80 Fun Facts About 2024

Which party won the July 2024 UK general election in a landslide?

Labour, led by Keir Starmer, won more than 400 seats on about 34% of the vote, less than five years after sinking to its fewest seats since 1935.

Who was Donald Trump's running mate on the winning ticket in the November 2024 US presidential election?

JD Vance had been an outspoken critic who called himself a 'never Trump guy' in 2016, then apologised for those remarks when he ran for the Senate in Ohio.

Near which Pennsylvania town did Donald Trump survive an assassination attempt on July 13, 2024?

Trump was grazed by a bullet at a rally at the Butler Farm Show grounds in Butler, Pennsylvania; the gunman, Thomas Crooks, was killed by a Secret Service sniper, and spectator Corey Comperatore died.

On how many felony counts was Donald Trump convicted in New York on May 30, 2024?

34: a Manhattan jury found Trump guilty on every count of falsifying business records over a hush-money payment to Stormy Daniels, but his sentence was an unconditional discharge, with no jail term or fine.

Which country elected Claudia Sheinbaum as its first woman president in 2024?

Mexico: her main rival, Xóchitl Gálvez, was also a woman, so the two front-runners made a first female president all but certain before a vote was cast.

Which prime minister won a third consecutive term in June 2024 but had to lead a coalition for the first time?

Narendra Modi campaigned on a slogan promising more than 400 seats, but his BJP won only 240, short of the 272 needed to govern alone.

Which country's president, Bashar al-Assad, fled to Moscow as his regime fell in December 2024?

Syria: rebels led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham swept from Idlib to Damascus in under two weeks, ending more than five decades of rule by the Assad family.

What did South Korean president Yoon Suk Yeol declare on TV on 3 December 2024, triggering impeachment proceedings?

Yoon declared martial law late on 3 December 2024, accusing the opposition of anti-state activity; the National Assembly voted it down within hours, and he was impeached on 14 December.

The president of which country, Ebrahim Raisi, died in a helicopter crash on 19 May 2024?

Iran: Raisi's helicopter came down in fog in the mountains of East Azerbaijan province, hours after he had opened a dam on the border with Azerbaijan's president.

Which country formally became NATO's 32nd member on 7 March 2024?

Sweden joined once Hungary, the last holdout, ratified its bid, ending more than 200 years of military non-alignment dating back to the Napoleonic Wars.

What celestial event swept across North America on April 8, 2024?

A total solar eclipse: because the Moon was closer to Earth than during the 2017 eclipse, the path of totality was far wider and darkness lasted up to 4 minutes 28 seconds.

In which US city did the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse on March 26, 2024, after the ship Dali struck it?

The Key Bridge carried Baltimore's I-695 beltway over the Patapsco River; the Singapore-flagged container ship Dali lost power and hit a pier, and six road workers were killed.

A faulty update from which cybersecurity company crashed 8.5 million Windows computers on 19 July 2024?

CrowdStrike's faulty Falcon Sensor update took down airlines, hospitals and broadcasters in what has been called the largest outage in IT history.

Which September 2024 Big Bend hurricane became the deadliest to hit the US mainland since Katrina?

Hurricane Helene came ashore near Perry, Florida on 26 September 2024 as a Category 4 with 140 mph winds, then caused catastrophic flooding in the Carolinas; its death toll passed 200.

Which October storm, 2024's strongest cyclone worldwide at 180 mph, hit Florida's west coast?

Hurricane Milton exploded into a 180 mph Category 5 over the Gulf, then weakened to a Category 3 before coming ashore near Siesta Key on 9 October.

In which country did a magnitude 7.5 earthquake strike the Noto Peninsula on New Year's Day 2024?

Japan: the next day a coast guard plane setting off with aid for the quake zone collided with a landing airliner at Tokyo's Haneda airport, yet all 379 people on the jet escaped.

Which part of Notre-Dame was destroyed in the 2019 fire and rebuilt before the cathedral reopened in December 2024?

