1990's
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98 free 1990's trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
14 free 1990's trivia questions with answers. 1990's trivia lives in two places on BrainPickle. This page is the shorter set; the main quiz is The 1990s trivia, with our deepest question pool on the topic and a source behind every answer.
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Q 01Dolly the sheep was cloned in 1996 at the Roslin Institute in which country?
Scotland
Scotland's Roslin Institute, near Edinburgh, revealed Dolly in February 1997, seven months after her birth, and the news set off a worldwide argument over cloning.
Q 02Which medical drama created by Michael Crichton, set in a fictional Chicago hospital, premiered on NBC in 1994?
ER
ER began as a film script Michael Crichton wrote in 1974 from his days as a medical student; it sat unmade for two decades until Steven Spielberg's company helped turn it into a series.
Q 03Which 1996 console came with a three-handled controller built around an analogue thumbstick?
Nintendo 64
Nintendo 64 stuck with cartridges while its rivals moved to CDs, a choice that drove Square to take Final Fantasy VII to the PlayStation instead.
Q 04What egg-shaped virtual pet became a global sensation after Bandai released it in Japan in 1996?
Tamagotchi
Tamagotchi demand so outran supply in Japan that Bandai banned staff from carrying bags with the company logo, for fear they would be robbed for the toy.
Q 05Which city hosted the 1992 Summer Olympics, where the NBA-stocked US 'Dream Team' won basketball gold?
Barcelona
Barcelona was the first Olympics after basketball's world body voted to admit NBA professionals; the Dream Team of Jordan, Magic Johnson and Bird won every game by an average of almost 44 points.
Q 06Which 1991 grunge album features the single 'Smells Like Teen Spirit'?
Nevermind
Nevermind climbed to number one on the Billboard 200 in January 1992, displacing Michael Jackson's Dangerous less than four months after Nirvana released it.
Q 07Which 1993 Steven Spielberg film set a new record as the highest-grossing movie ever?
Jurassic Park
Jurassic Park was meant to use go-motion puppet dinosaurs by animator Phil Tippett, until ILM's computer-generated animals proved more lifelike and set a milestone in film effects.
Q 08Which British pop group debuted in 1996 with the worldwide number one 'Wannabe'?
Spice Girls
Spice Girls answered an advert in the trade paper The Stage, then broke with the managers who had assembled them and signed with Simon Fuller before 'Wannabe' was released.
Q 09Which 1994 prison drama stars Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman?
The Shawshank Redemption
The Shawshank Redemption barely registered at the box office in 1994; video rentals and constant showings on the TNT cable channel later turned Frank Darabont's film into a favourite.
Q 10Which 1997 sci-fi film stars Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones as agents monitoring aliens on Earth?
Men in Black
Men in Black began as a little-known comic by Lowell Cunningham, which producers optioned in 1992, five years before Barry Sonnenfeld's film turned it into a blockbuster.
Q 11Which R&B trio released 'Creep' and 'Waterfalls' from its 1994 album CrazySexyCool?
TLC
TLC took 'Creep' and 'Waterfalls' to number one in 1995, yet the trio filed for bankruptcy that same year, at the height of the album's success.
Q 12Which 1996 alien-invasion film was the year's highest-grossing movie?
Independence Day
Independence Day showed its exploding White House in a Super Bowl commercial months before release, and the film's success made the game a showcase for blockbuster trailers.
Q 13Which Seattle grunge band released its debut album 'Ten' in 1991?
Pearl Jam
Pearl Jam first played as Mookie Blaylock, after the NBA player; made to change the name once signed, the band titled its album Ten after his shirt number instead.
Q 21The cell used to clone Dolly the sheep was taken from which part of the donor's body?
A mammary gland
A mammary gland cell from a six-year-old ewe was the donor, and Dolly was the only lamb born from 277 attempts; she proved that a specialised adult cell could be reset to build a whole animal.
Q 22Which US city's federal building was destroyed by Timothy McVeigh's truck bomb on 19 April 1995?
Oklahoma City
Oklahoma City's Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building was bombed on the second anniversary of the fiery end of the Waco siege, which Timothy McVeigh blamed on the government; 168 people were killed.
