100 Fun Facts About 80th Birthday

Someone turning 80 in 2026 was born in which year?

That makes them a first-year baby boomer, the generation usually dated from 1946 to 1964.

Which US president was in office throughout 1946?

On December 31 he issued the proclamation officially ending hostilities in World War II.

Where did Winston Churchill give his famous 'Iron Curtain' speech in March 1946?

Later that year in Zurich he floated the idea of a Council of Europe.

Which swimsuit was first modelled in Paris on July 5, 1946?

Louis Réard named it after the atoll where the US had tested an atomic bomb four days earlier.

Which early electronic computer was unveiled at the University of Pennsylvania in 1946?

It weighed about 30 tons and filled a large room.

Roughly how much did ENIAC weigh?

That is more than 27 tons of computer to do arithmetic.

Which Italian scooter brand, whose name means 'wasp', built its first model in 1946?

Piaggio filed the patent in Florence in April 1946.

Which famous film festival was founded in 1946?

Twenty-one countries showed films at the first edition, held at the town's old casino.

Which Christmas film starring James Stewart was released in December 1946?

It flopped at first and only became a classic after its copyright lapsed in 1974 and TV stations could show it for free.

Which 1946 film about three returning servicemen swept the Oscars, winning seven including the top prize?

Harold Russell, a real disabled veteran, won two Oscars for the same performance, the only time that has happened.

Which actress sang 'Put the Blame on Mame' in the 1946 film Gilda?

The film opened on Valentine's Day 1946.

Which Hitchcock thriller starring Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman came out in 1946?

The same year gave audiences The Big Sleep and The Postman Always Rings Twice.

Which comedy duo staged their first show together at Atlantic City's Club 500 in July 1946?

They stayed a team for ten years, until 1956.

Which food-storage brand introduced its airtight plastic containers to the public in 1946?

Earl Tupper had refined polyethylene as a DuPont chemist; the party-plan selling came later.

Which fortune-telling toy was invented in 1946 by Albert C. Carter and Abe Bookman?

It was first sold as the Syco-Slate; the billiard-ball shape came in 1950 at the request of Brunswick Billiards.

Which Japanese electronics company was founded in May 1946 as Tokyo Telecommunications Engineering?

It began with about 20 employees.

Which high-IQ society was founded in Oxford in October 1946?

Founders Roland Berrill and Lancelot Ware were a lawyer and a biochemist.

Which UN agency for children was founded on December 11, 1946?

UNESCO was set up a month earlier, on November 4.

In which city did the United Nations hold its very first meeting in January 1946?

The General Assembly first met in New York, at Flushing, Queens, that October.

Who became the first Secretary-General of the United Nations in February 1946?

He was Norwegian; Hammarskjöld succeeded him in 1953.

Which country voted in a June 1946 referendum to abolish its monarchy and become a republic?

King Umberto II went into exile in Portugal; Greece voted the other way and restored its king.

Which Asian nation gained full independence from the United States on July 4, 1946?

It ended nearly four centuries of colonial rule counting the Spanish era.

Which Nazi leader poisoned himself two hours before his scheduled execution at Nuremberg in October 1946?

The remaining ten condemned men were hanged the next day in the Palace of Justice gymnasium.

Which Argentine leader was elected president in February 1946?

His wife Eva toured Spain, Italy and France that year on the so-called Rainbow Tour.

Which king came to the throne of Thailand in June 1946 and reigned until 2016?

He succeeded his elder brother and became the world's longest-reigning monarch at the time of his death.

The first official Formula One Grand Prix was held in September 1946 in which city?

The world championship itself did not start until 1950.

Santa Claus Land, which opened in Indiana in August 1946, is credited as the first what?

It beat Disneyland by nine years and is now called Holiday World.

What banking innovation debuted at a Chicago branch in November 1946?

Ten windows opened at a branch of the Exchange National Bank.

Project Diana in January 1946 bounced radar waves off what?

It measured the exact Earth-Moon distance and is often called the opening of the Space Age.