The spire: the 19th-century wooden flèche collapsed through the burning roof, while the bell towers, the rose windows and the great organ all survived; a faithful copy now stands in its place.

The 2024 Nobel Peace Prize went to Nihon Hidankyo, a Japanese organisation of survivors of what?

The Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings: its members, known as hibakusha, were honoured for witness testimony showing that nuclear weapons must never be used again.

Which South Korean novelist became the first Asian woman to win the Nobel Prize in Literature, in 2024?

Han Kang was born in Gwangju and moved away at nine, months before the army's 1980 massacre of protesters there, which she later confronted in her novel Human Acts.

Hopfield and Hinton won the 2024 Nobel Prize in Physics for work in which field?

Machine learning: Geoffrey Hinton, often called the godfather of AI, had quit his job at a tech giant in 2023 so that he could speak freely about the dangers of the technology he helped create.

Hassabis and Jumper won the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for using AI to predict the structure of what?

Proteins: their AlphaFold2 model solved a 50-year-old problem, predicting the shapes of nearly all 200 million known proteins, and more than two million people have since used it.

Which Russian opposition leader died on 16 February 2024 in an Arctic penal colony?

Alexei Navalny had survived a nerve-agent poisoning in 2020, then flew home from Germany to Moscow the next year knowing he faced arrest, and was detained on arrival.

Which former US president died on December 29, 2024, having become the first to reach the age of 100?

Jimmy Carter died at home in Plains, Georgia, aged 100, the first US president to reach the century; he had turned 100 on 1 October 2024 and voted in the November election.

Which former One Direction singer died after a balcony fall in Buenos Aires in October 2024?

Liam Payne, 31, died after falling from a third-floor hotel balcony; his four former One Direction bandmates came together for his funeral in England the following month.

Which producer of Michael Jackson's Thriller died on November 3, 2024, aged 91?

Quincy Jones also produced the 1985 charity single We Are the World, taping a sign to the studio door that told its dozens of stars to check their egos at the door.

Which creator of Dragon Ball died on March 1, 2024, aged 68?

Akira Toriyama based Dragon Ball loosely on the Chinese classic Journey to the West, turning its Monkey King, Sun Wukong, into his hero Son Goku.

Which Dame, Downton's Dowager Countess and Hogwarts' Professor McGonagall, died on 27 September 2024?

Maggie Smith credited her long career to never having been 'a dish': as a character actor, she said, she simply aged into playing mothers and then grandmothers.

Which actor, the voice of Darth Vader and Mufasa, died on September 9, 2024?

James Earl Jones stuttered so badly as a boy that he barely spoke for years, until a high-school teacher had him recite his own poem aloud to the class.

Which country topped the Paris 2024 Olympic medal table for a fourth straight Summer Games, with 40 golds?

United States: for the first time at a Summer Games two nations tied on golds, 40 each, so the table was settled on silver medals, 44 to 27.

Which French swimmer won four individual golds at the Paris 2024 Olympics?

Leon Marchand won two of them, the 200 m butterfly and 200 m breaststroke, on the same evening, after organisers reshuffled the schedule to give him a chance at the double.

Which pole vaulter won gold at Paris 2024 and then cleared a world-record 6.25 m?

Armand Duplantis had already secured gold when he had the bar raised to a world-record 6.25 m, clearing it on his third and final attempt.

Who won the Paris 2024 men's 100 m by five thousandths of a second over Jamaica's Kishane Thompson?

Noah Lyles trailed for almost the whole race and won a photo finish, 9.784 to 9.789, so close that the American TV commentator first called Thompson the winner.

Which Dutch runner won the Paris 2024 women's marathon after 5,000 m and 10,000 m bronzes the same week?

Sifan Hassan outsprinted Ethiopia's Tigst Assefa after the two clashed on the final bend, and kept the gold when an Ethiopian protest was rejected.

