60 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 announced it on 9 January and it went on sale in the US on 29 June.

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

1969: Apollo 11, the fifth crewed Apollo mission, flew from 16 to 24 July, with Armstrong and Aldrin landing on 20 July.

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 in the meadow at Runnymede, near Windsor, and annulled by the Pope within weeks.

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

1492: he sailed from Palos on 3 August and reached the Bahamas on 12 October; he made four voyages in all, the last ending in 1504.

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: the flights at Kitty Hawk on 17 December were the first by a manned, powered, controlled heavier-than-air aircraft.

In which year was Facebook founded?

2004: Mark Zuckerberg launched it from Harvard on 4 February with Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Moskovitz and Chris Hughes.

In which year was Google founded?

1998: Larry Page and Sergey Brin, then Stanford PhD students, incorporated the company on 4 September in a Menlo Park garage.

In which year did the First World War begin?

It ran from 28 July until the armistice of 11 November 1918.

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: VE Day was 8 May; after the Reims signing on 7 May, the definitive surrender document was signed that night in Karlshorst, Berlin.

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 Friday 22 November while riding in a motorcade through Dealey Plaza.

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: the dedication took place on 28 October, with President Grover Cleveland presiding; the statue was a gift from the people of France.

In which year did the Suez Canal officially open?

1869: after ten years of digging under Ferdinand de Lesseps, the canal opened with a ceremony on 17 November attended by Empress Eugénie.

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 the Piquette Avenue Plant in Detroit on 27 September; production ran until 1927.

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: he found it in September as a crude extract of a Penicillium mould growing on a neglected culture plate at St Mary's Hospital, London.

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 fewer than 40 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 genesis block on 3 January, months after publishing the white paper.

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

2016: the referendum was held on Thursday 23 June in the UK and Gibraltar, with Leave winning 51.9% of the vote.

In which year did the WHO declare COVID-19 a pandemic?

2020: the WHO declared a public health emergency on 30 January and characterised the outbreak as a pandemic on 11 March.

In which year was Barack Obama first elected president?

2008: the election was held on 4 November, Obama beating John McCain, who had secured the Republican nomination by March.

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: the disaster on 6 May came at the start of the airship's second season of transatlantic service, on its first North American flight of the year.

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 95 to retail?

1995: it hit shops on 24 August after being released to manufacturing on 14 July, launched with a Rolling Stones 'Start Me Up' campaign.

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 that spring 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: it came out on 24 November from John Murray, and the first printing of 1,250 copies was fully taken up by booksellers on publication day.

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.