119 Fun Facts About 2010s

On May 2, 2011, Osama bin Laden was killed by US special forces in which Pakistani city?

Abbottabad is a quiet garrison town north of Islamabad, and bin Laden's walled compound stood under a mile from Pakistan's military academy; he is thought to have hidden there for at least five years.

How many Chilean miners were rescued in October 2010 after 69 days trapped at the San José mine?

All 33 were out of contact for 17 days, until a drill bit came back up with a note taped to it: 'We are well in the refuge, the 33.' The last man reached the surface on 13 October 2010.

What was the name of the steel capsule that lifted the Chilean miners to the surface one at a time?

Fénix, Spanish for phoenix, was named for the mythical bird that rose from the ashes; Chile's navy built the capsule, barely wider than a man's shoulders, with design advice from NASA.

Japan's 2011 Fukushima accident was only the second rated Level 7, the nuclear scale's maximum, after which disaster?

Chernobyl, in 1986, was the only earlier Level 7. Japan had rated Fukushima at Level 5, the same as Three Mile Island, then raised it a month after the tsunami as the total radiation released became clear.

Which prime minister announced his resignation hours after the UK voted to leave the EU?

David Cameron had called the referendum himself and urged voters to remain; Leave won with 51.9%, and soon after 8 am he stood outside 10 Downing Street and said the country needed fresh leadership.

On 4 July 2012, CERN announced the discovery of a new particle consistent with which long-predicted one?

The Higgs boson, proposed in 1964, is the particle of the field that gives elementary particles mass; Peter Higgs and François Englert shared the 2013 Nobel Prize in Physics after CERN's ATLAS and CMS experiments confirmed it.

LIGO's first direct detection of gravitational waves, in 2015, came from the merger of what?

Two black holes, about 29 and 36 times the Sun's mass, spiralled together and merged; the ripple reached LIGO's twin detectors in September 2015 and won three of the project's leaders the 2017 Nobel Prize.

Which NASA spacecraft flew past Pluto on July 14, 2015, returning the first close-up images?

New Horizons launched in January 2006, when Pluto was still classed as a planet; astronomers demoted it to a dwarf planet later that year, and the probe took nine and a half years to arrive.

Which NASA rover was lowered onto Mars by a rocket-powered 'sky crane' in August 2012?

Curiosity, about the size of a small car, was too heavy for the airbags that had cushioned earlier rovers, so a hovering descent stage lowered it on cables into Gale crater.

Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 vanished on 8 March 2014 while flying from Kuala Lumpur to which city?

The Boeing 777 was bound for Beijing with 239 people aboard when it vanished from air-traffic-control radar under an hour after take-off; a flaperon that washed up on Réunion in July 2015 was the first confirmed debris.

Which cruise ship capsized off Tuscany in 2012 after its captain steered close to shore?

Costa Concordia struck rocks off the island of Giglio and 32 people died; Captain Francesco Schettino, who left the ship before his passengers were all off, was sentenced to 16 years for manslaughter.

Jorge Mario Bergoglio, elected pope in March 2013, was the first pope from which religious order?

The Jesuits (Society of Jesus) had never produced a pope before Francis, who was also the first from the Americas; he was elected after Benedict XVI became the first pope in nearly 600 years to resign.

A fire on 15 April 2019 destroyed the roof and spire of which Paris landmark?

Notre-Dame Cathedral came close to losing its two bell towers as well, but fire crews saved them; President Macron set a five-year deadline to rebuild, and it reopened in December 2024.

The Ice Bucket Challenge that swept social media in summer 2014 raised money to fight which disease?

ALS research got a windfall: the challenge raised $115 million for the ALS Association in the summer of 2014, and the money helped fund the discovery of a gene linked to the disease.

Which company developed Pokémon Go, launched in July 2016?

Niantic, which began inside Google, built the game; Nintendo's market value still doubled within two weeks of launch, though it only part-owned The Pokémon Company and had not made Pokémon Go.

Which 13-employee photo-sharing app did Facebook agree to buy for about $1 billion in April 2012?

Instagram, launched by Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger in October 2010, had about 30 million users when Facebook struck the deal, which worked out at roughly $77 million per employee; it passed a billion monthly users in 2018.

Which Apple product did Steve Jobs unveil in January 2010, priced from $499?

