1958
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50 free 1958 trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
The year 1958 sat at the hinge of the Cold War and the space age. Satellites were going up, jet airliners were starting to cross the Atlantic, and teenagers were buying records, toys and fast food in numbers nobody had seen before. This quiz covers the whole year: the headlines and world leaders, the science and inventions, the films, television and chart hits, the big moments in sport, and the famous people born that year. It also touches on what things cost, from toys to postage, for anyone curious about the price of everyday life back then. It is written for anyone who remembers 1958, was born in it, or is planning a milestone birthday party, a class reunion or a family game night. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so you can play it straight through or print it for a group.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which famous blue gem did jeweler Harry Winston send to the Smithsonian by registered mail in 1958?
Hope Diamond
The Hope Diamond travelled in a box wrapped in brown paper, insured for $1 million. Postage was $2.44 of the $145.29 bill, and the rest paid for the insurance.
Q 02Which Wham-O toy, advertised at $1.98, sold 25 million in under four months during a 1958 craze?
Hula hoop
The Hula hoop was named after the Hawaiian dance. Wham-O borrowed the idea from bamboo hoops that Australian children played with, and sales passed 100 million within two years.
Q 03Which construction toy's modern design dates to a patent application filed in Denmark in January 1958?
Lego
Lego bricks made in 1958 still click together with the ones sold now. The company grew out of the workshop of a carpenter who began making wooden toys in 1932.
Q 04Which US agency opened on October 1, 1958, a year after the Soviet Union launched Sputnik?
NASA
NASA absorbed the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, which dated from 1915. It was set up as a civilian body to keep the American space program focused on peaceful uses.
Q 05Which singer got his first Army haircut at Fort Chaffee in March 1958 after being drafted at the height of his fame?
Elvis Presley
Elvis Presley was posted that October to a tank battalion in West Germany. While stationed there he met 14-year-old Priscilla Beaulieu, whom he later married.
Q 06Which restaurant chain did brothers Dan and Frank Carney start in Wichita in 1958 with $600 from their mother?
Pizza Hut
Pizza Hut opened as a single location run by two Wichita State students. It grew to six outlets within a year, and the brothers took the company public in 1969.
Q 07Which singer, born in Bay City, Michigan, in August 1958, left college to chase a dance career in New York?
Madonna
Madonna quit college in 1978 for New York City, where she worked as an art model while looking for dance jobs. Her full name is Madonna Louise Ciccone.
Q 08Which now-familiar emblem did Gerald Holtom design in 1958 for Britain's campaign for nuclear disarmament?
Peace sign
The Peace sign stacks the flag semaphore signals for the letters N and D inside a circle. Holtom first thought of using a Christian cross, but several priests talked him out of it.
Q 09Which 17-year-old sat out Brazil's first two matches of the 1958 World Cup injured, then scored six goals?
Pelé
Pelé hit a second-half hat-trick against France in the semi-final and became the youngest player to win a World Cup. He was nicknamed O Rei, the King, after the tournament.
Q 10Which convenience food did Momofuku Ando's company Nissin first put on sale in Japan in August 1958?
Instant noodles
Instant noodles went on sale as Chikin Ramen and were a luxury at first: grocers sold fresh noodles for about a sixth of the price. Ando cooked and dried them by flash-frying in hot oil.
Q 11Which singer, born in Gary, Indiana, in August 1958, was the eighth of ten children and on stage at six?
Michael Jackson
Michael Jackson grew up in a two-bedroom house on a road called Jackson Street. He joined his brothers' band in 1964 as a backup musician and was sharing lead vocals by late 1965, when it became the Jackson 5.
Q 12Which musician, born in Minneapolis in June 1958, was named after his father's jazz stage name?
Prince
Prince got his name from Prince Rogers, the name his pianist father used on stage. The father led a jazz trio whose singer became the musician's mother.
Q 13Which cartoon characters did Belgian artist Peyo introduce in 1958 as bit players in a medieval comic?
The Smurfs
Q 21Which singer's 1958 British tour collapsed after three concerts when the press learned his bride was 13?
Jerry Lee Lewis
Jerry Lee Lewis was 22 and insisted that Myra, who was also his cousin, was really 15. A lone news agency reporter at Heathrow Airport uncovered the marriage.
Q 22Which team won the 1958 NFL title at Yankee Stadium in the first championship decided by sudden-death overtime?
Baltimore Colts
The Baltimore Colts beat the New York Giants 23-17 in what became known as the Greatest Game Ever Played. Johnny Unitas forced overtime with a drive to a tying field goal seven seconds from time.
