2009 Trivia
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7correct to beat the crowd
100 free 2009 trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
2009 opened with a jet gliding onto a river and closed with a rock anthem hijacking the Christmas chart. In between, a comedian got his name bolted to the space station, a mystery coder switched on a new currency, a one-season racing team took both titles, and a Pacific nation changed the side of the road it drives on. These 100 questions cover the year's world news, science and tech launches, sport, music, films and television: a world-record transfer fee, a Grammy for a Zeppelin frontman, a late-night hand-over that lasted seven months, a midnight box-office record, and the Twitter race that put a Hollywood actor ahead of a news network. Most are pitched for a pub table; a handful reward the people who really paid attention. Play it on your phone with instant answers and explanations, or print it for a pub quiz, office round or a 2009-themed party.
30 of 100 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which river did US Airways Flight 1549 ditch in after geese disabled both engines over New York?
Hudson
Ditching on the Hudson was the safest choice: simulator pilots reached LaGuardia only by turning instantly, and a return allowing 35 seconds to react failed.
Q 02Which Charlie's Angels star died hours before Michael Jackson on 25 June, her death overshadowed by his?
Farrah Fawcett
Farrah Fawcett left Charlie's Angels after only one season, and Cheryl Ladd joined the show in her place.
Q 03Stephen Colbert won NASA's poll to name a space station module, but what did NASA name after him instead?
A treadmill
A treadmill got the name COLBERT, while the module was named Tranquility to honour Apollo 11's landing site 40 years earlier.
Q 04Which country suspended its own currency in April, months after printing a 100-trillion note?
Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe's 100 trillion dollar notes soon became worthless, yet after the currency was abandoned they became popular with collectors.
Q 05Which company announced on 31 August that it would buy Marvel Entertainment for about $4 billion?
Disney
Disney's deal brought in Spider-Man, but Sony still owned his film rights, so Marvel Studios needed a 2015 agreement with Sony to use him.
Q 06Which band's 'Killing in the Name' became UK Christmas number one after a Facebook campaign to stop The X Factor?
Rage Against the Machine
Rage Against the Machine thanked fans with a free concert at London's Finsbury Park in June 2010, as the band had promised.
Q 07Jenson Button won the Formula One title with which team, in its only season before Mercedes bought it?
Brawn GP
Brawn GP was saved from Honda's pull-out and confirmed just 23 days before the first race, yet its double-diffuser car won both championships.
Q 08Who took over The Tonight Show from Jay Leno on 1 June, only to lose it again after seven months?
Conan O'Brien
Conan O'Brien left with a $45 million deal from NBC, about $12 million of which went to severance for his staff of nearly 200.
Q 09Which Microsoft operating system, released in October, replaced the widely criticised Vista?
Windows 7
Windows 7 was billed as the seventh version of Windows, yet it tells software it is version 6.1, only a small step up from Vista's 6.0.
Q 10Which city won the vote to host the 2016 Olympics in October, after Chicago was knocked out in the first round?
Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro won after bookmakers' favourite Chicago went out first, even though President Obama had flown to Copenhagen to address the IOC in person.
Q 11Which animated film opened the Cannes Film Festival on 13 May?
Up
Up earned a Best Picture nomination in the first year the Academy expanded the category from five films to ten.
Q 12Which club paid Manchester United a world-record £80 million for Cristiano Ronaldo in the summer?
Real Madrid
Cristiano Ronaldo left Real Madrid for Juventus in 2018, and three years later Manchester United signed him back.
Q 13Which player won his first Ballon d'Or, taking over from the 2008 winner Cristiano Ronaldo?
Lionel Messi
Lionel Messi needed growth-hormone treatment as a boy, and the club that signed him at 13 agreed to pay for it.
Q 21The iPhone game Angry Birds was built by the studio Rovio in which country?
Finland
Finland's Rovio only had enough money to make one game in 2009, and the idea it bet on was designer Jaakko Iisalo's sketch of angry birds.
Q 22Which Twilight Saga film set the record for the biggest midnight opening, taking $26.3 million on 20 November?
