2018 Trivia
0Loading crowd target
0Loading crowd target
7correct to beat the crowd
100 free 2018 trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
2018 was the year Hawaii got a false missile alert, a Tesla went to space on a Falcon Heavy, a backup quarterback caught a touchdown in the Super Bowl, and a 15-year-old sat outside the Swedish parliament instead of going to school. This quiz walks through the whole year: the news (the Skripal poisoning, the Singapore summit, GDPR, Eswatini, cannabis in Canada, the longest US shutdown), the science (InSight on Mars, Parker Solar Probe, Voyager 2 leaving the solar system, the gene-edited babies) and the pop culture (Infinity War, Black Panther, the royal wedding, Red Dead Redemption 2, KSI vs Logan Paul). Every answer has a short explanation, so it works as a recap of a year that already feels a long way away.
30 of 100 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which US state received a false ballistic missile alert on January 13, 2018?
Hawaii
Hawaii's alert went out because a worker mistook a drill for a real attack, and it took 38 minutes to send a correction.
Q 02Zhong Zhong and Hua Hua, announced in 2018, were the first of which animals cloned the way Dolly the sheep was?
Monkeys
Monkeys had been cloned before only from split embryos or embryonic cells; Zhong Zhong and Hua Hua came from a fetal body cell's nucleus, as Dolly did from an adult's.
Q 03Which company flew its Falcon Heavy rocket for the first time on February 6, 2018?
SpaceX
SpaceX's test payload was Elon Musk's own red Tesla Roadster, with a dummy astronaut named Starman at the wheel, launched off into deep space.
Q 04The 2018 Winter Olympics were held in Pyeongchang in which country?
South Korea
South Korea marched into its own opening ceremony alongside North Korea under a unification flag, and the two fielded a joint women's ice hockey team.
Q 05Which country won the most medals at the 2018 Winter Olympics, with 39?
Norway
Norway's 39 beat the 37-medal record the US set in 2010, and before the Games a Google Translate slip got its chefs 15,000 eggs instead of 1,500.
Q 06Jacob Zuma resigned as president of which country in February 2018?
South Africa
South Africa's ruling ANC ordered Zuma out, and he resigned on the eve of a no-confidence vote that his own party had said it would back.
Q 07Sergei and Yulia Skripal were poisoned with Novichok in which English city in March 2018?
Salisbury
Salisbury's two suspects later went on Russian TV to insist they were only tourists who had come to see the city's cathedral and its 123-metre spire.
Q 08In March 2018, China removed term limits for its leader, benefiting whom?
Xi Jinping
Xi Jinping's amendment passed China's legislature by 2,958 votes to 2, and in 2023 it let him take an unprecedented third term as president.
Q 09The world's last male northern white rhinoceros died in March 2018 in which country?
Kenya
In Kenya, Sudan lived under round-the-clock armed guard, and a year before he died his keepers put him on Tinder to raise money for breeding research.
Q 10Which airline launched the first regular non-stop flights between Australia and the UK in March 2018?
Qantas
Qantas's Perth–London service was the first regular non-stop link, though a Qantas 747 had set a record flying London to Sydney non-stop in 1989 on special fuel.
Q 11Which film was the first shown when cinemas reopened in Saudi Arabia in April 2018 after 35 years?
Black Panther
Black Panther premiered in Riyadh in a building first meant as a symphony concert hall, which AMC converted into a cinema once the kingdom lifted its ban.
Q 12Miguel Díaz-Canel replaced Raúl Castro as president of which country in April 2018?
Cuba
It was the first time since 1959 that Cuba was not led by a Castro, though Raúl stayed on as Communist Party first secretary.
Q 13Which African kingdom officially changed its English name in April 2018, as it marked 50 years of independence?
Swaziland
Swaziland's King Mswati III said people abroad kept calling his country Switzerland, and announced the new name, Eswatini, at celebrations of his 50th birthday and 50 years of independence.
Q 21Which country voted by 66.4% in May 2018 to repeal its constitutional ban on abortion?
