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This 2000s trivia quiz splits its 134 free questions with answers between the pop culture everyone remembers and the history that shaped the decade. On the culture side: the iPod, MySpace before Facebook, YouTube's founding, Eminem and Britney, The Da Vinci Code, Hybrid Theory, The Sopranos, Survivor, SpongeBob, Avatar and the Wii. The 2000s history trivia questions and answers cover the war on terror, Saddam's fall and execution, the Madrid, London, Beslan and Mumbai attacks, the Indian Ocean tsunami and Katrina, the Kashmir and Sichuan earthquakes, SARS and swine flu, Concorde's last flight, the Columbia disaster, Pluto's demotion, the euro entering circulation, the Orange Revolution, the end of Yugoslavia, Obama's election and the Dow's 2007 peak before the crash. Early questions are for anyone who was there; the later ones will test people who read the news, so it works both as light trivia from the 2000s for a party and as a proper history round. Every answer was checked against a reference page and shows its source once you have answered. If you were born in the mid-1990s, this is the decade you grew up in, which makes it a ready-made round of trivia for 30 year olds and their birthday parties.
30 of 134 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What portable music player, introduced in 2001, changed how people listened to digital music?
iPod
The first-generation iPod was introduced by Apple in October 2001, offering '1,000 songs in your pocket' and revolutionizing portable digital music with its intuitive design and integration with iTunes.
Q 02Which fantasy film trilogy concluded its initial cinematic run in 2003?
The Lord of the Rings
The Return of the King won all 11 Oscars it was nominated for. Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings ran The Fellowship of the Ring (2001), The Two Towers (2002) and that finale in December 2003.
Q 03Which artist released the album 'The Marshall Mathers LP' in the year 2000?
Eminem
Eminem released his third studio album, 'The Marshall Mathers LP,' on May 23, 2000. It became one of the fastest-selling albums in history and included hit singles like 'The Real Slim Shady' and 'Stan.'
Q 04Which organization carried out the coordinated attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001?
al-Qaeda
Nineteen al-Qaeda hijackers seized four airliners; two struck the World Trade Center, one hit the Pentagon, and the fourth crashed in a Pennsylvania field after passengers fought back.
Q 05Which reality competition, with contestants isolated on an island, premiered in the US in 2000?
Survivor
The American version of 'Survivor' premiered on May 31, 2000, quickly becoming a cultural phenomenon and a leading example of the reality competition genre.
Q 06In what year was the social networking service Facebook originally launched?
2004
Facebook, initially known as 'TheFacebook,' was launched by Mark Zuckerberg from Harvard University on February 4, 2004, and quickly expanded beyond its college origins.
Q 07What Nintendo home video game console, known for its motion-sensing controllers, was released in 2006?
Wii
The Nintendo Wii, originally codenamed 'Revolution,' was released in November 2006 and gained immense popularity for its innovative motion-controlled gameplay.
Q 08Which film released in 2009 became the highest-grossing film of that year worldwide?
Avatar
James Cameron's 'Avatar' was released in late 2009 and quickly became the highest-grossing film worldwide of that year, eventually becoming the highest-grossing film of all time.
Q 09Which 2003 Dan Brown thriller features symbologist Robert Langdon?
The Da Vinci Code
Robert Langdon debuted in Angels & Demons, not here. The Da Vinci Code, published in March 2003, was Dan Brown's second Langdon novel and became one of the best-selling American novels of all time.
Q 10Which of these was the first full-length Pixar animated film released in the 2000s?
Monsters, Inc.
Pixar's 'Monsters, Inc.' premiered on October 28, 2001, making it the first full-length feature film from the studio released in the 2000s.
Q 11In what year did euro banknotes and coins first enter everyday circulation?
2002
The euro had existed as an accounting currency since 1999, but the notes and coins only arrived on 1 January 2002, and by March that year they had fully replaced the old national currencies.
Q 12Which 2000 Linkin Park debut album became one of the 21st century's best sellers?
Hybrid Theory
Hybrid Theory, released on October 24, 2000, was Linkin Park's debut album; it was later certified Diamond by the RIAA and carried the band to international fame.
Q 13Which 2005 hurricane was then the costliest natural disaster in U.S. history?
Katrina
Katrina struck in August 2005 and caused an estimated $125 billion in damage, much of it from the failure of the levees protecting New Orleans.
Q 21Which Nickelodeon cartoon set in Bikini Bottom became a 2000s cultural phenomenon?
