50 Fun Facts About 2014

Which viral 2014 social media stunt raised $115 million for the ALS Association in a single summer?

The Ice Bucket Challenge was co-founded by Pat Quinn and Pete Frates and went viral in July and August 2014. Frates's Boston College sporting ties helped it spread.

Which nation beat host Brazil 7–1 in a 2014 World Cup semi-final, scoring four goals inside six minutes?

Germany led 5–0 within 29 minutes, and Miroslav Klose's goal made him the World Cup's all-time record scorer, passing Brazil's own Ronaldo.

Which host of the 2014 Oscars posted a celebrity-packed selfie that broke the record for the most retweeted tweet?

Ellen DeGeneres's selfie passed the old record, a photo of Barack and Michelle Obama hugging, within the hour. It was taken on a Samsung phone supplied as part of a $20 million marketing campaign.

Which mobile game did Vietnamese developer Dong Nguyen pull from app stores in February 2014 at the peak of its fame?

Flappy Bird was earning about $50,000 a day from adverts when Nguyen removed it, saying he felt guilty about how addictive it had become.

Which virus spread through Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone in 2014, in an epidemic that killed more than 11,000 people?

Ebola infected 28,616 people in what became the most widespread outbreak of the disease in history, with roughly four in ten of them dying.

Which song from the Despicable Me 2 soundtrack was the best-selling single of 2014 in the United States?

Happy was first written by Pharrell for CeeLo Green, whose label turned it down because he was about to release a Christmas album. It launched with a music video 24 hours long.

Which music video passed 2,147,483,647 views in December 2014, forcing YouTube to upgrade its view counter?

Gangnam Style outgrew the largest number a 32-bit counter can hold, so YouTube moved to 64-bit numbers. Psy's video had also been the first to reach a billion views, in December 2012.

Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 vanished in March 2014 after leaving Kuala Lumpur for which Asian capital city?

Beijing was about six hours' flying away when the Boeing 777 disappeared with 239 people aboard. The hunt for it became the most expensive search in aviation history.

Which nation's September 2014 independence referendum let 16-year-olds vote and drew a turnout of 84.6%?

Scotland voted No by 55.3% to 44.7%, on the highest turnout for any election or referendum in the United Kingdom since January 1910.

Which band's album Songs of Innocence was added free to 500 million iTunes accounts in September 2014?

U2 saw 26 million users download the whole record in its first month, but its unprompted arrival in music libraries drew criticism, and Bono apologised for it in his 2022 memoir.

Which region of Ukraine did Russia annex in March 2014 after troops without insignia seized its parliament?

Crimea was absorbed on 18 March 2014 after a referendum held under occupation, which offered voters no option to keep things as they were.

Who became the youngest Nobel laureate in history by sharing the 2014 Peace Prize at the age of 17?

Malala Yousafzai had been shot by a Taliban gunman in 2012 while riding a bus home from an exam, in an attack aimed at her campaigning for girls' schooling.

Which city's 2014 Winter Olympics opening ceremony saw one of five giant snowflakes fail to open into an Olympic ring?

Sochi's organisers poked fun at the glitch in the closing ceremony, where one group of dancers forming the rings deliberately failed to open out.

Which singer left country music behind with 1989, an album that sold 1.287 million US copies in its 2014 debut week?

Taylor Swift named the album after her birth year as a symbolic rebirth. A week after its release her label pulled her whole catalogue from Spotify, and it stayed away until 2017.

Which 2014 film teams Chris Pratt's Star-Lord with a gun-toting raccoon and a tree-like alien called Groot?

Guardians of the Galaxy's soundtrack of 1960s and 1970s hits topped the Billboard 200, the first soundtrack made up entirely of previously released songs to do so.

Which comedian, an Oscar winner for Good Will Hunting, died in 2014 at the age of 63?

Robin Williams was found after his death to have had Lewy body disease, which had been misdiagnosed as Parkinson's. He first rose to fame as the alien Mork in the sitcom Mork & Mindy.

Which messaging app did Facebook agree to buy for about $19 billion in February 2014?

