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97 free The 1990s trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
78 free The 1990s trivia questions with answers. The internet was born, grunge ruled the airwaves, and everyone wanted a Beanie Baby. The 1990s were a wild ride of cultural shifts, technological breakthroughs, and unforgettable moments. How much do you remember?
30 of 97 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which 1994 sitcom followed six twentysomethings in Manhattan and became one of the decade's most-watched shows?
Friends
Friends premiered on NBC on September 22, 1994, and ran for 10 seasons. The show followed Rachel, Monica, Phoebe, Joey, Chandler, and Ross through their lives in Manhattan.
Q 02Kurt Cobain was the lead singer of which iconic grunge band?
Nirvana
Kurt Cobain fronted Nirvana, whose 1991 album Nevermind and its hit single "Smells Like Teen Spirit" are credited with bringing grunge into the mainstream.
Q 03What was the name of the virtual pet toy from Japan that became a worldwide craze in 1997?
Tamagotchi
The Tamagotchi was created by Bandai and released in Japan in 1996, then worldwide in 1997. The small egg-shaped device let users care for a virtual pet.
Q 04Which 1997 James Cameron film became the highest-grossing movie of all time, a record it held until 2010?
Titanic
Titanic earned over $1.84 billion worldwide upon its initial release, making it the first film to gross over $1 billion. Avatar surpassed it in 2010.
Q 05What phrase did AOL users hear when they successfully connected to the internet?
"You've got mail"
AOL's "You've got mail" greeting was recorded by Elwood Edwards in 1989 on a cassette deck in his own living room, and it lent its name to the 1998 Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan film.
Q 06Which basketball legend led the Chicago Bulls to six NBA championships during the 1990s?
Michael Jordan
Michael Jordan led the Chicago Bulls to two three-peats: 1991-1993 and 1996-1998. He is widely considered the greatest basketball player of all time.
Q 07Which U.S. President was impeached by the House of Representatives in December 1998?
Bill Clinton
Bill Clinton was impeached on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice related to the Monica Lewinsky scandal. He was acquitted by the Senate in February 1999.
Q 08What collectible plush toys, made by Ty Inc., caused a massive buying frenzy in the late 1990s?
Beanie Babies
Beanie Babies became one of the biggest fads of the 1990s. Ty Inc. created artificial scarcity by retiring certain designs, leading to a speculative market where some were valued at thousands of dollars.
Q 09Steven Spielberg directed which 1993 dinosaur blockbuster based on a Michael Crichton novel?
Jurassic Park
Jurassic Park was released on June 11, 1993, and became the highest-grossing film at that time with $914 million worldwide. Its groundbreaking CGI dinosaurs revolutionized visual effects.
Q 10Because of two-digit year storage, the Y2K bug meant computers could mistake 2000 for which year?
1900
With years stored as two digits, '00' could be read as 1900 instead of 2000. The global fix was estimated at $400-600 billion, and the quiet rollover is credited to years of pre-emptive work by programmers.
Q 11Which rapper, whose 1996 double album All Eyez on Me went Diamond, was fatally shot near Las Vegas that September?
Tupac Shakur
Tupac Shakur was shot on September 7, 1996, in Paradise, Nevada, after attending the Bruce Seldon vs. Mike Tyson fight at the MGM Grand, and died six days later.
Q 12Which British royal died in a car crash in Paris on August 31, 1997?
Princess Diana
Diana, Princess of Wales, died in a car crash in the Pont de l'Alma tunnel in Paris. Her funeral was watched by an estimated 2.5 billion people worldwide, making it one of the most-watched events in television history.
Q 13What was the name of the first widely used web browser, released in 1993?
Mosaic
Q 21Which 1998 Tiger Electronics toy seemed to learn English the longer you owned it?
Furby
The Furby spoke only 'Furbish' out of the box and slipped in more English over time; more than 40 million sold in the three years after its 1998 debut.
Q 22In which 1999 film does Keanu Reeves swallow a red pill and wake up in a mechanical pod?
The Matrix
The Matrix (1999), written and directed by the Wachowskis, popularized the slow-motion "bullet time" effect, in which the camera appears to move at normal speed while the action crawls.
Q 23The Soviet Union officially dissolved on December 25 of which year?
