50 Fun Facts About 70th Birthday

Which metal names both a 70th wedding anniversary and the jubilee Elizabeth II marked in 2022?

Platinum marks 70 years, a full decade beyond diamond. In 2022 Elizabeth II became the first British monarch ever to reach that jubilee.

Which Founding Father, aged 70, was the oldest man to sign the Declaration of Independence?

Benjamin Franklin signed at 70, while the youngest signer, Edward Rutledge, was just 26.

Which astronaut and sitting US senator returned to orbit on the shuttle Discovery in 1998, aged 77?

John Glenn made the flight 36 years after becoming the first American to orbit Earth. It made him the oldest person to reach orbit.

Which mountain did skier Yuichiro Miura climb at 70, then again at 75 and at 80?

Mount Everest first made Yuichiro Miura famous in 1970, when he became the first person to ski on it. His climb at 80, in 2013, set the age record for the summit.

Which singer's debut single for RCA, Heartbreak Hotel, became his first number-one pop hit in 1956?

Elvis Presley held the top of the Billboard chart for seven weeks with it. It finished as the biggest-selling single of 1956.

Which doll, named after Ruth Handler's daughter, was unveiled at a New York toy fair in March 1959?

Barbie was based on Bild Lilli, a German doll that Ruth Handler had bought while travelling in Europe. The first one wore a zebra-striped swimsuit and a ponytail.

In which language is the number seventy said as sixty-ten, and ninety as four-twenties-ten?

French builds soixante-dix from the words for sixty and ten, a trace of counting by twenties. Belgian speakers skip the sum and simply say septante.

Which Oscar-winning Hollywood star quit acting in 1956 to marry Prince Rainier III of Monaco?

Grace Kelly was just 26 when she left Hollywood. She had only recently won the Best Actress Oscar for The Country Girl.

Which actor-director won the Best Director Oscar for Million Dollar Baby at the age of 74?

Clint Eastwood became, at 74, the oldest winner the category had ever seen. He had first taken the same prize a dozen years earlier for Unforgiven.

Which modelling compound, first sold as a wallpaper cleaner, became a children's toy in 1956?

Play-Doh began in 1930s Cincinnati as a putty for lifting coal residue off wallpaper. A nursery school teacher, Kay Zufall, saw its promise for art projects and helped choose the name.

Which word for a person in their seventies comes one decade after sexagenarian?

Septuagenarian comes from the Latin septuageni, meaning seventy each. The label lasts from a 70th birthday until the day an octogenarian takes over.

Which book of the Bible sets a human lifespan at threescore years and ten, meaning seventy?

Psalms gives the figure in Psalm 90. The King James wording, counting by scores, is believed to have inspired the opening of Lincoln's Gettysburg Address.

Which US president turned 70 less than three weeks after his first inauguration in January 1981?

Ronald Reagan took the oath aged 69 years and 349 days, then the oldest person ever to assume the presidency. He left office eight years later at 77.

Which politician, raised in Milwaukee, became prime minister of Israel in 1969 at the age of 70?

Golda Meir had stepped down as foreign minister three years earlier, citing exhaustion and ill health. She was called back when Levi Eshkol died in office.

Which American folk artist, a farmer's widow, began painting in earnest at the age of 78?

Grandma Moses turned to paint after arthritis made her embroidery too painful. A collector spotted her pictures in a drug store window, and she lived to 101.

Which reference book did retired physician Peter Mark Roget first publish in 1852, aged 73?

A Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases was Roget's retirement project: he gave up medicine in 1840 and was at work on the book by 1846.

Which Renaissance artist took over as architect of St Peter's Basilica in Rome at the age of 71?

Michelangelo gave the rest of his life to the basilica and redesigned its great dome, which was completed only after his death.

Which British statesman, nearly 77, returned as prime minister after the October 1951 election?

Winston Churchill won a majority of 17 seats even though his party lost the popular vote. Two years later he received the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Which former Robben Island prisoner became South Africa's first Black president in 1994, aged 75?

Nelson Mandela had spent 27 years in prison before his release in 1990. His inauguration in Pretoria was televised to a billion viewers around the world.

Which singer-songwriter won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2016, at the age of 75?

Bob Dylan was honoured in 2016 for creating new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition. He stayed silent about the award for days.

Which artist, then about 70, designed the woodblock print The Great Wave off Kanagawa?

Hokusai wrote that nothing he drew before his seventieth year was worth taking into account. The print opens his series Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji.

Which Italian composer wrote the comic opera Falstaff, his last, as he approached the age of 80?

Giuseppe Verdi said that after killing off so many heroes and heroines he had earned the right to laugh a little. The comedy opened at La Scala in 1893.

In which sport did Oscar Swahn, 72, become the oldest athlete to win an Olympic medal, in 1920?

Shooting brought Oscar Swahn six Olympic medals in all, three of them gold. At every Games he entered, he competed in the same team as his son Alfred.

Which city did Roman legions under Titus besiege in AD 70, destroying its Second Temple?

Jerusalem fell after months of fighting. Rome later commemorated the victory on the Arch of Titus and on coins stamped Judaea Capta.

Which Cardinals slugger hit 70 home runs in 1998 to break Roger Maris's 37-year-old record?

Mark McGwire finished four ahead of Sammy Sosa after a season-long chase. Barry Bonds raised the mark to 73 only three years later.

In which state is the sitcom That '70s Show set, in the fictional town of Point Place?

