100 Fun Facts About 1984

Which personal computer did Steve Jobs launch on January 24, 1984?

The Macintosh launched two days after its Super Bowl ad, which Apple's board had opposed airing at all.

Who directed Apple's "1984" commercial?

Ridley Scott cast English athlete Anya Major as the rebel who hurls a hammer at a giant screen.

Apple's board hated the '1984' Super Bowl ad; who offered to pay for half its airtime himself?

Steve Wozniak's offer wasn't needed: the agency resold just 30 seconds of the slot, and the full ad aired anyway.

Which Asian sultanate gained full independence from Britain on January 1, 1984?

Brunei joined ASEAN as its sixth member within a week, on 7 January 1984.

Who succeeded Yuri Andropov as Soviet leader in February 1984?

Chernenko was already seriously ill and died 13 months later, clearing the way for Mikhail Gorbachev.

Which city hosted the 1984 Winter Olympics?

Sarajevo's Olympic venues were heavily damaged eight years later, when war broke out in Bosnia.

Which two astronauts made the first untethered spacewalk in February 1984?

Bruce McCandless and Robert Stewart test-flew a jet backpack that McCandless himself had helped develop.

Which Canadian prime minister announced his retirement on February 29, 1984?

Pierre Trudeau left office that June, and his successor John Turner lost to Brian Mulroney within months.

Which workers began a year-long strike across Britain in March 1984?

Coal miners struck over pit closures without a national ballot, and returned in March 1985 without winning their demands.

Who became the first Indian in space in April 1984?

Asked how India looked from space, Rakesh Sharma replied 'Saare Jahan Se Achha', better than the whole world.

Which policewoman's shooting outside the Libyan embassy led to an 11-day London siege?

Yvonne Fletcher's killing led Britain to expel the embassy's occupants and cut diplomatic ties with Libya.

Which song was proclaimed the national anthem Down Under on April 19, 1984?

Advance Australia Fair had topped a 1977 vote, and in 2021 its line 'young and free' became 'one and free'.

Which Swedish act won the 1984 Eurovision Song Contest with "Diggi-Loo Diggi-Ley"?

Herreys' win brought the 1985 contest to Gothenburg, Sweden, where the brothers handed the prize to the next winners.

The Itaipu Dam, switched on in 1984, sits on Brazil's border with which country?

Paraguay shares the dam, whose reservoir permanently drowned the Guaíra Falls.

Which denomination did Australia first issue as a coin on May 14, 1984?

The one-dollar coin replaced the one-dollar note, and a two-dollar coin replaced that note in 1988.

Liverpool beat which club on penalties to win the 1984 European Cup?

Roma lost in their own Stadio Olimpico after Francesco Graziani missed as Bruce Grobbelaar wobbled his legs in goal.

Operation Blue Star, the Indian army's June 1984 assault, targeted which site?

The Golden Temple in Amritsar was stormed to remove Sikh militant leader Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, who was killed in the assault.

Which Canadian entertainment company was founded in 1984?

Cirque du Soleil grew out of Les Échassiers, a stilt-walking street troupe, and won government funding for its first show.

France beat which team 2–0 to win Euro 84?

Spain's keeper Luis Arconada let Michel Platini's free kick slip under him for the opening goal.

Which was the last European country to grant women the vote, on July 1, 1984?

Liechtenstein's male voters approved it with just 51.3%, after rejecting women's suffrage in 1971 and 1973.

Diego Maradona was sold to Napoli in 1984 by which club?

Barcelona sold him for a then-world-record fee, and 75,000 fans filled Napoli's stadium just to see him presented.

Who became the first woman to perform a spacewalk, in July 1984?

Svetlana Savitskaya spent over three hours outside Salyut 7, testing tools for cutting and welding metal in space.

Which Eastern Bloc country defied the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics boycott?

Romania's athletes were greeted with an ovation as they entered the Coliseum at the opening ceremony.

Who led the organizing committee of the privately funded 1984 Los Angeles Olympics?

Peter Ueberroth's Games turned a profit, Time named him Man of the Year, and he became baseball commissioner that October.

Which barefoot South African runner collided with Mary Decker in the Olympic 3000 m final?

Zola Budd, running for Great Britain, faded to seventh, while Decker's fall ended her race.

Which African country renamed itself Burkina Faso on August 4, 1984?

Upper Volta's new name, chosen by Thomas Sankara, means 'land of upright people'; Sankara was killed in a coup in 1987.

Which carmaker was acquitted of cocaine trafficking charges in August 1984?

John DeLorean argued federal agents had set up the deal, and his car company had already gone bankrupt in 1982.

Which Space Shuttle made its maiden voyage on August 30, 1984?

Discovery's first launch attempt, on June 26, was aborted just seconds before liftoff.

Who became the first person to fly a balloon solo across the Atlantic in September 1984?