Q 23Which English club's young team, the Busby Babes, was devastated by a plane crash at Munich in February 1958?
The Smurfs first turned up in Johan and Peewit, a sword-and-sorcery strip. Peyo said he made up their French name, Schtroumpf, at a meal when he could not think of the word for salt.
Q 14Which card brand began in 1958 when Bank of America mailed unsolicited credit cards to homes across Fresno?
Visa
Visa started out as BankAmericard. Fresno was picked partly because it was isolated, which would limit the bad publicity if the experiment failed.
Q 15Which bear from children's books, a stowaway from Peru, made his first appearance in October 1958?
Paddington
Paddington was inspired by a lone teddy bear that his creator spotted on a London shop shelf on Christmas Eve 1956. The author thought it looked forlorn and bought it for his wife.
Q 16Which rigged NBC quiz show, where Charles Van Doren beat Herb Stempel, was abruptly cancelled in October 1958?
Twenty-One
Twenty-One had told Stempel to lose on purpose, and he went public. A New York grand jury spent that autumn questioning producers who had coached their contestants.
Q 17Which baseball team played its first game in Los Angeles in April 1958 after leaving Brooklyn?
Dodgers
The Dodgers won that opener 6-5 against the Giants, who had just swapped New York for San Francisco. A crowd of 78,672 watched in the Memorial Coliseum, a football and athletics stadium.
Q 18Which satellite, the first launched by the United States, detected the Van Allen radiation belt in 1958?
Explorer 1
Explorer 1 kept returning data until its batteries ran out after nearly four months. It followed two Soviet Sputniks into orbit and flew as part of the International Geophysical Year.
Q 19Which Everest climber reached the South Pole in January 1958 driving converted Ferguson tractors?
Edmund Hillary
Edmund Hillary was only meant to lay supply depots for a British crossing party, but he pressed on and beat it to the Pole by about two weeks. No one had arrived there overland for 46 years.
Q 20What does the one-eyed, one-horned creature in Sheb Wooley's 1958 hit 'The Purple People Eater' want to join?
A rock and roll band
A rock and roll band is what brings the creature down from outer space. Wooley's novelty record topped the Billboard pop chart from June 9 to July 14, with a sped-up tape for the alien's voice.
Manchester United
Manchester United were flying home from a European Cup tie in Belgrade and had stopped to refuel. Slush on the runway slowed the plane on its third takeoff attempt, and 23 people died.
Q 24Which 1958 Hitchcock thriller replaced Citizen Kane at the top of Sight & Sound's critics' poll in 2012?
Vertigo
Vertigo drew mixed reviews when it opened and was only later hailed as its director's masterpiece. James Stewart plays a retired San Francisco detective with a crippling fear of heights.
Q 25Which 1958 MGM musical about Parisian high society won all nine Oscars it was nominated for?
Gigi
Gigi set a record with its nine wins, Best Picture among them, but it lasted only a year: Ben-Hur took eleven at the next ceremony. The film is often called the last great MGM musical.
Q 26Which future star of Bullitt was paid $3,000 for his first leading role, in 1958's The Blob?
Steve McQueen
Steve McQueen was billed as Steven McQueen in the tale of a carnivorous alien that crash-lands in Pennsylvania. That September he also began the CBS series Wanted Dead or Alive.
Q 27Which one-word title is spoken three times in the Champs' Latin-flavoured instrumental, a number one in 1958?
Tequila
Tequila was recorded in three takes as a B-side, with its writer Danny Flores speaking the title himself. It won the Grammy for Best Rhythm & Blues Performance at the first awards.
Q 28Which teen idol from TV's Ozzie and Harriet topped the very first Billboard Hot 100 chart in August 1958?
Ricky Nelson
Ricky Nelson did it with 'Poor Little Fool'. He had played himself on his parents' sitcom since the age of eight, first on radio and then on television.
Q 29Which campaign did Mao Zedong launch in 1958 to industrialise rural China through people's communes?
Great Leap Forward
The Great Leap Forward caused a famine that killed between 15 and 55 million people. False harvest reports from the countryside were used to set grain quotas, which made the hunger worse.
Q 30Which wartime general came out of retirement in 1958 to lead France and founded the Fifth Republic?
Charles de Gaulle
Charles de Gaulle was brought back when the war in Algeria threatened to topple the Fourth Republic. Voters approved his new constitution, with its strong presidency, in a referendum.