110 Fun Facts About Guess the Year

In which year did the Berlin Wall fall?

1989: the Wall came down on 9 November during the Peaceful Revolution, after a botched press briefing sent crowds to the crossings and the guards gave way.

In which year did the Titanic sink?

1912: she struck an iceberg on her maiden voyage from Southampton to New York and sank in the early hours of 15 April.

In which year was the first iPhone released?

2007: Steve Jobs unveiled it on 9 January as three devices in one, an iPod, a phone and an internet communicator, and it went on sale in June.

In which year did Apollo 11 land the first humans on the Moon?

1969: with the computer steering Eagle toward a boulder field, Armstrong took over and flew past it, landing on 20 July with under a minute of fuel left.

In which year did reactor 4 explode at the Chernobyl nuclear plant?

1986: reactor 4 exploded on 26 April during a botched safety test, near the town of Pripyat in what is now Ukraine.

In which year did King John seal Magna Carta at Runnymede?

1215: the 'Great Charter' was sealed on 15 June at Runnymede, near Windsor, and King John soon persuaded the Pope to annul it.

In which year did Christopher Columbus make his first voyage across the Atlantic?

1492: when he landed in the Bahamas on 12 October, Columbus believed he had reached the East Indies near Asia.

In which year was the Bastille stormed in Paris?

1789: the 14 July attack on the fortress-prison became France's national day, Bastille Day, commemorated from 1880 onward.

In which year was the Battle of Hastings fought?

1066: William of Normandy beat Harold Godwinson on 14 October and the Norman Conquest of England began.

In which year was the United States Declaration of Independence adopted?

1776: Congress adopted the text on 4 July, ordered the engrossed copy on 19 July, and most delegates signed it on 2 August.

In which year did the Wright Flyer make the first sustained powered flight?

1903: Wilbur won a coin toss for the first try on 14 December but stalled, so Orville made the first successful flight three days later.

In which year was Facebook founded?

2004: Mark Zuckerberg launched it from Harvard on 4 February as TheFacebook, and at first only Harvard students could join.

In which year was Google founded?

1998: Larry Page and Sergey Brin first built the search engine in their Stanford dorm rooms as BackRub, then incorporated Google in a Menlo Park garage.

In which year did the First World War begin?

1914: Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia on 28 July, a month after Gavrilo Princip shot Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo.

In which year did Japan attack Pearl Harbor?

1941: the surprise raid on the US Pacific Fleet at Oahu came on 7 December, and the United States declared war on Japan the next day.

In which year did Nazi Germany's surrender bring the war in Europe to an end?

1945: General Alfred Jodl signed Germany's unconditional surrender at Reims on 7 May, and VE Day was celebrated the next day.

In which year was Nelson Mandela released from prison?

1990: President F. W. de Klerk freed him on 11 February after 27 years, having unbanned the ANC nine days earlier.

In which year did euro coins and banknotes enter circulation?

2002: the euro had existed as an accounting currency since 1999; the notes and coins arrived on 1 January and had replaced the old currencies by the end of February.

In which year was the Great Fire of London?

1666: it burned from Sunday 2 to Wednesday 5 September, starting in Thomas Farriner's bakery on Pudding Lane and gutting the medieval City.

In which year did William Shakespeare die?

1616: he died on 23 April, traditionally also his birthday, aged 52, and was buried in Holy Trinity Church, Stratford-upon-Avon.

In which year was the Battle of Waterloo?

1815: fought on Sunday 18 June near a village then in the United Kingdom of the Netherlands and now in Belgium, it was Napoleon's last battle.

In which year did the Wall Street Crash begin?

1929: prices on the New York Stock Exchange collapsed in late October, with Black Thursday on the 24th and Black Tuesday on the 29th, ushering in the Great Depression.

In which year was President John F. Kennedy assassinated?

1963: he was shot in Dallas on 22 November, and two days later his accused assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, was himself shot dead by Jack Ruby.

In which year was the Eiffel Tower completed?

1889: Gustave Eiffel's company finished it in March after just over two years' work, in time for that year's Exposition Universelle.

In which year was the Statue of Liberty dedicated?

1886: President Grover Cleveland dedicated it on 28 October, and its hidden iron framework was designed by Gustave Eiffel.

