40s
What town in New Mexico was the site of a famous UFO sighting in 1947?
Roswell
What comic strip debuted on October 2, 1950?
Peanuts!
Written and illustrated by Charles M. Schulz, Peanuts would become one of the most popular and influential strips in the history of comics. By the time of Schulz's death in 2000, he had published 17,897 strips in all, making it arguably the longest story ever told by one human being.
Who was Johnny Carson's sidekick on The Tonight Show?
Ed McMahon
On October 1, 1962, Johnny Carson took over The Tonight Show with sidekick and second banana Ed McMahon. For the next thirty years, McMahon would introduce Carson with a drawn-out "Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeere's Johnny!"
What new invention was introduced to the world in 1971?
a. email
b. hovercraft
c. tape recorder
a. email
In 1971, Ray Tomlinson developed the first system able to send messages between users on different hosts across the ARPANET, using the @ sign to link the user name with a destination server. By the mid-1970s, this was the form recognized as email. Although Tomlinson's first email was not preserved, he later described it as insignificant, something like "QWERTYUIOP".
What 1980 wedding drew an estimated 750 million television viewers?
Charles and Diana
The wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer on 29 July 1981 was widely billed as the "wedding of the century". 3,500 guests attended the event at St Paul's Cathedral in London, and another 750 million watched on TV. Diana later said that she very nearly called off the wedding after discovering a bracelet Charles had bought for his longtime lover Camilla Parker Bowles, but she was put off the idea by her sisters. The couple divorced in 1996 after fifteen years of marriage.
Which superhero first appeared during the 1940s?
a. Batman
b. Captain America
c. Superman
What generation was born during the 1950s?
Baby boomers
Baby boomers are the demographic following the Silent Generation and preceding Generation X. The generation consists of people born during the post-World War II baby boom, which set records for the number of babies born per year--around 4 million on average.
What music festival was held August 15-18 1969 on Max Yasgur's dairy farm in Bethel, New York?
Woodstock!
Billed as "An Aquarian Experience: 3 Days of Peace and Music," the concert was expected to draw 50,000 attendees, but instead drew an estimated 500,000, most of whom crashed the concert without paying. The epic event would later be known simply as Woodstock and become synonymous with the counterculture movement of the 1960s.
Richard Nixon was the first US President to visit which country?
a. Russia
b. China
c. Cuba
b. China
Nixon's trip to China in February 1972 eventually led to diplomatic relations between the two nations. He laid the groundwork for this overture to China before he became president, writing in Foreign Affairs a year before his election: "There is no place on this small planet for a billion of its potentially most able people to live in angry isolation."
What was the first Space Shuttle in outer space?
a. Discovery
b. Columbia
c. Challenger
b. Columbia
A new era in space flight began on April 12, 1981, when Space Shuttle Columbia soared into orbit from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Serving for over 22 years, it completed 27 missions before disintegrating during re-entry near the end of its 28th mission on February 1, 2003, resulting in the deaths of all seven crew members.
What toy was invented in 1943?
a. Slinky
b. Barbie
c. Rubik's Cube
a. Slinky
The Slinky was invented and developed by American naval engineer Richard T. James in 1943 and demonstrated at Gimbels department store in Philadelphia in November 1945. The toy was a hit, selling its entire inventory of 400 units in ninety minutes.
Which Hollywood actress gave up her career to marry the Prince of Monaco?
Grace Kelly
Grace Kelly starred in several significant films in the 1950s, including High Noon, Dial M for Murder, and Rear Window, before retiring at the age of 26 to marry Prince Rainier III. The Prince and Princess had three children: Princess Caroline, Prince Albert, and Princess Stephanie.
What kind of cans did Andy Warhol famously paint?
Campbell's Soup
Campbell's Soup Cans, produced between November 1961 and April 1962, is a work of art consisting of thirty-two canvases, each painted with a Campbell's Soup can--one of each variety offered by the company at the time.
What "personal stereo" was released in 1979?
a. Sony Discman
b. Sony Walkman
c. Sony Jiveman
b. Sony Walkman
The Walkman's wearable design and lightweight headphones gave listeners the freedom to listen to music on the move. The product was an instant hit, and its popularity made "walkman" an unofficial term for personal stereos of any producer or brand.
