1947
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50 free 1947 trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Two years after the Second World War ended, 1947 was the year the post-war order took shape. Empires gave way to new nations, old allies became rivals, a pilot flew faster than sound for the first time, and reports of strange objects in the sky filled the newspapers. This quiz covers the whole year: world events and leaders, science and invention, the brands and gadgets that first appeared, the films, songs, books and stage shows people enjoyed, the big moments in sport, and the well-known names who were born in those twelve months. It is written for anyone born in 1947, anyone who remembers it, and anyone planning a milestone birthday party, a reunion or a family game night. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so you can play it straight through as a game or print the questions as cards for a group.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which kitchen appliance did Raytheon first sell in 1947 as the Radarange, standing nearly six feet tall?
Microwave oven
The microwave oven came from Raytheon engineer Percy Spencer, who discovered by accident that a microwave beam could heat food. The first model weighed about 340 kg.
Q 02Which National League team started Jackie Robinson at first base in April 1947, breaking baseball's color line?
Brooklyn Dodgers
The Brooklyn Dodgers had scouted the Negro leagues under general manager Branch Rickey. Robinson ended 1947 as the first winner of baseball's Rookie of the Year award.
Q 03Which New Mexico town made headlines in July 1947 when its Army air base announced it had recovered a flying disc?
Roswell
Roswell's flying disc was only a weather balloon, an Army general in Texas told reporters within a day. The debris actually came from a secret balloon project designed to detect Soviet nuclear tests.
Q 04Which new country came into being alongside independent India when British India was partitioned in August 1947?
Pakistan
Pakistan was created in two wings on either side of India, with Muhammad Ali Jinnah sworn in as governor-general in Karachi. The eastern wing later became Bangladesh.
Q 05Which test pilot became the first person to break the sound barrier, flying the Bell X-1 in October 1947?
Chuck Yeager
Chuck Yeager flew with two ribs broken in a riding fall two nights earlier, an injury he kept from his superiors. He had named the rocket plane Glamorous Glennis after his wife.
Q 06Which teenager's wartime diary was first published in Amsterdam in June 1947 under the Dutch title Het Achterhuis?
Anne Frank
Anne Frank's father Otto, the family's only survivor, edited her notebooks for publication. The Dutch title means 'the annex', after the hidden rooms where they lived.
Q 07Which creatures became the first animals in space when a V-2 rocket carried them from New Mexico in February 1947?
Fruit flies
Fruit flies rode a captured German V-2 launched from White Sands and were recovered alive. The first primate in space, a rhesus monkey, followed in 1949.
Q 08Which future US president testified at the 1947 HUAC hearings on communist influence in Hollywood?
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Reagan, then president of the Screen Actors Guild, appeared as a friendly witness, as did Walt Disney and Gary Cooper. He said a small clique in his union used communist-like tactics.
Q 09Which aviation tycoon piloted his giant wooden flying boat, nicknamed the Spruce Goose, on its only flight in 1947?
Howard Hughes
Howard Hughes kept the plane airborne for 26 seconds and about a mile, 70 feet above the water. Despite the nickname, which he disliked, it was built almost entirely of birch.
Q 10Which singer and pianist was born Reginald Dwight in Pinner, England, in March 1947?
Elton John
Elton John took his stage name from two bandmates in Bluesology, saxophonist Elton Dean and singer Long John Baldry. At 11 he won a junior scholarship to the Royal Academy of Music.
Q 11Which US aid program to rebuild Europe was first proposed in a June 1947 speech at Harvard University?
Marshall Plan
The Marshall Plan was named for Secretary of State George Marshall, who gave the speech. Congress went on to appropriate $13.3 billion for European recovery over the next four years.
Q 12Which Norwegian explorer sailed the balsa raft Kon-Tiki from Peru to Polynesia in 1947?
Thor Heyerdahl
Thor Heyerdahl and five companions spent 101 days crossing about 4,300 miles of the Pacific before the raft smashed into a reef at Raroia. The film of the voyage won an Oscar.
Q 13Which ancient Jewish manuscripts did Bedouin shepherds first find in caves at Qumran in the winter of 1946–1947?
Dead Sea Scrolls
Q 21Which two-word phrase did presidential adviser Bernard Baruch bring into American politics with an April 1947 speech?
Cold War
Cold War was Baruch's name for the standoff between the United States and the Soviet Union. Columnist Walter Lippmann then spread it with a book of the same name.
Q 22Which electronic component, first made to work at Bell Labs in December 1947, went on to replace the vacuum tube?