Which of these US presidents was NOT born in 1946?

Trump was born on June 14, Bush on July 6 and Clinton on August 19 of that year.

Which Queen frontman was born on September 5, 1946?

He was born Farrokh Bulsara in Zanzibar.

Which country music legend was born on January 19, 1946?

She shares the year with Cher, born May 20, 1946.

Which star of Rocky was born on July 6, 1946, the same day as George W. Bush?

Talia Shire, his Rocky co-star, was also born in 1946, in April.

Which director of Jaws and E.T. was born on December 18, 1946?

David Lynch, born January 20, 1946, is another director from the same year.

Which Annie Hall star was born on January 5, 1946?

Sally Field is also a 1946 baby, born in November.

Which Bee Gee was born on the Isle of Man in September 1946?

He is the eldest of the brothers; the twins Robin and Maurice were born in 1949.

Which Who drummer was born on August 23, 1946?

Led Zeppelin's John Paul Jones was born the same year, on January 3.

Which science fiction author of The Time Machine died in 1946?

John Maynard Keynes, Gertrude Stein and W. C. Fields also died that year.

Which Irving Berlin musical opened on Broadway in 1946, with a cast album the same year?

A Show Boat cast album was released in 1946 as well.

'The Christmas Song' (Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire) was written in 1946 by Robert Wells and which singer?

Nat King Cole made the famous recording, but Tormé wrote the music.

In Jules Verne's novel, how much does Phileas Fogg wager that he can go around the world in eighty days?

That was half his fortune, roughly £2.5 million in today's money.

Where does Phileas Fogg make and settle his wager in Around the World in Eighty Days?

He must be back in its rooms by 8:45 p.m. on 21 December 1872.

The Pareto principle is also known by which numbers?

It says roughly 80% of effects come from 20% of causes.

In South India, which wedding anniversaries are celebrated with ceremonies as big as a wedding?

Special pujas for them are held at the Thirukadaiyur Temple in Tamil Nadu.

Which Vietnamese leader was elected President of North Vietnam in March 1946?

By December, Viet Minh forces were at war with the French, a conflict that ended at Dien Bien Phu in 1954.

Which pop icon, born May 20, 1946, later won an Oscar for Moonstruck?

George Best, the Northern Irish football great, arrived just two days later on May 22, 1946.

Which nuclear test series began at Bikini Atoll on July 1, 1946?

The Baker shot later that month was the first underwater atomic test and sank the surplus carrier USS Saratoga.

Which airline was founded in Hong Kong in September 1946 by an American and an Australian?

Roy Farrell and Sydney de Kantzow started it the same year Scandinavian Airlines System was formed as a three-nation consortium.

Which German-born author of Siddhartha won the 1946 Nobel Prize in Literature?

The Peace Prize that year was shared by Emily Greene Balch and John Mott.

In which New York City neighbourhood did the UN General Assembly first convene in October 1946?

The Assembly met in an auditorium there while its permanent East River headquarters was still years away.

Which actor, born 21 February 1946, played Hans Gruber in Die Hard and Severus Snape?

His film debut only came in 1988 with Die Hard, after years on the stage that included a Tony nomination for Les Liaisons Dangereuses.

Which daughter of Judy Garland, born March 12, 1946, won an Oscar for Cabaret?

Her signature songs include 'New York, New York' and 'Maybe This Time'; her father was the director Vincente Minnelli.

Which singer of 'Margaritaville' was born on Christmas Day 1946?

His fans are known as Parrotheads, and the song's name went onto a chain of restaurants, hotels and even retirement communities.

Which Hall of Fame right fielder, born May 18, 1946, played for the A's and the Yankees?

His teams finished first eleven times in his 21-year career, and he had only two losing seasons.

Which designer, born in Reggio Calabria in 1946, was murdered in Miami Beach in 1997?

He had been declared cancer-free six months before spree killer Andrew Cunanan shot him outside his mansion, Casa Casuarina.

Whose Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care (1946) sold 500,000 copies in six months?

