70 Fun Facts About 2010s

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

Abbottabad is a garrison city north of Islamabad; bin Laden's compound stood roughly a mile from the Pakistan Military Academy. The Navy SEAL raid was codenamed Operation Neptune Spear.

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

All 33 miners were winched out one at a time on 13 October 2010, 69 days after the 5 August collapse, with an estimated billion people watching live.

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

Fénix means phoenix; the Fénix 2 capsule was just 54 centimetres across.

What maximum rating did the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi accident receive on the International Nuclear Event Scale?

Only Chernobyl in 1986 had previously been rated a Level 7 major accident.

In the June 2016 referendum, what share of UK voters chose to leave the European Union?

Leave took 51.9% of the vote, about 17.4 million ballots, against 48.1% for Remain; David Cameron, who had called the referendum, announced his resignation the next morning.

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 of roughly 36 and 29 solar masses merged to produce GW150914, detected on 14 September 2015 and announced in February 2016, confirming a prediction Einstein made in 1916.

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

New Horizons passed about 12,500 km above Pluto's surface on 14 July 2015, nine and a half years after launch, and went on to fly by the Kuiper Belt object Arrokoth on 1 January 2019.

NASA's Curiosity rover, lowered by a 'sky crane', landed in which Martian crater in 2012?

Gale crater, with the 5-km-high Mount Sharp at its centre, received Curiosity on 6 August 2012; the sky-crane descent stage lowered the car-sized rover on a tether, then flew off to crash.

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.

The cruise ship Costa Concordia capsized in January 2012 after striking rocks off which Italian island?

Giglio, a small Tuscan island, is where the Costa Concordia struck rocks on 13 January 2012; 32 people died, and Captain Francesco Schettino was later 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 lost its nineteenth-century spire shortly before 8 pm that evening; it reopened in December 2024 after a five-year rebuild.

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

It raised more than $115 million for ALS research in 2014 alone, and helped fund the discovery of a gene linked to the disease.

Which company developed Pokémon Go, launched in July 2016?

Niantic, spun out of Google in 2015, developed the game for The Pokémon Company; it passed $600 million in revenue within about 90 days of launch, faster than any mobile game before it.

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 and no revenue when Facebook struck the deal; it passed a billion monthly users in 2018.

What was the starting price of the original iPad when it went on sale in April 2010?

The 16 GB Wi-Fi model cost $499; Steve Jobs had unveiled the iPad on January 27, 2010, and Apple sold about 300,000 on the April 3 launch day.

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

Gangnam Style, Psy's horse-dance hit released in July 2012, passed a billion views on 21 December 2012, barely five months later, and was YouTube's most-viewed video until 2017.

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

London had already staged the Games twice, most recently in 1948; the 2012 opening ceremony, directed by Danny Boyle, was held on 27 July, and the United States topped the medal table.

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?

Bookmakers had priced Leicester at 5000-1 in August 2015; Claudio Ranieri's side clinched the title on 2 May 2016 when Tottenham drew 2-2 at Chelsea.

The Chicago Cubs won the 2016 World Series, their first title since which year?

The Cubs' previous championship came in 1908, a 108-year drought; the deciding seventh game in Cleveland went to ten innings after a 17-minute rain delay, and Ben Zobrist's go-ahead double helped win it by one run.

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

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 took the 100 m and 200 m at the 2008, 2012 and 2016 Games; his 9.58-second 100 m world record from Berlin in 2009 remained unbroken through the decade.

Prince died on April 21, 2016, at which Minnesota 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; the retailer sold out within 30 minutes of the viral post and later auctioned a one-off white-and-gold version for charity.

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 western lowland gorilla on 28 May 2016 after a three-year-old climbed into the Gorilla World enclosure; Harambe became one of the year's biggest memes.

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 a forum user for about $25, were what Hanyecz got; the 10,000 BTC were worth around $41 at the time, and enthusiasts mark May 22 as Bitcoin Pizza Day.

Greta Thunberg sailed across the Atlantic to a UN climate summit in August 2019 aboard which racing yacht?

Malizia II, a 60-foot IMOCA racing yacht skippered by Boris Herrmann, carried her from Plymouth to New York in about two weeks; she had begun her school strike a year earlier, at 15.

Who designed Catherine Middleton's dress for her 2011 wedding to Prince William?

The gown was by Sarah Burton for McQueen: Burton, creative director of Alexander McQueen, kept the commission secret until the day, and the lace bodice worked in the rose, thistle, daffodil and shamrock of the four UK nations.

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

Sandy came ashore near Brigantine, New Jersey, just north of Atlantic City, as a post-tropical cyclone; its tropical-storm-force winds spanned about 1,150 miles, and the surge flooded New York's subway tunnels.

The 2013–16 Ebola epidemic began with a toddler's death in which West African country?

Emile Ouamouno, about 18 months old, died in Méliandou, a village in southern Guinea, in December 2013; the epidemic spread to Liberia and Sierra Leone and killed about 11,300 people.

