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50 free 1977 trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
1977 was the year Britain hung out the bunting. Elizabeth II marked 25 years on the throne with street parties everywhere, a punk band tried to gatecrash the celebrations from a boat on the Thames, a 12-year-old horse won at Aintree for a third time and an English club brought the European Cup home from Rome. Across the Atlantic, snow fell on Florida palm trees, a space shuttle glided free of its carrier jet for the first time and a radio telescope in Ohio picked up a signal nobody has explained since. These 50 questions cover the news, sport, music, film and television of the year, with a British lean: a centenary-year Wimbledon champion, a £500,000 transfer, a cricket breakaway signed in secret, the first national strike by an emergency service, a carol sung by an unlikely pair, a comic nobody expected to last, and the births of a few people who became household names. Most are pitched for a pub table, with a handful for people who really remember the year. Play on your phone with instant answers and explanations, or print it for a pub quiz, office quiz or a 1977-themed birthday.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which 12-year-old won a record third Grand National at Aintree under jockey Tommy Stack, by 25 lengths?
Red Rum
Red Rum had already won in 1973 and 1974 and finished second in 1975 and 1976, and his third win was voted the 24th greatest sporting moment of all time in a 2002 poll.
Q 02Which Briton won the Wimbledon women's singles in the championships' centenary year, as Elizabeth II watched on?
Virginia Wade
Virginia Wade beat Betty Stöve in three sets nine days before her 32nd birthday, and it was the first Wimbledon final the monarch had attended since 1962.
Q 03Which Wings single, backed by the Campbeltown Pipe Band, was the first to sell two million copies in Britain?
Mull of Kintyre
Mull of Kintyre spent nine weeks at number one as the Christmas chart-topper and was the UK's best-selling single ever until Band Aid overtook it in 1984.
Q 04Which Sex Pistols single was performed from a Thames boat on 7 June, a stunt that ended with 11 arrests?
God Save the Queen
God Save the Queen was banned outright by the BBC yet stalled at number two behind Rod Stewart that week, and its label was convinced it had really outsold him.
Q 05Which Florida city saw snow flurries on 19 January for the only time in its recorded history?
Miami
Miami saw the flakes melt on landing, and the Washington Post called it the farthest south snow had been reported in the United States since records began in the 19th century.
Q 06What did Jerry Ehman write beside a 72-second radio signal caught by Ohio State's Big Ear telescope on 15 August?
Wow!
Wow! became the name of the strongest candidate alien signal ever recorded, a 6EQUJ5 intensity reading that has never recurred despite decades of follow-up searches.
Q 07Which idiom for a show past its peak mocks a water-ski stunt Fonzie pulled in a September Happy Days episode?
Jump the shark
Jump the shark was coined in 1985 by Jon Hein and his University of Michigan roommate Sean Connolly, and the episode itself aired on 20 September 1977 with Fonzie clearing the fish in his leather jacket.
Q 08Which carol did Bowie sing with Bing Crosby on 11 September, five weeks before Crosby's death?
The Little Drummer Boy
The Little Drummer Boy was a song Bowie said he hated, so the show's writers composed the 'Peace on Earth' counterpoint in just over an hour, and the duet reached UK number three as a 1982 single.
Q 09Which country's fans invaded the Wembley pitch and broke the goalposts after beating England, so fences went up?
Scotland
Scotland's supporters vandalised the playing surface as well as the goalposts, and the 1977 match led Wembley to erect fences between the terraces and the pitch.
Q 10Which England forward left Anfield for Hamburger SV in a British-record £500,000 deal agreed between two cup finals?
Kevin Keegan
Kevin Keegan's fee nearly doubled the German transfer record, and he told ITV his wage jumped from £22,000 a year to £122,000.
Q 11Which Manchester United manager won the FA Cup in May, then was sacked in July over an affair with the physio's wife?
Tommy Docherty
Tommy Docherty's affair with Mary Brown, wife of the United physiotherapist, ended his own marriage too, and his replacement Dave Sexton had also followed him into the Chelsea job.
Q 12Which Sheffield venue staged the World Snooker Championship for the first time in April, and every year since?
Crucible Theatre
The Crucible Theatre saw John Spencer beat Cliff Thorburn 25–21 for the first title there, and it is now called the 'spiritual home of snooker'.
Q 13Which American edged Jack Nicklaus in the 'Duel in the Sun' at the first Open Championship held at Turnberry?
Tom Watson
Q 21Which Attenborough war epic about the failed Operation Market Garden opened in June with Connery, Caine and Redford?
A Bridge Too Far
A Bridge Too Far cost $25 million and was scripted by William Goldman from Cornelius Ryan's book about the airborne push through the Nazi-occupied Netherlands.
