1969
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50 free 1969 trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
In 1969 two men walked on the Moon while hundreds of millions watched on television, and a month later a muddy field filled with rock fans for Woodstock. It was a year of endings and beginnings: the last months of the 1960s, a new president in the White House and a war that would not end. This quiz covers the whole year: the space race, politics and protest at home and abroad, the champions and upsets in sport, and the films, television shows, books and records people were talking about. It also has the lighter side, such as the brands, cartoons and characters that made their debut. It is written for anyone who remembers 1969, was born in it, or is planning a class reunion, an anniversary or a milestone birthday party. 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Q 01Which Beatle did a 1969 campus rumor claim had died and been replaced by a lookalike?
Paul McCartney
Paul McCartney cooled the rumor with a Life magazine interview that November. By then fans around the world were hunting for clues in Beatles lyrics and album covers.
Q 02Which astronaut orbited the Moon alone while Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked on it in July 1969?
Michael Collins
Michael Collins lost radio contact with Earth for 48 minutes of every orbit as Columbia passed behind the Moon. He said he felt not loneliness but "almost exultation".
Q 03Which fast-food chain did Dave Thomas open in Columbus, Ohio, in November 1969?
Wendy's
Wendy's sold square patties whose corners stuck out of the round bun, to give the impression of plentiful meat. Thomas later wrote that he regretted using his daughter's name.
Q 04Which drama with Jon Voight and Dustin Hoffman is the only X-rated film ever to win Best Picture?
Midnight Cowboy
Midnight Cowboy pairs a naive hustler with an ailing con man nicknamed Ratso. It also won the Oscars for Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay.
Q 05Which children's series set on a city block full of Muppets debuted on public TV in November 1969?
Sesame Street
Sesame Street set out to use the techniques of television commercials to teach young children. It grew out of 1966 talks between producer Joan Ganz Cooney and Lloyd Morrisett.
Q 06Which guitarist closed Woodstock on Monday morning with a feedback-drenched "Star-Spangled Banner"?
Jimi Hendrix
Jimi Hendrix used feedback and distortion to imitate the sounds of rockets and bombs. Rain delays had pushed his festival-closing set back to 8:30 a.m.
Q 07Which polluted Ohio river caught fire in Cleveland in June 1969, spurring the environmental movement?
Cuyahoga
The Cuyahoga caught fire more than a dozen times over the years, and no photographs of the 1969 blaze are known to exist. A spark from a passing rail car lit an oil slick.
Q 08Which cartoon Great Dane began solving mysteries with four teenagers on CBS in September 1969?
Scooby-Doo
Scooby-Doo was the CBS answer to parent groups who had protested violent superhero cartoons. The writers briefly made him a sheepdog, fearing a Great Dane would look too much like Marmaduke.
Q 09Which supersonic airliner made its first flight from Toulouse in March 1969?
Concorde
Concorde was beaten into the air by the Soviet Tu-144, which first flew two months earlier. Test pilot André Turcat was at the controls of the French-built prototype.
Q 10Which quarterback guaranteed a win before leading the underdog Jets past the Colts in Super Bowl III?
Joe Namath
Joe Namath made his guarantee three days before the game at the Miami Touchdown Club, answering a heckling Colts fan. The Jets won 16–7, the first Super Bowl victory for the American Football League.
Q 11Which senator's car plunged off a Chappaquiddick Island bridge in July 1969, killing Mary Jo Kopechne?
Ted Kennedy
Ted Kennedy pleaded guilty to leaving the scene of an accident and received a two-month suspended jail sentence. His driver's license was suspended for sixteen months.
Q 12Which actress married to Roman Polanski was murdered by followers of Charles Manson in August 1969?
Sharon Tate
Sharon Tate was eight and a half months pregnant when she and four others were killed at her Benedict Canyon home. Polanski was away working on a film in Europe.
Q 13A June 1969 police raid on which Greenwich Village bar set off the riots that Pride marches mark?
Stonewall Inn
Q 21Which 1969 Beatles album shows the band walking across a London zebra crossing on its cover?
Abbey Road
Abbey Road was the last album the Beatles recorded, although Let It Be was released after it. The studio beside the famous crossing was then officially named EMI Studios.