1991
The Soviet Union was formally dissolved on December 25, 1991, when Mikhail Gorbachev resigned as president. This ended the Cold War and led to the independence of 15 former Soviet republics.
Mosaic, developed at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA), was released in 1993 and is credited as the first browser to display images inline with text, making the web accessible to ordinary users.
Q 14In the 1990s TV show "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air," who played the title character?
Will Smith
Will Smith starred as a fictionalized version of himself in The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, which ran on NBC from 1990 to 1996. The show launched his acting career.
Q 15Which Nintendo handheld, released in 1989, dominated portable gaming in the 1990s?
Game Boy
Nintendo's Game Boy, launched in 1989, was the decade's best-selling handheld; Game Boy and Game Boy Color together sold about 118 million units, and Tetris, bundled with it in North America and Europe, was its killer app.
Q 16Which 1990s boy band sang "I Want It That Way"?
Backstreet Boys
The Backstreet Boys released "I Want It That Way" in 1999 as part of their album Millennium. It reached number one in over 25 countries and remains one of the most iconic pop songs of the decade.
Q 17What verdict did the jury deliver in the O.J. Simpson murder trial on October 3, 1995?
Not guilty
The jury found Simpson not guilty of both murders on October 3, 1995. An estimated 100 million people watched or listened; long-distance call volume fell 58 percent and NYSE trading dropped 41 percent while it was read.
Q 18Oversized plaid shirts of which fabric became the unofficial uniform of early-1990s grunge?
Flannel
Flannel shirts, cheap Pacific Northwest workwear worn loose and open over T-shirts, became the grunge signature once Seattle bands like Nirvana and Pearl Jam wore them, and the look spread from skaters into mainstream stores.
Q 19Which golfer won the 1997 Masters at 21 by a record 12 strokes?
Tiger Woods
Tiger Woods won the 1997 Masters with a score of 18-under par, finishing 12 strokes ahead of runner-up Tom Kite. He was 21 years old and became the first person of African or Asian heritage to win a major golf championship.
Q 20At midnight on 1 July 1997, the United Kingdom handed which territory over to China?
Hong Kong
Hong Kong returned under the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration, in which China pledged to keep "one country, two systems" for 50 years; Macau followed from Portugal in December 1999.
Q 24Which snug neck accessory, often plastic in the late 1990s, was worn by stars like Gwyneth Paltrow?
Choker
The look is ancient: Sumerian artisans crafted golden chokers around 2500 BC, and Paltrow wore one to the 1999 Academy Awards.
Q 25Whose single-season record of 61 home runs did Mark McGwire break in 1998?
Roger Maris
Roger Maris set the single-season home run record of 61 in 1961. McGwire broke it on September 8, 1998, in a race with Sammy Sosa that captivated the nation. The record was later broken by Barry Bonds with 73 in 2001.
Q 26Which Japanese franchise, conceived by Satoshi Tajiri, began with two handheld RPGs in February 1996?
Pokemon
Pokemon Red and Green, released in Japan on February 27, 1996, were sleeper hits before spawning manga, a trading card game, an anime and films, and reached North America as Red and Blue in 1998.
Q 27Which search engine, founded by Larry Page and Sergey Brin at Stanford University, launched in 1998?
Google was founded on September 4, 1998, by Larry Page and Sergey Brin. It quickly distinguished itself from competitors with its PageRank algorithm, which ranked search results by the number and quality of links pointing to each page.
Q 28Which Seinfeld character was known for sliding through Jerry's apartment door?
Cosmo Kramer
Cosmo Kramer, played by Michael Richards, was loosely based on Kenny Kramer, a real former neighbor of co-creator Larry David; Richards' bursting, sliding entrances became the show's signature running gag.
Q 29What nickname was given to the 1992 US Olympic men's basketball squad, the first with active NBA players?
The Dream Team
The Dream Team won gold in Barcelona in 1992, beating opponents by an average of 44 points, after FIBA voted in 1989 to admit professionals to the Olympics.
Q 30Who bombed the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City on April 19, 1995?
Timothy McVeigh
Timothy McVeigh detonated a truck bomb outside the federal building, killing 168 people including 19 children, the deadliest terrorist attack on U.S. soil until September 11, 2001. He was executed in June 2001.