Q 22Which Stephen King novel, set in the Overlook Hotel and published in January, became his first hardback bestseller?
The Shining
The Shining took its title from the John Lennon line 'We all shine on' in 'Instant Karma!', and grew from King's 1974 stay at the Stanley Hotel.
Q 23Which Tolkien book, edited and partly written by his son Christopher, was published four years after the author's death?
Tom Watson closed with a second straight 65 for a record 268 total, and Turnberry later renamed its 18th hole 'Duel in the Sun'.
Q 14Which opener became the first cricketer to bring up his 100th first-class century in a Test match, at Headingley?
Geoff Boycott
Geoff Boycott made 191 against Australia in the fourth Test in front of a full house at his home ground of Leeds, and England went on to regain the Ashes 3–0.
Q 15Which 21-year-old Somerset all-rounder took five for 74 on his Test debut against Australia in Nottingham in July?
Ian Botham
Ian Botham's first Test wicket was Australia's captain Greg Chappell, bowled for just 19, in a match England won by an innings and 85 runs.
Q 16Which Australian TV mogul's secret cricket breakaway, revealed on 9 May, had signed 13 of the 17 touring Australians?
Kerry Packer
Kerry Packer built World Series Cricket after the Australian Cricket Board rejected his Channel Nine bid for exclusive Test rights, and England captain Tony Greig signed up as his recruiting agent.
Q 17By how many runs did Australia beat England in the Melbourne Centenary Test, the same margin as the first Test in 1877?
45
Australia won both matches by exactly 45 runs, and Derek Randall made his first Test century in England's chase, even being recalled after a disputed catch.
Q 18Which driver sealed his second Formula One title at the US Grand Prix, then quit Ferrari with races still to run?
Niki Lauda
Niki Lauda won the championship through consistency rather than pace, and left early after Ferrari chose to run the unknown Gilles Villeneuve in a third car in Canada.
Q 19Which silent-film legend died at his Swiss home on Christmas Day, and had his coffin stolen the following March?
Charlie Chaplin
Charlie Chaplin was buried at Corsier-sur-Vevey, and the two men who dug up his coffin were caught in May, with the body found buried in a field in nearby Noville.
Q 20Which Roger Moore Bond film has a Lotus Esprit that turns into a submarine and a steel-toothed henchman called Jaws?
The Spy Who Loved Me
The Spy Who Loved Me pairs Bond with Soviet agent Anya Amasova, played by Barbara Bach, and director Lewis Gilbert set out to make Moore's Bond 'very English, very smooth' rather than a Connery copy.
The Silmarillion
The Silmarillion topped the New York Times fiction bestseller list that October, though publishers had refused Tolkien's wish to release it alongside The Lord of the Rings decades earlier.
Q 24Which lawman of Mega-City One debuted in the second issue of 2000 AD, the weekly comic IPC launched in February?
Judge Dredd
Judge Dredd's comic was named 2000 AD by John Sanders because nobody involved expected it to last that long, and the helmeted street judge never shows more than his mouth and jaw.
Q 25Which Starsky & Hutch actor topped the UK and US charts with the ballad 'Don't Give Up on Us'?
David Soul
David Soul played Detective Ken 'Hutch' Hutchinson from 1975 to 1979 and even directed three episodes of the show.
Q 26Which song from the Evita concept album gave Julie Covington a UK number one, before she turned down the stage role?
Don't Cry for Me Argentina
Don't Cry for Me Argentina sold over a million copies in Britain, and the part of Eva Perón went instead to Elaine Paige when the musical reached the London stage.
Q 27Which country won Eurovision at Wembley Conference Centre, a contest delayed a month by a strike of BBC technicians?
France
France's Marie Myriam won with 'L'oiseau et l'enfant' the day before her 20th birthday, while the UK's 'Rock Bottom' finished second.
Q 28Which group's disco hit 'Yes Sir, I Can Boogie' reached UK number one in October on its way to 16 million sales?
Baccara
Baccara's sole UK chart-topper was later adopted as a football terrace anthem, and its 16 million copies make it one of the best-selling singles of all time.
Q 29Which duo's Christmas show, with BBC newsreaders dancing to 'There Is Nothing Like a Dame', drew 28 million viewers?
Morecambe and Wise
Morecambe and Wise then left the BBC for Thames Television, and the show remains one of the 25 most-watched programmes in British TV history.
Q 30Which Zeffirelli serial starring Robert Powell, with Olivier and Ustinov in support, reached ITV on 3 April?
Jesus of Nazareth
Jesus of Nazareth was co-written by Anthony Burgess and packed its cast with seven past or future Oscar winners, from Anne Bancroft to Anthony Quinn.