96 Fun Facts About 2020s

Which video-call app's daily meeting participants jumped from 10 million to over 300 million in early 2020?

Zoom went from 10 million daily meeting participants in December 2019 to over 300 million by April 2020; amid 'Zoombombing' intrusions it froze new features for 90 days to fix security and privacy flaws.

Which US presidential candidate won the 2020 election?

Joe Biden won 306 electoral votes to 232; Georgia, decided by about 12,000 votes, recounted all five million of its ballots by hand and the result stood.

Which app became the world's most downloaded in 2020, passing two billion installs that April?

TikTok crossed two billion downloads in April 2020 after the best quarter any app had recorded; that June India, its biggest market by installs, banned it.

Which streaming service released the hit series "Tiger King" in March 2020?

Netflix released Tiger King on March 20, 2020 and Nielsen counted 34 million viewers in ten days; its star Joe Exotic was already serving 22 years over a murder-for-hire plot against rival Carole Baskin.

Which city hosted the 2020 Summer Olympics, held in 2021 due to the pandemic?

Tokyo's Games were postponed in March 2020, the only postponement in Olympic history, yet kept the Tokyo 2020 name and went ahead a year later with almost no spectators.

Which 400-metre container ship ran aground and blocked the Suez Canal for six days in March 2021?

Ever Given was freed on March 29 with help from a supermoon's high tide; Egypt then impounded the ship for nearly three months until its owners agreed a compensation deal.

Which COVID-19 vaccine was the first to receive US Emergency Use Authorization from the FDA, on December 11, 2020?

Pfizer-BioNTech's vaccine began as 'Project Lightspeed' at the German firm BioNTech in January 2020, days after the virus's genetic sequence was published; US authorization came before the year was out.

George Floyd's murder by a police officer in which US city set off worldwide protests in 2020?

Minneapolis officer Derek Chauvin killed Floyd during an arrest on May 25, 2020; protests spread to more than 60 countries, and Chauvin was sentenced to 22 and a half years for murder.

Which streaming platform launched in November 2019, months before a pandemic-fuelled boom?

Disney+ launched on November 12, 2019 and passed 100 million subscribers within 16 months; Disney's own forecast had been 60 to 90 million by 2024.

Which NASA rover landed in Jezero Crater on Mars in February 2021?

Perseverance carried the Ingenuity helicopter, which made the first powered flight on another planet; built for just five test flights, it went on to fly 72 times.

Which AI tool, released in November 2022, reached an estimated 100 million users within two months?

ChatGPT reached an estimated 100 million monthly users by January 2023, and its sudden popularity led Google executives to sound a 'code red' over the threat to their search business.

Which two films opened on the same day in July 2023, sparking a viral double-feature craze?

Barbie and Oppenheimer both opened on July 21, 2023; AMC said 40,000 of its members had booked same-day tickets to both, and the films opened to $162 million and $82 million in North America.

Taylor Swift's record-breaking concert tour that began in March 2023 was called what?

The Eras Tour's presale crashed Ticketmaster in November 2022, prompting a US Senate hearing; by its end in December 2024 it had grossed over $2 billion, the most of any tour to that date.

Which country did Russia invade in February 2022?

Ukraine was invaded on 24 February 2022 in what Moscow called a 'special military operation'; the drive on Kyiv failed, and Russian forces withdrew from the capital region about five weeks later.

Which sea shanty became a viral hit in January 2021 through a Scottish postman's cover?

Wellerman, a New Zealand folk song about whalers, took off when Nathan Evans posted his version online; he quit his job as a postman, signed a record deal, and the single reached UK number one.

Which company's stock did Reddit's r/WallStreetBets send soaring in January 2021?

GameStop's shares peaked at $483 on January 28, 2021, up from about $17 at the start of the month; the squeeze cost Melvin Capital, a hedge fund betting against the stock, 53% of its value.

