1992 Trivia
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50 free 1992 trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
1992 was the year the Queen called horrible and the year Britain crashed out of Europe's currency grid in a single afternoon. A castle burned, a princess's secrets went into print, a new football league kicked off and the first text message was sent. Abroad, a capital came under siege, a Canadian team took baseball's biggest prize and a Texan billionaire upended a presidential election. These 50 questions cover the news, sport, music, film and television of the year: a runner carried over the line by his father, a snooker final turned around from six frames down, a soap that replaced a chat show and died within a year, a dance hit that topped the chart during drug awareness week, and a vice-president undone by a spelling bee. 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 1992-themed birthday.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which royal residence burned in November after a spotlight set a curtain alight in the Private Chapel?
Windsor Castle
Windsor Castle's State Apartments burned for 15 hours, and four days later the Queen called the year her 'annus horribilis'.
Q 02Which capital's siege began in April and ran for 1,425 days, the longest of any capital city in modern warfare?
Sarajevo
Sarajevo stayed encircled until 29 February 1996, a siege three times longer than the Battle of Stalingrad and more than a year longer than the siege of Leningrad.
Q 03Which team beat Atlanta in six games to become the first World Series winner from outside the United States?
Toronto Blue Jays
The Toronto Blue Jays won it in the 11th inning of Game 6, when 41-year-old Dave Winfield drove in two runs with the first extra-base hit of his World Series career.
Q 04Which British 400 m runner tore a hamstring in his Barcelona semi-final and finished the lap leaning on his father?
Derek Redmond
Derek Redmond's father Jim dodged the security guards to reach him on the track, and the crowd of 65,000 rose to cheer the pair all the way to the line.
Q 05Which country, invited only after Yugoslavia was expelled, beat Germany 2–0 to win the European Championship in Sweden?
Denmark
Denmark had finished second to Yugoslavia in qualifying and got the call-up as the Yugoslav Wars tore that country apart; goals from John Jensen and Kim Vilfort settled the final.
Q 06Which Williams driver clinched the Formula One title with second place in Hungary, then left to race in IndyCar?
Nigel Mansell
Nigel Mansell won the IndyCar title at his first attempt in 1993, making him the only driver ever to hold the Formula One and American open-wheel championships at the same time.
Q 07Which club, managed by Howard Wilkinson, won the final old First Division title before the Premier League began?
Leeds United
Leeds United then made one of the worst title defences on record, finishing 17th a year later, and Wilkinson remains the last English manager to win the title.
Q 08Which host left The Tonight Show on 22 May aged 66, a night after his final guests Robin Williams and Bette Midler?
Johnny Carson
Johnny Carson had hosted since 1962 and handed the desk to Jay Leno, then all but vanished from view. In his last years he quietly sent jokes to David Letterman for his monologues.
Q 09Which Texas billionaire announced his run on Larry King Live and took 18.9% of the presidential vote as an independent?
Ross Perot
Ross Perot won about 19.7 million votes yet not a single electoral vote, even after quitting the race in July and jumping back in that October.
Q 10Which European system did the pound leave on 'Black Wednesday', after a one-day promise of 15% interest?
Exchange Rate Mechanism
The Exchange Rate Mechanism exit was announced that evening by Chancellor Norman Lamont, after two rate rises in a single day failed to save the pound; the rise to 15% was scrapped and rates stayed at 12%.
Q 11Which West Bromwich MP was elected Speaker of the Commons by 372 votes to 238, the first woman to hold the post?
Betty Boothroyd
Betty Boothroyd, once a Tiller Girls dancer, beat Conservative Peter Brooke in the first contested vote for the chair in over 40 years, then declined to wear the Speaker's traditional wig.
Q 12Which Scottish MP succeeded Neil Kinnock as Labour leader in July, after the party's fourth successive election defeat?
John Smith
John Smith had been Kinnock's shadow chancellor since 1987, and his sudden death from a heart attack in May 1994 opened the way for Tony Blair to lead the party.
Q 13Which tabloid claimed credit for John Major's surprise election win with a front page saying it 'wot won it'?
The Sun
Q 21Which High Court of Australia decision, brought by a Torres Strait Islander, rejected the doctrine of terra nullius?
Mabo v Queensland
Mabo v Queensland came too late for Eddie Mabo, a former university gardener who died of cancer that January, months before the judges ruled that Australia had never been nobody's land.
Q 22In which Indian city did a rally of Hindu activists tear down the 16th-century Babri Masjid on 6 December?
Ayodhya
Ayodhya's mosque stood on the spot many Hindus hold to be Rama's birthplace; its fall set off riots that killed about 2,000 people, and in 2019 India's Supreme Court awarded the site for a temple.
