1999 Trivia
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50 free 1999 trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
1999 was the year everyone waited for the clocks to strike 2000. The euro arrived in eleven countries, Scotland and Wales opened their own parliaments, hereditary peers lost their seats, and a booklet about the Millennium Bug dropped through every letterbox in Britain. Abroad, old leaders died or resigned, generals seized power and a space probe was lost to a units mix-up. These 50 questions cover the news, sport, music, film and television of the year, with a UK tilt: the first national minimum wage, the last Five Nations, a collapse at Carnoustie, the puppets and boy bands on Top of the Pops, and the stars and writers the year said goodbye to. Built for pub quizzes, family rounds and anyone who remembers where they were on New Year's Eve. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so you leave knowing a little more than you arrived with.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which planet did Pluto slip back outside of on 11 February, ending 20 years as the nearer one to the Sun?
Neptune
Neptune had been the more distant of the two since February 1979, because Pluto's stretched 248-year orbit dips inside Neptune's for about 20 years of every circuit.
Q 02Which NASA spacecraft was lost on arrival in September because Lockheed Martin used US units where NASA expected metric?
Mars Climate Orbiter
Mars Climate Orbiter was fed thruster figures in pound-seconds where newton-seconds were expected, so on 23 September it reached Mars far too low and was lost in the atmosphere.
Q 03Which country, whose king marked his silver jubilee that year, allowed television broadcasts for the first time in June?
Bhutan
Bhutan became the last nation on earth to switch on television when its king lifted a long-standing ban on 2 June, announcing the change to a jubilee crowd in a Thimphu stadium.
Q 04Which March email virus, written by David L. Smith, mailed itself to the first 50 names in a victim's Outlook contacts?
Melissa
Melissa, reportedly named after a Florida stripper, hid in Word documents; its author was arrested within a week and was later sentenced to 20 months in federal prison.
Q 05Which author's wife had a lawyer buy the minivan that hit him near his Maine home, to keep it off eBay?
Stephen King
Stephen King was struck when the driver was distracted by a dog loose in the back; King dreamed of smashing the van up himself, but his wife had it quietly destroyed.
Q 06Sixteen years after Sally Ride's first flight, who became the first woman to command a Space Shuttle mission?
Eileen Collins
Eileen Collins commanded Columbia in July 1999 with a crew cut to five to save weight, because the Chandra X-ray Observatory was the heaviest payload a shuttle ever launched.
Q 07Which Scot won the Open at Carnoustie after Jean van de Velde threw away a three-shot lead on the final hole?
Paul Lawrie
Paul Lawrie had started the last day ten shots behind, the biggest final-round comeback in major history, before beating Van de Velde and Justin Leonard in a four-hole playoff.
Q 08Which film director's spoken-word single, based on a Chicago Tribune column of graduation advice, topped the UK chart?
Baz Luhrmann
Baz Luhrmann's 'Everybody's Free (To Wear Sunscreen)' used Mary Schmich's 1997 essay, which had circulated online wrongly credited to Kurt Vonnegut.
Q 09Which yellow puppet from a run of Levi's adverts headbanged Mr. Oizo's instrumental to UK number one in April?
Flat Eric
Flat Eric nodded along to a beat-and-bassline loop that Quentin Dupieux, the film-maker who records as Mr. Oizo, says he made in about two hours on a Korg MS-20 synthesiser.
Q 10Which Swiss adventurer made the first non-stop balloon flight around the world with Brian Jones, landing in Egypt?
Bertrand Piccard
Bertrand Piccard, a psychiatrist by profession, left the Swiss Alps on 1 March and stayed aloft for 19 days and 21 hours; extra propane tanks added before launch proved just enough to finish.
Q 11Which former KGB officer did Boris Yeltsin make prime minister in August, months before resigning in his favour?
Vladimir Putin
Vladimir Putin had spent 16 years in KGB foreign intelligence and then run the FSB, and Yeltsin's surprise New Year's Eve resignation left him acting president.
Q 12Which country's King Hussein died in February after a 46-year reign, leaving the throne to his eldest son Abdullah?
Jordan
Jordan's new king had been named heir only weeks earlier, when Hussein switched the succession away from his own brother Hassan, crown prince since 1965.
Q 13Which general seized power in Pakistan in October after Nawaz Sharif tried to sack him and block his flight's landing?
Pervez Musharraf
Q 21Which future director of 12 Years a Slave won the Turner Prize, beating Tracey Emin's unmade bed?
Steve McQueen
Steve McQueen won with a video remaking a Buster Keaton stunt, while the press fixated on Emin's My Bed and its stained sheets, condoms and empty bottles.
