100 free 80th Birthday trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
These 80th birthday trivia questions are built for the party. Anyone turning eighty in 2026 was born in 1946, the first year of the baby boom, so most of the quiz is about that year: the first bikini and the first Vespa, the unveiling of the 30-ton ENIAC computer, Churchill's Iron Curtain speech, the first United Nations meetings, the birth of Tupperware and the Magic 8 Ball, and a cinema year that gave us It's a Wonderful Life, The Best Years of Our Lives and Gilda. There is a round on famous people who share the birthday year (three US presidents, Freddie Mercury, Cher, Dolly Parton, Sylvester Stallone, Steven Spielberg), and a short round on the number eighty itself: Phileas Fogg's wager, the 80-20 rule, and what an eightieth wedding anniversary is called. Questions range from easy warm-ups everyone at the table can attempt to a few genuinely hard ones for the history buffs. Every answer was checked against encyclopaedia entries before publishing.
30 of 100 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Someone turning 80 in 2026 was born in which year?
1946
That makes them a first-year baby boomer, the generation usually dated from 1946 to 1964.
Q 02Which US president was in office throughout 1946?
Harry S. Truman
On December 31 he issued the proclamation officially ending hostilities in World War II.
Q 03Where did Winston Churchill give his famous 'Iron Curtain' speech in March 1946?
Fulton, Missouri
Later that year in Zurich he floated the idea of a Council of Europe.
Q 04Which swimsuit was first modelled in Paris on July 5, 1946?
The bikini
Louis Réard named it after the atoll where the US had tested an atomic bomb four days earlier.
Q 05Which early electronic computer was unveiled at the University of Pennsylvania in 1946?
ENIAC
It weighed about 30 tons and filled a large room.
Q 06Roughly how much did ENIAC weigh?
60,000 pounds
That is more than 27 tons of computer to do arithmetic.
Q 07Which Italian scooter brand, whose name means 'wasp', built its first model in 1946?
Vespa
Piaggio filed the patent in Florence in April 1946.
Q 08Which famous film festival was founded in 1946?
Cannes
Twenty-one countries showed films at the first edition, held at the town's old casino.
Q 09Which Christmas film starring James Stewart was released in December 1946?
It's a Wonderful Life
It flopped at first and only became a classic after its copyright lapsed in 1974 and TV stations could show it for free.
Q 10Which 1946 film about three returning servicemen swept the Oscars, winning seven including the top prize?
The Best Years of Our Lives
Harold Russell, a real disabled veteran, won two Oscars for the same performance, the only time that has happened.
Q 11Which actress sang 'Put the Blame on Mame' in the 1946 film Gilda?
Rita Hayworth
The film opened on Valentine's Day 1946.
Q 12Which Hitchcock thriller starring Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman came out in 1946?
Notorious
The same year gave audiences The Big Sleep and The Postman Always Rings Twice.
Q 13Which comedy duo staged their first show together at Atlantic City's Club 500 in July 1946?
Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis
They stayed a team for ten years, until 1956.
Which food-storage brand introduced its airtight plastic containers to the public in 1946?
Q 21Which country voted in a June 1946 referendum to abolish its monarchy and become a republic?
Italy
King Umberto II went into exile in Portugal; Greece voted the other way and restored its king.
Q 22Which Asian nation gained full independence from the United States on July 4, 1946?
The Philippines
It ended nearly four centuries of colonial rule counting the Spanish era.
Q 23Which Nazi leader poisoned himself two hours before his scheduled execution at Nuremberg in October 1946?
Hermann Göring
The remaining ten condemned men were hanged the next day in the Palace of Justice gymnasium.
Tupperware
Earl Tupper had refined polyethylene as a DuPont chemist; the party-plan selling came later.
Q 15Which fortune-telling toy was invented in 1946 by Albert C. Carter and Abe Bookman?
Magic 8 Ball
It was first sold as the Syco-Slate; the billiard-ball shape came in 1950 at the request of Brunswick Billiards.
Q 16Which Japanese electronics company was founded in May 1946 as Tokyo Telecommunications Engineering?
Sony
It began with about 20 employees.
Q 17Which high-IQ society was founded in Oxford in October 1946?
Mensa
Founders Roland Berrill and Lancelot Ware were a lawyer and a biochemist.
Q 18Which UN agency for children was founded on December 11, 1946?
UNICEF
UNESCO was set up a month earlier, on November 4.
Q 19In which city did the United Nations hold its very first meeting in January 1946?
London
The General Assembly first met in New York, at Flushing, Queens, that October.
Q 20Who became the first Secretary-General of the United Nations in February 1946?
Trygve Lie
He was Norwegian; Hammarskjöld succeeded him in 1953.
Q 24Which Argentine leader was elected president in February 1946?
Juan Perón
His wife Eva toured Spain, Italy and France that year on the so-called Rainbow Tour.
Q 25Which king came to the throne of Thailand in June 1946 and reigned until 2016?
Bhumibol Adulyadej
He succeeded his elder brother and became the world's longest-reigning monarch at the time of his death.
Q 26The first official Formula One Grand Prix was held in September 1946 in which city?
Turin
The world championship itself did not start until 1950.
Q 27Santa Claus Land, which opened in Indiana in August 1946, is credited as the first what?
Themed amusement park
It beat Disneyland by nine years and is now called Holiday World.
Q 28What banking innovation debuted at a Chicago branch in November 1946?
Drive-up teller windows
Ten windows opened at a branch of the Exchange National Bank.
Q 29Project Diana in January 1946 bounced radar waves off what?
The Moon
It measured the exact Earth-Moon distance and is often called the opening of the Space Age.
Q 30Which of these US presidents was NOT born in 1946?
Barack Obama
Trump was born on June 14, Bush on July 6 and Clinton on August 19 of that year.