In which year did the Suez Canal officially open?

1869: Britain had opposed the French-led canal, then bought Egypt's shares in it six years after it opened.

In which year did Krakatoa erupt catastrophically?

1883: the climactic eruption in the Sunda Strait came on 26-27 August, after months of activity from May, and its tsunamis killed tens of thousands.

In which year did Mount Vesuvius bury Pompeii?

AD 79: the eruption buried Pompeii and Herculaneum under ash and pyroclastic flows; Pliny the Younger's two letters to Tacitus describe it.

In which year was Julius Caesar assassinated?

44 BC: he was stabbed on the Ides of March, 15 March, by a group of senators at the Curia of Pompey in Rome.

In which year were the first modern Olympic Games held, in Athens?

1896: the Games of the I Olympiad ran from 6 to 15 April in Athens, revived by Pierre de Coubertin's International Olympic Committee.

In which year did New Zealand become the first self-governing country to give women the vote?

1893: the Electoral Act got royal assent on 19 September and women voted in the general election that November.

In which year did production of the Ford Model T begin?

1908: the first one left Detroit's Piquette Avenue Plant on 27 September, and Ford's moving assembly line later cut its build time from over 12 hours to about 90 minutes.

In which year did Prohibition begin in the United States?

1920: the country went dry on 17 January when the Volstead Act took effect, and stayed that way until repeal in 1933.

In which year did Alexander Fleming discover penicillin?

1928: back from holiday, Fleming found a stray Penicillium mould on a staphylococcus plate at St Mary's Hospital, London, and saw that the bacteria around it had died.

In which year was Hong Kong handed over from Britain to China?

1997: the handover came at midnight on 1 July, under terms set by the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration.

In which year was the first Star Wars film released?

1977: it opened in only a small number of US cinemas on 25 May and became a surprise blockbuster.

In which year did MTV launch?

1981: it went on air at 12:01 am on 1 August, opening with Video Killed the Radio Star by the Buggles.

In which year was Amazon founded?

1994: Jeff Bezos incorporated it on 5 July as an online bookshop in Bellevue, Washington, briefly calling it Cadabra.

In which year was the bitcoin network created?

2009: Satoshi Nakamoto mined the first block on 3 January and embedded a Times headline in it: 'Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks'.

In which year did the United Kingdom vote to leave the European Union?

2016: Leave won 51.9% on 23 June, and Prime Minister David Cameron, who had campaigned to Remain, announced the next day that he would step down.

In which year did the WHO first declare a coronavirus outbreak a pandemic?

2020: the WHO declared COVID-19 a pandemic on 11 March, and Director-General Tedros said it was the first pandemic caused by a coronavirus.

In which year was Barack Obama first elected president?

2008: Obama beat John McCain on 4 November after defeating Hillary Clinton in a long primary race, then chose her as his secretary of state.

In which year did Paul McCartney publicly announce he had left the Beatles?

1970: McCartney announced his departure on 10 April, a month before Let It Be came out, after Brian Epstein's death and years of strain had split the band.

In which year did the United States buy the Louisiana Territory from France?

1803: the purchase treaty was signed in Paris on 30 April and the formal cession came on 20 December, three weeks after Spain handed the territory back to France.

In which year was the Battle of Trafalgar?

1805: Nelson's fleet met the combined French and Spanish navies on 21 October during the War of the Third Coalition, and Nelson died in the victory.

In which year was Abraham Lincoln shot at Ford's Theatre?

1865: John Wilkes Booth shot him on 14 April, six weeks into his second term and five days after Lee's surrender at Appomattox.

In which year did the Hindenburg airship burn at Lakehurst, New Jersey?

1937: radio reporter Herbert Morrison was recording a routine arrival report when the airship caught fire, and his cry 'Oh, the humanity!' became famous.

In which year did the so-called Spanish flu pandemic begin?

1918: the first well-documented cases came in March at Camp Funston, a US Army camp in Kansas; the name came from Spain's uncensored wartime press.

In which year did the Russian Revolution begin?

1917: it opened with the February Revolution, which toppled Nicholas II in March by the Western calendar, and ended with the Bolshevik seizure of power in November.

In which year did Canadian Confederation create the Dominion of Canada?

