50 Fun Facts About 1992

Which royal residence burned in November after a spotlight set a curtain alight in the Private Chapel?

Windsor Castle's State Apartments went up in one of the largest peacetime fire-fighting operations in modern British history, and four days later the Queen called the year her 'annus horribilis'.

Which capital's siege began in April and ran for 1,425 days, the longest of any capital city in modern warfare?

Sarajevo stayed encircled until 29 February 1996, a siege three times longer than the Battle of Stalingrad and more than a year longer than the siege of Leningrad.

Which team beat Atlanta in six games to become the first World Series winner from outside the United States?

The Toronto Blue Jays repeated the feat a year later and remain the only non-US team to have won it, since the Montreal Expos became the Washington Nationals in 2005.

Which British 400 m runner tore a hamstring in his Barcelona semi-final and finished the lap leaning on his father?

Derek Redmond was officially recorded as 'Did Not Finish' because his father Jim had barged past security to help him, yet the crowd gave the pair a standing ovation.

Which country, invited only after Yugoslavia was expelled, beat Germany 2–0 to win the European Championship in Sweden?

Denmark had finished second to Yugoslavia in qualifying and got the call-up as the Yugoslav Wars tore that country apart; goals from John Jensen and Kim Vilfort settled the final.

Which Williams driver clinched the Formula One title with second place in Hungary, then left to race in IndyCar?

Nigel Mansell won the IndyCar title at his first attempt in 1993, making him the only driver ever to hold the Formula One and American open-wheel championships at the same time.

Which club, managed by Howard Wilkinson, won the final old First Division title before the Premier League began?

Leeds United clinched it on the penultimate weekend by winning 3–2 at Sheffield United while Manchester United lost at Anfield, and Wilkinson remains the last English manager to win the title.

Which host left The Tonight Show on 22 May aged 66, a night after his final guests Robin Williams and Bette Midler?

Johnny Carson had hosted since 1962 and retired from show business entirely, handing the desk to Jay Leno, and that penultimate broadcast helped the programme win the Emmy for Outstanding Variety, Music or Comedy Series at the 13th attempt.

Which Texas billionaire announced his run on Larry King Live and took 18.9% of the presidential vote as an independent?

Ross Perot won about 19.7 million votes yet not a single electoral vote, the best showing by a candidate outside the two main parties since Theodore Roosevelt in 1912.

Which European system did the pound leave on 'Black Wednesday', after a one-day promise to raise interest rates to 15%?

The Exchange Rate Mechanism exit was announced by Chancellor Norman Lamont at 7pm on 16 September, with rates left at 12%; they were back to 10% the next day.

Which West Bromwich MP was elected Speaker of the Commons by 372 votes to 238, the first woman to hold the post?

Betty Boothroyd was also the first Opposition MP ever elected Speaker, taking the chair weeks after Labour had lost its fourth general election in a row.

Which Scottish MP succeeded Neil Kinnock as Labour leader in July, after the party's fourth successive election defeat?

John Smith had been Kinnock's shadow chancellor since 1987, and his sudden death from a heart attack in May 1994 handed the leadership to Tony Blair.

Which tabloid claimed credit for John Major's surprise 21-seat majority with a front page saying it 'wot won it'?

The Sun's headline of 11 April mocked polls that had predicted a hung parliament or a narrow Labour win, and the phrase became shorthand for the power of the press.

Which journalist's book Diana: Her True Story, published in June, laid bare the Prince and Princess of Wales's marriage?

Andrew Morton's source was Diana herself, through secretly taped recordings, a role both of them denied during her lifetime and he acknowledged only after her death.

Over which network did Neil Papworth send the first ever text message, reading 'Merry Christmas', on 3 December?

Vodafone's GSM network carried the message from a personal computer at Sema Group to the Orbitel 901 handset of Richard Jarvis; Papworth was a test engineer, not a Vodafone employee.

Which station launched on 7 September with Handel's Zadok the Priest, after two months of birdsong test transmissions?

Classic FM was the first national classical music station to launch since BBC Radio 3 a quarter of a century earlier, and holds one of the UK's three Independent National Radio licences.

Which shopping centre, the largest in the United States, opened in August on the old Metropolitan Stadium site?

Mall of America in Bloomington, Minnesota wrapped more than 400 stores around an indoor theme park, later run as Knott's Camp Snoopy, where a plaque marks the old ballpark's home plate.

Which city hosted June's Earth Summit, attended by 108 heads of state and government and addressed by a 12-year-old?

