1993 Trivia
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100 free 1993 trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
1993 was the year the web learned to show pictures, a new Intel chip got a name instead of a number, and a Cambridge mathematician stood up to claim a proof that had eluded everyone for three and a half centuries. Dinosaurs ruled the box office, a boy band began a run of chart-toppers, and a Christmas novelty single beat everyone to number one. These 100 questions skip the headlines every 90s quiz already covers and dig into the second tier: the void steeplechase, the rookie who won an American racing title, the penguin with a rubber glove on his head, the sealed glass world in the Arizona desert, and the Belgian, Cambodian and Japanese royal stories of the year. It suits pub quiz hosts, 90s kids and anyone born that year who wants to know what else was going on. Every answer carries an explanation and a source, and you can play online or print the set.
30 of 100 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which claim from a 17th-century margin note did Andrew Wiles announce he had proved at a Cambridge lecture in June?
Fermat's Last Theorem
Fermat's Last Theorem had resisted every attempt for three and a half centuries, and a flaw found in Wiles's argument within months took him and Richard Taylor until 1994 to repair.
Q 02Why did Intel name its new flagship chip Pentium rather than continuing the 286, 386, 486 sequence?
Numbers can't be trademarked
Numbers can't be trademarked, a judge had ruled when Intel lost a 1991 dispute over '386', so the company hired Lexicon Branding to coin a word instead.
Q 03What did the Purple Rain star adopt as his stage name during his contract dispute with Warner Bros.?
An unpronounceable symbol
An unpronounceable symbol became his name in protest at Warner's insistence on releasing his backlog slowly, leaving the press to call him 'The Artist Formerly Known as Prince'.
Q 04Which pink, yellow-spotted Noel's House Party character topped the UK singles chart at Christmas?
Mr Blobby
Mr Blobby began as a prank, a fake children's TV star used to fool celebrities in the show's 'Gotcha' segment, before his single spent three weeks at number one.
Q 05Which race was voided for the only time in its history when 30 of 39 runners ignored a false start?
The Grand National
The Grand National's 'race that never was' saw Esha Ness cross the line first in the second-fastest time ever recorded, while bookmakers refunded an estimated £75 million.
Q 06Which royal residence first admitted paying visitors to its state rooms, to fund repairs after the Windsor Castle fire?
Buckingham Palace
Buckingham Palace's summer openings have continued ever since, and the ticket money that once rebuilt Windsor's gutted staterooms now pays for Royal Collection conservation.
Q 07Which dairy slogan launched in October with a Michael Bay-directed ad about a peanut-butter-stuffed history buff?
Got Milk?
Got Milk? was created for the California Milk Processor Board, and its first ad had a history buff lose a $10,000 radio quiz because his mouth was glued shut with peanut butter.
Q 08Which singer's seven-minute comeback single topped the UK chart for seven weeks and reached number one in 28 countries?
Meat Loaf
Meat Loaf's 'I'd Do Anything for Love (But I Won't Do That)' was trimmed from a twelve-minute album track, yet the single still took the record for longest UK chart-topper from 'Hey Jude'.
Q 09Which pop star, born in Boca Raton, Florida in June, first found fame as Cat Valentine on the teen sitcom Victorious?
Ariana Grande
Ariana Grande bleached and dyed her hair red for the role for years, and the damage is why she adopted her trademark high ponytail.
Q 10Which striker, born in London in July, grew up to become England's all-time top goalscorer?
Harry Kane
Harry Kane was let go by Arsenal's academy after a single season, aged eight, and went on to become the record scorer for their rivals Tottenham as well.
Q 11Which film finally won Al Pacino a Best Actor Oscar, for playing retired Lieutenant Colonel Frank Slade?
Scent of a Woman
Scent of a Woman brought Pacino his first win at the March ceremony, after he prepared by interviewing blind New Yorkers about the moment they lost their sight.
Q 12Which club won the inaugural Premier League by ten points, ending a 26-year wait for a league title?
Manchester United
Manchester United had slipped to mid-table after a slow start before overhauling Aston Villa, and Ryan Giggs collected a title medal alongside a second PFA Young Player award.
Q 13Whose first Ashes delivery, bowling Mike Gatting at Old Trafford, is remembered as the 'Ball of the Century'?
Shane Warne
Q 21Which city lost the vote to host the 2000 Olympics to Sydney by 45 to 43 in Monte Carlo in September?
Beijing
Beijing's narrow defeat after four rounds of voting was avenged eight years later, when the IOC handed it the 2008 Games, and it later added the 2022 Winter Olympics too.
