions and answers may be outdated.) |
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| 1. | American porn publisher Larry Flynt was shot and paralysed|a poison-filled pellet from an umbrella killed Bulgarian defector Georgi Markov in London|the Jonestown incident in Guyana ended with a mass murder-suicide claiming 918 lives |
| 2. | George V became King of the United Kingdom|the Earth passed through the tail of Halley's Comet|African-American boxer Jack Johnson's defeat of white American James J. Jeffries sparked race riots across the United States |
| 3. | 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 |
| 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. | U.S. forces made a controversial move into neutral Cambodia to hunt out the Viet Cong|New Zealander racing driver and team founder Bruce McLaren was killed while testing a new race car|the North Tower of the World Trade Center was topped out, making it the tallest building in the world |
| 6. | Andre Agassi|Jennifer Connelly|Richard Osman|Simon Pegg|Vince Vaughn|Rachel Weisz |
| 7. | Bono|Jeremy Clarkson|Colin Firth|Diego Maradona|Sean Penn|Jean-Claude Van Damme |
| 8. | Ben Affleck|Cameron Diaz|Idris Elba|Eminem|Dwayne Johnson|Zinedine Zidane |
| 9. | The Apollo 13 mission was aborted after an explosion on board|The Beatles released their 12th and final studio album, Let It Be|a Civil War with the Khmer Rouge began in Cambodia |
| 10. | George Best|Ted Bundy|Tim Curry|Diane Keaton|Steven Spielberg|Donald Trump |
| 11. | What retired footballer spent 32 days in jail in March/April after allegedly entering Paraguay with a false passport? |
| 12. | 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|Che Guevara was captured and executed in Bolivia |
| 13. | 2001: A Space Odyssey premièred around the world|the Summer Olympics took place in Mexico|Jacqueline Kennedy married Greek shipping tycoon Aristotle Onassis |
| 14. | 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 |
| 15. | Chechen terrorists took more than 1,000 hostage in the Beslan school hostage crisis|SpaceShipOne became the first privately funded, manned craft to achieve spaceflight|the world's tallest bridge, the Millau bridge, was opened in France |
| 16. | Julie Christie|Bruce Lee|John Lennon|Chuck Norris|Al Pacino|Pelé |
| 17. | 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 |
| 18. | Emily Blunt|Mo Farah|Chris Hemsworth|Pippa Middleton|Aaron Rodgers|Edward Snowden |
| 19. | Margaret Thatcher's son, Mark, went missing in the Sahara during the Paris-Dakar Rally|the DeLorean Car factory in Belfast went into receivership|Helmut Kohl became Chancellor of Germany |
| 20. | Mary J Blige|Ricky Martin|Ewan McGregor|Jeremy Renner|Kid Rock|David Walliams |
| 21. | 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 |
| 22. | 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 |
| 23. | Björn Borg|David Copperfield|Geena Davis|Andy Garcia|Theresa May|Joe Montana |
| 24. | The Aswan High Dam officially opened in Egypt|Bahrain, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates gained independence from the United Kingdom|an IRA bomb exploded at the top of the Post Office Tower in London |
| 25. | Eric Bana|Ricki Lake|Molly Ringwald|Guy Ritchie|Sam Rockwell|Shaggy |
| 26. | The Khmer Rouge won the Cambodian Civil War and took control of the country|Muhammad Ali defeated Joe Frazier in the Thrilla in Manila|Ross McWhirter, co-founder of the Guinness Book of Records, was shot dead by the Provisional IRA |
| 27. | The Winter Olympics were held in Nagano, Japan|Titanic won 11 Academy Awards|the FDA approved Viagra for use in erectile dysfunction |
| 28. | 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 |
| 29. | The Icelandic government and banking system collapsed|the longest total solar eclipse of the 21st century occurred over parts of Asia and the Pacific Ocean|actor David Carradine was found dead in a Bangkok hotel room |
| 30. | Carmen Electra|Liam Gallagher|Jennifer Garner|Jude Law|Shaquille O'Neal|Gwyneth Paltrow |
| 31. | Kate Hudson|Adam Levine|Jennifer Love-Hewitt|Jason Momoa|Chris Pratt|Maggie Q |
| 32. | U.S. Senator John F. Kennedy was elected Democratic presidential candidate| Cyprus became independent from the United Kingdom|21-year-old American rock singer Eddie Cochran died in a car crash in south England |
| 33. | Lyndon B. Johnson was sworn in for his own full term as U.S. President|The Beatles performed at Shea Stadium in New York, the first ever stadium rock concert|in Rhodesia, Ian Smith declared de facto independence from the UK |
| 34. | Chariots of Fire won 4 Academy Awards including Best Picture|the Commodore 64 home computer was released|Air Florida Flight 90 crashed into a bridge in Washington, D.C. and fell into the Potomac River |
| 35. | U.S. President Ronald Reagan was sworn in for his second term in office|the Heysel Stadium Disaster killed 39 and injured 600|Back to the Future was released in cinemas around the world |
| 36. | Daniel Craig|Celine Dion|Hugh Jackman|Kylie Minogue|Will Smith|Owen Wilson |
| 37. | the Summer Olympics were held in Seoul, South Korea|Australian soap opera Home and Away was aired for the first time|Pan Am Flight 103 was blown up over Lockerbie, Scotland, killing a total of 270 people |
| 38. | The Winter Olympics were held in Albertville, France|boxer Mike Tyson was found guilty of raping 18-year-old Desiree Washington|the Bosnian War began |
| 39. | 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 |
| 40. | Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman married|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 |
| 41. | The Brixton Riots took place in South London|the first recognized cases of AIDS were reported by the CDC in Los Angeles|the English Football League became the first major league in the world to award three points for a win instead of two |
| 42. | Rowan Atkinson|Willem Dafoe|Steve Jobs|Olga Korbut|Bill Paxton|Angus Young |
| 43. | "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 |
| 44. | the United Kingdom voted in a referendum to leave the European Union|86 people were killed and more than 400 others injured in a truck attack in Nice, France, during Bastille Day celebrations|the Chicago Cubs ended the longest championship drought in American sports history by winning the World Series for the first time since 1908 |
| 45. | 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|David Cameron became Prime Minister of the United Kingdom |
| 46. | Jennifer Hudson|Alicia Keys|Beyoncé Knowles|Pitbull|Britney Spears|Justin Timberlake |
| 47. | The Winter Olympics were held in Sapporo, Japan|Ceylon became the republic of Sri Lanka|Apollo 17 marked the last time man set foot on the moon |
| 48. | Alesha Dixon|James Franco|Katherine Heigl|Rachel McAdams|Zoe Saldana|Usher |
| 49. | The Winter Olympics were held in Innsbruck, Austria|I Want to Hold Your Hand became The Beatles' first #1 single in the U.S.A.|Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor married for the first time |
| 50. | On the roof of Apple Records, London, The Beatles gave their last public performance|the Boeing 747 and Concorde both flew for the first time|Willy Brandt became Chancellor of West Germany |
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