The iPad, Jobs said, defined an entirely new category of device; buyers agreed, taking 300,000 on its first day that April and a million within 28 days, less than half the time the first iPhone had needed.

In December 2012, which song's video became the first on YouTube to reach one billion views?

Gangnam Style, Psy's horse-dance hit, reached a billion views in about five months; two years later it passed 2.1 billion, more than YouTube's view counter could store, and the site had to upgrade it.

The 2012 Summer Olympics made which city the first to host the modern Games three times?

London had staged the Games twice before, most recently in 1948; Danny Boyle's 2012 opening ceremony had the Queen appear to parachute into the stadium with Daniel Craig's James Bond.

Which country won its first World Cup in 2010, beating the Netherlands 1-0 in the final in South Africa?

Spain won 1-0 through Andrés Iniesta's 116th-minute goal in Johannesburg on 11 July 2010; South Africa was the first African nation to host the tournament.

Who scored Germany's extra-time winner against Argentina in the 2014 World Cup final?

Mario Götze, a substitute, chested down André Schürrle's cross and volleyed home in the 113th minute, giving Germany the first European victory at a World Cup held in the Americas.

Leicester City won the 2015-16 Premier League after starting the season at what odds with bookmakers?

The 5000-1 outsiders had almost been relegated the season before; Claudio Ranieri's side became champions without kicking a ball on 2 May 2016, when Tottenham drew 2-2 at Chelsea.

Which team ended a 108-year title drought in the 2016 World Series?

The Chicago Cubs had last won in 1908; Game 7 in Cleveland went to a tenth inning after a 17-minute rain delay, and Ben Zobrist's double then put them ahead in an 8-7 win.

The 2016 Cavaliers were the first team to win the NBA Finals after trailing in the series by what score?

Cleveland came back from 3-1 down against a Warriors side that had gone 73-9 in the regular season, winning the seventh game in Oakland 93-89 to end the city's 52-year title drought.

Which sprinter won the 100 m and 200 m at three straight Olympics, finishing in Rio 2016?

Usain Bolt left Rio with nine Olympic golds, but had to hand one back in 2017 after relay team-mate Nesta Carter's sample from the 2008 Games tested positive on a retest.

Prince died on April 21, 2016, at which home and recording complex?

Paisley Park, in Chanhassen, Minnesota, was Prince's home and studio complex; he was 57, and the cause was an accidental overdose of counterfeit pills laced with fentanyl.

The dress that divided the internet in February 2015 was actually which colours?

Blue and black was the real colouring of the Roman Originals dress; sales surged as the photo spread, and the retailer then made a single white-and-gold version to auction for Comic Relief.

Harambe, the gorilla shot in May 2016 after a boy fell into his enclosure, lived at which zoo?

Cincinnati Zoo staff shot the 17-year-old gorilla to protect a three-year-old who had climbed in; Harambe memes then swamped the zoo's Twitter feed until it deleted the account that August.

In May 2010, Laszlo Hanyecz made the first known commercial bitcoin purchase, paying 10,000 BTC for what?

Two pizzas from Papa John's, ordered for him by another forum user, were what Hanyecz got for coins then worth about $41; enthusiasts now mark 22 May as Bitcoin Pizza Day.

On what kind of vessel did Greta Thunberg cross the Atlantic to a 2019 UN climate summit?

A racing yacht, Malizia II, carried her from Plymouth to New York in about two weeks because she refuses to fly; solar panels and underwater turbines made its electricity, and she sailed back to Europe on a catamaran.

Sarah Burton designed Catherine Middleton's 2011 wedding dress as creative director of which fashion house?

Alexander McQueen's Sarah Burton worked a rose, thistle, daffodil and shamrock into the lace, one for each nation of the UK, and had it stitched by hand at the Royal School of Needlework.

Superstorm Sandy made landfall on October 29, 2012, near Brigantine in which US state?

New Jersey took the landfall near Brigantine, just north-east of Atlantic City; the surge went on to flood New York's subway tunnels, and the New York Stock Exchange stayed shut for two days.

Which virus caused the West African epidemic of 2013–16, which killed more than 11,000 people?

Ebola's outbreak began with a toddler in a village in Guinea in December 2013 and had reached the capitals of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone by July 2014; it was declared over in June 2016.

Which toy became a global craze in spring 2017 and was soon banned from many classrooms?

