100 Fun Facts About 2019

Which Paris church lost its roof and spire to a fire on 15 April, while its three rose windows survived?

Notre-Dame's two bell towers and stone shell were saved, along with the altar and organs, and the rebuilt cathedral reopened in December 2024.

Which Marvel film overtook Avatar in July as the highest-grossing film ever, holding the crown until 2021?

Avengers: Endgame was only the fifth film ever to gross $2 billion, and it lost the all-time record in March 2021 when Avatar was re-released in China.

Which Game of Thrones character, by then the Three-Eyed Raven, was chosen as king in the finale 'The Iron Throne'?

Bran Stark is proclaimed 'Bran the Broken', King of the Six Kingdoms, after Sansa wins the North its independence; actor Isaac Hempstead Wright said the ending came from George R. R. Martin himself.

Which country-trap single, remixed with Billy Ray Cyrus, topped the Billboard Hot 100 for a then-record 19 weeks?

Old Town Road by Lil Nas X held No. 1 for 19 consecutive weeks after Billboard quietly removed it from its Hot Country chart for not 'embracing enough elements of today's country music'.

Which golfer won the 2019 Masters at 43, his fifth green jacket and first major since the 2008 U.S. Open?

Tiger Woods won by a single stroke, seven months after his first tournament victory in five years had ended a long slump; only Jack Nicklaus, at 46, has won the Masters older.

Who crossed the Atlantic on the racing yacht Malizia II, then became Time's youngest Person of the Year?

Greta Thunberg, the 16-year-old climate activist, sailed from Plymouth to New York in 15 days rather than fly; the yacht drew its power from solar panels and underwater turbines.

Who became UK prime minister on 24 July after beating Jeremy Hunt in the contest to replace Theresa May?

Boris Johnson then called a snap election and on 12 December won the Conservatives an 80-seat Commons majority.

Which club beat Tottenham Hotspur 2–0 in Madrid to win the 2019 Champions League final, its sixth European Cup?

Liverpool's Mohamed Salah converted a penalty inside two minutes and substitute Divock Origi sealed it in the 87th minute, handing Jürgen Klopp his first trophy at the club.

Which US winger took both the Golden Ball and Golden Boot at the Women's World Cup, then the Ballon d'Or Féminin?

Megan Rapinoe scored in the final too, at 34 the oldest woman to do so in a World Cup final, and was named player of the match before taking the year's top individual awards.

Which streaming service signed up more than 10 million subscribers within a day of its launch on 12 November?

Disney+ opened with The Mandalorian, whose 'Baby Yoda', officially 'the Child', was built with animatronics and puppetry rather than pure computer graphics.

How was the 2019 Cricket World Cup final at Lord's settled after both the match and the Super Over ended tied?

England's boundary count of 26 to New Zealand's 17 decided it, the only time a World Cup has been settled that way, and the ICC scrapped the rule soon after.

Which team beat England 32–12 in Yokohama to win the 2019 Rugby World Cup, led by captain Siya Kolisi?

South Africa became the first team to win the title after losing a pool match, and Siya Kolisi, the Springboks' first black captain, was the one who lifted the trophy.

Which team beat the Golden State Warriors in six games to win the 2019 NBA Finals, its first championship?

Toronto Raptors bosses had gambled a year earlier, trading fan favourite DeMar DeRozan for Kawhi Leonard; he was named Finals MVP and left for Los Angeles within weeks.

Which film became the first R-rated movie to gross $1 billion, after winning the Golden Lion at Venice?

Joker took the top prize at Venice a month before its release, and stayed the highest-grossing R-rated film until Deadpool & Wolverine passed it in 2024.

Which South Korean film about a poor family infiltrating a rich household won the 2019 Palme d'Or at Cannes?

Parasite was the first Korean film to take the Palme d'Or and went on to become the first non-English-language film to win the Best Picture Oscar.

Which 17-year-old became the first artist born in the 21st century to top the US Hot 100, with 'Bad Guy'?

Billie Eilish had already become the first 21st-century-born act to top the Billboard 200 in April with When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?, written with her brother Finneas O'Connell.

Which country won the 2019 Eurovision Song Contest in Tel Aviv with Duncan Laurence's song 'Arcade'?

The Netherlands won without topping either the jury vote or the public vote, ending a 44-year wait since Teach-In's 'Ding-a-dong' in 1975.