Which vice president was rushed from the Senate chamber when a mob stormed the US Capitol in January 2021?

Mike Pence refused his Secret Service detail's requests to leave the Capitol, and returned to the chamber that night to preside as Congress confirmed the election result.

Which SpaceX mission in September 2021 was the first all-civilian orbital spaceflight?

Inspiration4 doubled as a fundraiser for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital: commander Jared Isaacman gave $125 million himself, and Elon Musk added $55 million.

Which jubilee did Queen Elizabeth II celebrate in June 2022, marking 70 years on the throne?

Platinum Jubilee celebrations filled a four-day weekend from 2 June 2022 and included a short film of the Queen having tea with Paddington Bear.

Which comedian did Will Smith slap on stage at the 2022 Oscars over a joke about his wife?

Chris Rock had joked about Jada Pinkett Smith's shaved head; about forty minutes later Smith won Best Actor for King Richard, and the Academy then banned him from its events for ten years.

Which social media platform did Elon Musk acquire in October 2022?

Twitter sued Elon Musk when he tried to walk away from his $44 billion offer; he closed the deal on October 27, 2022 as a trial loomed, and renamed the platform X in July 2023.

Which 2022 AI image generator released its model publicly, so anyone could run it on a home computer?

Stable Diffusion could run on an ordinary gaming graphics card; within months Getty Images sued its maker, Stability AI, alleging it had copied millions of Getty photos to train the model.

Which country hosted the first FIFA World Cup played in November and December?

Qatar's tournament was the first World Cup in the Middle East, and it was moved from the usual June and July to November and December to avoid the extremes of the Gulf summer.

Which social media app launched in July 2023 and signed up over 100 million users in five days?

Threads signed people up through their existing Instagram accounts and reached 100 million users in five days, then the fastest start of any consumer app.

Which K-pop group announced a temporary hiatus in 2022 for members to fulfill mandatory military service?

BTS's oldest member, Jin, enlisted first, on December 13, 2022; a 2020 law had let top K-pop stars put off service until 30, and all seven members had completed it by June 2025.

Which crypto exchange went bankrupt in November 2022, leading to founder Sam Bankman-Fried's fraud conviction?

FTX filed for bankruptcy on November 11, 2022, days after rival Binance withdrew a rescue offer; Sam Bankman-Fried was convicted of fraud and sentenced to 25 years in March 2024.

Which series' fourth season, released in 2022, became its streaming service's most-watched English-language season at the time?

Stranger Things 4 logged 1.35 billion hours viewed in its first 28 days, and its use of Kate Bush's 'Running Up That Hill' sent the 1980s single to number one in eight countries.

Which workplace term went viral in 2022 for doing only what your job requires and no more?

Quiet quitting means staying in the job, not leaving it; Gallup estimated in 2022 that at least half of the US workforce fit the description.

Which observatory, launched on Christmas Day 2021, sent back its first full-color images in July 2022?

James Webb was too big for its Ariane 5 rocket, so it launched folded on 25 December 2021 and unfolded its sunshield and 6.5-metre gold-coated mirror on the way to its post.

Which OceanGate submersible imploded during a deep-sea dive in June 2023?

Titan imploded on a dive to the Titanic wreck, killing all five aboard; its carbon-fibre hull had never been certified by any outside body, and the US Coast Guard later called the disaster preventable.

The August 2023 wildfire that destroyed the historic town of Lahaina struck which Hawaiian island?

Maui's fire killed at least 102 people, the deadliest US wildfire in more than a century; weeks later Lahaina's badly charred 150-year-old banyan tree put out new leaves.

Who won their record-extending 8th Ballon d'Or in 2023?

Lionel Messi won it after captaining his country to the 2022 World Cup; having joined Inter Miami in July 2023, he collected the award as a Major League Soccer player.

Which HBO drama, adapted from a PlayStation game, premiered in January 2023?