Fidget spinners, which whirl on a central ball bearing, were pitched as a way to help restless children concentrate; studies never bore that out, and teachers found them a distraction instead.

Which company released the free-to-play Fortnite Battle Royale in September 2017?

Epic Games, maker of the Unreal Engine, added the free mode two months after Fortnite's paid Save the World launch; by June 2018 it had 125 million players, and a 2019 Marshmello concert in-game drew over 10 million.

Lin-Manuel Miranda's Hamilton was inspired by a biography written by whom?

Ron Chernow's 2004 life of Alexander Hamilton was Miranda's holiday reading on a break from In the Heights; Chernow became the show's historical consultant, and it won 11 Tonys and the Pulitzer Prize for Drama.

In July 2019, which film overtook Avatar to become the highest-grossing movie of all time?

Avengers: Endgame edged past Avatar in July 2019, helped by a June re-release with extra footage; Avatar took the record back after a 2021 re-release in China, until Endgame's own re-release in 2026.

Disney's Frozen (2013) was loosely based on a fairy tale by which author?

Hans Christian Andersen's Snow Queen is a villain, and Elsa was one too in Disney's early drafts, until the songwriters delivered 'Let It Go' and showed her as a frightened girl instead.

Which 2019 hit spent a then-record 19 weeks at number one on the Billboard Hot 100?

Old Town Road began as a $30 beat Lil Nas X bought online; Billboard dropped it from its country chart, yet it held number one on the Hot 100 for 19 weeks until Bad Guy ended the run.

Adele's album 21, the world's best seller of both 2011 and 2012, was named after what?

Her age when she made it: Adele wrote 21 in the aftermath of a break-up, which is why it is an album of heartbreak, and she had named her debut for her age in the same way.

Which series won 59 Primetime Emmys, the most ever for a drama?

Game of Thrones won Outstanding Drama Series four times; its final season collected 12 Emmys even as more than 1.7 million people signed a petition asking for it to be remade.

Who directed Star Wars: The Force Awakens?

J. J. Abrams, who had already rebooted Star Trek, at first said no to Star Wars and had to be talked round; his film then held the US and Canada box-office record until 2026.

Which 2019 film became the first not in the English language to win the Oscar for Best Picture?

Parasite, Bong Joon-ho's Korean-language thriller, won four Oscars that night; before it, no South Korean film had received so much as a nomination.

What did SpaceX launch as the payload on the first Falcon Heavy flight in February 2018?

A Tesla Roadster, Musk's own car, flew as the dummy weight a test rocket needs; a spacesuited mannequin named Starman sits at the wheel, on an orbit round the Sun that reaches as far as Mars's.

The 12 boys rescued from a flooded Thai cave in July 2018 belonged to a football team with what name?

The Wild Boars (Moo Pa in Thai) were found alive by British divers John Volanthen and Rick Stanton after nine days in Tham Luang cave; sedated, the boys and their coach were guided out between 8 and 10 July.

Which Icelandic volcano's April 2010 eruption grounded flights across Europe?

Eyjafjallajökull's ash can wreck jet engines, so about 20 countries closed their airspace for six days in April 2010, stranding some 10 million travellers.

The 2010 Deepwater Horizon explosion caused history's largest marine oil spill where?

The Gulf of Mexico took oil for 87 days after the rig exploded off Louisiana, killing eleven workers, before BP's Macondo well was capped; the company later agreed a record settlement with the US government.

Steve Jobs died on October 5, 2011, aged 56, of complications from a tumour of which organ?

The pancreas was the site of the rare neuroendocrine tumour diagnosed in 2003; Jobs stepped down as Apple CEO in August 2011, weeks before his death, and received a posthumous Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2022.

The Arab Spring began in 2010 when Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire in which country?

Tunisia's uprising began after the street vendor's self-immolation in Sidi Bouzid on 17 December 2010; President Ben Ali fled to Saudi Arabia on 14 January 2011, and Egypt's Hosni Mubarak resigned four weeks later.

How long could a video be on Vine, the looping-clip app Twitter launched in 2013?

Six seconds was the cap on each looping clip; Twitter had bought Vine for about $30 million in October 2012, before it launched, and shut the app down in January 2017.

In November 2014, which company bought Mojang, the studio behind Minecraft, for $2.5 billion?

Microsoft announced the $2.5 billion deal in September 2014 and completed it that November; Markus 'Notch' Persson and his two co-founders left, and Minecraft went on to become the best-selling video game of all time.

