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59 free Early 2000s trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
11 free Early 2000s trivia questions with answers. Early 2000s trivia lives in two places on BrainPickle. This page is the shorter set; the main quiz is 2000s trivia, with our deepest question pool on the topic and a source behind every answer.
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Q 01Which social network, launched in August 2003, was known for customisable profiles and musicians' pages?
MySpace
MySpace launched on 1 August 2003 and was the world's largest social network from 2005 to 2008, famous for its customisable profiles and band pages.
Q 02Which 2001 animated film features a grumpy ogre whose swamp fills with fairy tale creatures?
Shrek
DreamWorks' 'Shrek' was released in May 2001 and tells the story of an ogre who embarks on a quest to reclaim his swamp from banished fairy tale characters.
Q 03Who had a hit song in 2002 with 'Complicated'?
Avril Lavigne
Canadian singer-songwriter Avril Lavigne released 'Complicated' as her debut single in March 2002, which became a global pop-rock hit.
Q 04What major global sporting event did Sydney, Australia, host in the year 2000?
Summer Olympics
Sydney, Australia, proudly hosted the Games of the XXVII Olympiad, also known as the 2000 Summer Olympics, from September 15 to October 1.
Q 05Which company dominated the pre-smartphone mobile market with durable devices like the 3310?
Nokia
The 3310 was announced on 1 September 2000 as the successor to the 3210 and became a byword for indestructibility.
Q 06Which social network, founded in 2004, was at first open only to Harvard students?
Facebook launched in February 2004 as thefacebook.com, open only to Harvard students, before gradually expanding to other universities across North America.
Q 07Which currency's notes and coins entered circulation on 1 January 2002, replacing a dozen national currencies?
Euro
Euro notes and coins arrived on 1 January 2002, and by March the old national currencies had been withdrawn from daily use.
Q 08Which film won all eleven of its nominations at the 2004 Oscars, tying the record?
Return of the King
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King won all eleven of its 2004 nominations, matching the eleven-award totals of Ben-Hur and Titanic and becoming the first fantasy Best Picture winner.
Q 09Which company entered the console market with the original Xbox in November 2001?
Microsoft
Microsoft launched the original Xbox on 15 November 2001 in North America, entering a market led by Sony's PlayStation 2 and Nintendo's GameCube.
Q 10Which portable media player, unveiled on 23 October 2001, promised '1,000 songs in your pocket'?
iPod
Apple's iPod, unveiled by Steve Jobs on 23 October 2001, shipped with a 5 GB hard drive and was pitched as putting 1,000 songs in your pocket.
Q 11Which singing competition premiered on Fox on 11 June 2002 and ran there for fifteen seasons?
American Idol
American Idol premiered on Fox on 11 June 2002, adapted from Britain's Pop Idol, and ran fifteen seasons there before ABC revived it in 2018.
Q 12Wikipedia was founded in 2001 by Larry Sanger and which entrepreneur?
Jimmy Wales
Initially English-only, it now spans over 300 languages and has been hosted by the Wikimedia Foundation since 2003.
Q 13In which year did Napster shut down after a wave of lawsuits?
2001
Napster's file-sharing service shut down in July 2001 under a court injunction in the record labels' copyright suit; the company filed for bankruptcy in 2002 and was liquidated.
Q 21The 2001 GameCube was the first Nintendo home console to use what instead of cartridges?
Optical discs
The GameCube, released in Japan in September 2001, was Nintendo's first home console to use optical discs (8 cm miniDVD-style discs), yet sold only 21.74 million units.
Q 22Concorde was retired in 2003, three years after which airline's Flight 4590 crashed near Paris?
Air France
Air France Flight 4590 crashed on take-off from Paris on 25 July 2000, killing all 109 aboard and four on the ground; Air France and British Airways retired Concorde in 2003.
Q 23The Segway, launched in 2001, was developed from which earlier self-balancing invention?
The iBOT wheelchair
Q 14Which early social network, founded by Jonathan Abrams in 2002, predated MySpace and Facebook?
Friendster
Friendster, founded by Jonathan Abrams in 2002, went live in March 2003 and signed up three million users within months; it later relaunched as a social gaming site popular in Asia.
Q 15YouTube's three founders had all previously worked at which company?
PayPal
Chad Hurley, Steve Chen and Jawed Karim were all early PayPal employees before registering YouTube on 14 February 2005; Google bought the site for $1.65 billion in 2006.
Q 16In which year did Google hold its initial public offering?
2004
Larry Page and Sergey Brin had founded the company in 1998, and Gmail launched as an April Fools' Day beta that same year.
Q 17How many Nokia 3310 handsets were sold worldwide, cementing its 'indestructible' legend?
126,000,000
Its four built-in games included the hugely popular Snake II.
Q 18Which ultra-thin Motorola clamshell phone, model V3, became a must-have after its 2004 launch?
The Razr
The Razr name arrived with the V3 in 2004 and was revived in 2019 for foldable smartphones; later models added 3G.
Q 19The first BlackBerry device, launched in 1999, was what kind of gadget?
A two-way pager
The 1999 BlackBerry 850 was a two-way pager with a thumb keyboard for email; Research in Motion's first BlackBerry phone, the 5810, followed in 2002.
Q 20Roughly how many PlayStation 2 consoles did Sony sell worldwide?
160,000,000
Sony sold about 160,000,000 PlayStation 2 consoles, nearly triple the combined sales of its sixth-generation rivals; the built-in DVD drive was a pivotal selling point.
Dean Kamen's DEKA derived the Segway from the iBOT, a self-balancing stair-climbing wheelchair it had developed in the 1990s; John Doerr predicted the Segway would be bigger than the Internet.
Q 24The Human Genome Project was declared complete on 14 April 2003, covering about what share of the genome?
92%
The sequence declared finished in April 2003 covered about 92% of the genome, mostly euchromatin; the remaining gaps were not closed until the Telomere-to-Telomere consortium's 2022 assembly.
Q 25The Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity landed in 2004 with planned missions of how many Martian days?
90
Both rovers were designed for 90-sol primary missions; Spirit lasted until 2010 and Opportunity until June 2018, and asteroids 37452 Spirit and 39382 Opportunity honour them.
Q 26SpaceShipOne won which multimillion-dollar award in 2004 for the first crewed private spaceflight?
Ansari X
SpaceShipOne claimed the $10 million Ansari X Prize on 4 October 2004; built by Burt Rutan's Scaled Composites with Paul Allen's money, it never flew again.
Q 27Which company's December 2001 collapse, then the largest US bankruptcy, brought down auditor Arthur Andersen?
Enron
Enron's shares fell from over $90 to under $1 as executives Kenneth Lay, Jeffrey Skilling and Andrew Fastow hid billions in debt.
Q 28After its March 2000 peak, how far had the Nasdaq Composite fallen by October 2002?
78%
The Nasdaq Composite fell 78%, from a 5,048 close on 10 March 2000 to 1,114 on 9 October 2002; casualties included Pets.com, Webvan, WorldCom and Global Crossing.
Q 29The Osbournes grew out of the family's appearance on which other MTV show?
MTV Cribs
After the family's 2001 episode of MTV Cribs drew big ratings, MTV commissioned The Osbournes, which premiered in March 2002 and became the network's most-watched series to that point.
Q 30The survivors in Lost, which premiered in 2004, were passengers on which fictional airline's Flight 815?
Oceanic
Oceanic Airlines Flight 815 crashed on the island in Lost's 2004 pilot, filmed on Oahu at a reported cost of $10–14 million; the show won the 2005 Emmy for Outstanding Drama Series.