The Last of Us takes its fungus from life: Cordyceps really does hijack insects, and the game's creators got the idea from a nature documentary; the premiere drew 4.7 million US viewers on its first night.

Which chipmaker's market value passed $1 trillion in 2023 on soaring demand for its AI processors?

Nvidia built its business on graphics chips for video games, which then became the workhorses of AI; its value first touched $1 trillion on May 30, 2023.

Which Miley Cyrus single from the album Endless Summer Vacation debuted at number one in January 2023?

Flowers began at the piano as a slower, sadder ballad before Miley Cyrus and her co-writers flipped it into an upbeat anthem; it then spent eight weeks at number one on the Billboard Hot 100.

Which country became the first to make Bitcoin legal tender, in September 2021?

El Salvador made Bitcoin legal tender on September 7, 2021, then reversed course: in early 2025 it stripped that status as part of a loan deal with the International Monetary Fund.

Which actress played Barbie in the 2023 blockbuster film directed by Greta Gerwig?

Margot Robbie also produced Barbie through her company LuckyChap, pitched it to the studio and hired Greta Gerwig to write and direct; it became the highest-grossing film of 2023.

Which NASA spacecraft was deliberately crashed into an asteroid's moonlet in 2022 to test deflecting a threat to Earth?

DART struck Dimorphos on September 26, 2022 and shortened its orbit around the asteroid Didymos by 32 minutes, far beyond the 73 seconds NASA had set as the bar for success.

Which Marvel film swapped the comics' Atlantis for the underwater kingdom Talokan?

Wakanda Forever gave Namor the realm of Talokan, echoing Tlālōcān of Aztec myth; director Ryan Coogler wanted an underwater kingdom that would stand apart from earlier screen versions of Atlantis.

Which country became the first to land a spacecraft near the Moon's south pole in August 2023?

India's Chandrayaan-3 touched down on 23 August 2023, days after Russia's Luna 25 crashed while trying to land in the same region.

Under what name did Google launch its AI chatbot in 2023, before rebranding it Gemini a year later?

Bard gave a wrong answer about a space telescope in its first promotional demo, and Alphabet's shares fell 8%, wiping about $100 billion off its market value.

Who declared 15 November 2022 the 'Day of Eight Billion'?

United Nations demographers chose the date from their projections; they noted that the latest billion took 12 years to add and expect the next to take about 15, until 2037.

Which country lost more than 50,000 people in a magnitude 7.8 earthquake in February 2023?

Turkey's confirmed death toll reached 53,537 after a second major quake struck nine hours after the first on 6 February 2023; the damage covered an area about the size of Germany.

Which AI company, founded by former OpenAI researchers, launched Claude?

Anthropic, founded in 2021 by former OpenAI VP of Research Dario Amodei and his sister Daniela, created the Claude family of AI assistants focused on AI safety.

Which film won Best Picture at the Academy Awards held in March 2024?

Oppenheimer won seven Oscars, including Best Director for Christopher Nolan, who made it at Universal after falling out with Warner Bros over its plan to put its 2021 films on streaming the day they opened.

Which slang word was Oxford Word of the Year for 2023?

Rizz, popularised by streamer Kai Cenat and thought to be clipped from the middle of 'charisma', surged in June 2023 when actor Tom Holland said in an interview that he had very little of it.

Which country officially became the 31st member of NATO in April 2023?

Finland officially joined NATO on April 4, 2023, doubling the alliance's border with Russia. Sweden followed as the 32nd member in March 2024.

Which country's military seized power in a February 2021 coup, detaining Aung San Suu Kyi?

Myanmar's military detained Aung San Suu Kyi and President Win Myint in raids on the morning of 1 February 2021, just before the newly elected parliament was to be sworn in.

Which major tech company rebranded itself as Meta in October 2021?

Facebook's parent company rebranded to Meta Platforms on October 28, 2021, reflecting CEO Mark Zuckerberg's vision of building the metaverse, a virtual reality-based internet.