Joe Kittinger's 1960 parachute-jump record stood until 2012, when he was the radio voice guiding Felix Baumgartner past it.

Which children's TV series by Britt Allcroft first aired on ITV in 1984?

Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends adapted Wilbert Awdry's stories, first told to his son Christopher while he was ill with measles.

The Brighton hotel bombing of October 1984 targeted which leader?

Margaret Thatcher survived a bomb Patrick Magee had planted weeks earlier under a false name; five people died.

Who won the 1984 World Series?

The Detroit Tigers clinched it after Padres closer Goose Gossage talked his manager out of walking Kirk Gibson, who homered.

Which Polish priest linked to Solidarity was murdered by secret police in October 1984?

Jerzy Popiełuszko was abducted and killed by three secret police officers, who were then tried and convicted.

Which BBC reporter's October 1984 broadcast alerted the world to the Ethiopian famine?

Michael Buerk's report moved Bob Geldof to organize the charity supergroup Band Aid.

Which prime minister was assassinated by two of her own bodyguards in October 1984?

Indira Gandhi was succeeded by her son Rajiv, who was sworn in as prime minister following her death.

Which was the only state Walter Mondale carried against Ronald Reagan in 1984?

Minnesota, Mondale's home state, went his way by just 3,761 votes, so Reagan won the other 49.

Which charity single did Band Aid record on November 25, 1984?

Do They Know It's Christmas? sold a million copies in its first week and raised £8 million for famine relief within a year.

A Union Carbide gas leak in which Indian city killed thousands in December 1984?

Methyl isocyanate leaked from the Union Carbide plant in Bhopal, and in 1989 Union Carbide paid $470 million to settle claims.

The Sino-British Joint Declaration of December 1984 concerned which territory?

Hong Kong was promised its capitalist system would stay unchanged for 50 years after the 1997 handover.

Who shot four youths on a New York subway train on December 22, 1984?

Bernhard Goetz, dubbed the Subway Vigilante, escaped attempted-murder charges in 1987 but was convicted of illegally carrying a gun.

Which carmaker popularized the modern minivan with its 1984 models?

Chrysler's Dodge Caravan and Plymouth Voyager went on sale in late 1983, and rivals from Ford to Toyota soon followed.

Who won the 1984 Nobel Peace Prize?

Desmond Tutu later chaired South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission, investigating apartheid-era abuses.

Which star rewrote Beverly Hills Cop as a serious action film, then quit two weeks before filming?

Sylvester Stallone's exit let Eddie Murphy take the role, and the script was rewritten back toward comedy.

Which new rating did the MPAA introduce on July 1, 1984?

PG-13 was Steven Spielberg's idea, after parents complained about violence in his PG-rated Temple of Doom and Gremlins.

Which Disney label was founded in February 1984 for more mature films?

Touchstone Pictures let Disney release grown-up films without its family brand, starting with Splash.

Which film won the Palme d'Or at Cannes in 1984?

Paris, Texas is where Travis owns a vacant lot, in the town where he believes he was conceived.

Michael Jackson won a 1984 Grammy narrating which film's storybook?

E.T.'s storybook album was pulled from shops after Jackson's label, Epic, took its distributor MCA to court.

Which soul singer was shot dead by his father on April 1, 1984?

Marvin Gaye's father was later given a suspended sentence and probation for voluntary manslaughter.

Which Bruce Springsteen album was the first CD manufactured in the United States?

Born in the U.S.A. was pressed at a new plant in Terre Haute, Indiana; earlier CDs sold in America had been imported from Japan.

Which band won Video of the Year at the first MTV Video Music Awards?

The Cars won for You Might Think, beating Michael Jackson's Thriller.

Which rock star planned a musical of George Orwell's 1984 until the author's widow refused him the rights?

David Bowie folded the songs he had written for it into his 1974 album Diamond Dogs, including tracks titled 1984 and We Are the Dead.

Michael Jackson's hair caught fire in January 1984 while he was filming a commercial for which soft drink?

Pepsi settled out of court for $1.5 million, and Jackson gave the whole sum to a California hospital whose burn centre was then named after him.

Which future dystopian novelist briefly taught French to the schoolboy George Orwell at Eton, decades before 1984?

Aldous Huxley, later the author of Brave New World, wrote to his former pupil in 1949 arguing that rulers would find pleasure a more efficient tool than force.

A newborn known as Baby Fae lived for 21 days in 1984 with a heart transplanted from which animal?

A baboon heart kept Baby Fae alive two weeks longer than anyone before her with a non-human heart, and her surgeon later performed the first successful infant-to-infant heart transplant.

Which ruler of Oceania in George Orwell's 1984 stares out from posters everywhere as the face of the Party?

Big Brother has been traced by biographer Dorian Lynskey to several models, Hitler among them, but most of all to Stalin.

