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50 free 2020 trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
2020 was the year the world stayed home: Eurovision was cancelled for the first time ever, the Olympics were pushed back, the NBA finished its season inside Disney World and 34 million people watched a show about a zoo owner called Joe Exotic. This quiz covers the whole year, pandemic and otherwise: the news (Brexit day, the Beirut explosion, Hong Kong's security law, the Belarus protests, the US election), the science (the first crewed SpaceX flight, Perseverance, the CRISPR Nobel, the Arecibo collapse) and the culture (Parasite's Oscar, the Chiefs' 50-year wait, Liverpool's 30-year wait, Animal Crossing, Blinding Lights). Every answer has a short explanation, so it doubles as a recap of a year everyone remembers and nobody wants to repeat.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which Philippine volcano had its first major eruption since 1977 on January 12, 2020?
Taal
Ash fell on Manila, 60 km away, and hundreds of thousands of people were evacuated from around the crater lake.
Q 02Which retired NBA star died with his daughter Gianna in a January 2020 helicopter crash?
Kobe Bryant
Nine people died; investigators blamed the pilot's decision to fly into heavy fog. The Lakers won the title that October in his memory.
Q 03Which trade agreement did the USMCA, signed in January 2020, replace?
NAFTA
The North American Free Trade Agreement had been in force since 1994.
Q 04How long was the transition period after the UK left the EU on January 31, 2020?
11 months
The UK formally left on January 31, 2020; the transition ran to December 31, with the trade deal agreed on Christmas Eve.
Q 05On February 11, 2020, the WHO gave the new coronavirus disease which official name?
COVID-19
The name stands for coronavirus disease 2019; the virus itself is SARS-CoV-2.
Q 06Which country was the first to impose a nationwide COVID-19 quarantine, on March 9, 2020?
Italy
Lombardy had been locked down the day before; the whole country followed, with balcony singing becoming a global image.
Q 07On which date in 2020 did the WHO declare COVID-19 a pandemic?
March 11
The same day, the NBA suspended its season and Tom Hanks announced he had tested positive in Australia.
Q 08Which annual event was cancelled in March 2020 for the first time in its 64-year history?
Eurovision Song Contest
Rotterdam kept the hosting rights and staged the 2021 contest instead. Wimbledon was also cancelled, but for the first time since 1945.
Q 09The 2020 Summer Olympics were postponed to 2021. Which city was host?
Tokyo
They were the first Games ever postponed, and were held in July–August 2021 largely without spectators.
Q 10Which country became NATO's 30th member on March 27, 2020?
North Macedonia
Its 2018 name change settled a long dispute with Greece that had blocked the accession.
Q 11In April 2020, the first zoo animal to test positive for COVID-19 was a tiger at which zoo?
Bronx Zoo
Nadia, a four-year-old Malayan tiger, caught it from an asymptomatic keeper.
Q 12What unprecedented thing happened to the price of US crude oil on April 20, 2020?
It fell below zero
West Texas Intermediate futures closed at about minus $37 as storage ran out and traders paid to offload contracts.
Q 13SpaceX's May 2020 crewed launch was the first from US soil since the retirement of what?
The Space Shuttle
Astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley flew the Crew Dragon to the ISS; the Shuttle had last flown in 2011.
Q 21Which country announced the world's first approved COVID-19 vaccine, Sputnik V, in August 2020?
Russia
The approval came before large-scale trials had finished, drawing criticism from scientists abroad.
Q 22In August 2020, Israel agreed to normalise relations with which Gulf state?
UAE
Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco followed within months under what became known as the Abraham Accords.
Q 23Bayern Munich beat which club 1–0 in the 2020 Champions League final in Lisbon?
Paris Saint-Germain
Kingsley Coman, a PSG youth product, scored the only goal. The final was played behind closed doors.
Q 14Whose murder by a Minneapolis police officer on May 25, 2020, sparked worldwide protests?
George Floyd
Officer Derek Chauvin was convicted of murder in April 2021. The protests spread to hundreds of cities.
Q 15On June 30, 2020, China imposed a sweeping national security law on which territory?
Hong Kong
It criminalised secession, subversion, terrorism and collusion with foreign forces, and the UK responded by offering a citizenship path to BN(O) passport holders.
Q 16In July 2020, hackers hijacked high-profile Twitter accounts to promote a scam involving what?
Bitcoin
Accounts belonging to Barack Obama, Elon Musk, Bill Gates and Apple all posted the same 'send bitcoin, get double back' message.
Q 17NASA's Mars 2020 mission, launched on July 30, carried which rover?
Perseverance
It landed in Jezero Crater in February 2021 with the Ingenuity helicopter strapped to its belly.
Q 18Barakah, the Gulf region's first commercial nuclear power station, began operating in 2020 where?
UAE
The same year the UAE launched its Hope probe to Mars, the first interplanetary mission by an Arab nation.
Q 19Unsafely stored ammonium nitrate caused a huge explosion in which port city on August 4, 2020?
Beirut
The 2,750 tonnes had sat in a warehouse since a ship was impounded in 2013. Around 300,000 people were left homeless.
Q 20Mass protests followed the August 2020 re-election of Alexander Lukashenko in which country?
Belarus
Opposition candidate Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya rejected the result and fled to Lithuania.
Q 24Who replaced Shinzo Abe as prime minister of Japan in September 2020?
Yoshihide Suga
Abe, Japan's longest-serving PM, resigned citing ill health. Suga lasted just a year before Kishida took over.
Q 25Jacinda Ardern won a landslide second term in October 2020 as prime minister of which country?
New Zealand
Labour won the first outright parliamentary majority since New Zealand adopted proportional representation in 1996.
Q 26In October 2020, NASA's OSIRIS-REx briefly touched down on which asteroid to collect a sample?
Bennu
The sample, about 120 grams, landed in the Utah desert in September 2023.
Q 27Who became the first woman elected president of Moldova in November 2020?
Maia Sandu
The former World Bank economist beat the pro-Russian incumbent Igor Dodon in a runoff.
Q 28Kamala Harris was elected in November 2020 as which number US vice president?
49th
Joe Biden became the 46th president; Harris was the first woman, first Black American and first South Asian American in the job.
Q 29Which two companies announced the first successful phase III COVID-19 vaccine trial in November 2020?
Pfizer and BioNTech
Interim results showed 90% efficacy, later revised to 95%. Stock markets jumped on the news.
Q 30Which country was the first to approve a fully tested COVID-19 vaccine, on December 2, 2020?
United Kingdom
Six days later 90-year-old Margaret Keenan in Coventry became the first person vaccinated outside a trial.