Which 2021 Korean survival drama became its streaming service's most-watched show ever?

Squid Game's creator Hwang Dong-hyuk wrote the story in 2009 but could find no backer for a decade; it then reached 142 million households in four weeks and won six Primetime Emmys.

Which film was the first non-English-language movie to win Best Picture, in 2020?

Parasite won four Oscars, including Best Picture, months after its director Bong Joon-ho had shrugged off the awards in an interview as 'very local'.

The August 2020 Beirut port explosion was caused by a stockpile of which chemical?

Some 2,750 tonnes of ammonium nitrate had sat in a port warehouse since 2014 after being offloaded from the impounded cargo ship Rhosus; the blast on August 4, 2020 killed over 200 people.

Kobe Bryant died in a January 2020 helicopter crash near which California city?

Calabasas hills were wrapped in fog so thick that Los Angeles police had grounded their own helicopters that morning; investigators found the pilot flew into cloud and became disoriented, and all nine aboard died.

Which country elected libertarian economist Javier Milei as president in November 2023?

Argentina elected Javier Milei, who wielded a chainsaw at rallies to symbolise the cuts he planned to the state, with 56% of the runoff vote against Economy Minister Sergio Massa.

Where was Charles III crowned on 6 May 2023?

Westminster Abbey has been the coronation church since William the Conqueror's crowning in 1066; Charles III sat in the 700-year-old Coronation Chair, with the Stone of Scone brought from Edinburgh for the occasion.

Queen Elizabeth II died in September 2022 at which residence?

Balmoral Castle in Scotland was where Elizabeth II died on 8 September 2022; two days earlier she had appointed a new prime minister there rather than at Buckingham Palace, the usual setting.

Which former Japanese prime minister was shot dead while campaigning in July 2022?

Shinzo Abe, the country's longest-serving prime minister, was shot with a homemade gun in Nara; the gunman cited a grudge against the Unification Church, which courts later ordered dissolved.

Which group seized Kabul on 15 August 2021, two weeks before the last US troops left Afghanistan?

The Taliban took Kabul about three and a half months after their offensive began; commanders first ordered fighters to halt at the city gates, then moved in after President Ashraf Ghani fled.

Which airline's Boeing 737 MAX 9 lost a door plug in flight in January 2024?

Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 lost the plug minutes after leaving Portland on January 5, 2024; investigators found four bolts meant to secure it were missing, and the FAA grounded MAX 9s with the same plug.

Who became the first Asian winner of the Best Actress Oscar, in 2023?

Michelle Yeoh won for Everything Everywhere All at Once, in a lead role first written for Jackie Chan before the directors reconceived the protagonist as a woman.

Which 2021 film was the first released by a streaming service to win Best Picture?

CODA was bought by Apple at the Sundance festival for a record $25 million and won all three Oscars it was nominated for, with Troy Kotsur becoming the first deaf man to win an acting award.

Who became the second woman ever to win the Best Director Oscar, for Nomadland?

Chloé Zhao cast real-life nomads such as Linda May and Swankie as versions of themselves alongside Frances McDormand; her win came eleven years after Kathryn Bigelow's.

Which country won the 2023 Women's World Cup, beating England 1-0 in the final in Sydney?

Spain won through Olga Carmona's 29th-minute goal; federation chief Luis Rubiales then forcibly kissed forward Jenni Hermoso at the medal ceremony, was suspended by FIFA, and resigned three weeks later.

Which singer closed the 2024 Paris Olympics opening ceremony from the Eiffel Tower?

Celine Dion sang Édith Piaf's 'Hymne à l'amour' in her first performance since revealing in 2022 that she had stiff-person syndrome, the illness that had forced her off the stage.

Which city became the first to host both a Summer and a Winter Olympics, in 2022?

Beijing reused venues from its 2008 Summer Games: the Water Cube swimming arena was refitted for curling and nicknamed the Ice Cube, and the ski slopes ran on artificial snow.

