The 1980s
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100 free The 1980s trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
50 free The 1980s trivia questions with answers. The 1980s trivia lives in two places on BrainPickle. This page is the shorter set; the main quiz is The 80s trivia, with our deepest question pool on the topic and a source behind every answer.
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Q 01Which Steven Spielberg film overtook Star Wars to become the highest-grossing film of its time?
E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial
E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial took the box-office record from Star Wars in 1983 and held it until 1993, when Spielberg beat himself with Jurassic Park.
Q 02Which horror-film star delivers the spoken rap that closes Michael Jackson's 'Thriller'?
Vincent Price
Vincent Price nailed the rap in two takes, reading lines that songwriter Rod Temperton had scribbled in a taxi on his way to the studio that day.
Q 03A bungled press conference on 9 November 1989 opened the wall that divided which European city?
Berlin
Berlin. Asked when new travel rules would begin, an East German spokesman said 'immediately'; crowds massed at the crossings and the guards gave way that night.
Q 04Which handheld music device, introduced by Sony in 1979, became a 1980s phenomenon?
Walkman
The Walkman began as a favour: Sony co-founder Masaru Ibuka wanted music on long flights, so engineers turned a Pressman reporter's recorder into a playback-only stereo player.
Q 05In 'Back to the Future' (1985), what speed must the DeLorean reach to travel through time?
88 mph
88 mph was picked because it was easy to remember and looked good on the dash; real DeLorean speedometers stopped at 85 mph under a 1979 rule, so the crew had to build their own.
Q 06Which 1980 arcade hit did Toru Iwatani design as a non-violent game to draw women into arcades?
Pac-Man
Pac-Man's shape is said to come from a pizza with a slice missing, a story Iwatani calls half true: he also rounded off the Japanese character for mouth.
Q 07The 1980 'Who Shot J.R.?' cliffhanger came from which primetime soap?
Dallas
Dallas kept viewers guessing for eight months, with a Hollywood strike delaying the answer; some 83 million Americans watched sister-in-law Kristin Shepard unmasked that November.
Q 08Which 1980s craze was invented by a Hungarian professor of architecture?
Rubik's Cube
Rubik's Cube baffled its own inventor: after Ernő Rubik first scrambled his prototype, he needed weeks to work out how to put it back.
Q 09Which U.S. president survived an assassination attempt in March 1981, just 69 days into his first term?
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Reagan was shot by John Hinckley Jr. on March 30, 1981; as he was wheeled into surgery he joked to the doctors that he hoped they were all Republicans.
Q 10Which accessory became a 1980s aerobics fashion trend after 'Fame' and 'Flashdance'?
Leg warmers
Leg warmers, originally worn by dancers to keep calf muscles warm, became street fashion after Fame (1980) and Flashdance (1983) fed the aerobics craze.
Q 11Which 1984 comedy ends with a giant marshmallow man stomping through New York?
Ghostbusters
Ghostbusters was written by Dan Aykroyd for himself and John Belushi; after Belushi died in 1982 the script was rewritten, moved to New York and filmed with Bill Murray.
Q 12What was Madonna wearing when she performed 'Like a Virgin' at the first MTV Video Music Awards?
A wedding dress
A wedding dress: Madonna stepped off a giant wedding cake, lost a shoe, and dived to the floor to cover the slip, improvising her roll across the stage on live television.
Q 13Which nuclear plant's April 1986 reactor explosion became history's worst nuclear accident?
Chernobyl
Q 21Which TV show featured undercover detectives Sonny Crockett and Ricardo Tubbs?
Miami Vice
Miami Vice ran on NBC from 1984 to 1989 with Don Johnson as Crockett and Philip Michael Thomas as Tubbs; executive producer Michael Mann banned earth tones from its pastel look.
Q 22Which 1984 Prince album doubled as the soundtrack to his film of the same name?
Purple Rain
Purple Rain includes 'Darling Nikki', the track that so shocked Tipper Gore when her daughter played it that she co-founded the campaign behind Parental Advisory stickers.
Q 23Which Space Shuttle broke apart 73 seconds after launch on January 28, 1986?
