|
%
|
|
Decade
|
|
Hint
|
|
Answer
|
|
99%
|
|
1980s
|
|
City that was divided by a wall until 1989
|
|
Berlin
|
|
98%
|
|
1840s
|
|
Crop that failed in Ireland, triggering the Great Famine
|
|
Potato
|
|
97%
|
|
1990s
|
|
The first black President of South Africa
|
|
Nelson Mandela
|
|
96%
|
|
1710s
|
|
French king who died after 72 years on the throne, the longest reign of any monarch in history
|
|
Louis XIV
|
|
95%
|
|
1880s
|
|
Artist who cut off part of his ear
|
|
Vincent Van Gogh
|
|
94%
|
|
1960s
|
|
Language that Catholic masses were held in prior to the Second Vatican Council
|
|
Latin
|
|
93%
|
|
1810s
|
|
Festival which was held in Munich for the first time
|
|
Oktoberfest
|
|
92%
|
|
1690s
|
|
Island group near Argentina which people set foot on for the first time in recorded history
|
|
Falkland Islands
|
|
91%
|
|
1810s
|
|
Battle in Belgium that finally sealed Napoleon's downfall in 1815
|
|
Battle of Waterloo
|
|
90%
|
|
2020s
|
|
Country which brought us pop music groups such as BTS, Blackpink, and Seventeen
|
|
South Korea
|
|
89%
|
|
1960s
|
|
Country where the Soviet Union placed nuclear missiles in 1962
|
|
Cuba
|
|
88%
|
|
1660s
|
|
1665 painting by Johannes Vermeer
|
|
Girl with a Pearl Earring
|
|
87%
|
|
1720s
|
|
Novel written by Jonathan Swift
|
|
Gulliver's Travels
|
|
86%
|
|
1710s
|
|
Metal which Daniel Fahrenheit used to make the first practical thermometers
|
|
Mercury
|
|
85%
|
|
1800s
|
|
Huge tract of land which the U.S. purchased from France
|
|
Louisiana Territory
|
|
84%
|
|
1950s
|
|
The first satellite to orbit the Earth
|
|
Sputnik
|
|
83%
|
|
1720s
|
|
Disease which killed more than half of the population of Marseille – marking its final major outbreak on the European continent
|
|
Bubonic plague
|
|
82%
|
|
1910s
|
|
Polish/French woman who won a Nobel Prize for chemistry
|
|
Marie Curie
|
|
81%
|
|
1820s
|
|
What Jean-François Champollion used to decipher ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs
|
|
The Rosetta Stone
|
|
80%
|
|
1690s
|
|
Island off the coast of Tanzania which was captured by the Sultanate of Oman
|
|
Zanzibar
|
|
79%
|
|
1800s
|
|
Northern country which Russia annexed and held until 1917
|
|
Finland
|
|
78%
|
|
1790s
|
|
System of weights and measures that was adopted in France
|
|
Metric System
|
|
77%
|
|
1670s
|
|
Branch of mathematics which was independently discovered by Newton and Leibniz
|
|
Calculus
|
|
76%
|
|
1990s
|
|
British musical group who popularized the slogan "Girl Power"
|
|
Spice Girls
|
|
75%
|
|
1810s
|
|
Brutal leader who was called "Uncle Joe" in an attempt to soften his image
|
|
Joseph Stalin
|
|
74%
|
|
1860s
|
|
What Alfred Nobel invented
|
|
Dynamite
|
|
73%
|
|
1980s
|
|
World leader who had a prominent birthmark on his head
|
|
Mikhail Gorbachev
|
|
72%
|
|
1790s
|
|
Disease which Edward Jenner created a vaccine to prevent
|
|
Smallpox
|
|
71%
|
|
1930s
|
|
Artist who painted "Guernica"
|
|
Pablo Picasso
|
|
70%
|
|
1970s
|
|
Organization that banned oil sales to the U.S. in 1973–74
|
|
OPEC
|
|
69%
|
|
1830s
|
|
Name of the forced migration of Cherokees, Seminoles, and other Native American tribes from their homelands to Oklahoma
|
|
Trail of Tears
|
|
68%
|
|
1660s
|
|
Element with symbol P which was isolated by Hennig Brand, the first new element discovered since antiquity
|
|
Phosphorus
|
|
67%
|
|
1800s
|
|
Round number that the Earth's population exceeded for the first time
|
|
One billion
|
|
66%
|
|
1700s
|
|
Musical instrument invented by Bartolomeo Cristofori, an evolution of the harpsichord
|
|
Piano
|
|
65%
|
|
1990s
|
|
Country that gained independence from Ethiopia in 1993
|
|
Eritrea
|
|
64%