Transistor
The transistor emerged when John Bardeen and Walter Brattain pressed two gold contacts onto a germanium crystal and got more power out than in. They shared a Nobel Prize with William Shockley.
Q 23Which little-known actor played Stanley Kowalski when A Streetcar Named Desire opened on Broadway in December 1947?
Marlon Brando
The Dead Sea Scrolls include the oldest surviving manuscripts of entire books of the Bible. The shepherds kept their first finds hanging on a tent pole while deciding what to do with them.
Q 14Which London church hosted the November 1947 wedding of Princess Elizabeth, the future Queen Elizabeth II?
Westminster Abbey
Westminster Abbey held the ceremony while Britain was still under rationing, so the princess needed ration coupons to buy the fabric for her Norman Hartnell gown.
Q 15Which Paris couturier's first collection, shown in February 1947, was dubbed the New Look by Harper's Bazaar?
Christian Dior
Christian Dior had named the 90-garment collection Corolla. It was the magazine's editor, Carmel Snow, who supplied the label that stuck.
Q 16Which Italian carmaker's first car to carry its founder's name, the 125 S, made its racing debut in May 1947?
Ferrari
Ferrari saw the 125 S fail to finish its first race at Piacenza, then win the Grand Prix of Rome two weeks later. Only two of the cars were made.
Q 17Which 1947 film puts a Macy's department store Santa in court to decide whether he really is Santa Claus?
Miracle on 34th Street
Miracle on 34th Street shot its parade scenes live during the real 1946 Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. Edmund Gwenn won an Academy Award for playing Kris Kringle.
Q 18Which rock star, born in Brixton, London, in January 1947, changed his surname to avoid confusion with a Monkee?
David Bowie
David Bowie was born David Jones, too close to Davy Jones of the Monkees. He borrowed his new surname from the American pioneer James Bowie and the knife he popularized.
Q 19Which US spy agency was created by the National Security Act that President Truman signed in July 1947?
CIA
The CIA was born from a law Truman signed aboard his presidential plane, the Sacred Cow. The same act set up the National Security Council.
Q 20Which picture book by Margaret Wise Brown, illustrated by Clement Hurd, was first published in September 1947?
Goodnight Moon
Goodnight Moon sold only 6,000 copies that first autumn. The New York Public Library kept it off its shelves until 1972 because an influential children's librarian there hated the book.
Marlon Brando was a virtual unknown; the producer had originally wanted John Garfield. Tennessee Williams felt his youth made Kowalski's cruelty seem ignorant rather than vicious.
Q 24Which crooner re-recorded White Christmas in March 1947 because the 1942 master had been damaged by heavy use?
Bing Crosby
Bing Crosby brought back the same orchestra and backing singers to copy the original session as closely as possible. The 1947 take is the one usually played on radio each December.
Q 25Which author, born in Maine in September 1947, saw his wife rescue the first pages of Carrie from the trash?
Stephen King
Stephen King had thrown away the opening of what began as a short story. His wife Tabitha fished the pages out because she wanted to know what happened next, and Carrie became his debut novel.
Q 26The UN General Assembly voted in November 1947 to partition which British-run territory into Arab and Jewish states?
Palestine
Palestine was to be divided under Resolution 181, which passed by 33 votes to 13 with 10 abstentions. The plan was never put into effect as the Assembly had envisaged.
Q 27Which team won the 1947 World Series, the first to be televised, with most viewers watching on sets in bars?
New York Yankees
The New York Yankees needed all seven games. In Game 4 their pitcher Bill Bevens came within one out of the first World Series no-hitter, then lost when a pinch-hitter drove in two runs.
Q 28The AK-47 rifle takes its number from the year 1947; which Soviet designer's surname does the letter K stand for?
Kalashnikov
Kalashnikov completed the prototypes in November 1947, and the Soviet Army began issuing the rifle the next year. The A stands for avtomat, Russian for an automatic weapon.
Q 29The unsolved January 1947 murder of Elizabeth Short, nicknamed the Black Dahlia, took place in which American city?
Los Angeles
Los Angeles newspapers ran with the nickname, which may echo the 1946 film noir The Blue Dahlia. The case is one of the oldest unsolved murders in the county.
Q 30Which annual theatre honors were first handed out at New York's Waldorf-Astoria hotel in April 1947?
Tony Awards
The Tony Awards had no trophy at first: winners received a scroll and a gift such as a cigarette lighter, a gold compact or a money clip. The medallion arrived at the third ceremony.