Q 01/05

Which Canadian city hosted the 1988 Winter Olympics?

A) Vancouver

B) Montreal

C) Edmonton

D) Calgary

Answer · why

D) Calgary

Calgary's Games ended without one official gold medal for the host, a repeat of Montreal 1976. The nearest miss came on the ice, where Brian Orser too...

Q 02/05

Which 1988 US number one used no instruments, only one singer's overdubbed voice?

A) Man in the Mirror

B) Don't Worry, Be Happy

C) A Groovy Kind of Love

D) Where Do Broken Hearts Go

Answer · why

B) Don't Worry, Be Happy

Don't Worry, Be Happy was all Bobby McFerrin: lead, falsetto backing, bass line and whistle, layered one take at a time. It spent two weeks at the top...

Q 03/05

Which Soviet program reached factory floors on January 1, 1988, when a new law on state enterprises took effect?

A) Glasnost

B) Détente

C) Perestroika

D) Kosygin reform

Answer · why

C) Perestroika

Perestroika means 'restructuring'. The law, passed in 1987, let factories sell whatever they made beyond their state orders, and told them the state w...

Q 04/05

In February 1988, Nagorno-Karabakh voted to leave which Soviet republic and join Armenia?

A) Georgia

B) Azerbaijan

C) Turkmenistan

D) Uzbekistan

Answer · why

B) Azerbaijan

Azerbaijan kept the mostly Armenian enclave: its regional soviet voted 110 to 17 to ask for a transfer, and Baku and Moscow both refused. A week later...

Q 05/05

In which city did the first McDonald's in a Communist-run country open on March 24, 1988?

A) Budapest

B) Moscow

C) Belgrade

D) Warsaw

Answer · why

C) Belgrade

Budapest followed, and Moscow and Shenzhen opened in 1990.