Which of the following was NOT one of the six colors on the original Rubik's Cube?
a. White
b. Yellow
c. Purple
c. Purple
On the original classic Rubik's Cube, each of the six faces was covered by nine stickers, and each sticker was one of six solid colors: white, red, blue, orange, green, or yellow.
Which sports league was founded during the 1940s?
a. NHL
b. NBA
c. MLB
b. NBA
On November 1, 1946, in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, the Toronto Huskies hosted the New York Knickerbockers at Maple Leaf Gardens, in a game the NBA now refers to as the first game played in NBA history. The first basket was made by Ossie Schectman of the Knickerbockers.
What was Jackson Pollock's painting technique called?
a. Dab paintaing
b. Action painting
c. Splatter paintain
b. Action painting
Pollock was a major figure in the abstract expressionist movement until his death in 1956. He was widely known for his technique of pouring or splashing liquid household paint onto a horizontal surface, enabling him to view and paint his canvases from all angles. It was called "action painting", since he used the force of his whole body to paint, often in a frenetic, dancing style. This extreme form of abstraction divided the critics: some praised the immediacy of the creation, while others derided the random effects.
What was the first James Bond film titled?
a. Goldfinger
b. Thunderball
C. Dr. No
c. Dr. No
Before Daniel Craig or Pierce Brosnan, there was Sean Connery, who starred in the first James Bond film, Dr. No, in 1962. While the film received mixed reviews upon release, it launched a genre of "secret agent" films that flourished in the 1960s, and has since gained a reputation as one of the best instalments in the Bond series.
What became the tallest building in the world when it was completed in 1974?
a. World Trade Center
b. Empire State Building
c. Sears Tower
c. Sears Tower
At 1,729 ft (527 m), the Sears Tower surpassed the World Trade Center in New York City to become the tallest building in the world, a title that it held for nearly 25 years.
What musical innovation was introduced in 1982?
a. 8-track cartridge
b. MP3
c. Compact disc (CD)
c. CD
In 1982, the compact disc (CD) was the most sophisticated way to store and play music. On the 25th anniversary of its first public release, it was estimated that 200 billion CDs had been sold worldwide.
What new fashion was introduced in 1946?
a. Blue Jeans
b. Sneakers
c. Bikinis
c. Bikinis
In the summer of 1946, Western Europeans enjoyed their first war-free summer in years, and two French designers sought to deliver fashions that matched the liberated mood of the people. Jacques Heim designed a two-piece swimsuit that he called the atome, after the smallest known particle of matter, promoting it as the "world's smallest bathing suit."
What was broadcast for the first time on television in 1953?
a. Academy Awards
b. Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade
c. World Series
a. Academy Awards
The Academy Awards ceremony was first broadcast by radio in 1930 and was televised for the first time in 1953, when The Greatest Show on Earth won Best Picture. The film stars Betty Hutton and Cornel Wilde as trapeze artists competing for the center ring, and Charlton Heston as the circus manager running the show. Jimmy Stewart also appears in a supporting role as a mysterious clown who never removes his makeup--even between shows
Which team won the first Super Bowl?
a. Green Bay Packers
b. Kansas City Chiefs
c. Miami Dolphins
a. Green Bay Packers
On January 15, 1967, in the first-ever AFL-NFL World Championship, the Green Bay Packers of the National Football League defeated the American Football League's Kansas City Chiefs, 35-10. The game remains the only Super Bowl to have been simulcast in the United States by two networks--NBC (who had the rights to nationally televise AFL games) and CBS (who held the rights to broadcast NFL games).
a. World's first test-tube baby
b. World's first artificial heart
c. World's first cloned mouse
a. World's first test-tube baby
Louise Brown became the world's first test-tube baby on July 25, 1978, using a process known as in vitro fertilization, in which an egg is combined with sperm outside the body. Dr. Robert Edwards would later win the Nobel Prize in Medicine for the development of this process
What comet passed Earth in 1986?
a. Halley's Comet
b. Hubble's Comet
c. Kepler's Comet
a. Halley's Comet
During its 1986 apparition, Halley's Comet became the first comet to be observed in detail by spacecraft, providing the first observational data on the structure of a comet nucleus and the mechanism of coma and tail formation. A short-period comet visible from Earth every 75-76 years, it should appear again in 2061.