1981 Trivia
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50 free 1981 trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
1981 was the year the future arrived in beige plastic: a personal computer from the biggest name in business, a portable that fit under an airline seat, and a tool that could see single atoms. The Shuttle flew twice, a probe swept past Saturn, and the Senate confirmed the first woman on the US Supreme Court. Closer to home it was the year of the royal wedding, a cricket captain who ordered an underarm delivery, a Test match turned on its head at Headingley, a Grand National won by a cancer survivor, and a road race whose two leaders chose to finish together. The 50 questions cover music, film, television, science, sport, politics and the people born or lost that year. They suit pub quizzes, family nights and anyone who remembers the year MTV switched on.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which Lloyd Webber musical, set to poems Eliot wrote for his godchildren, opened in the West End in May?
Cats
Cats premiered at the New London Theatre on 11 May 1981, setting verse from Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats to music. A poem Eliot had cut as 'too sad for children', about Grizabella, gave Lloyd Webber the idea for a full show.
Q 02Which reggae star died in Miami on 11 May, aged 36, having refused to have a cancerous toe amputated?
Bob Marley
Bob Marley was diagnosed in 1977 with a melanoma under a toenail and declined amputation, citing his religious beliefs. A flight home from Germany was diverted to Miami, where the cancer had spread to his lungs and brain.
Q 03Who took over the CBS Evening News the Monday after Walter Cronkite's final sign-off on 6 March?
Dan Rather
Dan Rather forced CBS's hand with a rival offer from ABC, and Roger Mudd, long the heir apparent to Cronkite, left for NBC after being passed over.
Q 04Which country, a democracy again only since 1974, became the tenth member of the European Communities?
Greece
Greece joined on 1 January 1981, and that October elected Andreas Papandreou, whose socialists had promised a referendum on membership; once in office he dropped the pledge and Greece stayed in.
Q 05Which probe, launched in 1977, flew past Saturn in August, then went on to Uranus and Neptune?
Voyager 2
Voyager 2 rode a rare alignment of the outer planets, using each giant's gravity to fling it on to the next; no other spacecraft has visited Uranus or Neptune.
Q 06Which syndicated show, launched on 14 September, is TV's longest-running showbiz news programme?
Entertainment Tonight
Entertainment Tonight opened the way for a wave of imitators, among them its own spin-off The Insider, and its 10,000th episode in January 2020 brought the Guinness title.
Q 07Which singer, born in Houston on 4 September, lost on Star Search as a child with the group Girl's Tyme?
Beyoncé
Beyoncé's Girl's Tyme lost on Star Search and was later dropped by a label before releasing an album; only after that double setback did the group, renamed Destiny's Child, break through.
Q 08Which tennis great, born in Basel on 8 August, was a ball boy at the Swiss Indoors in 1992 and 1993?
Roger Federer
Roger Federer was handed a medal by champion Michael Stich after the 1993 final, like every ball boy, then came back to win his hometown tournament ten times.
Q 09Which tennis player, born in Saginaw, Michigan, on 26 September, went on to win 23 major singles titles?
Serena Williams
Serena Williams won her 23rd, the 2017 Australian Open, in the early weeks of pregnancy, beating her sister Venus in the final.
Q 10Which Salman Rushdie novel about India's passage from colonial rule to partition won the Booker Prize?
Midnight's Children
Midnight's Children drew a libel action from Indira Gandhi over a single sentence, which Rushdie agreed to cut; it was later voted the best Booker winner of the prize's first 25 years.
Q 11Which machine, advertised as the only computer that fit under an airline seat, was the first successful portable?
Osborne 1
The Osborne 1 sold on value: its $1,795 price included software worth about $1,500 on its own, which made up for a screen just five inches across.
Q 12Which instrument, built at IBM Zurich by Gerd Binnig and Heinrich Rohrer, earned them the 1986 Physics Nobel?
Scanning tunneling microscope
The scanning tunneling microscope reads a surface with a tip ending in a single atom, so sensitive that the first one sat on a magnet floating over a superconductor to escape vibration.
Q 13Which space shuttle, first launched in April, became in November the first crewed spacecraft to fly to orbit twice?
Q 21Which country, renamed from British Honduras in 1973, became independent from the UK on 21 September?
Belize
Belize waited years for independence because Guatemala claimed its territory, and about 1,500 British troops stayed on afterwards to deter an invasion.
Q 22What did Labour's 'Gang of Four' launch on 26 March, two months after issuing the Limehouse Declaration?
Social Democratic Party
The Social Democratic Party was founded by Roy Jenkins, David Owen, Bill Rodgers and Shirley Williams, centrists who had quit Labour over the influence of Militant and the hard left. Jenkins had been President of the European Commission.