New Moon
New Moon's $26.3 million from 3,514 theatres was the largest midnight gross in US and Canadian box-office history at the time, as fans queued for Bella's choice between Edward and Jacob.
Q 23Which original-series star returned in J. J. Abrams's Star Trek reboot, playing an older version of his own character?
Leonard Nimoy
Q 14Alexander Rybak's fiddle-led 'Fairytale' won Eurovision in Moscow for which country?
Norway
Norway's entrant Alexander Rybak had been an unsuccessful contestant on the Norwegian Idol in 2005, yet four years later he won Eurovision.
Q 15Which one-man project from Owatonna, Minnesota, topped the Hot 100 with 'Fireflies', recorded in a parents' basement?
Owl City
Owl City's Adam Young was still loading Coca-Cola delivery trucks when the songs he posted on MySpace got him signed by Universal Republic.
Q 16Amazon remotely wiped which author's novels from customers' Kindles in July, a move Jeff Bezos called 'stupid'?
George Orwell
George Orwell's books were deleted because the company that uploaded them had no rights to sell them, and Amazon then promised to stop removing books in such cases.
Q 17Which celebrity beat CNN in April to become the first Twitter user with one million followers?
Ashton Kutcher
Ashton Kutcher said beating CNN's breaking-news feed showed that one person could have a voice as loud as a whole media company.
Q 18Which one-word button did Facebook switch on in February?
Like
Instead of the Dislike button many users had asked for, Facebook added five Reactions beside Like in 2016: Love, Haha, Wow, Sad and Angry.
Q 19Minecraft, first released as a public alpha in 2009, was created by Markus 'Notch' Persson in which country?
Sweden
Sweden's Mojang, the company behind Minecraft, was sold to Microsoft for $2.5 billion in 2014, and its three founders, Persson included, left.
Q 20Which game took $310 million in North America and the UK in 24 hours, billed as entertainment's biggest launch ever?
Modern Warfare 2
Months after Modern Warfare 2's record launch, Activision fired the studio heads Jason West and Vince Zampella, who went on to found Respawn.
Leonard Nimoy made the reboot while William Shatner did not, and one reason the director gave was that Shatner's Captain Kirk had already died on screen.
Q 24In which 1920s city is The Princess and the Frog set, where waitress Tiana dreams of opening her own restaurant?
New Orleans
Tiana was partly inspired by Leah Chase, a New Orleans chef who started out as a waitress and went on to run the Dooky Chase restaurant.
Q 25Jersey Shore, which introduced Snooki and The Situation on 3 December, premiered on which network?
MTV
MTV's Jersey Shore cast proudly called themselves guidos, a word the National Italian American Foundation condemned as a pejorative that reinforces negative stereotypes.
Q 26Which NBC hospital drama, launched in 1994, ended on 2 April after 15 seasons?
ER
ER began as a Michael Crichton script that Steven Spielberg bought to direct, then shelved after hearing Crichton's story that became Jurassic Park.
Q 27Who was revealed in January as the Eleventh Doctor in Doctor Who, the youngest actor ever cast in the role?
Matt Smith
Matt Smith had been set on becoming a professional footballer, playing for Leicester City's youth team, until a serious back injury ended that plan.
Q 28Who quit Oasis on 28 August after a backstage fight in Paris?
Noel Gallagher
Noel Gallagher and his brother Liam did not reunite for almost 15 years, until Oasis announced in August 2024 that it had re-formed for a 2025 tour.
Q 29Whose remastered albums and a Rock Band video game were released together on 9 September, or 09/09/09?
The Beatles
The Beatles: Rock Band began with George Harrison's son Dhani, a Rock Band fan, who took the idea to the developer Harmonix and then won over the band's company, Apple Corps.
Q 30Which carmaker's 1 June bankruptcy filing was, at the time, the fourth-largest in US history?
General Motors
General Motors came out of bankruptcy as a new company about 60% owned by the US government, with Canada's government and the autoworkers' union taking smaller stakes.