Rio de Janeiro's UN Conference on Environment and Development spread the idea of sustainable development, and the child speaker was Canadian Severn Cullis-Suzuki, whose speech later became a dance track.

To which country did a US-led coalition called Operation Restore Hope deploy from 5 December, under UN Resolution 794?

Somalia's famine had almost ended by the time the troops arrived, and later estimates suggest the relief effort shortened it by only about a month.

Which Spanish city staged Expo '92, marking 500 years since Columbus sailed, and got Spain's first AVE high-speed line?

Seville's exhibition ran from April to October on the Isla de La Cartuja, while the new AVE trains linked the city to Madrid via Córdoba the same spring.

Which High Court of Australia decision, brought by a Torres Strait Islander, rejected the doctrine of terra nullius?

Mabo v Queensland was brought by Eddie Mabo and others and decided on 3 June, and by ruling that Australia had never been nobody's land it opened the way to native title claims.

In which Indian city did a 150,000-strong rally of Hindu activists demolish the 16th-century Babri Masjid on 6 December?

Ayodhya is held in Hindu tradition to be the birthplace of Rama, and the mosque's destruction set off riots in Mumbai, Delhi and other cities that killed more than 2,000 people.

Which French forward joined Manchester United on 26 November after his club rang to ask about buying Denis Irwin?

Eric Cantona cost £1 million after chairman Bill Fotherby's call about Irwin prompted Alex Ferguson to ask for the Frenchman instead, two days after Cantona had faxed in a transfer request.

Which Scot won ten frames in a row from 14–8 down to beat Jimmy White 18–14 in the World Snooker Championship final?

Stephen Hendry's second world title began a run of 29 consecutive wins at the Crucible that still stands as a modern-era record, while White has lost all six world finals he has reached, this one included.

Which side, urged by captain Imran Khan to play like 'cornered tigers', beat England by 22 runs in the World Cup final?

Pakistan's first World Cup was sealed at the Melbourne Cricket Ground on 25 March, in the first tournament played in coloured clothing with white balls and under floodlights.

Which striker's England career ended with his substitution against Sweden, one goal short of Bobby Charlton's record?

Gary Lineker retired with 48 goals from 80 caps, one fewer than Charlton's total, after a 2–1 group defeat at Euro 92 in which Graham Taylor hauled him off with half an hour left.

Which ex-world chess champion re-emerged to beat Boris Spassky in an unofficial rematch in Sveti Stefan and Belgrade?

Bobby Fischer played on in Yugoslavia despite a United Nations embargo, so the US government issued a warrant for his arrest and he lived the rest of his life as an émigré.

Which Clint Eastwood western became the third of its genre to win Best Picture, after Cimarron and Dances with Wolves?

Unforgiven took four Oscars in all, with Eastwood named Best Director, Gene Hackman Best Supporting Actor and Joel Cox winning for Film Editing.

Which actor played Scrooge in The Muppet Christmas Carol, vowing to act as if with the Royal Shakespeare Company?

Michael Caine played it dead straight opposite Kermit the Frog as Bob Cratchit, with Gonzo narrating as Charles Dickens so the script could keep the original prose.

Which Robert Rodriguez debut was shot for $7,000, nearly half of it earned in clinical drug trials in Austin?

El Mariachi was meant for the Mexican video market until Columbia Pictures bought it, and Guinness World Records lists it as the lowest-budgeted film ever to gross $1 million.

Which actress won Best Supporting Actress as Mona Lisa Vito, fiancée of Joe Pesci's rookie lawyer in My Cousin Vinny?

Marisa Tomei's Brooklyn fiancée rescues two New York students wrongly accused of murder in Alabama, in a film that gave Fred Gwynne, as the judge, his final screen role.

Which BBC1 Halloween show, fronted by Michael Parkinson as a live investigation, was in fact a scripted ghost drama?

Ghostwatch sent Sarah Greene into a 'haunted' house in Northolt, ended with the studio overrun, and prompted an estimated million calls to the BBC; it has never been repeated on UK television.

Which Jennifer Saunders sitcom pairs PR boss Edina with her friend Patsy Stone, played by Joanna Lumley?

Absolutely Fabulous grew out of a 1990 French and Saunders sketch, and Lumley's agent had to talk her into the pilot before the character was reshaped around her modelling past.

Which BBC soap set among expatriates in the fictional Spanish town of Los Barcos replaced Wogan's chat show in July?

