94 Fun Facts About 80s and 90s

Which Sony product was first sold in the United States under the name Sound-about?

Walkman was the Japanese-English coinage Sony's overseas teams resisted, so the US got the Sound-about and Britain the Stowaway before Walkman won out everywhere.

Who scored the go-ahead goal with exactly 10:00 left in the 1980 Miracle on Ice game?

Captain Mike Eruzione's shot made it 4-3, the Americans' first lead of the game, and two days later they beat Finland 4-2 for the gold medal.

Which subject did Challenger's Christa McAuliffe teach at Concord High School?

Christa McAuliffe taught social studies at Concord High School in New Hampshire; picked from more than 11,000 applicants, she had planned two lessons from orbit, including a tour of the shuttle.

On 9 November 1989, what did Günter Schabowski answer when asked when new travel rules would take effect?

Schabowski answered 'immediately, without delay' (sofort, unverzüglich); he had missed the meeting where the rules were drafted and improvised, and crowds were at the Berlin Wall crossings that same night.

Whose 'new ideas' did Mondale attack with a fast-food catchphrase in a 1984 primary debate?

Mondale told Gary Hart that his 'new ideas' reminded him of the Wendy's ad 'Where's the beef?', in which Clara Peller finds a tiny patty in a huge bun.

Trivial Pursuit, the board game craze of the mid-1980s, was invented in 1979 in which city?

Chris Haney, a Montreal Gazette photo editor, and Scott Abbott, a Canadian Press sports editor, came up with Trivial Pursuit in Montreal, most accounts say during a game of Scrabble.

The falling-blocks game bundled with the Game Boy in 1989 was written in which country?

Tetris came from the Soviet Union: Alexey Pajitnov wrote it on an Elektronika 60 in Moscow, drawing the falling pieces with brackets and spaces because the machine had no graphics.

Whose onstage remark at Live Aid inspired the first Farm Aid concert in September 1985?

Bob Dylan said from the Live Aid stage that a million or two of the money could pay off farm mortgages; Willie Nelson, John Mellencamp and Neil Young then staged Farm Aid in Champaign, Illinois, on 22 September 1985.

Which actor spent weeks filming as Marty McFly before Michael J. Fox replaced him?

Eric Stoltz got the part because Fox was tied up with Family Ties; once Fox could fit it in, every scene Stoltz had shot was redone with him.

In November 1987 someone in a Max Headroom mask hijacked the signals of two TV stations in which city?

Chicago's WGN-TV was hit first and WTTW later that night, and the person behind the Max Headroom mask has never been identified.

In which West Texas oil town was 'Baby Jessica' McClure rescued from a well in October 1987?

Midland rescuers brought in local oil drillers to dig a shaft parallel to the well and reach 18-month-old Jessica McClure.

How did Phil Collins play both the London and Philadelphia halves of Live Aid in 1985?

He flew on Concorde after his Wembley set, and in Philadelphia he played drums for Eric Clapton and in a Led Zeppelin reunion.

Which producer talked Run-DMC into remaking Aerosmith's 'Walk This Way' in 1986?

Rick Rubin won over a doubtful Run-DMC, and their version reached No. 4 on the Hot 100, beating the No. 10 peak of Aerosmith's original.

Teddy Ruxpin, one of the best-selling toys of 1985 and 1986, told stories using what hidden in his back?

A cassette deck in his back played the story, and maker Worlds of Wonder used demand for him to push retailers into stocking the Nintendo Entertainment System.

The 1985 Garbage Pail Kids sticker cards, spoofing the Cabbage Patch Kids, were created by which cartoonist?

Art Spiegelman devised them for Topps, and in 1992 his Holocaust graphic novel Maus won a Pulitzer Prize.

Swatch, the plastic Swiss watch brand launched in 1983, is a contraction of which phrase?

Second watch was the idea behind the name, and the plastic watch was built to help Swiss makers regain the market lost to Far Eastern rivals.

Which is one of McDonald's four official Chicken McNugget shapes?

The boot is one of the four, though credit for the nugget itself probably belongs to Cornell professor Robert C. Baker, who proposed a breaded chicken stick in 1963.

Hands Across America, the 1986 human chain from New York to California, raised money to fight what?