The outbreak that grew into the COVID-19 pandemic was first reported in December in which Chinese city?

Wuhan's cluster of unknown pneumonia cases was reported to the WHO's China office on 31 December, and the '19' in COVID-19 marks that year of first identification.

Who was carried out of Ecuador's London embassy by police in April after almost seven years inside?

Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder, was jailed for 50 weeks for skipping bail; within weeks Sweden reopened its rape inquiry and the United States began seeking his removal to face charges.

Which comedian who played a fictional president in Servant of the People won Ukraine's real presidency in April?

Volodymyr Zelenskyy took 73 percent of the run-off vote against the sitting president, Petro Poroshenko, and his new party even borrowed the show's name.

Which proposed law brought hundreds of thousands of Hong Kong marchers out on 9 June and was formally withdrawn that October?

The extradition bill was suspended in June and Carrie Lam promised its withdrawal on 4 September, but by then the protests had widened into demands for democracy and an inquiry into the police.

Which country held a funeral in August for Okjökull, a glacier declared dead after shrinking to a patch of ice?

Iceland's mourners fixed a plaque titled 'A letter to the future' to the bare rock, warning that all the country's main glaciers are expected to go the same way within 200 years.

Which travel firm, a brand in use since 1841, collapsed in September, stranding around 600,000 holidaymakers?

Thomas Cook's failure set off Operation Matterhorn, the UK's biggest peacetime repatriation, with aircraft borrowed from airlines around the world to fly its British customers home.

Which airliner was grounded worldwide in March after Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302, its second crash in five months?

The Boeing 737 MAX's MCAS flight-control software had activated in both accidents, and the jets stayed grounded for 20 months until US regulators cleared them in November 2020.

Which Ethiopian prime minister won the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize for ending the border conflict with Eritrea?

Abiy Ahmed offered Eritrea peace within months of taking office in 2018; a year after the prize, his own government was at war in Ethiopia's Tigray region.

Which spacecraft made the first soft landing on the far side of the Moon, in the Von Kármán crater on 3 January?

Chang'e 4 carried a sealed mini-biosphere in which a cotton seed sprouted, the first plant to grow on the Moon; it died within days, once the power was shut down for the lunar night.

Which SI unit was defined by a platinum-iridium cylinder for 130 years until new definitions took effect on 20 May?

The kilogram is now fixed by the Planck constant; the old prototype and its official copies had drifted apart by about 50 micrograms over a century.

The first image of a black hole, released in April by the Event Horizon Telescope, showed which galaxy's core?

Messier 87's supermassive black hole, designated M87*, was captured by radio dishes spanning the globe; the Milky Way's own Sagittarius A* was not imaged until May 2022.

Which era name began in Japan on 1 May when Naruhito took the throne after his father Akihito's abdication?

Reiwa, glossed by Japan's Foreign Ministry as 'beautiful harmony', was the first era name drawn from Japanese literature, the Man'yōshū, rather than the Chinese classics.

What did explorer Victor Vescovo report finding on the floor of the Challenger Deep, the deepest point in the ocean?

Plastic waste, which Vescovo described as a bag and sweet wrappers, had beaten him to the deepest place on Earth; he went down in the submersible Limiting Factor and was the first person to dive there twice.

Which Kenyan ran the first sub-two-hour marathon in Vienna in October, a time not ratified as a world record?

Eliud Kipchoge's 1:59:40 relied on rotating teams of pacemakers and drinks handed over by bicycle, which is why the time could not stand as a record.

Which capital city was renamed Nur-Sultan in March, days after the resignation of its country's first president?

Astana was renamed for Nursultan Nazarbayev, who had led Kazakhstan since Soviet times, and took its old name back in 2022.

Which gymnast won five golds at the 2019 World Championships in Stuttgart, equalling the record for a single Worlds?

Simone Biles matched a mark that Larisa Latynina had set back in 1958, and debuted two new skills that now carry her name, one on floor and one on beam.

Who saved two championship points to beat Roger Federer in Wimbledon's longest singles final, won on a 12–12 tiebreak?

Novak Djokovic won 14 fewer points than Federer over the match, 204 to 218, yet took all three of his sets on tiebreaks.

Which team lifted its first Stanley Cup in June, five months after sitting dead last in the NHL on 2 January?