Q 22Which actress died at her Swiss home in January, a month after a Presidential Medal of Freedom for her UNICEF work?
Audrey Hepburn
Audrey Hepburn said her gratitude to UNICEF went back to her own childhood, when she was among the hungry children given food and medical relief after the Second World War.
Q 23Which film cast Robert Redford as billionaire John Gage opposite Demi Moore and Woody Harrelson?
Indecent Proposal
Shane Warne's leg break drifted one way in the air, spun sharply the other and clipped the top of off stump, a delivery credited with reviving leg spin bowling worldwide.
Q 14Which Nora Ephron romance ends atop the Empire State Building on Valentine's Day, echoing An Affair to Remember?
Sleepless in Seattle
Sleepless in Seattle had to rebuild the Empire State Building's observation deck on a former naval base in Seattle, because the real skyscraper was unavailable for filming.
Q 15Which film about a boy and a captive orca starred Keiko, a whale found at a Mexico City amusement park?
Free Willy
Free Willy's success inspired a real campaign that moved Keiko to a rehabilitation tank in Oregon and then to Iceland, where he was released from a sea pen in 2002.
Q 16Which little-known Simpsons writer did Lorne Michaels pick to replace David Letterman as host of NBC's Late Night?
Conan O'Brien
Conan O'Brien debuted on 13 September, came so close to cancellation in his first year that his writers thought the show was over, and went on to host Late Night for 16 years.
Q 17Which Eric Clapton ballad, written after his four-year-old son's death, won Record of the Year at the February Grammys?
Tears in Heaven
Tears in Heaven also won Song of the Year and Best Male Pop Vocal Performance, yet Clapton stopped performing it in 2004, saying he no longer felt the loss.
Q 18Which boy band scored the first of its twelve UK number ones with 'Pray' in July?
Take That
Take That had released eight singles without topping the chart before Gary Barlow's 'Pray' stayed there for four weeks and began a run of four straight number ones.
Q 19Which document format did Adobe launch with Acrobat 1.0, competing with rivals such as WordPerfect's Envoy?
PDF caught on so slowly that Adobe's own board tried to cancel it for lack of demand, and it spread only after the Reader was given away free.
Q 20Who read 'On the Pulse of Morning' at January's presidential inauguration, the first inaugural poet since Robert Frost?
Maya Angelou
Maya Angelou's reading sent sales of her paperbacks up by 300 to 600 percent within a week, and her recording of the poem won a Grammy.
Indecent Proposal turns on Gage's offer of a million dollars for one night with Moore's character, and the film took $266 million worldwide.
Q 24Which Wallace & Gromit film, first shown on BBC Two on Boxing Day, features the penguin Feathers McGraw?
The Wrong Trousers
The Wrong Trousers has the penguin hijack Wallace's robotic Techno-Trousers, a birthday gift for Gromit, to steal a diamond, and it won the Oscar for Best Animated Short Film.
Q 25Which Birmingham reggae band spent seven weeks at US number one with a cover of Elvis's 'Can't Help Falling in Love'?
UB40
UB40's version was recorded for the 1992 comedy Honeymoon in Vegas, lost its place there to Bono's version of the song, and was rescued a year later by the soundtrack of the thriller Sliver.
Q 26Which Miami prosecutor, confirmed 98–0 by the Senate in March, became the first woman to serve as US Attorney General?
Janet Reno
Janet Reno was Clinton's third choice for the post: his first two picks, Zoë Baird and Kimba Wood, fell away because both had employed undocumented immigrants as nannies.
Q 27Which sealed glass complex near Oracle, Arizona released its crew of eight in September after exactly two years inside?
Biosphere 2
Biosphere 2's crew grew their own food and lost an average of 16% of their body weight, yet their cholesterol and blood pressure readings improved.
Q 28Which Apple handheld shipped in August with handwriting recognition that Doonesbury mocked as reading 'Egg Freckles'?
Newton
Newton led Apple chief John Sculley to coin the term 'personal digital assistant', and The Simpsons piled on too, with a MessagePad turning 'Beat up Martin' into 'Eat up Martha'.
Q 29Kary Mullis won a share of the Chemistry Nobel for which DNA-copying technique, an idea that struck him while driving?
PCR
PCR earned Mullis a $10,000 bonus from his employer Cetus, which later sold the patent to Roche for $300 million.
Q 30What did the world's first webcam, at Cambridge University's computer lab, show when it went on the web in November?
A coffee pot
A coffee pot in the Trojan Room had been watched over the lab's internal network since 1991, to spare colleagues elsewhere in the building a wasted trip to an empty pot, and stayed online until 2001.