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50 free 1988 trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This 1988 trivia quiz covers the last full year of the Cold War, when the Soviets left Afghanistan, Estonia declared sovereignty and a Jamaican bobsled team turned up in Calgary. Expect questions on the Seoul Olympics and the fastest drug test in history, Iran Air 655, Piper Alpha, Lockerbie, the Morris worm, Bush versus Dukakis, Benazir Bhutto and Pinochet's lost plebiscite. Culture rounds cover Rain Man, Die Hard, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Kirk Gibson's home run, Doug Williams' Super Bowl, the year's Nobel Prizes, the deaths of Roy Orbison, Enzo Ferrari and Richard Feynman, and the babies of 1988, from Adele and Rihanna to Stephen Curry. Early rounds suit anyone who lived through it; later rounds reward real year-by-year buffs. Every answer was checked against encyclopaedia entries before publishing.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which Canadian city hosted the 1988 Winter Olympics?
Calgary
Host nation Canada failed to win a single official gold medal, just as it had at Montreal in 1976.
Q 02Which city hosted the 1988 Summer Olympics?
Seoul
They were the last Games for the Soviet Union and East Germany, which topped the medal table in first and second.
Q 03What was the name of the Soviet economic restructuring program formally launched on January 1, 1988?
Perestroika
In July the party also voted to end its own monopoly on economic power.
Q 04In February 1988, Nagorno-Karabakh voted to leave which Soviet republic and join Armenia?
Azerbaijan
The vote triggered the First Nagorno-Karabakh War and, within days, the Sumgait pogrom.
Q 05In which city did the first McDonald's in a Communist-run country open on March 24, 1988?
Belgrade
Budapest followed, and Moscow and Shenzhen opened in 1990.
Q 06Where did an SAS team shoot dead three unarmed IRA members in Operation Flavius on March 6, 1988?
Gibraltar
Their funerals in Belfast were then attacked by loyalist Michael Stone, and two soldiers were killed at the next funeral.
Q 07What happened to Aloha Airlines Flight 243 on April 28, 1988?
It lost its roof in midair
The plane landed safely; one flight attendant was killed and 65 people injured.
Q 08Which Australian city hosted World Expo 88, which opened on April 30?
Brisbane
The year was Australia's bicentenary, marked in January by a re-enactment of the First Fleet's arrival.
Q 09Which country's president, François Mitterrand, was re-elected for seven years on May 8, 1988?
France
The same month, the Soviet Army began pulling out of Afghanistan after more than eight years of war.
Q 10From which country did the Soviet Army begin withdrawing on May 15, 1988?
Afghanistan
The Geneva Accords signed in April had committed Moscow to the pullout after more than eight years of fighting.
Q 11Which arms agreement was finalized at the Reagan-Gorbachev Moscow Summit in mid-1988?
The INF Treaty
The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty eliminated a whole class of missiles.
Q 12Which country won the UEFA Euro 1988 tournament hosted by West Germany?
Netherlands
It remains the Dutch team's only major international title.
Q 13Which NASA scientist told the US Senate in June 1988 that human-made global warming had begun?
James Hansen
His June 23 testimony made him one of the first scientists to warn Congress of the problem.
Q 21Which country's aerobatic team was involved in the Ramstein air show disaster on August 28, 1988?
Italy
Three Frecce Tricolori jets collided and one crashed into the crowd, killing 70 people.
Q 22Which hurricane devastated the Caribbean and Mexico's Yucatán Peninsula in September 1988?
Gilbert
It caused an estimated $5 billion in damage after tearing across the region on September 12.
Q 23Which town did the IOC choose on September 15, 1988, to host the 1994 Winter Olympics?
Lillehammer
The 1994 Games were the first held two years after the previous Winter Olympics, breaking the four-year cycle.
Q 14Which US warship shot down Iran Air Flight 655 on July 3, 1988?
USS Vincennes
All 290 people on board were killed; the Roberts had struck an Iranian mine in the Gulf in April.
Q 15How many oil workers died when the Piper Alpha platform exploded in the North Sea on July 6, 1988?
165
Two rescue mariners also died and only 61 workers survived.
Q 16The Fatih Sultan Mehmet Bridge, completed in July 1988, gave which city a second crossing between Europe and Asia?
Istanbul
It spans the Bosphorus alongside the original 1973 bridge.
Q 17In which country did the 8888 Uprising against the government take place on August 8, 1988?
Burma
Thousands of protesters were killed in the country now known as Myanmar.
Q 18Which organization's founding followed a meeting of jihadi leaders including Osama bin Laden on August 11, 1988?
Al-Qaeda
The meeting came as the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan was under way.
Q 19Which Pakistani president was killed in a plane crash near Bahawalpur on August 17, 1988?
Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq
The US ambassador to Pakistan died in the same crash, and elections went ahead in November regardless.
Q 20Which war effectively ended with a ceasefire on August 20, 1988?
The Iran-Iraq War
An estimated one million lives were lost over eight years of fighting.
Q 24Which Space Shuttle returned NASA to flight on September 29, 1988, after the Challenger disaster?
Discovery
The mission was designated STS-26 and ended a grounding of more than two and a half years.
Q 25Which dictator lost a national plebiscite on his rule on October 5, 1988?
Augusto Pinochet
He relinquished power in Chile in 1990; Brazil promulgated a new constitution the same day.
Q 26Which team upset the Oakland Athletics to win the 1988 World Series?
Los Angeles Dodgers
Kirk Gibson's hobbling pinch-hit home run won Game 1, and Orel Hershiser was named MVP.
Q 27Which pitcher set the all-time scoreless innings streak at 59 in 1988 and was named World Series MVP?
Orel Hershiser
He also won the Cy Young and a Gold Glove that year and shut out the Mets in Game 7 of the NLCS.
Q 28From which institution was the Morris worm, the first Internet worm, launched in November 1988?
MIT
Its author, Robert Tappan Morris, became the first person convicted under the US Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.
Q 29Whom did George H. W. Bush defeat in the November 1988 US presidential election?
Michael Dukakis
The losing candidate was the sitting governor of Massachusetts.
Q 30Which Soviet space shuttle made its only orbital flight on November 15, 1988?
Buran
It flew uncrewed atop an Energia rocket and never launched again.