1977 Trivia
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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?
Red Rum
Red Rum had an incurable bone disease in his foot, yet car dealer Ginger McCain trained him on Southport beach, where galloping through seawater is said to have eased it.
Q 02Which Briton won the Wimbledon women's singles in the championships' centenary year, as Elizabeth II watched on?
Virginia Wade
Virginia Wade lost the first set to Betty Stöve, then won 6–3, 6–1, and recalls the Centre Court crowd singing 'For She's a Jolly Good Fellow'.
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, named for the headland near McCartney's High Park Farm, broke the UK sales record held by the Beatles' 'She Loves You' and kept it until Band Aid in 1984.
Q 04Which Sex Pistols single stalled at number two in June despite a BBC ban, amid claims the chart was fixed?
God Save the Queen
God Save the Queen was refused by shops including Boots and WH Smith, and on Jubilee Day the band played from a boat on the Thames, a stunt that ended in arrests.
Q 05Which Florida city saw snow flurries on 19 January for the only time in its recorded history?
Miami
Miami's flakes melted on landing, yet local papers ran headlines sized for a declaration of war, and the freeze behind them devastated South Florida's winter crops.
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! is what Ehman wrote in red pen after circling the printout code 6EQUJ5 days later, and no search since has ever picked the signal up again.
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 college roommate Sean Connolly, and the stunt was written in because Henry Winkler really could water-ski.
Q 08Which carol did Bowie sing with Bing Crosby on 11 September, a month 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 brought down the goalposts after beating England 2–1 in June?
Scotland
Scotland's fans buckled a Wembley crossbar under their weight and dug up the turf, and Denis Law joked that three penalty spots later turned up for sale in Aberdeen.
Q 10Which England forward left Anfield for Hamburger SV in a British-record £500,000 deal?
Kevin Keegan
Kevin Keegan began badly at Hamburg, where teammates would not pass to him, yet in 1979 he helped them win their first league title since 1960 and was twice voted European Footballer of the Year.
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?
Crucible Theatre
The Crucible Theatre was chosen after promoter Mike Watterson's wife Carol saw a play there and recommended it, and John Spencer won the first title held in it.
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 was scripted by William Goldman from the book Cornelius Ryan struggled to finish while ill with cancer, dying two months after it came out in 1974.
Q 22Which Stephen King novel set in the Overlook Hotel was published in January?
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?
The Silmarillion
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 reached three figures with an on-drive for four off Greg Chappell at his home ground, went on to 191, and England won by an innings to regain the Ashes.
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, and England went on to win the match by seven wickets.
Q 16Which Australian TV mogul's secret cricket breakaway was revealed on 9 May, with England captain Tony Greig as his recruiter?
Kerry Packer
Kerry Packer set up World Series Cricket after the Australian Cricket Board refused his Channel Nine bid for exclusive Test rights, and it popularised day-night matches and coloured kit.
Q 17Which city staged March's Centenary Test, where Australia beat England by 45 runs, exactly as in 1877's first Test?
Melbourne
Melbourne hosted both matches, and England's Derek Randall made 174 in the chase after wicketkeeper Rod Marsh called him back when he had been given out caught behind.
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 had already agreed to join Brabham and walked out on Ferrari with two races left, 14 months after the Nürburgring fire that almost killed him.
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's submarine car later sat forgotten in a Long Island storage unit that sold blind for under $100, and Elon Musk paid close to $1 million for it in 2013.
The Silmarillion was first offered to Tolkien's publisher in 1937 as a follow-up to The Hobbit and turned down as too obscure, so he wrote The Lord of the Rings instead.
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 took the Dirty Harry-style tough cop to its logical extreme, and the strip never shows his whole face, which writer John Wagner says sums up the facelessness of justice.
Q 25Which Starsky & Hutch actor topped the UK and US charts with the ballad 'Don't Give Up on Us'?
David Soul
David Soul first won attention as 'the Covered Man', singing on The Merv Griffin Show in a ski mask so that he would be judged on his music alone.
Q 26Which Evita song 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', a then-record fifth French victory that took the 1978 contest to Paris, while the UK's 'Rock Bottom' came 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 were two flamenco dancers spotted entertaining tourists at a Fuerteventura hotel, and their only UK chart-topper came back in 2020 as a football terrace anthem.
Q 29Which duo's Christmas show, with BBC presenters dancing to 'There Is Nothing Like a Dame', drew over 20 million viewers?
Morecambe and Wise
Morecambe and Wise drew between 21 and 28 million viewers, depending on who counted, then announced barely a month later that they were leaving the BBC for Thames Television.
Q 30Which Zeffirelli serial starring Robert Powell, with Olivier and Ustinov in support, reached ITV on 3 April?
Jesus of Nazareth
Jesus of Nazareth began when Pope Paul VI told producer Lew Grade he hoped his next project would be the life of Jesus, and Grade's wife suggested Robert Powell for his blue eyes.