'Despacito' in 2017 was the first Spanish-language Hot 100 number one since which 1996 hit?

Macarena, by Los del Río, had topped the Hot 100 for 14 weeks in 1996; Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee's track, boosted by a Justin Bieber remix, matched the then-record 16 weeks at No. 1 in 2017.

The iPhone X, launched in November 2017 for the iPhone's tenth anniversary, replaced Touch ID with what?

Face ID took over because the iPhone X's edge-to-edge screen left no room for the home button that had housed the fingerprint reader; it maps a face with more than 30,000 invisible infrared dots.

Prince Harry married Meghan Markle on 19 May 2018 at which venue?

St George's Chapel stands inside Windsor Castle; Prince Charles walked the bride down its aisle, a role announced only the day before, after her father pulled out following heart surgery.

Before Hillary Clinton in 2016, who last won the US popular vote but lost the presidency?

Al Gore finished about 540,000 votes ahead of George W. Bush in 2000 but lost Florida by 537; Clinton's lead was five times larger, yet fewer than 80,000 votes across three states decided 2016.

Whitney Houston died on February 11, 2012, in a hotel in Beverly Hills on the eve of which event?

The Grammy Awards went ahead the next night with a hastily planned tribute, Jennifer Hudson singing 'I Will Always Love You'; the Clive Davis party Houston had been due to attend at the same hotel also carried on.

Stephen Hawking's ashes were interred in Westminster Abbey near which two scientists' graves?

Newton and Darwin lie close by: the ashes were interred on 15 June 2018 near Isaac Newton's grave of 1727 and Charles Darwin's of 1882. Hawking had outlived his 1963 motor neurone disease prognosis by more than 50 years.

David Bowie died on 10 January 2016, two days after his birthday and which final album's release?

Blackstar came out on 8 January 2016, his 69th birthday; he had kept his liver cancer private for 18 months, and producer Tony Visconti called the album his parting gift.

Which South Korean company's 'Baby Shark' became the most-viewed video in YouTube history?

Pinkfong did not write Baby Shark, a camp sing-along for decades; its June 2016 version became YouTube's most-viewed video in November 2020 and the first to pass 10 billion views.

In March 2014 Russia annexed which region of Ukraine after seizing it with unmarked troops?

Crimea's key sites were taken by the 'little green men' from 27 February; a disputed referendum followed on 16 March and Russia signed the accession treaty two days later.

The first-ever image of a black hole, released in 2019, showed one in which galaxy?

Messier 87 (M87), a galaxy 55 million light-years away, hosts the black hole imaged by the Event Horizon Telescope's planet-sized network of radio dishes; the Milky Way's own black hole was imaged three years later.

Which film was wrongly announced as Best Picture at the 2017 Oscars before Moonlight was named the winner?

La La Land's producers were already giving their speeches when the mistake emerged: an accountant had handed presenter Warren Beatty the wrong envelope, the spare for Best Actress, won by its star Emma Stone.

Which spacecraft made the first soft landing on the far side of the Moon, in January 2019?

Chang'e 4 touched down in Von Kármán crater on 3 January 2019, relaying signals via the Queqiao satellite; its Yutu-2 rover rolled out within hours, and cotton seeds aboard the lander became the first plants to sprout on the Moon.

Flappy Bird, the 2014 mobile sensation, was created by a developer from which country?

Vietnam's Dong Nguyen, a Hanoi-based programmer, said the game was earning about $50,000 a day from ads before he pulled it from app stores in February 2014, saying it had become addictive.

To which city did Edward Snowden fly in May 2013 before revealing NSA documents to journalists?

Hong Kong was his pick, he told The Guardian, for its 'spirited commitment to free speech'; he flew in on 20 May and spent three weeks holed up in a hotel room.

The 2016 Panama Papers leak came from which offshore law firm?

Mossack Fonseca saw 11.5 million of its files handed to journalists; the Panama firm announced in March 2018 that it would shut down, blaming the damage to its reputation.

Which team led the Patriots 28–3 in Super Bowl LI before losing in overtime?

The Atlanta Falcons led by 25 points in the third quarter, then watched New England score 31 unanswered to win 34–28 in the first Super Bowl to reach overtime.

In which country did Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un hold their first summit, in June 2018?