Eldorado lasted exactly one year, from 6 July 1992 to 9 July 1993, after its launch was pulled forward from September and production had to be rushed to meet the date.

Which word did Vice-President Dan Quayle wrongly 'correct' at a Trenton, New Jersey spelling bee by adding an 'e' to it?

Student William Figueroa, aged 12, had spelled potato correctly before Quayle altered it to 'potatoe' at the Muñoz Rivera Elementary School on 15 June, five months before the election.

Which duo of Siobhan Fahey and Marcella Detroit spent eight consecutive weeks at UK number one with the ballad 'Stay'?

Shakespears Sister's 'Stay' finished the year as the UK's fourth-biggest-selling single, a year before Detroit was let go and Fahey carried on alone.

Which Scottish act topped the UK chart for four weeks with 'Ebeneezer Goode', a song accused of chanting 'Es are good'?

The Shamen's single reached number one during the BBC's drug awareness week, and the band say they deleted it while still on top because the long run was 'messing up our release schedule'.

What did the KLF dump at the Brit Awards after-party in February, after firing machine-gun blanks over the audience?

A dead sheep was the tame option: Drummond and Cauty had wanted to disembowel one on stage or throw buckets of blood, until BBC lawyers and their vegetarian collaborators Extreme Noise Terror objected.

Whose 'Somebody to Love' with Queen was the acclaimed highlight of April's Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert at Wembley?

George Michael shared the Wembley stage on 20 April with David Bowie, Elton John, Axl Rose, Annie Lennox and Liza Minnelli, all guesting with the surviving members of Queen.

Which country won Eurovision in Malmö with Linda Martin's 'Why Me?', a song written by three-time winner Johnny Logan?

Ireland's fourth victory followed wins in 1970, 1980 and 1987, while the United Kingdom finished second for a thirteenth time.

Which guitarist's MTV Unplugged album, with 'Tears in Heaven' about his four-year-old son Conor, won him six Grammys?

Eric Clapton's son had died in 1991 after falling from a 53rd-floor Manhattan window, and the acoustic set released in August took Album of the Year at the 1993 Grammys.

Which Shuttle's May maiden flight rescued a stranded Intelsat satellite with history's only three-person spacewalk?

Endeavour's crew grabbed Intelsat 603 by hand after two failed attempts with a capture bar, fitted a new perigee kick motor and relaunched it toward geosynchronous orbit.

Which Chicago-raised doctor was the first African-American woman in space, flying in September with Mamoru Mohri?

Mae Jemison had joined NASA's astronaut corps in 1987 and spent nearly eight days in orbit on STS-47, testing a biofeedback technique on herself together with Mohri.

Around what kind of object did Wolszczan and Frail confirm the first planets ever found outside the Solar System?

A pulsar called PSR B1257+12 turned out to host two worlds announced that year and a third found in 1994, all circling the spinning remnant of a dead star rather than a star like our own.

Which Robert James Waller novel pairs an Iowa housewife with a National Geographic photographer from Bellingham?

The Bridges of Madison County reached the New York Times list in August, climbed to number one and stayed on it for 164 consecutive weeks, more than three years.

Which K'iche' Maya activist from Guatemala won the Nobel Peace Prize for her work for the region's indigenous peoples?

Rigoberta Menchú was born to a poor family in the department of El Quiché, and went on to become a UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador and win the Prince of Asturias Award.

Which US Navy rear admiral and COBOL pioneer, whose team taped a computer moth into a logbook, died on New Year's Day?

Grace Hopper died in her sleep aged 85 in Arlington, Virginia, and the 1947 moth pulled from a Harvard Mark II relay is still taped into the logbook at the Smithsonian.

Which singer, born Destiny Hope in Franklin, Tennessee on 23 November, is the daughter of the 'Achy Breaky Heart' star?

Miley Cyrus's birth name was her parents' statement of belief that she would accomplish great things, arriving while her father Billy Ray was riding the line-dancing craze his hit had set off.

Which LWT game show for ITV, presented by Ulrika Jonsson and John Fashanu and narrated by John Sachs, began in October?

Gladiators ran from 10 October 1992 until New Year's Day 2000 and spawned versions abroad, a children's spin-off and live arena shows.

Which Brazilian forward, born in Mogi das Cruzes on 5 February, rose through the youth ranks at Santos?

Neymar's full name is Neymar da Silva Santos Júnior; he made his professional debut with Santos in 2009 and later joined Barcelona in 2013 and Paris Saint-Germain in 2017.