80s trivia quiz
Checked on 12 November 2026
Question 1 of 10
Discover
In which year did the Berlin Wall open, letting crowds cross freely between East and West Berlin?
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The answer is 1989.
On November 9, 1989, East Germany announced its citizens could visit the West, and crowds poured through and onto the Wall.
Discover
Which company released the Game Boy handheld game console in 1989?
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The answer is Nintendo.
Nintendo's Game Boy arrived in Japan in April 1989 and went on to sell more than a hundred million units.
Discover
Which company introduced its Personal Computer, the model 5150, in August 1981?
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The answer is IBM.
The IBM PC, model 5150, went on sale in August 1981 and helped make the personal computer an everyday machine.
Discover
Which company launched the Macintosh computer in January 1984?
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The answer is Apple.
Apple's first Macintosh, released on January 24, 1984, was the first successful mouse-driven computer with a graphical interface.
Practise
In 1981 Sandra Day O'Connor became the first woman on the US Supreme Court. Which president nominated her?
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The answer is Ronald Reagan.
President Ronald Reagan nominated Sandra Day O'Connor, who joined the Court in September 1981 and served until 2006.
Practise
Introduced in 1982, which home computer is listed by Guinness World Records as the best-selling desktop computer model of all time?
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The answer is Commodore 64.
The Commodore 64 sold for $595 with 64 KB of memory and went on to sell many millions of units.
Practise
Which orbiter flew the first Space Shuttle mission, launched on April 12, 1981?
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The answer is Columbia.
Mission STS-1 took the orbiter Columbia into orbit for just over two days, the first flight of the Space Shuttle program.
Expert
Tim Berners-Lee first proposed the World Wide Web in March 1989 while working at which research center?
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The answer is CERN.
Berners-Lee submitted his proposal at CERN, the physics laboratory near Geneva, in March 1989.
Expert
The compact disc, first sold in 1982, was developed by Philips together with which company?
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The answer is Sony.
Philips and Sony developed the CD for music, and it first went on sale in Japan in October 1982.
Expert
The puzzle game Tetris was created in 1984 by a programmer from which country?
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The answer is The Soviet Union.
Alexey Pajitnov, a Soviet programmer, created Tetris in 1984, inspired by a shape-fitting puzzle called pentominoes.