Singapore hosted the 12 June 2018 meeting on its resort island of Sentosa, the first between sitting US and North Korean leaders, where Kim signed a pledge to work toward complete denuclearization.

The Supreme Court's 5–4 Obergefell ruling of 2015 guaranteed which right in every state?

Same-sex marriage became a right nationwide when Justice Anthony Kennedy's majority held that the Fourteenth Amendment requires states to license it; all four dissenters wrote opinions of their own.

Which pop star accepted an award at the 2010 MTV Video Music Awards in a dress made of raw beef?

Lady Gaga's outfit was stitched from flank steak bought at the designer's family butcher. Taxidermists later preserved it as a kind of jerky for display at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

The polar ship that an online poll voted to call Boaty McBoatface was instead named after which Briton?

David Attenborough had finished only fifth in the 2016 poll, far behind the joke entry coined by a radio presenter. Boaty McBoatface went to one of the ship's submersibles.

What kind of animal was Paul, who picked eight straight winners at the 2010 World Cup from a German aquarium?

An octopus named Paul was offered two boxes of food, and the one he ate from first counted as his pick. He was hatched in Weymouth, England, before moving to a tank in Oberhausen.

Which video-rental chain, bankrupt by 2010, had once turned down the chance to buy Netflix for $50 million?

Blockbuster ran more than 9,000 stores at its 2004 peak. Mail-order discs, streaming and rental kiosks then ate its business, and a single franchised store in Bend, Oregon, outlasted the rest.

Which word, first recorded on an Australian internet forum in 2002, was Oxford's Word of the Year for 2013?

Selfie made its first known appearance in a post by Nathan Hope on a science forum run by Dr Karl Kruszelnicki. Eleven years later the dictionary's editors crowned it.

Which American songwriter won the 2016 Nobel Prize in Literature, then skipped the Stockholm ceremony?

Bob Dylan cited pre-existing commitments, so Patti Smith sang one of his songs at the ceremony in his place. He collected the medal at a private meeting in Stockholm the following April.

In Breaking Bad, which physicist's surname does chemistry teacher Walter White adopt as his criminal alias?

Heisenberg is the name Walter first gives the dealer Tuco, a nod to the theoretical physicist Werner Heisenberg. It soon stands for a feared kingpin across the Southwest.

Which IBM computer beat Jeopardy! champions Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter in a televised match in 2011?

Watson took the $1 million first prize and was named after Thomas J. Watson, who led IBM for four decades. Ken Jennings said its real edge was pressing the buzzer with microsecond precision every time.

Which American cyclist was stripped of a record run of Tour de France titles in 2012 and banned for life?

Lance Armstrong had won the race every year from 1999 to 2005. Cycling's governing body ruled that his stripped wins would not be handed to other riders, so those Tours have no winner.

Which Pixar film, the top earner of 2010, was the first animated feature to gross $1 billion worldwide?

Toy Story 3 passed the $1 billion mark on its seventy-first day in cinemas. It arrived 11 years after the previous film, with Andy grown up and about to leave for college.

Which fictional Indiana town, home to a secretive government lab, is the setting of Stranger Things?

Hawkins is described as the town where nothing ever happens. Experiments at its laboratory then tear open a portal to a hostile mirror world the children call the Upside Down.

Which fictional African kingdom, enriched by a meteorite of vibranium, is the home of Marvel's Black Panther?

Wakanda first appeared in a Fantastic Four comic in 1966, created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. It reached cinemas in Captain America: Civil War, two years before the 2018 Black Panther film.

Which boy band was assembled from five solo contestants on the British X Factor in 2010?

One Direction's members had each auditioned alone, and judges Simon Cowell and Nicole Scherzinger both later claimed the idea of grouping them. Harry Styles came up with the name.

Which American gymnast won four gold medals at the 2016 Olympics as part of a team nicknamed the Final Five?

Simone Biles first tried gymnastics at age six, on a day-care field trip. Her four golds set an American record for a woman gymnast at a single Games.

Which Nintendo console, launched in March 2017, can be docked to a television or carried as a handheld?

Switch was chosen as a name for the way the console flips between handheld and home play. Its two Joy-Con controllers work as halves of one pad or as separate controllers for two players.

Which Mexican director won back-to-back Best Director Oscars for Birdman and The Revenant in the mid-2010s?