It had sold 50 million copies by his death in 1998; decades earlier he had rowed to Olympic gold for the US on the Seine in Paris.

Bobby Troup's 1946 song, first cut by the King Cole Trio, celebrates which US highway?

Troup first thought of writing about US 40, until his wife Cynthia suggested the title during their drive west to California.

'Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah' debuted in which Disney film, premiered in Atlanta in November 1946?

The song won the Academy Award for Best Original Song, and James Baskett received an honorary Oscar for playing Uncle Remus.

Which airport opened to civil flights on 25 March 1946 and got its current name in 1966?

The renaming in September 1966 was to avoid confusion with the other two airports then serving the capital.

Which actor, born 19 April 1946, created Dr Frank-N-Furter in The Rocky Horror Show?

He met writer Richard O'Brien in the original London cast of Hair in 1968, and O'Brien went on to write the part for him.

Which confectioner, founded in Alba in 1946, made the hazelnut spread that became Nutella?

Pietro Ferrero's Pasta Gianduja used hazelnuts to stretch expensive cocoa; his son Michele relaunched it as Nutella in 1964.

The French word for 80, quatre-vingts, literally means what?

Swiss French speakers in Vaud, Valais and Fribourg skip the arithmetic and simply say huitante.

Which Pink Floyd guitarist, born in 1946, joined in 1967 shortly before Syd Barrett left?

He had known Barrett and Roger Waters as teenagers; they attended a school on the same Cambridge road as his.

In the US, a spirit labelled 80 proof contains what percentage of alcohol by volume?

Britain's old system was different: a 40% spirit came out at 70 degrees proof.

Which Dickens novel did David Lean film in 1946, starring John Mills and Valerie Hobson?

A crew member's graffiti, drawn on a wall during a break in filming, is faintly visible behind Mills in the final scene.

Bugsy Siegel opened the casino of which Las Vegas resort on December 26, 1946?

The three-storey hotel itself did not open until March 1947; the original idea came from Billy Wilkerson, whose role historians now call a footnote.

George Kennan sent his 'Long Telegram' on Soviet intentions in 1946 from which city?

Stalin read it and had his own ambassador, Nikolai Novikov, send a matching analysis of the Americans back from Washington.

The League of Nations held its final session on 18 April 1946 in which city?

Many of its components were simply transferred to the new United Nations.

Which staple food was rationed in Britain from 21 July 1946 until July 1948?

British rationing outlasted the war by nine years; meat was the last item freed, on 4 July 1954.

Louis Slotin died in May 1946 after an accident with a plutonium sphere known as what?

Harry Daghlian had died after an accident with the same sphere in 1945; it was melted down and recycled that summer.

Which Middle Eastern kingdom dates its independence from Britain to 25 May 1946?

Abdullah I became its first king that day; in English it was still called Transjordan until 1949.

Which 1946 Robert Penn Warren novel follows Willie Stark, a figure likened to Huey Long?

Warren insisted Stark was not Long, though he had started teaching at Louisiana State University the year before Long was assassinated.

Which engine first appeared in 1946, in the second book of Rev. W. Awdry's Railway Series?

He was introduced as a fussy, cheeky tank engine with six small wheels and a short stumpy funnel, modelled on an LB&SCR E2.

John Hersey's 'Hiroshima' filled the entire 31 August 1946 issue of which magazine?

The magazine had planned to run it across four issues; the piece follows six survivors of the bombing.

Enos Slaughter's 'Mad Dash' in Game 7 won the 1946 World Series for which team?

It was the franchise's sixth title, and they had only reached the Series after winning a tie-breaker series for the pennant.

The NBA traces itself to a league founded in 1946 by hockey team owners — under what name?

The Boston Celtics, New York Knicks and Philadelphia Warriors were among its founders; the Pistons, Lakers and Royals crossed over from the NBL in 1948.

Oliver Stone shares his birthday, 15 September 1946, with which Men in Black star?