The St. Louis Blues beat Boston in seven games, having replaced their coach in November and climbed from the league's worst record at the turn of the year.

Which Polish novelist, author of Flights, was awarded the delayed 2018 Nobel Prize in Literature alongside Peter Handke?

Olga Tokarczuk's prize had been held over a year after a sexual-assault scandal engulfed the Swedish Academy, so the 2018 and 2019 laureates were announced together.

Which 22-year-old became the first Latin American to win the Tour de France after a hailstorm cut short stage 19?

Egan Bernal of Team Ineos was the youngest Tour winner since 1909; the neutralised stage to Tignes moved him past Alaphilippe into the yellow jersey.

Which heavy underdog, a late stand-in for Jarrell Miller, stopped Anthony Joshua at Madison Square Garden in June?

Andy Ruiz Jr. became the first heavyweight champion of Mexican heritage with a seventh-round stoppage; Miller had been dropped after failing drug tests.

Which England player's unbeaten 135 at Headingley won an Ashes Test by one wicket alongside Jack Leach?

Ben Stokes saw England home after they had needed 73 more when the last man arrived, completing their record run chase of 359; the series still ended drawn 2–2.

Which game's first World Cup, at New York's Arthur Ashe Stadium in July, saw 16-year-old 'Bugha' win $3 million?

Fortnite's solo champion, Kyle 'Bugha' Giersdorf, was 'swatted' while streaming from home weeks later; an officer who answered the hoax call recognised him and defused the situation.

Which British actress won the Best Actress Oscar in February for playing Queen Anne in The Favourite?

Olivia Colman also took the Golden Globe and BAFTA for the role, then went straight on to play a second queen, Elizabeth II, in The Crown.

Which Phoebe Waller-Bridge comedy, with Andrew Scott as the 'Hot Priest', won 2019's Outstanding Comedy Series Emmy?

Fleabag began as a sketch Waller-Bridge wrote for a 10-minute slot at a stand-up storytelling night; she also won Emmys for lead actress and writing.

Which HBO miniseries starring Jared Harris won the Emmy for Outstanding Limited Series?

Chernobyl, with Harris as the Soviet scientist Valery Legasov, was followed by reports that Russia's NTV was making its own 'patriotic' version, built around a CIA agent at the plant.

Which British rapper's debut album Psychodrama, structured as a therapy session, won the 2019 Mercury Prize?

Dave's concept album traces the prison convictions of his elder brothers; it went on to take Album of the Year at the 2020 Brit Awards.

Ariana Grande's eight-week No. 1 '7 Rings' interpolates which song from The Sound of Music?

'My Favorite Things' earned Rodgers and Hammerstein writing credits on the hit, and their publisher took 90 percent of its songwriting royalties as the price of clearing it.

Which Scottish singer's 'Someone You Loved' spent seven consecutive weeks at No. 1 on the UK Singles Chart?

Lewis Capaldi's ballad later topped the Billboard Hot 100 too, and its video cast his distant relative Peter Capaldi as a bereaved husband listening to his wife's donated heart.

Which grime artist became the first British rapper to headline Glastonbury, wearing a stab vest designed by Banksy?

Stormzy topped the bill alongside The Killers and The Cure, months after 'Vossi Bop' gave him his first UK No. 1 single; the vest referenced London's rise in knife crime.

Whose 1994 festive hit finally reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 in December, 25 years after its release?

Mariah Carey's 'All I Want for Christmas Is You' could not enter the Hot 100 in 1994 because it was never sold as a commercial single; its belated climb gave her a 19th No. 1.

Which member sat out the Spice Girls' 2019 stadium reunion, which opened at Dublin's Croke Park as a four-piece?

Victoria Beckham's absence made it the group's only tour without her; the four still sold out 13 stadium dates in Britain and Ireland, ending with three nights at Wembley.

Which country singer's Golden Hour won Album of the Year at February's Grammys, tying Childish Gambino on four wins?

Kacey Musgraves won every category she was nominated in, matching Childish Gambino, who took his four awards without attending the ceremony.

What was pictured in the January 2019 Instagram post that beat Kylie Jenner's record as the most-liked ever?

An egg, posted by an account called world_record_egg, passed Kylie Jenner's 18 million likes in under ten days. It stayed the most-liked post until a Lionel Messi photo overtook it in December 2022.