Which teenager won the 2021 US Open, the Open era's first qualifier to win a major?

Emma Raducanu came through qualifying and won the title without dropping a set, only weeks after collecting her school A-level results.

Which NASA program sent an uncrewed Orion capsule around the Moon in late 2022, ahead of planned crewed landings?

Artemis I lifted off on November 16, 2022 after a faulty sensor reading and a hydrogen leak scrubbed two earlier attempts; Orion then flew farther from Earth than Apollo 13, the old record for a crew-rated craft.

Which rocket's first fully integrated test flight ended in a mid-air explosion in April 2023?

Starship lifted off from Boca Chica, Texas on April 20, 2023 with several engines failing and was destroyed after less than four minutes; the launch also badly damaged its own pad.

Which country's undersea volcano caused 2022's record-setting atmospheric explosion?

Tonga's Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai volcano erupted on January 15, 2022, sending tsunami waves as far as Peru; it was the largest eruption since Pinatubo in 1991.

Which bank's failure on March 10, 2023 was then the largest in the US since 2008?

Silicon Valley Bank was seized by regulators on March 10, 2023 after a deposit run; employees received annual bonuses hours before the takeover, and First Republic's May failure later proved larger.

Which mercenary force staged a one-day mutiny against Russia's military leadership in June 2023?

Wagner Group fighters seized the city of Rostov-on-Don and advanced toward Moscow before a deal brokered by Belarus's Alexander Lukashenko; Prigozhin died in a plane crash two months later.

Who became Britain's shortest-serving prime minister, resigning on her 50th day in 2022?

Liz Truss resigned after her mini-budget sent the pound to a record low against the dollar; a tabloid's livestreamed lettuce outlasted her, and George Canning's 119 days in 1827 ceased to be the shortest term.

Who became the first British Asian prime minister, in October 2022?

Rishi Sunak had lost the party leadership contest only weeks earlier; when the winner's government collapsed he was elected unopposed and, at 42, became the youngest prime minister since 1812.

Who became the first woman to serve as Italian prime minister, in 2022?

Giorgia Meloni took office on 22 October 2022 after the party she had led since 2014 rose from about 4% of the vote in 2018 to 26%, the largest share of any party.

Pope Leo XIV, elected in 2025, is the first pope born in which country?

Leo XIV, born Robert Prevost in Chicago in 1955, is the first pope from the United States; he also holds Peruvian citizenship from his years as a missionary and bishop there.

Mahsa Amini's 2022 death in Iran followed her arrest for allegedly breaking which law?

Mandatory hijab rules led the morality police to detain Amini, 22, in Tehran; her death three days later set off the 'Woman, Life, Freedom' protests, in which women burned their headscarves.

Which justice wrote the 2022 Dobbs opinion that overturned the Roe abortion ruling?

Samuel Alito's draft was published by Politico in May 2022 and largely matched the final ruling; Chief Justice John Roberts agreed with the judgment but did not join the opinion overturning Roe.

What was the highest-grossing film of 2021 worldwide?

Spider-Man: No Way Home brought back earlier Spider-Man actors Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield and became the first film since 2019 to gross over $1 billion, ending at about $1.9 billion.

Whose 2021 debut single made her the youngest artist to debut atop the Billboard Hot 100?

Olivia Rodrigo's 'drivers license' debuted at No. 1 in January 2021 when she was 17; it led her album Sour, which had originally been planned as an EP.

Who broke the record for most career Grammy wins in 2023, passing conductor Georg Solti's total of 31?

Beyoncé won her 32nd Grammy for the album Renaissance, yet on the same night she lost Album of the Year to Harry Styles; Solti had collected his 31 between 1963 and 1998.

Which fantasy author provided the worldbuilding for the 2022 game Elden Ring?