Boxer Cindy Ngamba won a bronze in Paris that was the first-ever medal for which delegation?

Refugee Olympic Team: born in Cameroon, Ngamba lives and trains in Britain, but without British citizenship she could not box for Team GB and fought as a refugee instead.

Who sang 'Hymne a l'amour' from the Eiffel Tower to close the Paris 2024 opening ceremony?

Celine Dion sang Edith Piaf's anthem from the tower's first level, her first performance since a diagnosis of stiff-person syndrome forced her out of the spotlight in December 2022.

Which nation won Euro 2024 in Germany, beating England 2-1 in the final for a record fourth title?

Spain beat England 2-1 in Berlin with Mikel Oyarzabal's 86th-minute winner for a record fourth European title; they had also knocked out hosts Germany in the quarter-finals.

Which 16-year-old became the youngest player ever to score at a European Championship in 2024?

Lamine Yamal turned 17 the day before the final; a 2007 charity-calendar photo that resurfaced during the tournament shows him as a baby being bathed by a young Lionel Messi.

Which team won a record 16th Copa America in July 2024, beating Colombia 1-0 after extra time?

Argentina won a record 16th Copa America with Lautaro Martinez's extra-time goal against Colombia at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami, where kick-off was delayed more than an hour by a crush of ticketless fans.

Which team lost Super Bowl LVIII to the Chiefs 25-22 in only the second Super Bowl overtime?

The San Francisco 49ers led 10-0 before losing 25-22 to the Chiefs on Mecole Hardman's touchdown catch in overtime, a rematch of Super Bowl LIV four years earlier.

Which team won its first Stanley Cup in 2024, beating Edmonton in seven after nearly blowing a 3-0 lead?

Florida Panthers: Edmonton became the first team since 1945 to force a seventh game in the Final from 3-0 down, lost it 2-1, and still saw captain Connor McDavid named playoff MVP.

Who became the first MLB player to hit 50 home runs and steal 50 bases in one season, in 2024?

Shohei Ohtani reached 50-50 in a single game in Miami, going 6-for-6 with three home runs, two steals and 10 runs batted in, in a year when an elbow injury kept him from pitching.

Which team did unbeaten India beat by seven runs in the 2024 Men's T20 World Cup final?

South Africa had also reached the final unbeaten, their first World Cup final in any format, but finished seven runs short of India's 176.

Who beat Novak Djokovic in straight sets to retain the 2024 Wimbledon men's title?

Carlos Alcaraz beat Djokovic in the final for the second year running, weeks after a knee injury had forced the Serb to pull out of the French Open.

Which Italian won his first two Grand Slam titles in 2024, at the Australian Open and the US Open?

Jannik Sinner grew up in the Dolomites as a national junior champion in giant slalom and only gave up ski racing for tennis at about 13.

Which club won a record 15th Champions League in 2024, beating Dortmund 2-0 at Wembley?

Real Madrid broke the deadlock in the 74th minute when Dani Carvajal headed in a Toni Kroos corner, and Vinicius Junior added the second nine minutes later.

Which club became the first to go through an entire Bundesliga season unbeaten, in 2023-24?

Bayer Leverkusen went 51 games unbeaten in all competitions under Xabi Alonso before their only defeat of the season, 3-0 to Italy's Atalanta in a European cup final.

Which driver clinched his fourth consecutive Formula One world title at the 2024 Las Vegas Grand Prix?

Max Verstappen finished fifth in Las Vegas to clinch a fourth straight title; he had won seven of the first ten races, then only two of the remaining 14 as McLaren and Ferrari caught up.

Which 18-year-old beat Ding Liren in 2024 to become the youngest undisputed world chess champion?

Gukesh Dommaraju, 18, won the 14-game match in Singapore 7.5-6.5 after Ding Liren blundered in the final game; he had become a grandmaster at 12 years 7 months.

Which team drafted Caitlin Clark first overall in the 2024 WNBA draft?