1867: on 1 July the British North America Act united the Province of Canada, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick into a dominion of four provinces.

In which year did the Australian colonies federate as the Commonwealth of Australia?

1901: the constitution came into force on 1 January, and Edmund Barton, the interim prime minister, won the first federal election that March.

In which year was the first Super Bowl played?

1967: the Packers beat the Chiefs 35-10 at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum on 15 January in what was billed as the AFL-NFL World Championship Game.

In which year did Microsoft release Windows XP to retail?

2001: it went on sale on 25 October and put home and business PCs on the same Windows NT foundation, ending the old MS-DOS-based consumer line.

In which year did Ernő Rubik invent the Rubik's Cube?

1974: Ernő Rubik, a Hungarian sculptor and professor of architecture, built the first prototype and applied for a Hungarian patent the next year.

In which year was Pac-Man released in arcades?

1980: Namco released it in Japan on 22 May as Puck Man; Midway brought it to North America later that year under the Pac-Man name.

In which year was the Soviet Union formally dissolved?

1991: the Soviet Union ceased to exist as a sovereign state on 26 December, the day after Gorbachev resigned as its president.

In which year did the Peace of Westphalia end the Thirty Years' War?

1648: the treaties signed at Osnabrück and Münster on 24 October ended the Thirty Years' War, which had begun with the Defenestration of Prague in 1618.

In which year was Newton's Principia first published?

1687: it appeared on 5 July, with the imprimatur of Samuel Pepys as president of the Royal Society; two corrected editions followed in Newton's lifetime.

In which year was Darwin's On the Origin of Species published?

1859: John Murray printed 1,250 copies, and booksellers took up every available one at his trade sale on 22 November, two days before publication.

In which year did Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay first reach the summit of Everest?

1953: Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay reached the summit on 29 May, and the news reached London on the morning of Elizabeth II's coronation.

In which year did Australian soldiers armed with Lewis guns wage the Great Emu War on crop-raiding birds?

In 1932 the army fired 9,860 rounds for 986 confirmed kills, exactly ten bullets per emu by the commander's own report. The cull targeted emus damaging farmland in Western Australia's Wheatbelt.

In which year did a burst tank send a 35 mph wave of molasses through Boston's North End?

In 1919 the Great Molasses Flood killed 21 people, and residents said the neighbourhood still smelled of molasses on hot summer days for decades.

In which year did England win the World Cup at Wembley, with a Geoff Hurst hat-trick against West Germany?

In 1966 the Jules Rimet trophy had been stolen from an exhibition before the tournament, and it was recovered by a dog named Pickles.

In which year did Vincenzo Peruggia steal the Mona Lisa from the Louvre, believing it belonged in Italy?

In 1911 police even questioned Pablo Picasso over the theft, while the real thief kept the painting in his apartment for two years.

In which year did the International Astronomical Union redefine the word planet, demoting Pluto?

In 2006 astronomers ruled that a planet must have cleared the neighbourhood around its orbit, which Pluto has not, so it became a dwarf planet.

In which year did Orson Welles's radio play The War of the Worlds make some listeners fear a Martian invasion?

In 1938 the play went out on the night before Halloween in the style of news bulletins, and Welles apologised at a hastily called news conference the next morning.

In which year did the Sons of Liberty throw a shipment of East India Company tea into Boston Harbor?

In 1773 the protesters boarded the merchant ship Dartmouth disguised as American Indians, on the night of December 16. The Boston Tea Party pushed Britain and its colonies toward war.

In which year was Guy Fawkes caught guarding 36 barrels of gunpowder beneath the House of Lords?

In 1605 an anonymous letter to Lord Monteagle tipped off the authorities, who searched the building the night before Parliament was due to open.

In which year did Howard Carter and Lord Carnarvon open the tomb of Tutankhamun in the Valley of the Kings?

In 1922 the find caused a press sensation, and when Carnarvon died of an infection soon afterwards, talk of a pharaoh's curse began.

In which year did Yuri Gagarin become the first human in orbit, circling Earth once aboard Vostok 1?

In 1961 the whole flight took just 108 minutes from launch to landing, after lifting off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome on 12 April.

In which year did Philip II of Spain send the Spanish Armada against the England of Elizabeth I?