Q 23Which physician became Norway's first female prime minister on 4 February, serving until October?
Columbia
Columbia went back up seven months after its debut, but one of its three fuel cells failed and the planned five-day flight was cut to two; its two-man crew still met most of their goals.
Q 14Which race, first run on 29 March, saw Dick Beardsley and Inge Simonsen cross the line holding hands?
London Marathon
The London Marathon was the idea of Olympic champion Chris Brasher, inspired by running New York's in 1979; more than 20,000 people applied for the first race and 6,255 finished it.
Q 15Which horse, back from a career-threatening injury, won the Grand National under cancer survivor Bob Champion?
Aldaniti
Aldaniti and Bob Champion's win was filmed as Champions, with John Hurt as the jockey and the horse playing himself; when the pair came back in 1982, they fell at the first fence.
Q 16Which crossing near Hull, opened to traffic on 24 June, was the world's longest of its type for 17 years?
Humber Bridge
The Humber Bridge has towers that stand 36 mm farther apart at the top than at the base, to allow for the curvature of the Earth; Japan's Akashi Kaikyō Bridge took its record in 1998.
Q 17Which Australia captain told his brother Trevor to bowl the last ball underarm against New Zealand?
Greg Chappell
Greg Chappell wanted to stop number-ten batsman Brian McKechnie hitting the six New Zealand needed to tie the World Series Cup final at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. Trevor rolled the ball along the pitch, in the style of bowls.
Q 18Whose 8 for 43 at Headingley bowled Australia out for 111 after Ian Botham's 149 not out?
Bob Willis
Bob Willis bowled down the slope after captain Mike Brearley switched his end, and England became only the second Test side ever to win after following on. Botham had shared stands of 117, 67 and 37 with the last three batsmen.
Q 19Which biochemist, namesake of the cell's citric acid cycle, died in Oxford on 22 November aged 81?
Hans Krebs
Hans Krebs sent his discovery of the cycle to Nature in 1937 and was turned down for lack of space, so it ran in a Dutch journal instead; it won him a Nobel Prize in 1953.
Q 20Which ex-heavyweight champion, the Brown Bomber, died near Las Vegas hours after watching a title fight?
Joe Louis
Joe Louis was buried at Arlington after President Reagan waived the rules, and Max Schmeling, the German rival he had knocked out in a single round in 1938, helped pay for the funeral.
Gro Harlem Brundtland
Gro Harlem Brundtland lost office that October but returned twice as prime minister, and chaired the UN commission whose 1987 report gave 'sustainable development' its best-known definition.
Q 24Which BBC sitcom, first shown on 8 September, follows Peckham trader Del Boy and his half-brother Rodney?
Only Fools and Horses
Only Fools and Horses had the working title Readies; John Sullivan held out for a name from an obscure old saying, 'only fools and horses work for a living', to suit a hero who dodges tax and honest work.
Q 25Which 11-part Granada serial, shot at Castle Howard with Jeremy Irons, premiered on ITV on 12 October?
Brideshead Revisited
Brideshead Revisited, adapted from Evelyn Waugh's novel, used Castle Howard's grounds and public rooms as the Flyte family's Baroque mansion. The shoot went on a long hold when Irons left to make The French Lieutenant's Woman.
Q 26Which BBC children's series, first screened in 1981, is set in Greendale and features a black-and-white cat called Jess?
Postman Pat
Postman Pat's Greendale was inspired by Longsleddale, a real valley near Kendal, and Mrs Goggins's post office by the one in the Kendal street where creator John Cunliffe was living.
Q 27Which group won Eurovision in Dublin with 'Making Your Mind Up' and a skirt-ripping dance routine?
Bucks Fizz
Bucks Fizz had been put together only that January to sing the song, and beat Germany by just four points; Cheryl Baker was recruited because she had been to Eurovision in 1978 with Co-Co.
Q 28Who first swept all four general-field Grammys in one night, with 'Sailing' named Record of the Year?
Christopher Cross
Christopher Cross did it with his debut album, which beat Pink Floyd's The Wall and a Sinatra set to Album of the Year; no one swept the four again until Billie Eilish in 2020.
Q 29Which Lionel Richie–Diana Ross duet from a Brooke Shields film spent nine weeks at US number one?
Endless Love
Endless Love outgrew its film: the Brooke Shields romance did modest business, while the song became the biggest hit of either singer's career and tops Billboard's ranking of duets.
Q 30Who won Best Supporting Actor as Hobson, valet to Dudley Moore's drunken millionaire, in the comedy Arthur?
John Gielgud
John Gielgud turned Hobson down twice, wary of the valet's strong language, before taking the part that won him his only Oscar.