Challenger
Challenger broke apart 73 seconds after liftoff on 28 January 1986; near-freezing temperatures that morning stiffened an O-ring seal in the right solid rocket booster, a flaw engineers had flagged years earlier.
Chernobyl's reactor blew up during a safety test, and Moscow admitted it only two days later, after radiation alarms went off at a nuclear plant in Sweden.
Q 14Which 1980s leader was first dubbed the 'Iron Lady' by Moscow's army newspaper Red Star?
Margaret Thatcher
Margaret Thatcher got the name in January 1976 after a speech attacking Moscow's arms build-up; a week later she took it up herself, as 'the Iron Lady of the Western world'.
Q 15Which Boston bar "where everybody knows your name" was the setting for a hit 1980s sitcom?
Cheers
Cheers ran on NBC from 1982 to 1993 and won 28 Primetime Emmys, though it narrowly escaped cancellation in its first season and took years to build an audience.
Q 16Which company's 1985 console, sold with a toy robot, revived home video games after the 1983 crash?
Nintendo
Nintendo packed its Entertainment System with R.O.B., a toy robot, so that stores burned by the crash would stock it as a toy rather than another video game console.
Q 17Which dolls, each with a name and adoption certificate, caused shopping frenzies in 1983?
Cabbage Patch Kids
Cabbage Patch Kids began as fabric dolls called Little People, which Xavier Roberts would not sell, only offer for adoption, at his Babyland General Hospital, where staff dressed as doctors and nurses.
Q 18Which future NBA great was taken third in the 1984 draft, after Hakeem Olajuwon and Sam Bowie?
Michael Jordan
Michael Jordan slid to the Chicago Bulls at third because Portland, which already had guard Clyde Drexler, spent the second pick on centre Sam Bowie instead.
Q 19What clothing feature defined the broad silhouette of 1980s power dressing?
Shoulder pads
Shoulder pads gave women's suits a broad outline borrowed from menswear, which was the point of power dressing: to be taken seriously in offices long run by men.
Q 20Which fighter-pilot film was the biggest US box-office hit of 1986?
Top Gun
Top Gun grew out of a 1983 magazine article about the Navy's fighter school at Miramar, and the Navy cashed in, posting recruiters at cinemas where it played.
Q 24Apple's Ridley Scott-directed '1984' ad had its only US national airing during which event?
Super Bowl XVIII
The '1984' ad aired nationally only once, in the third quarter of Super Bowl XVIII; it had already run quietly on an Idaho station on 31 December 1983 so that it could qualify for advertising awards.
Q 25Which 1985 John Hughes film has five students from different cliques spending a Saturday in detention?
The Breakfast Club
The Breakfast Club ends on 'Don't You (Forget About Me)', a song Simple Minds at first refused to record; once they gave in, it went to No. 1 in America.
Q 26Which 1983 cartoon has Prince Adam raise his sword and cry 'By the power of Grayskull'?
Masters of the Universe
Masters of the Universe, He-Man's show, was a Mattel toy line first; parents' groups called the cartoon a half-hour commercial, and each episode closed with a spoken moral.
Q 27Whose single-season NHL scoring mark did Wayne Gretzky shatter in 1981-82 on the way to 92 goals?
Phil Esposito
Phil Esposito's 76 goals in 1970–71 stood as the NHL record until Wayne Gretzky scored 92 in 1981–82; Esposito needed 550 shots for his 76, Gretzky 369 for his 92.
Q 28Which 1986 Bon Jovi song about the working-class couple Tommy and Gina spent four weeks at #1?
Livin' on a Prayer
'Livin' on a Prayer' almost stayed off Slippery When Wet: Jon Bon Jovi disliked the first recording and wanted it dropped before he changed his mind.
Q 29Which 1980s series followed vigilante ex-commandos led by George Peppard's cigar-chomping colonel?
The A-Team
The A-Team traded gunfire and explosions week after week, yet almost no one was ever seen to die on screen.
Q 30What was the name of Michael Knight's talking car in the 1980s series 'Knight Rider'?
KITT
KITT was voiced by William Daniels, who was starring in the hospital drama St. Elsewhere at the same time and asked for his name to be left off the credits.