In This Year50 randomly selected In This Year questions for quizmasters. New random selection made weekly. Next update: Monday 11th May 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 Some questions and answers may be outdated.)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 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 |
| 2. | 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 |
| 3. | 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 |
| 4. | Boris Johnson|Ross Kemp|Jürgen Klinsmann|Elle Macpherson|Clive Owen|Sarah Palin |
| 5. | Alaska and Hawaii became U.S. states|Buddy Holly was killed in a plane crash|Sleeping Beauty was released in cinemas around the world |
| 6. | UK Conservative prime minister Edward Heath resigned and was succeeded by Labour's Harold Wilson|French president Georges Pompidou died of cancer at 63|Patty Hearst was photographed wielding an M1 carbine while robbing a bank in San Francisco |
| 7. | Ronald Reagan challenged Mikhail Gorbachev to tear down the Berlin Wall|New Zealand won the first ever Rugby World Cup|The King's Cross fire on the London Underground killed 31 |
| 8. | the Post Office Tower opened in London|the classic family sci-fi show Thunderbirds debuted in the United Kingdom|200 Alabama State Troopers attacked 525 civil rights demonstrators in Selma, Alabama in what was to become known as Bloody Sunday |
| 9. | ABBA won the Eurovision Song Contest singing Waterloo|Helmut Schmidt took over as Chancellor of West Germany after Willy Brandt resigned|Muhammad Ali knocked out George Foreman in The Rumble in the Jungle |
| 10. | the BBC sitcom Dad's Army was broadcast for the first time in the UK|Rosemary's Baby premiered around the world|a U.S. B-52 Stratofortress crashed in Greenland, discharging 4 nuclear bombs |
| 11. | Jacinda Ardern|Eva Green|Jake Gyllenhall|Christina Ricci|Jason Segel|Rebel Wilson |
| 12. | Euro notes and coins were introduced for the first time|Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl was kidnapped and murdered in Pakistan|Queen Elizabeth II's sister, Princess Margaret, died |
| 13. | 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 |
| 14. | 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 |
| 15. | 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 |
| 16. | John Candy|David Cassidy|Peter Gabriel|Ed Harris|Jay Leno|Julie Walters |
| 17. | What retired footballer spent 32 days in jail in March/April after allegedly entering Paraguay with a false passport? |
| 18. | 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? |
| 19. | A blow-out on Union Oil's Platform A spilt oil onto beaches in Santa Barbara, California|the novel The Godfather by Mario Puzo was first published|John Lennon and Yoko Ono married in Gibraltar |
| 20. | Bob Hawke was elected Prime Minister of Australia|Tokyo Disneyland opened|in London, £26m worth of gold bars were stolen in the Brinks Matt robbery |
| 21. | Woody Allen|Julie Andrews|Jerry Lee Lewis|Dudley Moore|Elvis Presley|Donald Sutherland |
| 22. | 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 |
| 23. | 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 |
| 24. | 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 |
| 25. | 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 |
| 26. | Ben Affleck|Cameron Diaz|Idris Elba|Eminem|Dwayne Johnson|Zinedine Zidane |
| 27. | Björn Borg|David Copperfield|Geena Davis|Andy Garcia|Theresa May|Joe Montana |
| 28. | Russell Brand|Fergie|Enrique Iglesias|Jonah Lomu|Anthony McPartlin|Charlize Theron |
| 29. | Concorde made its first commercial flight|James Callaghan replaced Harold Wilson as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom|at least 46 were killed in the Thammasat University massacre in Bangkok |
| 30. | 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 |
| 31. | Lewis Hamilton|Carly Rae Jepsen|Keira Knightley|Rooney Mara|Cristiano Ronaldo|Deontay Wilder |
| 32. | Noel Gallagher|Rhys Ifans|Guy Pierce|Liev Schreiber|Keith Urban|Emily Watson |
| 33. | Jessica Biel|Kirsten Dunst|Billie Piper|Seth Rogan|Yvonne Strahovski|Prince William |
| 34. | Winston Churchill resigned as Prime Minister of the UK due to ill-health at the age of 80|Ray Kroc opened his first McDonald's in Des Plaines, Illinois|James Dean was killed in a car crash |
| 35. | Kevin Costner|Jeff Daniels|Billy Idol|Penn Jillette|Brendan O'Carroll|Bruce Willis |
| 36. | Adam Ant|Ellen Barkin|Hugo Chavez|Angela Merkel|Jerry Seinfeld|John Travolta |
| 37. | English humanitarian Terry Waite was kidnapped in Beirut|New Zealand beat France 29-9 in the first ever Rugby World Cup Final|Michael Jackson released his hit album Bad |
| 38. | 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 |
| 39. | 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 |
| 40. | 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 |
| 41. | Bradley Cooper|Tiger Woods|Milla Jovovich|will.i.am|Mel B|Tara Reid |
| 42. | 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 |
| 43. | Georges Pompidou succeeded Charles de Gaulle as president of France|John Lennon and Yoko Ono conducted their Bed-In at a hotel in Montreal, Quebec| and Neil Armstrong took his historic first steps on the Moon |
| 44. | David Bowie|Hillary Clinton|Stephen King|Arnold Schwarzenegger|O. J. Simpson|Alan Sugar |
| 45. | Michael Jordan|Johnny Depp|Brad Pitt|José Mourinho|Quentin Tarantino|George Michael |
| 46. | Daniel Craig|Celine Dion|Hugh Jackman|Kylie Minogue|Will Smith|Owen Wilson |
| 47. | Margaret Thatcher became leader of the UK Conservative Party|NASA launched the Viking 1 planetary probe toward Mars|U.S. President Gerald Ford survived two assassination attempts |
| 48. | John Carpenter|Prince Charles|Al Gore|George R R Martin|Teller|Andrew Lloyd Webber |
| 49. | Tony Blair|Pierce Brosnan|Hulk Hogan|Cyndi Lauper|John Malkovich|Victoria Wood |
| 50. | George Best|Ted Bundy|Tim Curry|Diane Keaton|Steven Spielberg|Donald Trump |
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