In 1588 the fleet sailed from Lisbon under the Duke of Medina Sidonia, an aristocrat chosen by the king. Many of its ships were wrecked off Scotland and Ireland on the way home.

In which year did Sultan Mehmed II capture Constantinople after a 53-day siege, ending the Byzantine Empire?

In 1453 huge Ottoman cannons hurled stone balls to breach the Theodosian walls, and Mehmed made the city his new capital in place of Adrianople.

In which year did the Salem witch trials begin in colonial Massachusetts, leading to nineteen hangings?

In 1692 more than 200 people were accused, and one man, Giles Corey, died under torture for refusing to enter a plea.

In which year did the Mayflower carry 102 passengers across the Atlantic to found Plymouth Colony?

In 1620 the Pilgrims had planned to sail in two ships, but the Speedwell proved unseaworthy and was left behind in England.

In which year did Martin Luther write his Ninety-five Theses attacking the sale of indulgences in Germany?

In 1517 Luther was a professor of moral theology at the University of Wittenberg, and he sent the theses to Archbishop Albert of Brandenburg on 31 October.

In which year did Victoria become queen at 18, on the death of her uncle William IV?

In 1837 Victoria began a reign of 63 years, longer than that of any British monarch before her, which gave its name to the Victorian era.

In which year did James Marshall find gold at Sutter's Mill, setting off the California Gold Rush?

In 1848 the news began drawing some 300,000 people to California, and the peak year of arrivals gave the fortune-seekers the nickname forty-niners.

In which year did the bombardment of Fort Sumter in South Carolina begin the American Civil War?

In 1861 the Union garrison held out for 34 hours before agreeing to evacuate, and nobody on either side died in the bombardment itself.

In which year did the Jack the Ripper murders terrorise the Whitechapel district of Victorian London?

In 1888 one letter sent to the head of a local vigilance committee came with half a preserved human kidney, and the murders were never solved.

In which year did a magnitude 7.9 earthquake and days of fires destroy most of San Francisco?

In 1906 the quake struck at 5:12 in the morning, and up to 300,000 of the city's roughly 410,000 residents were left homeless.

In which year did the general Odoacer depose Romulus Augustulus, usually counted as the last Western Roman emperor?

In 476 Odoacer chose not to proclaim a successor, so the end of that ten-month reign is treated as the end of the Western Roman Empire.

In which year did Pope Leo III crown Charlemagne emperor of the Romans in St. Peter's Basilica?

In 800 the coronation took place on Christmas Day, and it made Charlemagne the forerunner of the long line of Holy Roman Emperors.

In which year did twelve Genoese galleys carry the Black Death to Sicily, beginning its sweep across Europe?

In 1347 the plague began a spread that killed up to 50 million people, between 30% and 60% of Europe's population.

In which year did Frau Troffea start a dancing plague in Strasbourg that drew in up to 400 people?

In 1518 the dancing went on from July to September, and one modern theory blames ergot, a toxic fungus that grows on the rye used for bread.

In which year did Dutch tulip mania collapse, after bulbs fetched ten times a skilled artisan's yearly income?

In 1637 the market fell apart in February, after the priciest tulip, the Semper Augustus, had fetched 10,000 guilders at the peak.

In which year did Napoleon's Grande Armée cross the Neman River to invade Russia, then retreat from Moscow?

In 1812 the invasion began on 24 June, and by December only the remnants of the main armies recrossed the frozen Neman.

In which year did the Great Stink of the River Thames force Parliament to soak its curtains in lime chloride?

In 1858 the summer stench pushed the authorities to accept Joseph Bazalgette's plan for sewers that carried London's waste east, beyond the city.

In which year was Alexander Graham Bell awarded the first United States patent for the telephone?

In 1876 Bell's rival Elisha Gray filed a patent caveat on the very morning Bell's lawyer filed his application, and who arrived first is still debated.

In which year did Charles Lindbergh fly the Spirit of St. Louis nonstop and alone from New York to Paris?

In 1927 the flight took 33 hours and 30 minutes and won Lindbergh the $25,000 Orteig Prize for the first nonstop trip between the two cities.

In which year did Allied troops storm the beaches of Normandy on D-Day in history's largest seaborne invasion?