Which fruit, duct-taped to a wall by artist Maurizio Cattelan, sold for $120,000 at Art Basel Miami Beach in 2019?

A banana was all there was to Comedian, and a performance artist pulled it off the gallery wall and ate it after the sale. Buyers get a certificate and display instructions; the fruit is replaced as needed.

A joke Facebook event drew two million pledges to storm which secret US military site in September 2019?

Area 51 saw only about 150 people turn up at its gates on the day, and nobody got in. The event's creator, Matty Roberts, had posted it as a joke about searching the base for extraterrestrial life.

Which video game mascot was redesigned in 2019 after fans mocked his look in the first trailer for a live-action movie?

Sonic first appeared looking like a real hedgehog, and the backlash led Paramount to delay the film by three months for a redesign. The fix added about $5 million to the budget, and the film became a hit.

Which Tesla vehicle had two 'Armor Glass' windows shatter when a metal ball was thrown at them at its 2019 unveiling?

The Cybertruck's windows broke on stage after designer Franz von Holzhausen threw the ball. Elon Musk later blamed an earlier sledgehammer blow to the door, which he said had cracked the base of the glass.

Which island did Donald Trump propose buying in August 2019, an idea Denmark's prime minister called 'absurd'?

Greenland is not for sale, Mette Frederiksen replied, and Trump cancelled a state visit to Denmark days later. The United States had tried before, offering $100 million in gold for the island in 1946.

What modern object was accidentally left on a banquet table in a 2019 episode of Game of Thrones?

A coffee cup from a local café was left on set during the feast in 'The Last of the Starks' and made it into the first broadcast. HBO digitally erased it two days later.

Which fast-food chain's new chicken sandwich sold out across the United States two weeks after its August 2019 launch?

Popeyes launched it to rival Chick-fil-A's flagship sandwich, and stores saw long lines before supplies ran out on 27 August. It did not return to menus until November.

Mass protests in Lebanon in October 2019 were triggered by a planned tax on calls nicknamed after which app?

WhatsApp calls were to carry a 20-cent daily charge, a plan the telecoms minister scrapped the same night. The protests went on anyway and turned on the whole political class.

Which planet overtook Jupiter in 2019 as the one with the most known moons, after 20 new ones were reported?

Saturn's tally rose to 82, putting it ahead of Jupiter for the first time since 2000. The new moons were found in archived Subaru telescope images taken between 2004 and 2007.

Which two-word retort did New Zealand MP Chlöe Swarbrick use on a heckler during a climate speech in November 2019?

OK boomer was her reply to Todd Muller, who interrupted as she noted that the average MP was 49. Muller is in fact Generation X, not a baby boomer.

Which internet-famous pet, whose real name was Tardar Sauce, died in May 2019 at the age of seven?

Grumpy Cat owed her permanent scowl to an underbite and feline dwarfism, not to her mood. Her death was announced on social media three days later.

Which Toy Story 4 character, made by Bonnie at kindergarten, believes he is trash rather than a toy?

Forky is a spork that Bonnie turns into a toy with recycled materials at her kindergarten orientation. Woody spends the family's RV holiday stopping him from throwing himself away.

Which comedian withdrew as host of the Oscars held in February 2019, leaving the ceremony with no host at all?

Kevin Hart withdrew two days after being named, amid a backlash over homophobic tweets from 2010 and 2011. The ceremony went ahead with no host for the first time since 1989.

Which film about pianist Don Shirley's tour of the Deep South won Best Picture at the Oscars held in February 2019?

Green Book won without a Best Director nomination, only the fifth Best Picture winner to manage that. Its title comes from a guide book for African-American travelers published from 1936 to 1966.

Which James Bond actor played the Southern detective Benoit Blanc in the 2019 murder mystery Knives Out?

Daniel Craig played Blanc with a flamboyant Southern accent, leading an eleven-actor ensemble. The film's director had noticed him for his stage work and his roles outside the Bond films.

Which sitcom about Caltech physicists and their neighbor Penny ended in May 2019 after 12 seasons and 279 episodes?

The Big Bang Theory bowed out with Sheldon and Amy collecting the Nobel Prize in Physics and Penny revealed to be pregnant. Its prequel, Young Sheldon, ran on until 2024.