Hunger and homelessness in the US were the target, as Ken Kragen of USA for Africa turned from famine relief abroad to poverty at home.

Michael Jackson first performed the moonwalk on TV at a 1983 anniversary special for which record label?

Motown's 25th-anniversary special reunited him with his brothers, and he asked to perform Billie Jean on his own as well.

Which reef, sharing its name with one of Captain Cook's officers, did the Exxon Valdez strike in 1989?

Bligh Reef shares its name with William Bligh, Cook's sailing master, whose crew on HMS Bounty later mutinied and set him adrift.

The Simpsons began in 1987 as short cartoons on which Fox sketch-comedy series?

The Tracey Ullman Show ran 48 shorts, and Matt Groening had invented the family on the spot rather than hand over the rights to his Life in Hell strip.

Which Nintendo engineer led the team that designed the Game Boy, released in 1989?

Gunpei Yokoi's team kept costs and battery use low with a monochrome screen, and with Tetris bundled the Game Boy and Game Boy Color sold about 119 million units.

Which country did the 1992 Dream Team beat 117-85 in the Olympic basketball final?

Croatia lost that final to NBA stars, who were eligible only because FIBA had voted in 1989 to let NBA professionals into its tournaments, the Olympics included.

Elwood Edwards became AOL's 'You've got mail' voice after who overheard Steve Case wanting a human voice?

His wife worked for the online service and heard CEO Steve Case say he wanted a voice, so Edwards taped the lines in his living room.

Which IBM computer first beat a reigning world chess champion in a match in May 1997?

Deep Blue won the New York rematch 3.5-2.5 in 1997, a year after Garry Kasparov had beaten the machine 4-2 in Philadelphia.

The Channel Tunnel was officially opened in May 1994 by Queen Elizabeth II and which French president?

François Mitterrand's train from Paris and the Queen's Eurostar from London met nose to nose at Calais for the opening ceremony.

In March 1995, what two-word statement did Michael Jordan release to announce his NBA return?

I'm back was the whole statement, released on 18 March 1995 after his minor league baseball stint with the Birmingham Barons.

What wiped out baseball's 1994 World Series, the first to go unplayed since 1904?

A players' strike began on 12 August 1994, the day after the last games were played, and the whole postseason was cancelled.

Which Japanese company released the first Tamagotchi in November 1996?

Bandai's Aki Maita conceived the virtual pet, and within months of its 1997 release abroad it had become a worldwide craze.

The Blair Witch Project grossed about $248 million on an official production budget of roughly how much?

The official budget was about $60,000, and before release a campaign presented its actors as missing people.

On the cover of Nirvana's Nevermind, what is the swimming baby reaching for?

The baby, Spencer Elden, swims toward a dollar bill on a fishhook, and in 2021 he sued over the image.

Space Jam (1996) grew out of Super Bowl ads pairing Michael Jordan with Bugs Bunny for which brand?

Nike's Super Bowl spots paired them first, and in the film the Nerdlucks steal the talents of Barkley, Ewing, Bogues, Larry Johnson and Shawn Bradley.

The 1999 Nokia 3210, which sold 160 million units, was the first mass-market phone without what?

The 3210 hid its antenna inside the case instead of a protruding antenna, and preinstalled games such as Snake helped make it a hit with young buyers.

Crystal Pepsi's 1993 Super Bowl commercial was set to which Van Halen song?

Right Now, from the 1991 album For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge, soundtracked the ads, yet the clear, caffeine-free cola was off shelves within about two years.

Which network cancelled Baywatch after a single season in 1989-90?

NBC dropped it after one season, it returned in syndication, and Baywatch went on to claim more than a billion viewers a week.

The 1990 ABC series Twin Peaks was built around the investigation into the murder of which character?

Laura Palmer's killer turned out to be her own father, Leland, revealed midway through season two.

Mighty Morphin Power Rangers built its monster fights from footage of a TV series from which country?

Saban recut Japan's Super Sentai shows from Toei, starting with Kyoryu Sentai Zyuranger, and shot new scenes of the Angel Grove teens around the Japanese fight footage.

Super Soaker inventor Lonnie Johnson was an engineer at which organisation?