|
|
1910s
|
|
"Lost" city of the Incas which was rediscovered
|
|
Machu Picchu
|
|
63%
|
|
1980s
|
|
1982 musical album which remains the best-selling of all-time
|
|
Thriller
|
|
62%
|
|
1980s
|
|
City where hundreds of democracy protestors were massacred in 1989
|
|
Beijing
|
|
61%
|
|
2010s
|
|
Country whose population dipped from 21 million to 17 million due to a civil war and subsequent mass emigration
|
|
Syria
|
|
60%
|
|
1820s
|
|
Country that conjoined twins Chang and Eng came from
|
|
Siam
|
|
59%
|
|
2010s
|
|
Airline that had one plane mysteriously disappear and another shot down by Russian separatists
|
|
Malaysia Airlines
|
|
58%
|
|
1850s
|
|
Country created by the union of Moldavia and Wallachia
|
|
Romania
|
|
57%
|
|
1840s
|
|
Author who wrote "Jane Eyre"
|
|
Charlotte Brontë
|
|
56%
|
|
1800s
|
|
Dynasty that came to power in Vietnam (Hint: today it is the most common Vietnamese family name)
|
|
Nguyen
|
|
55%
|
|
2000s
|
|
Pope who died after a reign of 26 years, the third longest in history
|
|
John Paul II
|
|
54%
|
|
1980s
|
|
Country in which a famine killed at least 300,000 people
|
|
Ethiopia
|
|
53%
|
|
1860s
|
|
South American country that lost nearly its entire military-age male population in a horrific war
|
|
Paraguay
|
|
52%
|
|
1820s
|
|
Country, originally called New Holland, which gained its current name
|
|
Australia
|
|
51%
|
|
1890s
|
|
Pacific island which Paul Gauguin moved to
|
|
Tahiti
|
|
50%
|
|
1960s
|
|
Central European capital whose "spring" was crushed by Soviet tanks
|
|
Prague
|
|
49%
|
|
2010s
|
|
Country in which 276 school girls were kidnapped by Boko Haram
|
|
Nigeria
|
|
48%
|
|
1770s
|
|
Play by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe about a man who sold his soul to the devil
|
|
Faust
|
|
47%
|
|
1800s
|
|
Cities on the Barbary Coast of Africa which the U.S. attacked to root out piracy (name any of the three)
|
|
Tripoli / Algiers / Tunis
|
|
46%
|
|
1720s
|
|
Royal dynasty founded in central Arabia in 1720
|
|
House of Saud
|
|
45%
|
|
1860s
|
|
Waltz by Johann Strauss II named after a European river
|
|
The Blue Danube
|
|
44%
|
|
1980s
|
|
Stretchy synthetic fabric which became so popular that DuPont, its creator, had trouble meeting demand
|
|
Spandex
|
|
43%
|
|
1890s
|
|
Crime which Alfred Dreyfus was accused of committing
|
|
Espionage
|
|
42%
|
|
1790s
|
|
Type of bird that was killed in Coledrige's poem "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner"
|
|
Albatross
|
|
41%
|
|
1750s
|
|
City where Casanova escaped from prison after being arrested for affronts to religion and common decency
|
|
Venice
|
|
40%
|
|
1860s
|
|
Country which was briefly led by Emperor Maximilian – a puppet of France
|
|
Mexico
|
|
39%
|
|
2000s
|
|
Militant group led by Mullah Mohammad Omar
|
|
The Taliban
|
|
38%
|
|
1790s
|
|
Country which France (briefly) took from the Ottoman Empire
|
|
Egypt
|
|
37%
|
|
1840s
|
|
"Empire" ruled by Dom Pedro II
|
|
Empire of Brazil
|
|
36%
|
|
1850s
|
|
Simple device built to demonstrate the rotation of the Earth
|
|
Foucault's Pendulum
|
|
35%
|
|
1780s
|
|
European island where about 25% of the population died when a volcanic eruption killed most of the crops
|
|
Iceland
|
|
34%
|
|
1900s
|
|
President who was assassinated in Buffalo, New York by anarchist Leon Czolgosz
|
|
William McKinley
|
|
33%
|
|
1860s
|
|
Company that technically owned about 1/3 of the area of Canada
|
|
Hudson's Bay Company
|
|
32%
|
|
1720s
|
|
War which was fought between Spain and Great Britain
|
|
War of Jenkins' Ear
|
|
31%
|
|
1800s
|
|
Drug synthesized from the poppy and named after the Greek god of dreams
|
|
Morphine
|
|
30%