WhatsApp had been founded in 2009 by Brian Acton and Jan Koum, two former Yahoo employees. A funding round one year before the sale had valued it at just $1.5 billion.

Which NFL team won its first Super Bowl in February 2014 by beating the Denver Broncos 43–8?

The Seattle Seahawks scored a safety just 12 seconds in, the quickest score any Super Bowl had seen. It was also the first Super Bowl played outdoors in a cold-weather city.

Which former Saturday Night Live cast member took over NBC's The Tonight Show from Jay Leno in February 2014?

Jimmy Fallon's start was brought forward from September so that NBC's Winter Olympics coverage could act as a springboard. He became the sixth host of the long-running show.

Which US state began licensed sales of recreational marijuana on January 1, 2014, after voters passed Amendment 64?

Colorado voters had approved the measure in November 2012, and it also let adults aged 21 or over grow up to six plants at home.

Which Disney villain did Angelina Jolie play in a 2014 live-action film that grossed over $758 million worldwide?

Maleficent retells Sleeping Beauty from the side of the fairy who casts the curse, with Elle Fanning as Aurora. It was the fourth-highest-grossing film of 2014.

Which 2014 Christopher Nolan film sends Matthew McConaughey through a wormhole near Saturn to find humanity a new home?

Interstellar grew out of a treatment co-written by physicist Kip Thorne and was first set to be directed by Steven Spielberg. It won the Oscar for Best Visual Effects.

Which CBS sitcom ended after nine seasons in March 2014 with a two-part finale titled Last Forever?

How I Met Your Mother's finale drew 13.13 million US viewers. Co-creator Carter Bays had written his first rough draft of the ending back in 2006.

Which block-building video game's maker, Mojang, did Microsoft agree to buy for $2.5 billion in September 2014?

Minecraft's creator, Markus Persson, had tweeted that June asking whether anyone would buy his share of the studio, worn out by the pressure of owning the game.

Which Uruguayan striker got a four-month ban from football for biting Italy's Giorgio Chiellini at the 2014 World Cup?

Luis Suárez was biting an opponent for the third time in his career, after earlier incidents at Ajax and Liverpool. His ban also covered nine international matches.

With which country did President Obama announce in December 2014 that the United States would normalise relations?

Cuba and the US struck the deal in secret talks mediated by Pope Francis and hosted by Canada. Their embassies in Havana and Washington reopened in July 2015.

Which 2014 Seth Rogen comedy about a plot to kill Kim Jong Un lost its wide cinema release after hackers attacked Sony?

The Interview went out online instead on December 24, 2014, and its $40 million in digital rentals made it Sony's most successful digital release up to then.

Which John Green novel became a 2014 film with Shailene Woodley and Ansel Elgort as teenage cancer patients?

The Fault in Our Stars grossed $307.2 million worldwide on a $12 million budget. It opened at number one at the box office.

Which singer's debut single All About That Bass spent eight consecutive weeks at number one on the US Hot 100 in 2014?

Meghan Trainor co-wrote the doo-wop-flavoured song in 40 minutes. Several labels turned it down as too retro before she won a deal by performing it on a ukulele.

Which actor badly mispronounced singer Idina Menzel's name while introducing her performance at the 2014 Oscars?

John Travolta's slip became an instant internet meme, and he apologised to Menzel soon afterwards. Her next Broadway show printed joke playbills crediting her under the mangled name.

Which headphone brand, co-founded by Dr. Dre in 2006, did Apple announce it would buy for $3 billion in May 2014?

Beats cost Apple more than any acquisition it had ever made. By 2011 the brand already held 64% of the US market for headphones priced above $100.

Which Italian city hosted George Clooney's September 2014 wedding to the human rights lawyer Amal Alamuddin?

Venice's city hall, Ca' Farsetti, hosted the civil ceremony, which was conducted by Clooney's friend Walter Veltroni, a former mayor of Rome.

Which voice assistant debuted inside Amazon's Echo speaker, announced in November 2014 and first sold by invitation?

Alexa got its name partly because the hard X sound is easy for software to pick out, and partly as a nod to the ancient Library of Alexandria.