Jones was born in San Saba, Texas, and Stone at Doctors Hospital in New York City on the same day.

Which designer, born on New Year's Eve 1946, introduced the jersey wrap dress in 1974?

By 1976 a million had sold, and one now sits in the Metropolitan Museum's Costume Institute.

Which element has atomic number 80?

Gold sits one place before it at 79 and lead two places after at 82.

The Eighty Years' War, ending in 1648, won which state its independence from Spain?

The 1648 Peace of Münster let Spain keep the Southern Netherlands, roughly today's Belgium.

On 8 March 1946, which aircraft became the first helicopter certified for civilian use?

The first civilian delivery, to Helicopter Air Transport, came on the last day of 1946.

In November 1946 Vincent Schaefer seeded clouds over the Berkshires using what?

He found the effect by accident that summer, dropping solid CO2 into a lab cold box that was running too warm.

Which country marks 17 April 1946, when the last French soldier left, as Independence Day?

The French had proposed 18 April, but that was Good Friday, so officials moved the ceremony a day earlier.

On 1 August 1946, Hungary replaced the hyperinflated pengő with which currency?

All the pengő notes in circulation were by then worth less than 0.2 fillér, a fraction of the new currency's smallest coin.

Which BBC radio programme, still running today, was first broadcast on 7 October 1946?

It began on the Light Programme with a male presenter, Alan Ivimey, and moved to Radio 4 in 1973.

Which Cretan author published Zorba the Greek in 1946?

Its Greek title translates as Life and Times of Alexis Zorbas; the author is buried on the walls of Heraklion.

Which Eugene O'Neill play, set in Harry Hope's saloon, premiered in October 1946?

Set in 1912 among the regulars of a Greenwich Village bar, it ran 136 performances at the Martin Beck Theatre.

Britten's Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra (1946) varies a theme by which composer?

The tune is the Rondeau from Purcell's incidental music to Aphra Behn's play Abdelazer.

Whose 1946 debut album, The Voice, is sometimes called the first concept album?

It topped the fledgling Billboard album chart for seven straight weeks.

Joe Louis's June 1946 rematch with whom was the first heavyweight title fight live on TV?

NBC held the rights; the pair had first met in June 1941, and talk of a rematch began immediately.

Soichiro Honda funded his 1946 institute by selling his old firm's remains to whom?

The ¥450,000 seeded what has been the world's largest motorcycle maker since 1959.

BBC TV returned on 7 June 1946 with the cartoon it had closed with in 1939, starring whom?

Mickey's Gala Premier had been the final programme before the wartime shutdown on 1 September 1939.

Which boxer, the first Black world heavyweight champion, died in a car crash in June 1946?

Nicknamed the Galveston Giant, he held the title from 1908 to 1915 at the height of the Jim Crow era.

In July 1946 Rajah Vyner Brooke ceded which territory to Britain, ending White Rajah rule?

He is buried with his father and brother at Sheepstor on Dartmoor, a long way from Borneo.

Bernard Lynch made the first live ejection-seat test from a Meteor in 1946 for which firm?

He was shot out at 320 mph over Chalgrove Airfield in Oxfordshire, having started in 1945 on a rig that lifted him less than five feet.

Which Powell and Pressburger film opened the first Royal Film Performance in 1946?

The event was then called the Royal Command Film Performance.

Yvon Petra, the 1946 Wimbledon men's champion, was the last to win a final wearing what?

He remains the last Frenchman to take the Wimbledon singles title, beating Geoff Brown in five sets.

Which horse completed the 1946 Triple Crown, the only Texas-bred ever to do so?

Bred at the King Ranch, he won the Belmont by three lengths against a field of just three horses.

Tandy's TRS-80 home computer took the '80' in its name from which microprocessor?

It ran at 1.78 MHz, and its keyboard was notorious for 'bounce' that typed letters twice.

Damon Runyon, who died in 1946, had his ashes scattered over which Manhattan street?

Eddie Rickenbacker flew the plane; Runyon's short stories later became the musical Guys and Dolls.