Lonnie Johnson, an Air Force and NASA engineer, got the idea while working on a heat pump system, and it first sold as the Power Drencher.

Which act was stripped of the 1990 Grammy Award for Best New Artist?

Milli Vanilli lost it after producer Frank Farian admitted in November 1990 that Rob Pilatus and Fab Morvan had not sung on the records.

On Saturday Night Live in October 1992, Sinéad O'Connor tore up a photograph of whom?

Pope John Paul II's photo was the one she tore, after reworking Bob Marley's 'War' into a protest about child abuse.

Who carried Kerri Strug to the podium after her injured-ankle vault at the 1996 Olympics?

Coach Béla Károlyi carried her after she hurt her ankle on the first vault and landed the second on one foot, clinching the first Olympic team gold for US women.

Which 42-1 underdog knocked out Mike Tyson at the Tokyo Dome in February 1990?

Buster Douglas was knocked down by Tyson in the eighth round, then got up and knocked Tyson out in the tenth.

Which Spanish duo first recorded 'Macarena', the song that spent 14 weeks at No. 1 in the US in 1996?

Los del Río first released it on their 1993 album A mí me gusta, and Miami's Bayside Boys added English verses for the remix that conquered the charts.

In which city was Nancy Kerrigan attacked at the 1994 US Figure Skating Championships?

Shane Stant attacked her at Detroit's Cobo Arena after practice, in a plot arranged by Jeff Gillooly, Tonya Harding's ex-husband, yet Kerrigan still won Olympic silver weeks later.

What does Elliott use to lure the alien in E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, a role M&M's makers turned down?

Reese's Pieces sales soared after the 1982 release, a windfall Hershey got only because Mars had passed on the placement.

Where in London did Prince Charles marry Lady Diana Spencer in 1981, before 750 million television viewers?

St Paul's Cathedral was picked over Westminster Abbey, the traditional royal wedding site, because it offered more seating and allowed a longer procession.

What broken gadget was the first item sold on eBay, then a hobby site called AuctionWeb, in 1995?

A laser pointer went for $14.83, and when founder Pierre Omidyar checked that the buyer knew it was broken, the man said he collected broken laser pointers.

Which instrument did Bill Clinton play on The Arsenio Hall Show during his 1992 presidential campaign?

Saxophone was the surprise that June night: Clinton played Heartbreak Hotel, and some religious conservatives began calling him the MTV president.

Which candy did Ronald Reagan take up after quitting smoking, later handing out jars to visiting dignitaries?

Jelly beans even reached orbit: Reagan had them packed aboard a 1983 Space Shuttle flight as a surprise for the astronauts.

Which British duo's song Video Killed the Radio Star was the first music video shown on MTV in 1981?

The Buggles were Trevor Horn and Geoff Downes, and MTV opened with their 1979 debut single at 12:01 a.m. on 1 August 1981.

In which 1981 arcade game did Mario make his debut, as a carpenter the instructions called Jumpman?

Donkey Kong came first; its hero was then renamed for Mario Segale, the landlord of Nintendo of America's warehouse near Seattle.

Which US agency banned Furby toys from its offices in 1999, fearing they could record and repeat secrets?

NSA security staff feared a Furby could learn from speech around it; the head of Tiger Electronics replied that it had no ability to record anything.

The Rubik's Cube, the early-1980s puzzle craze, was invented by an architecture professor from which country?

Hungary knew it first as the Magic Cube: Ernő Rubik applied for a patent there in 1975, five years before Ideal Toy took the puzzle worldwide.

Beanie Babies, the plush craze of the 1990s, were filled with what instead of conventional soft stuffing?

Plastic pellets sat loose in a deliberately under-stuffed body, so the animals could be posed in ways that rigid plush toys could not.

Which soft drink changed its recipe in April 1985, then brought the old one back just 79 days later?

Coca-Cola had lost blind taste tests to a sweeter rival, but the returning original, sold as Coca-Cola Classic, brought a notable jump in sales.

The Chernobyl nuclear plant, whose reactor exploded in April 1986, stands in which present-day country?

Ukraine holds the plant, but only just: it sits about 16 kilometres from the border with Belarus and roughly 100 kilometres north of Kyiv.