Which farmyard bird do players control to pester an English village in a hit 2019 indie game by House House?

A goose is the hero of Untitled Goose Game, which grew out of a stock photo that an employee posted in the studio's chat. It sold more than a million copies by the end of 2019.

Which Star Wars villain, played again by Ian McDiarmid, returned from the dead in The Rise of Skywalker in 2019?

Emperor Palpatine is revealed as the power behind Snoke and as Rey's grandfather. McDiarmid's return stayed secret until a teaser trailer was shown at Star Wars Celebration in April 2019.

Which actor voiced the title character in the 2019 film Pokémon Detective Pikachu, the first live-action Pokémon movie?

Ryan Reynolds supplied both the voice and the motion capture for Pikachu. The film was the first Pokémon release in the United States not to be rated G.

In June 2019 Donald Trump became the first sitting US president to set foot in which country?

North Korea got the visit a day after Trump tweeted from a G20 summit that he would meet Kim Jong Un at the DMZ 'just to shake his hand'. He stepped briefly over the line and back with Kim.

A 35-day US government shutdown that ended in January 2019 was a standoff over funding for what?

A border wall with Mexico was the sticking point: President Trump demanded $5.7 billion for it. The shutdown cost the economy at least $11 billion, by the Congressional Budget Office's estimate.

Which Democrat announced an impeachment inquiry into Donald Trump in September 2019 after a whistleblower's complaint?

Nancy Pelosi had at first resisted calls for impeachment. As Speaker she announced on 24 September that six House committees would begin the inquiry, accusing Trump of betraying his oath of office.

Which sixth branch of the US armed forces was created when the annual defense act was signed in December 2019?

Space Force grew out of a command the Air Force had set up in 1982. Its enlisted rank insignia are built around a hexagon, a nod to its place as the sixth service.

Indonesia announced in August 2019 that it would move its capital from Jakarta to a new city on which island?

Borneo appealed partly because the chosen provinces are relatively free of earthquakes, tsunamis and volcanoes. Jakarta is sinking, and the government pledged $40 billion to protect it even as the capital moves.

Climbing which Australian landmark was banned in October 2019, when the chains that helped visitors up were removed?

Uluru is sacred to the Anangu, who do not climb it, and the national park board voted unanimously for the ban in 2017. The chain had been laid for tourists in the 1960s.

A viral 2019 photo by climber Nirmal Purja showed a long queue of people near the summit of which mountain?

Mount Everest was one of six 8,000-metre peaks Purja summited that spring. He went on to climb all 14 in six months and six days, a record that stood until 2023.

Hurricane Dorian stalled for about a day over which island nation in September 2019 as a Category 5 storm?

The Bahamas took Category 5 winds for about 22 hours on Great Abaco and Grand Bahama, the longest such battering of any one place then on record in the Atlantic basin.

Which was the first place in Asia to legalize same-sex marriage, under a law that took effect in May 2019?

Taiwan's parliament passed the law a week before a deadline set by the Constitutional Court, which had given legislators two years to act. President Tsai Ing-wen signed it on 22 May.

Which former army captain was sworn in as president of Brazil on 1 January 2019, succeeding Michel Temer?

Jair Bolsonaro had spent 15 years in the military before entering politics. Among his first cabinet picks was an astronaut, Marcos Pontes, as science and technology minister.

Which NASA rover's mission on Mars was declared over in February 2019, after lasting 55 times longer than planned?

Opportunity was built to last 90 Martian days and worked for more than 14 years, covering 45 kilometres. It fell silent in a planet-wide dust storm in June 2018 and never answered over 1,000 recovery signals.

Which NASA probe flew past the Kuiper belt object nicknamed Ultima Thule on New Year's Day 2019, after visiting Pluto?

New Horizons made the flyby at 43.4 times Earth's distance from the Sun, about 6.5 billion kilometres out. The object has since been given the official name Arrokoth.

Which astronaut made the first all-female spacewalk with Jessica Meir in October 2019, during a record 328-day flight?

Christina Koch had been due to make it in March with Anne McClain, a plan that fell through. Her 328 days in orbit passed Peggy Whitson's 289 as the longest single spaceflight by a woman.

The 2019 Nobel Prize in Chemistry went to three developers of which technology used in phones and electric cars?

