About this quiz

Some dates everyone knows, and some feel like they happened much earlier or later than they did. This quiz takes twenty big moments from history, sport, science and pop culture and asks you to pick the year each one happened.

It starts with dates most people remember and gets harder as it goes. Each answer comes with a short fact about the moment, so you’ll come away with a sharper sense of when things happened.

Answers explained

Show the answers (spoilers)

  1. In which year did people first walk on the Moon?

    1969. Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed in July 1969 on the Apollo 11 mission.

  2. In which year did England win the football World Cup?

    1966. England beat West Germany 4–2 at Wembley after extra time.

  3. In which year was the Battle of Hastings?

    1066. William of Normandy defeated King Harold and became known as William the Conqueror.

  4. In which year was the Great Fire of London?

    1666. The fire started in a bakery on Pudding Lane.

  5. In which year did the first iPhone go on sale?

    2007. It went on sale in the US on 29 June 2007.

  6. In which year did London last host the Summer Olympics?

    2012. London was the first city to host the modern Summer Olympics three times: 1908, 1948 and 2012.

  7. In which year did the Berlin Wall fall?

    1989. East Germany opened the border on the night of 9 November 1989, and crowds began tearing the wall down.

  8. In which year was Queen Elizabeth II crowned?

    1953. She became queen in February 1952 but wasn’t crowned until 2 June 1953.

  9. In which year did the UK vote to leave the European Union?

    2016. The referendum was held on 23 June 2016, and the UK formally left on 31 January 2020.

  10. In which year was Barack Obama first elected US president?

    2008. He took office in January 2009 as the first African American president.

  11. In which year was Magna Carta agreed?

    1215. King John agreed to it at Runnymede, near Windsor.

  12. In which year did Prince Charles marry Lady Diana Spencer?

    1981. Around 750 million people are said to have watched on TV around the world.

  13. In which year was the NHS founded?

    1948. It launched on 5 July 1948, led by health minister Aneurin Bevan.

  14. In which year was Nelson Mandela released from prison?

    1990. He walked free on 11 February 1990 after 27 years in prison, and became president four years later.

  15. In which year did the Wright brothers make the first powered aeroplane flight?

    1903. The first flight lasted just 12 seconds.

  16. In which year did the Channel Tunnel open?

    1994. The Queen and French President François Mitterrand opened it in May 1994.

  17. In which year did Twitter (now X) launch?

    2006. The first tweet, from co-founder Jack Dorsey, read “just setting up my twttr”.

  18. In which year was Mount Everest first climbed?

    1953. Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay reached the top on 29 May 1953, and the news broke in Britain on coronation day.

  19. In which year did the World Wide Web become available to the public?

    1991. Tim Berners-Lee invented it while working at CERN in Switzerland.

  20. In which year did Concorde make its last passenger flights?

    2003. British Airways flew its final Concorde passenger flights in October 2003.