Dolly the sheep, the first mammal cloned from an adult cell, was born in 1996 at an institute in which country?

Scotland's Roslin Institute grew her from a mammary gland cell, which is why the team named her after Dolly Parton.

Where did Nelson Mandela spend 18 of his 27 years in prison before his release in February 1990?

Robben Island held Mandela from 1964 to 1982; the prison was turned into a museum in 1997 and named a World Heritage Site two years later.

Biosphere 2, the sealed glass habitat where a crew of eight lived from 1991 to 1993, stands in which US state?

Arizona's sealed world ran short of food and oxygen, yet its crew stayed inside for exactly two years, emerging in September 1993.

Mount St. Helens, whose eruption in May 1980 killed 57 people, stands in which US state?

Washington lost about 230 square miles of forest to the blast, and the heat killed trees miles beyond the flattened zone.

Which country's invasion by Iraq in August 1990 led to Operation Desert Storm the following January?

Kuwait was liberated on 28 February 1991, when the coalition halted its ground advance after just one hundred hours.

Which comet, returning about every 76 years, made a disappointing pass in 1986 on the far side of the Sun?

Halley's Comet gave its least favourable showing on record that year, yet the Giotto spacecraft still gave scientists their first detailed look at a comet's nucleus.

Which oceanographer is best known for finding the wreck of the Titanic in 1985, 73 years after it sank?

Robert Ballard went on to find the German battleship Bismarck in 1989 and the aircraft carrier USS Yorktown in 1998.

What flaw blurred the Hubble Space Telescope's images after its 1990 launch, until astronauts fixed it in 1993?

A misshapen mirror, ground precisely to the wrong shape, was cured when a servicing mission fitted optics with the opposite error, acting like spectacles.

At which physics laboratory was Tim Berners-Lee working when he invented the World Wide Web in 1989?

CERN received his proposal in March 1989, before the system had a name, and made the Web's code free for anyone to use in April 1993.

Larry Page and Sergey Brin were PhD students at which university when they started the project that became Google?

Stanford knew the search engine as BackRub, a 1996 research project; Google itself was incorporated in 1998 in a friend's garage in Menlo Park.

Which 1981 Rolling Stones single did Microsoft use in the commercial that launched Windows 95?

Start Me Up was picked as a reference to the Start button, which Windows 95 introduced as a new way of opening applications and documents.

Which film director made Apple's 1984 commercial, aired during Super Bowl XVIII to launch the Macintosh?

Ridley Scott was hired a year and a half after his dystopian Blade Runner, and the spot got just one US national airing, in the third quarter of that game.

Which company launched Sonic the Hedgehog in 1991 as a mascot to compete with Nintendo's Mario?

Sega got what its president wanted, a flagship mascot: the speedy hedgehog's debut dramatically boosted sales of the Genesis console.

Which Sony home-video format lost the format war of the 1980s to its cheaper rival VHS?

Betamax's defeat was conceded in 1988, when Sony began adding VHS models to its own line-up, though it kept making Betamax recorders until 2002.

Which rover rolled onto Mars from the Pathfinder lander in July 1997, the first wheeled vehicle on another planet?

Sojourner got its name from a student competition, won by a 12-year-old who proposed honouring the abolitionist Sojourner Truth; built to last about a week, the rover worked for nearly three months.

Which European electronics company developed the CD with Sony before its launch in October 1982?

Philips and Sony each built prototypes in the late 1970s, then agreed on one shared design; the first of the 50 launch titles was a Billy Joel album.

Which file-sharing service, launched in June 1999 by Shawn Fanning and Sean Parker, specialised in MP3 music files?

Napster lasted barely two years: copyright lawsuits shut its network down in July 2001, and it filed for bankruptcy the following June.

Which fighting game's digitized gore was cited in the 1993 congressional hearings that led to ESRB ratings?

Mortal Kombat was named in the hearings alongside Night Trap, and the games industry answered in 1994 by founding its own ratings board.

Which team traded Wayne Gretzky to the Los Angeles Kings in August 1988 for players, draft picks and $15 million?

Edmonton Oilers fans had seen him lead the team to four Stanley Cups, and the trade came less than a month after a wedding the Canadian press dubbed The Royal Wedding.