Q 22Which Leonardo da Vinci mural went back on view in Milan in May after over two decades of restoration?
The Last Supper
The Last Supper had been flaking since Leonardo painted it on dry plaster rather than as a true fresco, and the masons had filled the wall with moisture-holding rubble.
Q 23The 11 August total eclipse, Britain's first since 1927, made landfall at the western tip of which county?
Cornwall
Pervez Musharraf was flying home from Sri Lanka when Sharif's office denied the plane landing rights, and soldiers surrounded the airport control tower to bring it down.
Q 14Which waterway passed fully to its host nation at noon on 31 December under treaties Jimmy Carter signed in 1977?
Panama Canal
The Panama Canal Zone had been under US control since 1903, and the treaties that ended it only just passed the Senate in 1978, by 68 votes to 32, one more than the two-thirds needed.
Q 15Who succeeded Nelson Mandela as South Africa's president in June, after serving five years as his deputy?
Thabo Mbeki
Thabo Mbeki had been elected ANC president unopposed in 1997, and Mandela, who had said since 1995 that he would serve only one term, kept his word and stepped down.
Q 16Which February report into Stephen Lawrence's 1993 murder called the Metropolitan Police 'institutionally racist'?
Macpherson
The Macpherson Report also urged scrapping the double jeopardy rule for murder, a change that later let Gary Dobson, acquitted in 1996, be tried again and convicted in 2012.
Q 17Which party opposed the introduction of Britain's first national minimum wage, set at £3.60 an hour from 1 April?
Conservatives
The Conservatives warned the wage would cost jobs and voted against it, but ten months after it began their shadow chancellor, Michael Portillo, announced that they would not repeal it.
Q 18Which Labour politician was elected Scotland's first First Minister in May by the new devolved parliament?
Donald Dewar
Donald Dewar had drawn up the Scotland Act as Scottish Secretary before leading the first devolved government; he died in office the following year, a day after a fall.
Q 19Who was elected Liberal Democrat leader in August, succeeding Paddy Ashdown after his retirement from the post?
Charles Kennedy
Charles Kennedy, an MP since he was 23, beat Simon Hughes on the final count and went on to lead the party's opposition to the Iraq war.
Q 20Who followed Ted Hughes as Poet Laureate in May, the first holder appointed for a fixed ten-year term?
Andrew Motion
Andrew Motion later called the post 'very, very damaging' to his own writing, and handed it on to Carol Ann Duffy on the same fixed term in 2009.
Cornwall drew huge crowds to the stretch from St Ives to the Lizard, though fewer than the hotels had banked on, before the shadow raced on across France, Germany and Turkey.
Q 24Which England manager was sacked in February over remarks that disabled people were paying for sins in a past life?
Glenn Hoddle
Glenn Hoddle insisted his words to The Times had been 'misconstrued, misunderstood and misinterpreted', but the FA ended his contract on 2 February.
Q 25Which Moroccan ran the mile in 3:43.13 in Rome in July, a world record that stood for 27 years?
Hicham El Guerrouj
Hicham El Guerrouj dragged Kenya's Noah Ngeny to 3:43.40, also inside the old record, and nobody ran faster than either of them until Britain's Josh Kerr clocked 3:42.66 in July 2026.
Q 26Which tennis player retired in August at 30, two months after winning her 22nd major at the French Open?
Steffi Graf
Steffi Graf reached a ninth Wimbledon final in between, losing to Lindsay Davenport, and bowed out still ranked world number three.
Q 27Which team won its first Stanley Cup in June on Brett Hull's disputed triple-overtime goal against the Buffalo Sabres?
Dallas Stars
The Dallas Stars' winner came with Hull's skate in the crease, but the NHL ruled he had kept possession of the puck and let the goal stand despite Buffalo's protests.
Q 28Which quarterback retired in May, three months after being named MVP of his second straight Super Bowl win?
John Elway
John Elway threw for 336 yards and ran in a touchdown as Denver beat Atlanta 34-19; the Falcons' coach, Dan Reeves, had led Elway's Broncos to three Super Bowl defeats.
Q 29Which Finn kept his Formula One world title in a season where Michael Schumacher broke his leg at Silverstone?
Mika Häkkinen
Mika Häkkinen's McLaren beat Eddie Irvine's Ferrari to the title by two points; Mika Salo, standing in for Schumacher, had given up a win in Germany on team orders so that Irvine could take it.
Q 30Which British boxer became undisputed heavyweight champion in November, eight months after a disputed draw?
Lennox Lewis
Lennox Lewis won the rematch with Evander Holyfield on points to hold the WBC, WBA and IBF belts, but the WBA stripped him within months for skipping its mandatory challenger.