|
|
1820s
|
|
The most common metal in the Earth's crust, it was extracted from ore for the first time and, at the time, was worth more than gold
|
|
Aluminum
|
|
29%
|
|
1910s
|
|
Ballet by Igor Stravinsky that shocked audiences when it premiered in 1913
|
|
The Rite of Spring
|
|
28%
|
|
1990s
|
|
Terrorist (or to some, a freedom fighter) who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize after signing the 1993 Oslo Peace Accords
|
|
Yasser Arafat
|
|
27%
|
|
2000s
|
|
Region of Russia which was the site of a bloody war
|
|
Chechnya
|
|
26%
|
|
1780s
|
|
Meeting called between the clergy, nobility, and people of France
|
|
The Estates General
|
|
25%
|
|
1910s
|
|
Song that featured the lyrics "from glen to glen, and down the mountain side"
|
|
Danny Boy
|
|
24%
|
|
1820s
|
|
Type of people who were allowed to serve in British Parliament for the first time in 157 years
|
|
Catholics
|
|
23%
|
|
1970s
|
|
Author of "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas"
|
|
Hunter S. Thompson
|
|
22%
|
|
1720s
|
|
Mathematician who moved to St. Petersburg where he would author many of his 800 publications
|
|
Leonhard Euler
|
|
21%
|
|
1740s
|
|
Slaughter of over 10,000 Chinese by Dutch East India Company forces at the site of modern-day Jakarta
|
|
Batavia Massacre
|
|
20%
|
|
1820s
|
|
"Ode to a Nightingale" poet who died of tuberculosis at the tender age of 25
|
|
John Keats
|
|
19%
|
|
1720s
|
|
Speculative bubble which collapsed in 1720, costing Isaac Newton most of his fortune
|
|
South Sea Bubble
|
|
18%
|
|
1910s
|
|
Native American Olympic athlete who won gold medals in the decathlon and pentathlon
|
|
Jim Thorpe
|
|
17%
|
|
1900s
|
|
Period of reform in the early 20th century
|
|
Progressive Era
|
|
16%
|
|
1970s
|
|
Type of futuristic building which Buckminster Fuller promoted
|
|
Geodesic Dome
|
|
15%
|
|
1760s
|
|
Astrological event in which Venus's atmosphere was first discovered
|
|
Transit of Venus
|
|
14%
|
|
1990s
|
|
City that was most affected by the Great Hanshin earthquake
|
|
Kobe
|
|
13%
|
|
1960s
|
|
Jocelyn Bell, astronomy graduate student at the University of Cambridge, announces the discovery of this object, a highly magnetized, rotating neutron star
|
|
Pulsar
|
|
12%
|
|
1740s
|
|
Series of wars fought on Mughal Empire territory between Britain and France for control of Southern India and the Deccan Plateau
|
|
Carnatic Wars
|
|
11%
|
|
1960s
|
|
Nobel prize winning Russian author who denounced the crimes of Stalin
|
|
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
|
|
10%
|
|
2010s
|
|
NASA rover that landed on Mars in 2012 to explore the planet’s surface
|
|
Curiosity
|
|
9%
|
|
1810s
|
|
Volcano whose eruption caused the "Year without a Summer"
|
|
Mount Tambora
|
|
8%
|
|
1930s
|
|
Early aviation pioneer and the first woman to fly solo from London to Australia in 1930
|
|
Amy Johnson
|
|
7%
|
|
1970s
|
|
South Korean president assassinated in Seoul in 1979
|
|
Park Chung-hee
|
|
6%
|
|
1990s
|
|
City where the Israeli embassy was bombed
|
|
Buenos Aires
|
|
5%
|
|
1730s
|
|
Navigational instrument invented independently by John Hadley and Thomas Godfrey, an early precursor to the sextant
|
|
Octant
|
|
4%
|
|
2010s
|
|
Chinese probe that becomes the first artificial object to land on the far side of the Moon
|
|
Chang'e 4
|
|
3%
|
|
1990s
|
|
Ukrainian chocolate brand created by future president of the country
|
|
Roshen
|
|
2%
|
|
1840s
|
|
First elected governor of the State of Florida
|
|
William Moseley
|
|
1%
|
|
1740s
|
|
Royal Navy Commodore who led a squadron on a circumnavigation, capturing the treasure-laden Manila Galleon en route
|
|
George Anson
|