Ireland
Ireland's voters had added the ban to the constitution by referendum in 1983, and in 2018 every constituency except Donegal voted to remove it.
Q 22Real Madrid beat which club 3–1 in the 2018 Champions League final in Kyiv?
Liverpool
Liverpool keeper Loris Karius gifted Madrid two goals, and doctors later found he had played on with a concussion suffered during the match.
Q 23Which team won the 2018 Stanley Cup, beating the expansion Vegas Golden Knights?
Washington Capitals
The Washington Capitals won their first Stanley Cup in their 44th season, giving the city its first major-league title since the Redskins' 1992 Super Bowl.
Q 14In April 2018, Kim Jong Un crossed the DMZ's border line to meet which president?
Moon Jae-in
Moon Jae-in greeted Kim at the border line, and Kim then invited him to step briefly into North Korea, the pair holding hands.
Q 15Which European separatist group announced its final dissolution in May 2018, after a 40-year armed campaign?
ETA
ETA began in 1959 as a student group promoting Basque identity, took up arms the next decade, and killed 829 people between 1968 and 2010.
Q 16In July 2018, divers rescued a boys' football team and their coach from a flooded cave in which country?
Thailand
Thailand's rescue brought out all 12 boys and their coach, but former Navy SEAL Saman Kunan died while delivering oxygen tanks inside the cave.
Q 17Netta Barzilai won the 2018 Eurovision Song Contest with 'Toy' for which country?
Israel
Israel's Netta hoped to see the next contest in Jerusalem, but the 2019 edition was staged in Tel Aviv instead.
Q 18Mahathir Mohamad's alliance ended a ruling coalition's 61-year hold on power in which country in May 2018?
Malaysia
Malaysia's Mahathir came out of retirement and joined the opposition to beat his former protégé Najib Razak, ousting the coalition he had once led.
Q 19Prince Harry and Meghan Markle married on May 19, 2018, at which venue?
St George's Chapel, Windsor
At St George's Chapel, Windsor, American bishop Michael Curry preached on the power of love, quoting Martin Luther King Jr.
Q 20Which EU privacy law took effect on May 25, 2018, prompting a flood of policy-update emails?
GDPR
GDPR fines can reach 4% of a firm's worldwide turnover, so some US services, such as Instapaper, simply blocked European users when it took effect.
Q 24The first summit between a sitting US president and a North Korean leader was held where in 2018?
Singapore
Singapore hosted the first Trump–Kim meeting, but their second summit, in Hanoi in 2019, ended abruptly without a deal and its signing ceremony was cancelled.
Q 25A June 2018 deal with Greece ended a 27-year naming dispute with which country?
Macedonia
Macedonia agreed to become North Macedonia because Greece's own northern region bears the name, and Greece in turn dropped its veto on NATO membership.
Q 26France beat which country 4–2 in the 2018 FIFA World Cup final in Moscow?
Croatia
It was Croatia's first World Cup final. Kylian Mbappé became the first teenager to score in a final since Pelé in 1958.
Q 27Canada legalised recreational cannabis nationwide in 2018, five years after which country had become the first?
Uruguay
Uruguay legalised cannabis sales in 2013, while the Netherlands, often assumed to be first, has only ever tolerated sales in its coffee shops.
Q 28Eritrea formally ended a 20-year conflict with which neighbour in July 2018?
Ethiopia
Ethiopia's prime minister, Abiy Ahmed, won the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize chiefly for his initiative to resolve the border conflict with Eritrea.
Q 29In July 2018, scientists reported radar signs of a buried lake of liquid water on which planet?
Mars
Mars's possible lake, 1.5 km beneath the south polar ice, was later questioned by a study suggesting the radar echoes came from volcanic rock.
Q 30On August 2, 2018, which firm became the first US public company worth $1 trillion?
Apple
Apple was hailed as the world's first, though PetroChina had been valued near $1 trillion at its 2007 Shanghai debut, when few of its shares traded.