Alejandro Iñárritu was only the third director to win the award in consecutive years, after John Ford and Joseph Mankiewicz. Birdman also brought him Oscars for writing and producing.

In 2015, Elizabeth II overtook which ancestor to become Britain's longest-reigning monarch?

Victoria was her great-great-grandmother. Elizabeth II spent the record-breaking day at work, opening the new Borders Railway in Scotland.

Which schoolgirl activist, shot by the Taliban in 2012, became the youngest Nobel laureate two years later?

Malala Yousafzai was 11 when she began blogging for BBC Urdu about life under the Taliban. She shared the 2014 Peace Prize, at 17, with Kailash Satyarthi of India.

Which colt ended US horse racing's 37-year wait for a Triple Crown winner at the 2015 Belmont Stakes?

American Pharoah led from start to finish at Belmont, the first horse to complete the treble since Affirmed in 1978. The odd spelling of his name was an accident that became permanent.

Which voice assistant, bought by Apple as a stand-alone app, was built into the iPhone 4S in October 2011?

Siri began as a spin-off from an artificial intelligence project at the research institute SRI International. Its speech recognition came from Nuance, which neither company confirmed until 2013.

Which mockumentary sitcom about three related households won five Outstanding Comedy Series Emmys in the 2010s?

Modern Family was turned down by NBC, which already had two mockumentary comedies on air and did not want a third. Its two creators had both worked on Frasier.

Which actress played the archer Katniss Everdeen across the four Hunger Games films of 2012 to 2015?

Jennifer Lawrence's heroine volunteers to take her little sister's place in a yearly fight to the death. Author Suzanne Collins named her after a plant whose Latin name shares its roots with Sagittarius.

In 2013, which German-born pope became the first to resign the papacy in almost six centuries?

Benedict XVI cited his advanced age and took the title pope emeritus. The last pope to step down before him was Gregory XII in 1415.

In 2013, who became the first British man to win the Wimbledon singles title since Fred Perry in 1936?

Andy Murray beat Novak Djokovic in straight sets in a final lasting over three hours. A year earlier, at the US Open, he had become the first British man since Perry to win a Grand Slam singles title.

Which app, launched by Stanford students in 2011 as Picaboo, was built around photos that disappear?

Snapchat took its present name two months after launch. Reggie Brown, who brought the idea to the others and was pushed out within months, later settled with his co-founders for $157.5 million.

Which Christopher Nolan film of 2010 ends on a spinning top that would show whether the hero is dreaming?

Inception has its hero walk off to join his children before he sees whether the top falls: it would spin forever only in a dream. The film won four Oscars.

Which former Massachusetts governor did Barack Obama defeat to win a second term as president in 2012?

Mitt Romney won 206 electoral votes to Obama's 332, with Wisconsin congressman Paul Ryan as his running mate. He had lost the Republican nomination to John McCain four years earlier.

Which blockchain platform, conceived by programmer Vitalik Buterin, went live in 2015 after a crowdfunded build?

Ethereum lets anyone deploy applications that anyone else can then use, with ether as its own coin. A 2022 upgrade to the way it confirms transactions cut its energy use by more than 99%.

Which fictional detective did Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss bring into the present day for a BBC series?

Sherlock Holmes was updated by two fans of the original stories, with Martin Freeman as an army doctor back from Afghanistan. Co-creator Gatiss also plays the detective's elder brother, Mycroft.

Which New Zealand teenager spent nine weeks atop the US Hot 100 in 2013 with the single Royals?

Lorde was born Ella Yelich-O'Connor in an Auckland suburb, the daughter of a poet and a civil engineer. Her first album, Pure Heroine, came out the same year.

Which David Fincher film of 2010, written by Aaron Sorkin, dramatised the founding of Facebook at Harvard?

The Social Network drew on Ben Mezrich's book The Accidental Billionaires. It won three Oscars, for its screenplay, its score and its editing.

Which stammering British king did Colin Firth play in The King's Speech, the Best Picture winner for 2010?

George VI turned to Lionel Logue, an Australian speech therapist played by Geoffrey Rush, to cope with his stammer. The film earned 12 Oscar nominations, more than any other that year.

In a 2010 ESPN special called The Decision, LeBron James announced he was joining which NBA team?

Miami Heat fans got the news from a show whose format grew out of a reader's letter to ESPN columnist Bill Simmons. NBA commissioner David Stern tried to have the broadcast cancelled.