In 1944 poor weather delayed the landings by 24 hours, and a further postponement would have meant waiting at least two weeks for the right moon and tides.

In which year did India gain independence from Britain as Jawaharlal Nehru became its first prime minister?

In 1947 Nehru marked the handover with a midnight speech to the Constituent Assembly, and 15 August is still celebrated as Independence Day.

In which year did Disneyland open in Anaheim, the only park built under Walt Disney's direct supervision?

In 1955 the park was dedicated in a televised press event on ABC, on a site that had been 160 acres of orange groves and walnut trees.

In which year did the 13-day Cuban Missile Crisis bring the superpowers close to nuclear war?

In 1962 the standoff ran from 16 to 28 October, and it led to a nuclear hotline being set up between the United States and the Soviet Union.

In which year, during Britain's Regency, did a burst vat of porter cause the deadly London Beer Flood?

In 1814 the wave of beer killed eight people, five of them mourners at a wake for a two-year-old boy. The vat at Meux's Horse Shoe Brewery stood 22 feet tall.

In which year was Martin Luther King Jr. fatally shot at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee?

In 1968 King had come to Memphis during a strike by the city's sanitation workers, and his killer was arrested two months later at London's Heathrow Airport.

In which year were burglars tied to Richard Nixon's re-election campaign caught inside the Watergate complex?

In 1972 the intruders were planting listening devices in the Democratic National Committee's headquarters, which brought the FBI into the case.

In which year did Margaret Thatcher become the first woman to serve as prime minister of the United Kingdom?

In 1979 Thatcher took office on 4 May, and a Soviet journalist's nickname for her, the Iron Lady, became part of her public image.

In which year did three former PayPal employees found YouTube, later sold to Google for $1.65 billion?

In 2005 the site's first video, Me at the zoo, showed co-founder Jawed Karim at the San Diego Zoo, and it can still be watched there.

In which year did a fire destroy the wooden spire and most of the roof of Notre-Dame de Paris?

In 2019 the blaze began in the roof space, where much of the timber was 13th-century oak sheathed in lead to keep out water.

In which year did Elizabeth II die at Balmoral Castle, ending the longest reign of any British monarch?

In 2022 the Queen died at the age of 96, after a reign that had lasted 70 years and 214 days.

In which year did Elvis Presley release Heartbreak Hotel, his first single for the RCA Victor label?

In 1956 the single topped the Billboard Top 100 for seven weeks, after co-writer Mae Boren Axton had presented the song to Presley at a Nashville convention.

In which year did the Beatles first play The Ed Sullivan Show, watched by more than 73 million viewers?

In 1964 the broadcast set a record for American television, drawing more than three times the show's usual audience of about 21 million.

In which year did Pink Floyd release The Dark Side of the Moon, with a prism on its sleeve?

In 1973 the album began sales that passed 45 million copies, making it the best-selling album of its decade. It was recorded at the studios now called Abbey Road.

In which year did Queen release Bohemian Rhapsody, the nearly six-minute single from A Night at the Opera?

In 1975 the song became the UK Christmas number one and held the top of the chart for nine weeks.

In which year did Michael Jackson release Thriller, the album that went on to win eight Grammy Awards?

In 1982 Thriller came out on November 29, and little more than a year later it had become the best-selling album of all time.

In which year did Bob Geldof and Midge Ure stage the Live Aid concerts in London and Philadelphia?

In 1985 an estimated 1.9 billion people in 150 nations watched the broadcast, which raised money for famine relief in Ethiopia.

In which year did the Spice Girls release their debut single Wannabe, which topped the charts in 37 countries?

In 1996 Wannabe was released on 26 June, and it went on to become the best-selling single by a girl group.

In which year did Shawn Fanning and Sean Parker launch the music file-sharing service Napster?

In 1999 Napster launched in June, and it lasted only about two years before lawsuits alleging copyright infringement shut it down.

In which year did Adele release 21, the album that topped record charts in more than 30 countries?

In 2011 the album spent 23 weeks at the top of the UK Albums Chart and was the world's best-selling album of the year.

In which year did South Korean singer Psy release Gangnam Style, whose dance video went viral worldwide?

In 2012 the song came out on July 15, and its horse-riding dance was chosen only after Psy had tested panda and kangaroo moves.