Indiana Fever: with Clark aboard, the team drew 340,715 home fans, a WNBA single-season record that beat a mark New York had held since 2001.

Which cyclist did the first Giro-Tour double since 1998 in 2024, then added the world title?

Tadej Pogacar took the world title in Zurich by attacking 100 km from the finish, joining Eddy Merckx and Stephen Roche as the only men to win the Giro, Tour and Worlds in one year.

Which spacecraft's eight-day 2024 test left Butch Wilmore and Sunita Williams stuck on the ISS for nine months?

Boeing Starliner's thruster problems meant they finally came home in March 2025 on a SpaceX Crew-9 capsule that had launched with two empty seats.

NASA's largest interplanetary spacecraft, a 'clipper' launched in October 2024, is headed for which moon of Jupiter?

Europa: from 2031 the probe will make 49 close flybys of the icy moon to judge whether the ocean thought to lie beneath its crust could support life.

Which country returned the first samples ever collected from the Moon's far side in June 2024?

China's Chang'e 6 landed in the vast South Pole-Aitken basin; scientists hope its rocks will explain why the far side, unlike the face we see, has almost no dark lava plains.

What did the crew of the Polaris Dawn mission accomplish in September 2024?

The first commercial spacewalk: because Crew Dragon has no airlock, the whole cabin was opened to space, exposing all four crew to vacuum while two took turns standing in the hatch.

What did SpaceX first do with a returning Starship booster in October 2024?

Caught it with two mechanical arms: the 'chopsticks' on the launch tower closed around the 71-metre booster as it hovered back at its own launch pad.

Which Intuitive Machines lander made the first commercial soft Moon landing in February 2024?

Odysseus, Intuitive Machines' IM-1 lander, touched down near the lunar south pole on 22 February 2024, the first US Moon landing since Apollo 17, but tipped onto its side and shut down for good a week later.

Which hurricane became the earliest Category 5 Atlantic storm on record in early July 2024?

Beryl reached Category 5 on 2 July 2024, the earliest on record, after devastating Carriacou and Union Island; it went on to hit Texas near Matagorda as a Category 1.

Which disease did the WHO declare a public health emergency of international concern on 14 August 2024?

Mpox: a new strain, clade Ib, was spreading fast from the Democratic Republic of the Congo into neighbouring countries, prompting the WHO's second mpox emergency in two years.

Which chipmaker became the world's most valuable company on June 18, 2024?

Nvidia's market value reached about $3.34 trillion, edging past Microsoft, after demand for its AI chips sent the stock up more than ninefold in 18 months.

Which Apple headset went on sale in the US on February 2, 2024?

Vision Pro: Apple billed it as a 'spatial computer' and told developers not to describe their apps for it as virtual or augmented reality.

Which milestone price did bitcoin pass for the first time in December 2024?

$100,000: bitcoin crossed the mark in December 2024, weeks after Donald Trump's election win and his promise to make the US the 'crypto capital of the planet'.

A law signed by President Biden in April 2024 required which app to be sold or banned in the US?

TikTok briefly vanished from app stores in January 2025 before enforcement was delayed by executive order.

A US federal judge ruled in August 2024 that which tech giant was an illegal monopolist?

Google: Judge Amit Mehta found it had kept its grip on online search illegally by paying billions of dollars a year to be the default search engine on phones and browsers.

What blew out of a Boeing 737 MAX 9 on Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 in January 2024?

A door plug covering an unused emergency exit blew out minutes after take-off from Portland; investigators found the four bolts securing it had never been reinstalled after work at Boeing's Renton factory.

At the February 2024 Grammys, who became the first artist to win Album of the Year four times?

Taylor Swift's Midnights took the prize, following Fearless, 1989 and Folklore; she used her earlier Best Pop Vocal Album speech to announce The Tortured Poets Department.

Which Miley Cyrus single won Record of the Year at the 2024 Grammys?