Which Caribbean nation was devastated in January 2010 by a magnitude 7.0 earthquake centred near Léogâne?

Haiti lost its Presidential Palace, its National Assembly building and the cathedral of its capital, Port-au-Prince. Estimates of the death toll start at 100,000.

Which veteran cookery writer judged The Great British Bake Off from its 2010 launch until it left the BBC?

Mary Berry chose to leave when the show moved to Channel 4 after its seventh series, while fellow judge Paul Hollywood stayed on. She had been the first judge the producers picked.

Which boy band became the first South Korean act to top the US Billboard 200 album chart, in 2018?

BTS is short for Bangtan Sonyeondan, which translates literally as Bulletproof Boy Scouts. The chart-topping album was Love Yourself: Tear.

In The Walking Dead, which sheriff's deputy wakes from a coma to find the world overrun by the undead?

Rick Grimes is played by Andrew Lincoln, who prepared by studying Gary Cooper in the western High Noon. Rick's coma follows a gunshot wound from a shootout with an escaped convict.

Which 2010 animated film introduced the Minions as henchmen of Gru, a supervillain plotting to steal the Moon?

Despicable Me was the first feature film from Illumination Entertainment, with Steve Carell as the voice of Gru. The idea began as a pitch about a lead character with a villain's traits.

Which smartwatch, funded in 2012 by Kickstarter's biggest campaign to that date, later sold its assets to Fitbit?

Pebble met its $100,000 goal within two hours and had raised more than $4.7 million inside six days. Its watches showed phone notifications on an e-paper screen.

Which Broadway star, who first played Elphaba in Wicked, went on to voice the ice queen Elsa in Frozen?

Idina Menzel won a Tony for Wicked, having first reached Broadway in Rent. As a teenager she had earned money singing at weddings and bar mitzvahs.

Which English country house, seat of the Earls of Carnarvon, plays the title role in the ITV drama Downton Abbey?

Highclere Castle sits in a park laid out by Capability Brown in the 1770s, when a whole village was moved to make room. During the First World War it became a hospital for the wounded.

In 2018, ByteDance merged which Shanghai-based lip-sync app, bought a year earlier, into TikTok?

Musical.ly found its niche after its makers noticed downloads spiking on Thursday nights, during the TV show Lip Sync Battle. By mid-2015 it had millions of users, who called themselves musers.

In 2010, who became the first woman to win the Best Director Oscar, beating her ex-husband James Cameron?

Kathryn Bigelow won for the war drama The Hurt Locker, weeks after becoming the first woman to take the Directors Guild's top prize. Cameron had been nominated for Avatar.

Which 2011 protest movement, first called for by the magazine Adbusters, began with a camp in Zuccotti Park?

Occupy Wall Street held the park for almost two months before its campers were forced out that November. Its best-known slogan set the wealthiest 1% against everyone else.

Which craft toy, invented by a Nissan crash-test engineer, has children looping rubber bands into bracelets?

Rainbow Loom came to Cheong Choon Ng after he watched his young daughters making rubber-band bracelets. By September 2014 his company had sold more than 8 million of the pegboard kits.

Which Nobel Peace laureate was freed in November 2010 after most of two decades under house arrest?

Aung San Suu Kyi had helped found Burma's National League for Democracy in 1988 and was first confined the following year. Her husband saw her only five times after that, the last in 1995.

Which comedy did Phoebe Waller-Bridge adapt from her one-woman Edinburgh Fringe show, winning her three Emmys in 2019?

Fleabag never gives its heroine a real name, and most of the other main characters go unnamed too. Andrew Scott joined the cast for the second series.

Which actress played the young Elizabeth II in the first two seasons of the Netflix drama The Crown?

Claire Foy gave up the part after two seasons because the producers recast every continuing role with older actors as the timeline moved on. She had earlier played Anne Boleyn in Wolf Hall.

Which rapper's album Damn won the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for Music, the first winner from outside classical and jazz?

Kendrick Lamar had seen the album enter the US chart at number one the year before. Its single Humble gave him his first Hot 100 chart-topper as a lead artist.

Which Canadian city hosted the 2010 Winter Olympics, where Sidney Crosby's overtime goal won hockey gold?

Vancouver had won the right to host by just three votes, 56 to 53, over Pyeongchang. Crosby's winner came against the United States in the gold medal game.