Q 22In which city's Hilton did John Lennon and Yoko Ono stage their first bed-in for peace in March 1969?
Amsterdam
Amsterdam was the couple's honeymoon stop, and for a week they invited the world's press into their suite from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. each day.
Q 23Which David Bowie single about astronaut Major Tom was rush-released days before Apollo 11 launched?
Space Oddity
The Stonewall Inn raid was the kind police carried out routinely on gay bars in the 1960s. The first anniversary brought the first Gay Pride marches in US history.
Q 14What did Richard Nixon call the Americans whose support he sought in a November 1969 address on Vietnam?
The silent majority
The silent majority was Nixon's name for Americans who did not join the large antiwar demonstrations. The phrase had been used decades earlier of Calvin Coolidge's supporters.
Q 15Which former US president died in March 1969 and was buried in his boyhood hometown of Abilene, Kansas?
Dwight Eisenhower
Dwight Eisenhower, the general who commanded the D-Day invasion, went home on a special funeral train from Washington. He lies in a chapel at his presidential center in Abilene.
Q 16Which Milwaukee-raised former teacher became prime minister of Israel in March 1969?
Golda Meir
Golda Meir was the first woman to lead Israel's government. Born in Kyiv, she reached Milwaukee as a child in 1906 and trained there as a teacher.
Q 17Which young army officer toppled King Idris of Libya in a bloodless coup in September 1969?
Muammar Gaddafi
Muammar Gaddafi led a band of junior officers who called themselves the Free Officers. He went on to rule Libya for 42 years, until rebels overthrew him in 2011.
Q 18Which former island prison did Native American activists occupy for 19 months from November 1969?
Alcatraz
Alcatraz was claimed under an 1868 treaty that the activists said returned abandoned federal land to Native peoples. Of the 89 who set out on the first night, a Coast Guard blockade let only 14 land.
Q 19Which Hollywood star, signed by MGM at age 13, died in London in June 1969 at the age of 47?
Judy Garland
Judy Garland died of an accidental barbiturate overdose, 30 years after she played Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz.
Q 20Which May 1969 battle in Vietnam's A Shau Valley captured a position that US command abandoned soon afterwards?
Hamburger Hill
Hamburger Hill, officially Hill 937, got its nickname from US soldiers who said the fight ground men up like hamburger meat. The ridge, won by a costly frontal assault, had little strategic value.
Space Oddity was used by the BBC as background music during its coverage of the Moon landing. The title was partly inspired by the film 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Q 24Which cartoon band from the comics town of Riverdale had the top US single of 1969, "Sugar, Sugar"?
The Archies
The Archies were drawings, so session musicians made the records, with Ron Dante singing lead. The song ranked number one for the year in both America and the UK.
Q 25Which British band founded by guitarist Jimmy Page released its self-titled debut in January 1969?
Led Zeppelin
Led Zeppelin recorded the album in just 36 hours of studio time, before the group had a record deal. Page and manager Peter Grant paid for the sessions themselves.
Q 26Which Rolling Stones founder drowned in his swimming pool in July 1969, weeks after being dismissed?
Brian Jones
Brian Jones was 27 when he died at Cotchford Farm, his home in East Sussex. Guitarist Mick Taylor had already taken his place in the group.
Q 27At which California speedway did a free Rolling Stones concert turn deadly in December 1969?
Altamont
Altamont is remembered for the Hells Angels who guarded the stage, by some accounts in return for $500 worth of beer. One concertgoer, Meredith Hunter, was killed.
Q 28Which brothers from Gary, Indiana, released their Motown debut single "I Want You Back" in October 1969?
The Jackson 5
The Jackson 5 saw the song become their first number-one hit in January 1970. They had already sung it on The Ed Sullivan Show in December 1969.
Q 29Which dairy farmer leased a field in Bethel to the organizers of the 1969 Woodstock festival?
Max Yasgur
Max Yasgur stepped in after two other towns turned the festival away, for a fee its sponsors later put at $10,000. Many neighbors turned against him, but he never regretted it.
Q 30Which Frank Sinatra signature song, released in 1969, has English lyrics Paul Anka set to a French tune?
My Way
My Way began as "Comme d'habitude" ("As Usual"), a French song Claude François released in 1967. Paul Anka wrote the English version for Sinatra.