Lithium-ion batteries made John Goodenough, at 97, the oldest person to have won a Nobel Prize up to that time. He shared it with Stanley Whittingham and Akira Yoshino.

Which country's Moon lander crashed in September 2019, five months after Israel's Beresheet met the same fate?

India traced the loss of its Vikram lander to a software glitch. It strayed from its planned path 2.1 kilometres above the surface and fell silent just when touchdown was due.

Which $47 billion startup shelved its stock market debut in September 2019 as co-founder Adam Neumann was forced out?

WeWork pulled its filing amid investor worries over its governance and valuation. The office-rental firm was soon reported to be worth about $10 billion, less than the $12.8 billion it had raised.

Which plant-based burger maker saw its shares jump 163% on its first day of trading in May 2019?

Beyond Meat's debut was the best first-day performance by a major US company since 2000, the height of the dot-com bubble. The Nasdaq listing raised $240 million.

Which Chinese phone maker was put on a US trade blacklist in May 2019, cutting it off from American suppliers?

Huawei went onto the Commerce Department's Entity List along with 70 affiliates. It later lost the license to preinstall the Play Store and other key Android apps on its phones.

Which Desperate Housewives star was sentenced to 14 days in prison in 2019 over a US college admissions scandal?

Felicity Huffman admitted paying $15,000 to have a proctor correct her daughter's SAT answers. She was also fined $30,000 and ordered to do 250 hours of community service.

Which former Nissan chairman fled Japan in December 2019 hidden in a large box loaded onto a private jet?

Carlos Ghosn was under house arrest awaiting trial when he hid in an audio equipment box too large for the airport's x-ray machine. His plane landed in Istanbul the next morning.

Which team won Super Bowl LIII 13–3 in February 2019, the lowest-scoring Super Bowl played up to then?

The New England Patriots scored the game's only touchdown in the fourth quarter, through running back Sony Michel. No earlier Super Bowl had gone three quarters without one.

Which team won its first World Series in 2019, in a series where the visiting side won all seven games?

The Washington Nationals upset the favored Houston Astros in a pattern never before seen in a seven-game final in the major North American leagues. The franchise began as the Montreal Expos in 1969.

Which brand's sneaker split open under Duke star Zion Williamson 36 seconds into a February 2019 game?

Nike watched its shoe rip apart as Williamson's foot went through it, leaving him with a sprained knee. Five months later he signed a five-year, $75 million deal with its Jordan brand.

Which Margaret Atwood novel, published in September 2019, returns to Gilead 15 years after The Handmaid's Tale?

The Testaments was joint winner of the 2019 Booker Prize with Bernardine Evaristo's Girl, Woman, Other. Atwood wrote it in step with the TV series, telling its producers where her story was heading.

Which prime minister brought in strict gun laws within a month of the March 2019 Christchurch mosque attacks?

Jacinda Ardern called the attack one of New Zealand's darkest days. Parliament then banned most semi-automatic weapons, and the buyback scheme that followed drew interest from Donald Trump when the two met.

Mass protests that swept Chile from October 2019 began as a student campaign against a rise in what?

Santiago Metro fares rose by 30 pesos at peak hours, about 4%, and secondary school students answered with mass fare-dodging. Their slogan was '¡Evade!', and the unrest grew into a revolt over inequality.

North Macedonia took its new name in February 2019 to settle a decades-long dispute with which neighboring country?

Greece feared the former name implied a claim on its own coastal region of Macedonia, and its veto had kept its neighbor out of NATO. The renamed country joined the alliance in March 2020.

Which Nordic country made Sanna Marin, aged 34, the world's youngest serving prime minister in December 2019?

Finland had never had a younger prime minister. Marin's world title lasted only a few weeks: Austria's Sebastian Kurz took it back when he returned to office in January 2020.

Which country's president Omar al-Bashir was ousted by the army in April 2019 after 30 years in power?

Sudan's armed forces removed him after months of street protests. He had seized power himself in a 1989 coup as an army brigadier, and within a week of his fall he was in Khartoum's Kobar Prison.

Which state oil company's December 2019 share sale raised $25.6 billion, beating Alibaba's record listing?

Saudi Aramco sold just 1.5% of itself on the Tadawul exchange. Its shares rose 10% on the first day of trading, valuing the company at about $1.88 trillion, then more than any other listed firm.