SpongeBob SquarePants
Though it premiered in 1999, "SpongeBob SquarePants" exploded in popularity throughout the 2000s, becoming one of Nickelodeon's most iconic and successful cartoons.
Q 22Roughly how many people were killed by the tsunami from the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake?
230,000
The magnitude 9.1 earthquake off Sumatra on 26 December 2004 sent tsunamis across the Indian Ocean that killed roughly 230,000 people in 14 countries, with Indonesia's Aceh province hardest hit.
Q 23Saddam Hussein was executed on 30 December of which year?
2006
Q 14What was the 2001 opener of Peter Jackson's Middle-earth trilogy called?
The Fellowship of the Ring
"The Fellowship of the Ring" premiered in December 2001; all three films had already been shot back to back in New Zealand between 1999 and 2000.
Q 15Which social network, launched in 2003, dominated the mid-2000s before Facebook's rise?
MySpace
MySpace eventually bowed to its rival by integrating Facebook Connect, branded 'Mash Up with Facebook'. Launched in August 2003, it was the home of bands and teenagers before Facebook swept past it in the late 2000s.
Q 16Which HBO crime drama, premiering in 1999, is widely considered one of the greatest TV series ever?
The Sopranos
The Sopranos, which premiered on HBO in January 1999, followed the life of New Jersey mob boss Tony Soprano and is frequently cited by critics as one of the most influential and greatest TV series.
Q 17Whose second album, "Oops!... I Did It Again", arrived in May 2000?
Britney Spears
Out on May 3, 2000 via Jive Records, it shifted over 1.3 million US copies in its first week alone.
Q 18Which video-sharing site was founded in February 2005 by three former PayPal employees?
YouTube
YouTube was founded in February 2005 by ex-PayPal employees Chad Hurley, Steve Chen and Jawed Karim; Vimeo had launched in late 2004 but stayed a side project of its CollegeHumor developers.
Q 19Which company's December 2001 bankruptcy was the largest in U.S. history at the time?
Enron
Enron filed for bankruptcy on December 2, 2001, then the largest in U.S. history; the collapse also destroyed its auditor, one of the Big Five accounting firms, and WorldCom broke the record in July 2002.
Q 20Which film won Best Picture at the 73rd Academy Awards, held in March 2001?
Gladiator
The film "Gladiator," starring Russell Crowe, took home the top prize at the 73rd Academy Awards in 2001, alongside four other Oscars.
Saddam Hussein was hanged on 30 December 2006, after an Iraqi court sentenced him to death in November 2006 for the 1982 Dujail killings; he had been captured in December 2003.
Q 24Which country became the first in the world to fully legalise same-sex marriage, on 1 April 2001?
Netherlands
The Netherlands' same-sex marriage law took effect on 1 April 2001, the first in the world; Belgium followed in 2003, Canada nationwide in 2005 and the United States in 2015.
Q 25Which country's 2006 independence from Serbia dissolved the last remnant of Yugoslavia?
Montenegro
Montenegro voted for independence in a May 2006 referendum and declared it on 3 June 2006, dissolving the union of Serbia and Montenegro, the last remnant of Yugoslavia; Kosovo declared independence in 2008.
Q 26Which former Portuguese colony regained its independence from Indonesia in 2002?
East Timor
East Timor declared independence from Portugal in November 1975, was invaded by Indonesia days later, and finally became fully independent on 20 May 2002 after a 1999 UN-backed referendum.
Q 27Mass protests led by the Otpor! movement forced which leader to resign after a disputed election in 2000?
Slobodan Milošević
He was arrested in 2001 and sent to The Hague, where he died in his cell in 2006 before the trial ended.
Q 28The 2004 Orange Revolution followed a disputed presidential election in which country?
Ukraine
Ukraine's Orange Revolution erupted in November 2004 after a rigged runoff; a court-ordered revote gave Viktor Yushchenko the presidency over Viktor Yanukovych. Georgia had its Rose Revolution the year before.
Q 29Which pope was elected on 19 April 2005, seventeen days after the death of John Paul II?
Benedict XVI
Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was elected as Benedict XVI on 19 April 2005, succeeding John Paul II, who had died on 2 April after a papacy begun in 1978.
Q 30Who succeeded Vladimir Putin as president of Russia in 2008?
Dmitry Medvedev
Dmitry Medvedev was inaugurated as president on 7 May 2008, with Putin becoming his prime minister; that August Russia fought a short war with Georgia and recognised Abkhazia and South Ossetia.