Against which country did Diego Maradona score his Hand of God goal at the 1986 World Cup?

England then watched him dribble past five of their players four minutes later, for what became known as the Goal of the Century.

Whose winning penalty against China settled the 1999 Women's World Cup final for the United States?

Brandi Chastain's celebration made the cover of Sports Illustrated and became one of the defining images of women's sport in the United States.

Which city's 1988 Winter Olympics saw the debut of the Jamaican bobsled team that inspired Cool Runnings?

Calgary saw the four-man crew lose control and crash on their third run, but the tropical underdogs' story reached cinemas as a comedy in 1993.

Whose 56-year-old record of 2,130 consecutive games did Cal Ripken Jr. break in September 1995?

Lou Gehrig's streak was widely thought unbreakable; Ripken ran his own to 2,632 games before voluntarily ending it in 1998.

Who co-wrote Band Aid's 1984 famine-relief single Do They Know It's Christmas with Bob Geldof and produced it?

Midge Ure saw the record sell a million copies in its first week, which made it the fastest-selling single in UK chart history at the time.

Which golf tournament did 21-year-old Tiger Woods win by twelve strokes in April 1997 for his first major title?

The Masters had never before been won by so wide a margin, and Woods became both its youngest champion and its first non-white winner.

Which Sesame Street character was the giggling plush toy that sparked a shopping frenzy at Christmas 1996?

Elmo dolls that retailed for under $30 were being resold by scalpers for as much as $1,500 by the end of 1996.

Cabbage Patch Kids, the dolls that caused store riots in 1983, each came with a birth certificate and what else?

Adoption papers were the whole idea: creator Xavier Roberts told buyers his dolls were not for sale but could be adopted, for a fee.

The 1983 prototype of Polly Pocket, the tiny doll sold in shops from 1989, was built inside what everyday object?

A powder compact held the first version, when Polly was still a wooden stick figure that could not bend; the clam-case sets reached shops around 1989.

Which horror actor performs the spoken-word passage on Michael Jackson's song Thriller?

Vincent Price was suggested by producer Quincy Jones's then-wife, Peggy Lipton, who was a friend of his, and he recorded the part in two takes.

Vanilla Ice's 1990 hit Ice Ice Baby took its bassline from which song by Queen and David Bowie?

Under Pressure's writers received no songwriting credit or royalties until after the rap single had already become a hit.

Which song did Madonna perform in a wedding dress, rolling across the stage, at the first MTV Video Music Awards?

Like a Virgin got its airing at Radio City Music Hall in 1984, at a ceremony hosted by Dan Aykroyd and Bette Midler.

Which series ended in February 1983 with a two-and-a-half-hour finale watched by about 106 million Americans?

M*A*S*H bowed out with Goodbye, Farewell and Amen, which stayed the most-watched broadcast in American history until the 2010 Super Bowl.

The Rachel, a layered haircut copied worldwide in the mid-1990s, was named for a character played by which actress?

Jennifer Aniston's stylist Chris McMillan designed the cut to repair her damaged hair, and she has said she dislikes it because it is so hard to maintain.

Jenga, the block-stacking game launched at the London Toy Fair in 1983, takes its name from which language?

Swahili gave it kujenga, meaning to build; the game's British creator was raised speaking the language in what is now Tanzania.

Atari buried truckloads of unsold cartridges, including its 1982 E.T. game, in a landfill in which US state?

New Mexico let filmmakers dig up the Alamogordo site in 2014, proving a story long dismissed as an urban legend; about 1,300 cartridges were recovered.

Which Nintendo princess, who debuted in 1986, was named after the wife of the author of The Great Gatsby?

Zelda was creator Shigeru Miyamoto's choice because he thought the name of Zelda Fitzgerald sounded pleasant and significant.

Lunchables, the lunch trays launched in the late 1980s, were designed to help which company sell more bologna?

Oscar Mayer merged with Kraft around the same time, which is how the trays came to include Kraft cheese beside the lunch meat.

By what name is the striped hero of Where's Waldo known in Britain, where he first appeared in 1987?

Wally was renamed for American readers because an executive at the first US publisher disliked the name, saying it reminded him of Wallis Simpson.