Q 23Which French forward joined Manchester United on 26 November after his club rang to ask about buying Denis Irwin?
The Sun's boast angered its own proprietor: Rupert Murdoch later told the Leveson Inquiry the headline was 'tasteless and wrong' and that he had given editor Kelvin MacKenzie a fierce telling-off.
Q 14Which journalist's book Diana: Her True Story, published in June, laid bare the Prince and Princess of Wales's marriage?
Andrew Morton
Andrew Morton's secret informant was Diana herself: a doctor friend smuggled her taped answers out of Kensington Palace while the Palace insisted she had not co-operated. Morton confirmed it only after her death.
Q 15Over which network did Neil Papworth send the first ever text message, reading 'Merry Christmas', on 3 December?
Vodafone
Vodafone director Richard Jarvis read it at a Christmas party but could not text back: phones of the day could only receive messages, which is why Papworth had typed his on a computer.
Q 16Which became Britain's first national commercial radio station on 7 September, after a summer of birdsong test transmissions?
Classic FM
Classic FM's birdsong, recorded in its chief engineer's garden, became such a hit with listeners that years later the same recording returned as a digital radio channel of its own.
Q 17Which shopping centre, built around an indoor theme park, opened in August on the site of the Minnesota Twins' old stadium?
Mall of America
Mall of America keeps a red stadium seat bolted high on a wall of its theme park, marking where Harmon Killebrew landed the longest home run ever recorded at the Twins' old ballpark.
Q 18Which city hosted June's UN Earth Summit, where a 12-year-old Canadian girl addressed the delegates?
Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro's summit heard Severn Cullis-Suzuki, whose children's group had raised its own money to travel from Vancouver and tell the adults 'you must change your ways'.
Q 19To which country did President Bush send US troops in December on the famine-relief mission Operation Restore Hope?
Somalia
Somalia's beach gave the first Navy SEALs ashore a surprise: they crept in before dawn to find waiting television crews, whose lights dazzled their night-vision gear.
Q 20Which Spanish city staged Expo '92, marking 500 years since Columbus sailed, and got Spain's first AVE high-speed line?
Seville
Seville's showpiece Pavilion of Discoveries burned down two months before the gates opened, a blow to a fair whose whole theme was the Age of Discoveries.
Eric Cantona
Eric Cantona cost £1 million after chairman Bill Fotherby's call about Irwin prompted Alex Ferguson to ask for the Frenchman instead, two days after Cantona had faxed in a transfer request.
Q 24Which Scot won ten frames in a row from 14–8 down to beat Jimmy White 18–14 in the World Snooker Championship final?
Stephen Hendry
Stephen Hendry turned it at 14–9 with a risky brown he later called one of the best shots of his career, when the safe option was a snooker. White reached six world finals and lost every one.
Q 25Which side, told by their captain to play like 'cornered tigers', beat England by 22 runs in cricket's World Cup final?
Pakistan
Pakistan's captain Imran Khan had seen his side bowled out for 74 by England in the group stage, only for rain to wash the game out; that rescued point kept them alive to reach the final.
Q 26Which striker's England career ended with his substitution against Sweden, one goal short of Bobby Charlton's then record?
Gary Lineker
Gary Lineker had wasted the perfect chance a month earlier, chipping a penalty against Brazil so weakly that the goalkeeper saved it with ease. He never scored for England again.
Q 27Which ex-world chess champion re-emerged to beat Boris Spassky in an unofficial rematch in Sveti Stefan and Belgrade?
Bobby Fischer
Bobby Fischer played on in Yugoslavia despite a United Nations embargo, so the US government issued a warrant for his arrest and he lived the rest of his life as an émigré.
Q 28Which Clint Eastwood western became the third of its genre to win Best Picture, after Cimarron and Dances with Wolves?
Unforgiven
Unforgiven waited years for its star: Eastwood held on to David Webb Peoples' script until he was old enough to play its ageing killer, then dedicated the film to directors Sergio Leone and Don Siegel.
Q 29Which actor played Scrooge in The Muppet Christmas Carol, vowing to act as if with the Royal Shakespeare Company?
Michael Caine
Michael Caine played it dead straight opposite Kermit the Frog as Bob Cratchit, with Gonzo narrating as Charles Dickens so the script could keep the original prose.
Q 30Which Robert Rodriguez debut was shot for about $7,000, partly raised by volunteering for clinical drug trials?
El Mariachi
El Mariachi was meant only for the Spanish-language video market until Columbia Pictures bought it, and Rodriguez shot it himself, pushed around in a wheelchair in place of a camera dolly.