George R. R. Martin wrote the world's backstory at the invitation of director Hidetaka Miyazaki, a fan of his novels, while Miyazaki himself led the writing of the in-game narrative.

Which company bought Call of Duty maker Activision Blizzard in 2023, the games industry's largest-ever takeover?

Microsoft agreed a $68.7 billion price in 2022 and closed the deal on October 13, 2023, the day UK regulators approved revised terms that licensed cloud-streaming rights for Activision's games to Ubisoft.

Which $3,499 headset went on sale in February 2024, marketed as a 'spatial computer'?

Vision Pro reached US stores on February 2, 2024, eight months after its unveiling in June 2023; Apple avoided the words 'headset' and 'virtual reality' when presenting it.

Who beat England on penalties in the Euro 2020 final, played in 2021?

Italy won the shoot-out 3-2 at Wembley on 11 July 2021 after England, 2-1 up, saw Rashford, Sancho and Saka all miss; Donnarumma saved the last.

Which Star Trek actor became the oldest person to reach space, aged 90, in 2021?

William Shatner broke a record of 82 that Wally Funk had set only three months earlier; in 2024 it passed to Ed Dwight, who also flew at 90 but was a few weeks older.

Which song by Kalush Orchestra won the 2022 Eurovision Song Contest?

Stefania, an ode to frontman Oleh Psiuk's mother, won with a record 439 points from the public vote; the band then auctioned its trophy for $900,000 to buy drones for their country's army.

Who became the first Black woman to serve on the US Supreme Court in 2022?

Ketanji Brown Jackson was sworn in on June 30, 2022, the moment Stephen Breyer's retirement took effect; she had been his law clerk during the court's 1999 term.

Donald Trump survived a July 2024 shooting at a rally near which Pennsylvania town?

Butler Farm Show Grounds hosted the rally on July 13, 2024; a bullet grazed Trump's right ear and a spectator was killed, and Secret Service director Kimberly Cheatle resigned ten days later.

Which container ship toppled Baltimore's Francis Scott Key Bridge in March 2024?

Dali lost power and its crew sent a mayday minutes before impact, a warning the state's governor later thanked them for; six maintenance workers repairing potholes on the span were killed.

A faulty CrowdStrike update crashed millions of computers in July 2024 running which OS?

Windows machines, some 8.5 million of them, crashed on July 19, 2024; more than 5,000 flights were cancelled that day, and Delta later put its own losses at $500 million.

Which country's probe brought asteroid samples back to Earth in December 2020?

Japan's Hayabusa2 fired a copper projectile into the asteroid Ryugu to blast a crater, then collected a second sample from it; the capsule landed in the Australian outback, and the grains held more than 20 kinds of amino acid.

Which country landed its first Mars rover in May 2021?

China's Zhurong is named after a figure of fire from Chinese myth, fitting for Mars, which is called the 'planet of fire' in Chinese; it touched down on the plain Utopia Planitia.

Simone Biles withdrew from most of the 2020 Olympic finals citing what condition?

The twisties, a temporary loss of mid-air spatial awareness during twisting elements, led Biles to withdraw from the team final and four individual finals; she returned to win bronze on the balance beam.

Whose overall NCAA Division I scoring record did Caitlin Clark break in March 2024?

Pete Maravich scored his 3,667 points for LSU in only three varsity seasons, before the three-point line existed; Clark passed him on March 3, 2024, in her final regular-season game for Iowa.

Who ended Novak Djokovic's run of four straight Wimbledon titles in the 2023 final?

Carlos Alcaraz lost the first set 1-6 but won in five, handing Djokovic his first defeat on Centre Court since the 2013 final against Andy Murray.

Which leader fled to Moscow in December 2024 as rebels entered his capital, ending five decades of family rule?

Bashar al-Assad trained in London as an eye doctor and became heir only after his elder brother Bassel died in a 1994 car crash; Damascus fell on 8 December 2024 and Moscow granted him asylum.