Muammar Gaddafi, Libya's ruler since 1969, was captured and killed in 2011 in which city?

Sirte was Gaddafi's home town; on 20 October 2011 NATO airstrikes stopped his convoy as it tried to flee the city, and rebel fighters found him hiding in a drainage pipe.

Which toy, built around a central ball bearing and weighted lobes, became a global craze in 2017?

Fidget spinner sales peaked in spring 2017, when the gadgets filled most of Amazon's top-20 toy list; schools banned them within months, and the fad had faded before the year was out.

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?

Miranda read it on holiday from In the Heights; the show won 11 Tonys from a record 16 nominations and the Pulitzer Prize for Drama.

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

Avengers: Endgame overtook Avatar's $2.79 billion total in July 2019, helped by a June re-release with bonus footage, and finished at about $2.8 billion; Avatar reclaimed the record after a 2021 re-release in China.

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

Hans Christian Andersen published The Snow Queen in 1844; Disney's loose adaptation won Oscars for Best Animated Feature and Best Original Song ('Let It Go') and grossed about $1.28 billion.

How many consecutive weeks did 'Old Town Road' spend at No. 1 on the Hot 100 in 2019?

Lil Nas X's song held No. 1 for 19 weeks, from April to August 2019, breaking the 16-week record; Billboard had removed it from the country chart for not embracing enough elements of country music.

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

Her age when she made it gave the album its title, just as her debut had been named for her age; 21 was released in January 2011 and passed 30 million copies worldwide.

Game of Thrones ended in May 2019 with how many Primetime Emmy Awards, a record for a drama?

Its 59 Primetime Emmys, the most won by any scripted series at the time, included four for Outstanding Drama Series; the show had premiered on HBO on April 17, 2011.

Who directed Star Wars: The Force Awakens?

J. J. Abrams directed and co-wrote it with Lawrence Kasdan and Michael Arndt; released in December 2015, it grossed $2.07 billion worldwide and became the highest-grossing film ever in the US and Canada.

Parasite (2019) was the first film to win the Best Picture Oscar despite what?

Not being in English was no bar: Bong Joon-ho's Korean-language film was the first non-English-language Best Picture winner, took four Oscars in all, and briefly made the noodle dish ram-don a global craving.

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

A Tesla Roadster, Elon Musk's own 2008 car, rode into a heliocentric orbit with a spacesuited mannequin called Starman at the wheel and a copy of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy in the glovebox.

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 cloud closed the airspace of about 20 countries between 15 and 20 April 2010, stranding some 10 million travellers and cancelling over 100,000 flights.

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

The Gulf of Mexico took an estimated 4.9 million barrels of crude after the rig exploded on 20 April 2010 off Louisiana; eleven workers died, and BP's Macondo well leaked for 87 days.

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 closed the $2.5 billion deal on 6 November 2014, announced that September; Markus 'Notch' Persson left the company he had founded, 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 used the TrueDepth camera's projected dots to map the user's face; the iPhone X's $999 starting price was the highest for an iPhone at launch up to then, and its notch was widely copied.

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

St George's Chapel, Windsor, inside Windsor Castle, hosted the service; Bishop Michael Curry's 14-minute sermon and the Kingdom Choir's 'Stand by Me' were the talking points, and 29 million Americans watched.

By how many votes did Hillary Clinton win the 2016 popular vote?

About 2.9 million more votes went to Clinton (65.9 million to 63.0 million), yet Trump carried Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin by fewer than 80,000 votes combined to win the Electoral College 304-227.

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

The Grammy Awards were held the next night; she was 48, and had been due at Clive Davis's pre-Grammy party at the same Beverly Hilton that evening.

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

Newton and Darwin flank him: 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, the children's brand of Seoul-based SmartStudy, uploaded the video in June 2016; it overtook Despacito in November 2020 and in January 2022 became the first video to reach 10 billion views.

In March 2014 Russia annexed which peninsula from 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), an elliptical 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 still took six awards that night, and Damien Chazelle became the youngest Best Director winner at 32.

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's Mira Hotel is where he met Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras in June 2013; after the US revoked his passport he flew on to Moscow and was stranded for weeks in Sheremetyevo airport before Russia granted asylum.

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

The 11.5 million documents reached the Süddeutsche Zeitung from an anonymous source known only as "John Doe".

What deficit did the Patriots overcome to beat the Falcons in overtime in Super Bowl LI?

Atlanta led 28–3 in the third quarter before New England scored 31 unanswered points to win 34–28, the largest comeback in Super Bowl history and the first Super Bowl decided in overtime.

The June 2018 Trump–Kim summit took place at the Capella Hotel on which Singapore island?

Sentosa, the resort island just south of Singapore's main island, hosted the 12 June 2018 meeting at the Capella Hotel, the first ever between sitting leaders of North Korea and the United States.

By what vote did the US Supreme Court guarantee same-sex marriage in Obergefell v. Hodges (2015)?

The ruling required all 50 states to perform and recognise same-sex marriages under the Fourteenth Amendment.