Which NBA team did LeBron James rejoin in 2014 after winning two championships in four seasons with the Miami Heat?

The Cleveland Cavaliers had drafted him first overall straight out of high school in 2003. His second spell brought the franchise its first championship, in 2016.

Which European Space Agency probe released the lander Philae in November 2014 for the first landing on a comet?

Rosetta had been launched back in March 2004. Philae's batteries ran out only two days after touchdown, though contact was briefly restored in the summer of 2015.

Which country became the first Asian nation to put a spacecraft into orbit around Mars, in September 2014?

India's Mangalyaan probe got there on the country's maiden attempt, after a 298-day journey, in what was then the cheapest Mars mission ever flown.

Which economist became the first woman to chair the US Federal Reserve when she succeeded Ben Bernanke in 2014?

Janet Yellen had been the central bank's vice chair since 2010. In 2021 she broke another barrier as the first woman to serve as US Treasury Secretary.

Which European country's king abdicated in June 2014 after controversy over an elephant-hunting trip?

Spain's Juan Carlos had been hailed for his part in the country's transition to democracy, but the hunt came during a financial crisis. His son succeeded him as Felipe VI.

Which everyday object gave its name to Hong Kong's 2014 democracy protests after crowds used it against pepper spray?

Umbrella Revolution was a label coined on Twitter on 26 September 2014. The protests opposed a plan by China's legislature to pre-screen candidates for Hong Kong's leader.

Which word did Oxford Dictionaries choose as its Word of the Year for 2014, a year after picking selfie?

Vape means to inhale from an electronic cigarette, a device commonly credited to the Chinese pharmacist Hon Lik, who patented a modern version in 2003.

Which quiz app, built by the Buenos Aires studio Etermax, began growing rapidly in the United States at the end of 2014?

Trivia Crack was built in 2013 by a small team and first conquered Latin America under the name Preguntados. Its makers say it climbed the charts without any paid advertising.

Which United States goalkeeper made a World Cup record 16 saves in a 2014 knockout match against Belgium?

Tim Howard, nicknamed the Secretary of Defense, set the tournament's record for saves in a single match during that Round of 16 tie.

Which country won the 2014 Eurovision Song Contest with Rise Like a Phoenix, sung by bearded drag artist Conchita Wurst?

Austria had waited 48 years since its only previous victory in 1966, which was then the longest gap between wins the contest had seen.

The 2014 Nobel Prize in Physics went to three Japanese-born scientists for inventing efficient LEDs of which colour?

Blue LEDs were the missing piece for white LED lamps: a phosphor coating turns part of the light yellow, and the mixture looks white to the eye.

Which podcast hosted by Sarah Koenig debuted in October 2014 and spent its first season on a 1999 Baltimore murder case?

Serial was developed by This American Life and topped the iTunes chart before it had even launched. By February 2015 its first season had been downloaded over 68 million times.

Which OpenSSL security flaw, disclosed in April 2014, left about half a million secure web servers open to attack?

Heartbleed took its name from the heartbeat feature it abused. The Finnish security firm that named it also gave it a bleeding-heart logo and its own website.

Which Iraqi city fell to Islamic State fighters on 10 June 2014 when the soldiers defending it fled?

Mosul is Iraq's second-largest city after Baghdad. Many of its defenders abandoned their weapons and changed into civilian clothes to slip away.

Which university won both the men's and women's NCAA Division I basketball titles on consecutive nights in April 2014?

UConn's men won as a No. 7 seed, beating Kentucky 60–54, and the women then beat Notre Dame 79–58 in the first final ever played between two undefeated teams.

Which Game Boy game did over a million Twitch viewers finish together in 2014 by typing button commands into a chat?

Pokémon Red took the crowd more than 16 days of non-stop play to complete, with as many as 121,000 people tuned in to the stream at the same moment.

Which Asian country's army, led by General Prayut Chan-o-cha, seized power in May 2014 in a twelfth coup since 1932?

Thailand's generals declared martial law and a nationwide curfew, and a military-dominated legislature then unanimously elected Prayut as prime minister.