Which American rock band titled an album 1984 and scored their only US number-one single with its hit Jump?

Van Halen's album stalled at number two behind Michael Jackson's Thriller, a record on which Eddie Van Halen had played as a guest.

What is Oceania's official language in George Orwell's 1984, designed to shrink until dissent becomes unthinkable?

Newspeak has a continually diminishing vocabulary, and its rules fill an appendix that Orwell refused to let an American book club cut from the novel.

George Orwell's 1984 topped Amazon's sales chart in 2017 after which White House adviser spoke of alternative facts?

Kellyanne Conway was defending false claims about inauguration crowds, and within four days sales of the 1949 novel had jumped 95-fold.

George Orwell, who published 1984 months before his death, was the pen name of which Eton-educated Englishman?

Eric Blair took a pen name so that his first book, a memoir of living among tramps, would not embarrass his family.

Which airline, backed by a British record-label boss, made its maiden flight from Gatwick to Newark in June 1984?

Virgin Atlantic began on paper as British Atlantic Airways, meant to fly from London to the Falkland Islands, before Richard Branson bought out its founder.

Winston Smith rewrites historical records in George Orwell's 1984 as a clerk at which government department?

The Ministry of Truth rises over London as a vast white pyramid, a building Orwell modelled on the University of London's Senate House.

Which basement torture chamber in George Orwell's 1984 confronts each prisoner with the thing that person fears most?

Room 101 took its number from a conference room at the BBC's Broadcasting House, where Orwell used to sit through tedious meetings.

In George Orwell's 1984, torturers confront Winston Smith with a wire cage containing which animals to break his spirit?

Rats are Winston's private nightmare, and the threat of them drives him to betray Julia, the only person he loved.

Which secret force in George Orwell's 1984 plants agents such as the kindly shopkeeper Mr Charrington?

The Thought Police grew out of Orwell's study of the Soviet NKVD and its methods of surveillance, control and punishing dissent.

What two-way device in every Party member's flat watches and listens to the occupants in George Orwell's 1984?

The telescreen can be dimmed but never switched off by ordinary Party members, and it pours out propaganda for as long as it spies.

On which remote Scottish island did George Orwell write most of 1984 while gravely ill?

Jura was where Orwell stayed at Barnhill, a remote farmhouse with no electricity or hot water, after growing disenchanted with journalism and London life.

What daily ritual in George Orwell's 1984 has Party members scream at a film of the traitor Emmanuel Goldstein?

Two Minutes Hate sweeps up even Winston, who cannot help joining in, though at moments his rage turns from the screen to the Party itself.

Emmanuel Goldstein, the goateed enemy of the state in George Orwell's 1984, evokes which exiled Soviet revolutionary?

Leon Trotsky, like Goldstein, was a senior party official who was cast out and then wrote a book attacking party rule.

What name does Great Britain carry as a province of the superstate Oceania in George Orwell's 1984?

Airstrip One comes under random rocket attack, which Orwell based on the flying bombs and V-2s that hit London in 1944 and 1945.

Which George Orwell book, rejected by several British and American publishers, appeared four years before 1984?

Animal Farm lost one publisher after a warning believed to have come from an official who was later found to be a Soviet spy.

Which mental discipline in George Orwell's 1984 lets Party members tell deliberate lies while sincerely believing them?

Doublethink is self-concealing by design: in the novel, grasping the idea already requires the very trick it describes.

In George Orwell's 1984, O'Brien tortures Winston Smith until he will agree that two plus two make what?

Five is the sum the Party demands, echoing a 1931 Soviet poster which claimed that the enthusiasm of the workers could make 2 + 2 = 5.

Which class in George Orwell's 1984 is kept docile with gin and a lottery whose big prizes go to nobody real?

The proles are the one force Winston believes could overthrow the Party, yet in their streets he finds no political awareness at all.

What nickname in George Orwell's 1984 describes the wall slots that carry unwanted documents off to the furnaces?

Memory holes gave the language a lasting phrase: after 1949 it came to mean any place where an inconvenient fact is disposed of.

Which disease, confirmed just after George Orwell finished his first draft of 1984, killed him months after publication?

Tuberculosis was treated in Orwell's case with streptomycin, a medicine so new that the request to import it went as far as cabinet member Aneurin Bevan.

Which brand name appears on the oily gin and loosely packed cigarettes sold in George Orwell's 1984?

Victory was a dig at the poor Indian-made cigarettes of that name which British soldiers commonly smoked during the Second World War.

Which purchase from an antiques shop begins Winston Smith's secret rebellion against the Party in George Orwell's 1984?

A diary is Winston's private rebellion, and he buys it from a dealer who turns out to be an undercover officer of the regime.

Ingsoc, the ruling ideology of Oceania in George Orwell's 1984, is a shortening of which two-word phrase?