Flowers won Record of the Year and Best Pop Solo Performance, the first Grammys of Miley Cyrus's career; performing it that night, she broke off mid-song to shout that she had just won her first Grammy.

Which country won the Eurovision Song Contest 2024 with Nemo's song 'The Code'?

Switzerland's Nemo won in Malmo as the contest's first non-binary winner; 'The Code' ran away with the jury vote, but Croatia won the public televote.

Where did Julian Assange plead guilty in June 2024 under the deal that freed him?

Assange pleaded guilty to one espionage charge in the federal court in Saipan, Northern Mariana Islands, chosen so he need not set foot on the US mainland before flying home to Australia a free man.

Who became Ireland's youngest ever Taoiseach at 37 in April 2024?

Simon Harris, Fine Gael's new leader, succeeded Leo Varadkar, who had announced his resignation unexpectedly in March 2024; at 37 he was the youngest Taoiseach, and he handed over to Micheal Martin in January 2025.

Which French prime minister lost a no-confidence vote in December 2024, the first to fall that way since 1962?

Michel Barnier, the EU's former Brexit negotiator, was voted out on 4 December 2024 after forcing a social security budget through without a vote; he had been prime minister for only three months.

Which Kenyan marathon world-record holder died in a car crash in February 2024?

Kelvin Kiptum, 24, died with his coach days after his 2:00:35 from Chicago was ratified as the world record; he had been training to attack the two-hour barrier in Rotterdam that April.

Which tennis great ended his career playing for his country at the 2024 Davis Cup Finals?

Rafael Nadal lost his farewell singles 6-4 6-4 to Botic van de Zandschulp in Malaga, and the hosts went out to the Netherlands before he could play again; Andy Murray had bowed out at the Paris Olympics.

Which film won seven Academy Awards at the March 2024 ceremony, including Best Picture?

Oppenheimer took seven awards, including Best Director and both male acting prizes; Barbie, which had beaten it at the box office in the 'Barbenheimer' summer, won a single Oscar, for Best Original Song.

In which city did the Eras Tour play its final show on 8 December 2024?

Vancouver's BC Place staged the last of the tour's 149 shows; Canada had been left off the first schedule, and Justin Trudeau publicly asked for dates before Toronto and Vancouver were added.

Which producer made the beat for Kendrick Lamar's 2024 Drake diss track "Not Like Us"?

Mustard built the beat, with touches from Sounwave; at his Juneteenth 'Pop Out' concert in Los Angeles, Kendrick Lamar performed 'Not Like Us' five times in a row.

How did Joe Biden first announce in July 2024 that he was quitting the presidential race?

A letter on X, posted on Sunday 21 July, said he would stand down, weeks after a faltering debate; about half an hour later he endorsed his vice-president, and his Oval Office address followed three days on.

Sheikh Hasina resigned as prime minister of which country in August 2024 and fled by helicopter to India?

Sheikh Hasina fled Dhaka for India on 5 August 2024 after weeks of student-led protests over job quotas, ending fifteen years as Bangladesh's prime minister; Muhammad Yunus then led an interim government.

Which platform streamed the November 2024 Jake Paul-Mike Tyson fight, peaking at 65 million concurrent streams?

Netflix streamed the bout live from AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, where Paul beat the 58-year-old Tyson by unanimous decision; the company reported 65 million concurrent streams despite widespread buffering.

Which 2024 sequel ended 2024 as the highest-grossing animated film of all time?

Inside Out 2 took $1.699 billion worldwide, Pixar's biggest hit, and held the all-time animated record only until Ne Zha 2 passed it in February 2025.

Beyoncé's Cowboy Carter is framed as a radio broadcast hosted by Dolly Parton, Linda Martell and which singer?

Willie Nelson hosts the 'Smoke Hour' interludes on the album's fictional Texas radio station; Beyonce said it grew out of a time she 'did not feel welcomed' in country music, and it won Album of the Year.