Wisconsin's Green Bay Packers turn up on jerseys and helmets throughout the series, and in one episode the gang goes to a game at Lambeau Field.

Which endurance sport brands its half-distance races 70.3, after the total number of miles covered?

Triathlon's Half Ironman strings together a 1.2-mile swim, a 56-mile bike ride and a 13.1-mile run to reach the figure.

Which Chinese philosopher said that at seventy he could follow his heart without doing wrong?

Confucius summed up his life by decade in the Analects, from setting his heart on learning at fifteen to knowing the will of heaven at fifty.

Ytterbium, the element with atomic number 70, is named after a mining village in which country?

Sweden's village of Ytterby gave its name to four elements: yttrium, terbium, erbium and ytterbium. No other place on Earth has as many elements named after it.

In which California city did Disneyland open in July 1955, on land cleared of orange groves?

Anaheim won out after Walt Disney outgrew his first idea, a small attraction beside his Burbank studios. The opening ceremony was televised on ABC.

In which Alabama city did Rosa Parks refuse to give up her bus seat in December 1955?

Montgomery's Black residents answered her arrest with a bus boycott that lasted 381 days. One of its leaders was a local pastor, Martin Luther King Jr.

Which stray dog from the streets of Moscow became the first animal to orbit Earth, aboard Sputnik 2?

Laika flew in November 1957, a month after the first Sputnik. Three years later Belka and Strelka became the first dogs to come back from orbit safely.

Which Hasbro toy, launched in 1952, was the first ever to be advertised on television?

Mr. Potato Head began as a set of plastic parts for pinning onto a real potato. Its commercials were also the first aimed at children instead of their parents.

Which medical student ran the first mile in under four minutes, at Oxford in May 1954?

Roger Bannister clocked 3 minutes 59.4 seconds with two friends setting the pace. His record lasted just 46 days, and he retired that year to work as a doctor.

Which plastic toy did Wham-O launch in 1958, selling 25 million in under four months?

Hula hoop mania began when Joan Anderson, who had watched children twirling bamboo hoops in Australia, took the idea to Wham-O. Sales passed 100 million in two years.

In which country was the modern Lego brick patented in 1958 by a family firm from Billund?

Denmark's Lego Group grew out of a carpenter's workshop that turned to wooden toys in 1932. Bricks made in 1958 still lock together with those sold today.

Which disease was Jonas Salk's vaccine, declared a success in April 1955, designed to prevent?

Polio made Jonas Salk famous overnight, hailed as a miracle worker. He chose not to patent the vaccine, so that it could be distributed as widely as possible.

Which rock and roll star from Lubbock, Texas, died in a 1959 plane crash alongside Ritchie Valens?

Buddy Holly was only 22, and his horn-rimmed glasses had already set a fashion among American teenagers. The crash is remembered as the Day the Music Died.

Which milkshake-mixer salesman opened his first McDonald's restaurant in Des Plaines in 1955?

Ray Kroc had called on the McDonald brothers a year earlier to see why they were making so many milkshakes. He bought them out in 1961 for $2.7 million.

Which bandleader played Ricky Ricardo opposite his real-life wife, Lucille Ball, in I Love Lucy?

Desi Arnaz also helped decide to repeat first-season episodes while Ball rested after giving birth. Those repeats drew big ratings and effectively gave birth to the rerun.

Which host fronted American Bandstand when ABC took the Philadelphia dance show national in 1957?

Dick Clark presented the show for more than three decades, staying on long after it left Philadelphia for Los Angeles in 1964.

Which heavyweight champion retired in 1956 with a perfect record of 49 wins and no defeats?

Rocky Marciano won 43 of those fights by knockout. He defended the world title six times after taking it from Jersey Joe Walcott in 1952.

Which country both hosted and won the first Eurovision Song Contest, held in Lugano in 1956?

Switzerland's Lys Assia won with a song called Refrain. Only seven countries took part in that first contest.

Which waterway did President Nasser nationalise in 1956, sparking an international crisis?

The Suez Canal seizure by Egypt brought an invasion by Britain and two allies. Heavy pressure from the United States and the Soviet Union soon forced them to withdraw.

Which Agatha Christie whodunit opened in London in 1952 and went on to the longest run of any play?

The Mousetrap ran continuously until March 2020, when the pandemic closed theatres. It broke the West End record for a play as early as 1957.

Which frontiersman, played by Fess Parker in a 1950s Disney series, made coonskin caps a craze?

Davy Crockett merchandise worth more than $300 million had been sold by the end of 1955, from fur caps to bubble gum cards.

Which 1959 epic, famous for its nine-minute chariot race, won a then-record 11 Academy Awards?

Ben-Hur won 11 of the 12 Oscars it was nominated for, including Best Picture and Best Actor for Charlton Heston. No film matched that total until Titanic.

Which former RAF bomber station hosted the first Formula One world championship race, in 1950?

Silverstone's race ran for 70 laps and was won by Nino Farina in an Alfa Romeo, with King George VI in attendance.

Which payment card, launched in New York in 1950, is said to have begun with a forgotten wallet?

Diners Club grew out of co-founder Frank McNamara's embarrassment at a restaurant table. It had 20,000 members by the end of its first year.

Which biblical patriarch set out from Haran for the land of Canaan at the age of 75?

Abraham, then still called Abram, travelled with his wife Sarai and his nephew Lot. Genesis has him live another hundred years, to 175.