Q 23The creators of Bandai's egg-shaped virtual pet won which tongue-in-cheek award in 1997?
Q 14Beyoncé was lead singer of which Houston group, whose debut album arrived in 1998?
Destiny's Child
Destiny's Child grew out of Girl's Tyme, a girl group that lost on the TV talent show Star Search; years later Beyoncé spliced the clip of that defeat into her 'Flawless' video.
Q 15The Human Genome Project, launched in 1990, was led by which US body?
The National Institutes of Health
The National Institutes of Health funded the US work alongside the Department of Energy, and the project delivered its human sequence in 2003, two years ahead of its 2005 target.
Q 16Which was the first Soviet republic to declare independence, in March 1990?
Lithuania
Lithuania declared its independence restored on 11 March 1990, the first of the 15 Soviet republics to break away; Soviet troops stormed Vilnius's TV tower in January 1991 but could not reverse it.
Q 17Russia, Ukraine and Belarus declared the USSR dissolved in December 1991 and founded which successor body?
Commonwealth of Independent States
Commonwealth of Independent States was agreed by Boris Yeltsin and the leaders of Ukraine and Belarus at a state dacha in the Belovezh Forest; on 25 December the Soviet flag came down over the Kremlin for the last time.
Q 18What code name did the US-led coalition give its 1991 war against Iraq?
Operation Desert Storm
Operation Desert Storm opened with five weeks of air strikes from mid-January 1991; the ground offensive that followed on 24 February needed only four days to end the war.
Q 19What flaw compromised the Hubble Space Telescope after its 1990 launch?
Its main mirror had spherical aberration
Its main mirror had spherical aberration because it was polished slightly too flat near the outer edge; shuttle astronauts fitted corrective optics in December 1993 and the images came out sharp.
Q 20Which institution, where Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web, made it free to all in 1993?
CERN
CERN, the physics lab near Geneva, announced on 30 April 1993 that the Web would be free to anyone with no fees due, after the rival Gopher system had said it would charge for licences.
The Ig Nobel Prize for Economics
The Ig Nobel Prize for Economics went to Akihiro Yokoi and Aki Maita in 1997 'for diverting millions of person-hours of work into the husbandry of virtual pets'.
Q 24Which 1993 Nirvana album was recorded with producer Steve Albini?
In Utero
In Utero was recorded in February 1993 with Steve Albini, who took a flat fee and refused any royalties from it, calling them an insult to the band.
Q 25Nirvana released its 1989 debut album Bleach on which Seattle independent label?
Sub Pop
Sub Pop issued Bleach in June 1989 after the producer billed the band just $606.17 for thirty hours of recording, money put up by guitarist Jason Everman.
Q 26Which director made Titanic, which at about $200 million was then the most expensive film ever produced?
James Cameron
James Cameron ran so far over budget that Fox brought in Paramount to share the cost, and he gave up his $8 million directing fee; Titanic then took over $1.8 billion on its first run.
Q 27Which ballad from the 1997 film Titanic topped charts around the world?
My Heart Will Go On
My Heart Will Go On nearly went unrecorded: the director wanted no pop song in Titanic, so composer James Horner had Celine Dion tape a demo in secret and waited for the right moment to play it to him.
Q 28Friends was developed under which working title?
Insomnia Cafe
Insomnia Cafe was the title on the seven-page pitch Marta Kauffman and David Crane sold to NBC in December 1993; the script was later called Friends Like Us and Six of One before the name was cut to Friends.
Q 29Which comedian co-created Seinfeld and later made Curb Your Enthusiasm?
Larry David
Larry David modelled the cheap, neurotic George Costanza on himself, quit Seinfeld after its seventh season, and came back two years later to write the 1998 finale.
Q 30Which invented holiday did Seinfeld introduce in 1997, complete with an aluminium pole and an 'Airing of Grievances'?
Festivus
Festivus was real before it was fiction: the father of Seinfeld writer Dan O'Keefe had invented it for his own family in 1966, and his son worked it into the episode 'The Strike'.