English Socialism in the novel is a totalitarian creed, nothing like the revolution that Orwell had once foreseen for his own country.

Which lexicographer friend of Winston Smith in 1984 is erased by the Party despite his zeal for its dictionary?

Syme is doomed by his own cleverness: Winston predicts, correctly, that the Party will not tolerate so sharp a mind.

Which nursery rhyme about London church bells do characters in George Orwell's 1984 struggle to remember in full?

Oranges and Lemons names real churches in and around the City of London, and the bells of St Clement Danes play its tune four times a day.

Which actor, who died before its release, played the interrogator O'Brien in the film of Orwell's 1984 released in 1984?

Richard Burton joined six weeks into the shoot and insisted that his character's boiler suit be hand-made in Savile Row; he died two months before the release.

Which future Hammer horror star played Winston Smith in the BBC's controversial 1954 television version of 1984?

Peter Cushing was in one of his first major roles, and the broadcast so alarmed viewers that MPs tabled rival motions about it in Parliament.

Which Russian author wrote We, the dystopian novel George Orwell reviewed months before he began writing 1984?

Yevgeny Zamyatin imagined a One State built almost entirely of glass, and Orwell is reported to have called the book the model for his next novel.

Which early title did George Orwell weigh against 1984 until shortly before he finished the second draft?

The Last Man in Europe lost out after Orwell's publisher Fredric Warburg judged the other title the more commercially viable choice.

Which two-word term may have been used first by 1984 author George Orwell in a 1945 essay on the atom bomb?

Cold War appears in You and the Atom Bomb, an essay Orwell published in Tribune about ten weeks after Hiroshima.

In which Asian colony did 1984 author George Orwell serve as an imperial policeman before resigning to write?

Burma supplied Orwell with the essays Shooting an Elephant and A Hanging, both drawn from his years in the force there.

Which American matched Jesse Owens by winning four athletics gold medals at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics?

Carl Lewis won the same four events Owens had taken in Berlin in 1936, yet the lucrative endorsement offers he expected never arrived.

Which ice dancers received twelve perfect sixes after skating to Ravel's Boléro at the 1984 Winter Olympics?

Torvill and Dean drew a British television audience of more than 24 million, and every judge gave them a six for artistic impression.

Which Democrat became the first woman on a major US party's national ticket as the 1984 vice-presidential nominee?

Geraldine Ferraro had no successor on a major-party ticket for 24 years, until Sarah Palin's vice-presidential run in 2008.

Which musician had the number-one film, album and single in the United States all at the same time in 1984?

Prince joined Elvis Presley and the Beatles as the only acts to manage it, thanks to the film Purple Rain, its soundtrack and the single When Doves Cry.

Which gymnast became the first American woman to win the Olympic all-around title, at Los Angeles in 1984?

Mary Lou Retton won by just 0.05 points and went on to become the first female athlete pictured on the front of a Wheaties box.

In May 1984, Robert Gallo's team published four papers in Science naming a retrovirus as the cause of which disease?

AIDS research then split into a transatlantic dispute, because the virus in those papers turned out to have been sent from a laboratory in France.

Which forensic technique did Alec Jeffreys stumble upon at the University of Leicester on 10 September 1984?

DNA fingerprinting came to Jeffreys as a eureka moment, when an X-ray film showed both likenesses and differences within his technician's family.

Which singer rolled across the stage in a wedding dress at the first MTV Video Music Awards in 1984?

Madonna had stepped down from a 17-foot wedding cake when a shoe slipped off, and she dived to the floor to cover the mishap.

Which wrestler beat the Iron Sheik at Madison Square Garden in January 1984 to win his first WWF world title?

Hulk Hogan broke out of the Sheik's finishing hold, the camel clutch, on his way to the championship belt.

The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles made their 1984 debut in which form, paid for with a tax refund and a family loan?

A comic book self-published by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird launched the Turtles, premiering at a New Hampshire convention in May 1984.

Which company's DynaTAC 8000X, the first handheld mobile phone sold to the public, cost $3,995 at its 1984 launch?

Motorola's handset was nicknamed the brick for its size and weight, and at the American minimum wage of 1984 it cost about 30 weeks of full-time pay.

Which driver won the 1984 Formula One world title by half a point over his own teammate, Alain Prost?

Niki Lauda owed the margin to the shortened Monaco Grand Prix, which paid half points, and won eight years after being badly burned at the Nürburgring.

Which runner won the first Olympic women's marathon in 1984, months after arthroscopic surgery on her knee?

Joan Benoit had the operation just 17 days before the American trials, then finished the Olympic race several hundred metres clear of the field.

Which 1984 debut novel by William Gibson popularised cyberspace and set the conventions of the cyberpunk genre?

Neuromancer won the Hugo, the Nebula and the Philip K. Dick awards, sweeping three of science fiction's major prizes with a first novel.