It Happened During... Trivia Quiz

Answer: Boomers 1945-64

The Civil Rights movement received some impetus on December 1, 1955 when Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat to a white man on a bus.

In Montgomery, Alabama, Rosa had left work for the day and had caught the bus to take her home. She boarded and then moved to the back, which was deemed the black person's area. Soon, the front of the bus (the white person's area) had filled and, at this point, the driver ordered Rosa to vacate her seat so that a white man could sit down. She refused and was immediately arrested. Ultimately, this action would also cost her her job.

Her actions, however, inspired a young man named Martin Luther King Jr. He, along with Rosa's community, organized what became known as the Montgomery Bus Boycott, an action that would last for over a year and would only be brought to a close when the Supreme Court ruled that bus segregation was against the constitution.

Answer: Boomers 1945-64

After World War II East Berlin remained under the control of the Soviet Union. On August 13, 1961 they began separating their half, the German Democratic Republic (GDR), or East Germany as it was commonly referred to, from the West side of the country by building a concrete and barbed wire wall. They labelled the wall the "Antifascistisher Shutzwall" (Antifascist Bulwark) with the spin that it was designed to keep the fascists from the West from entering the East and undermining their socialist ethos. In truth, its primary objective was to prevent mass defections from the East to the West.

The wall, which was nearly impossible to cross, would become a symbol of the Cold War and it would be almost thirty years before it was finally brought down. In the ensuing years 171 people had lost their lives trying to cross the barrier.

Answer: Boomers 1945-64

One of the symbols of the Baby Boomer generation in the United States was the fear of socialism or, as it became dubbed, "The Red Scare". For many people in the States their poster child for the fight against this phobia was Joseph McCarthy, a Republican Senator from Wisconsin, and the five year war that he waged against it between 1950 and 1954. He sought to expose left wing loyalists within United States society, however, in the midst of the Cold War, he wound up creating a hypersensitive atmosphere within communities, distrust amongst neighbours and haplessly convincing many people that their government was riddled with traitors and spies.

In 1954 McCarthy would use the medium of television to broadcast hearings in which he accused the US Army of being communist sympathizers. This would be the straw that finally broke the camel's back and he was summarily censured by the US Senate.

Answer: Boomers 1945-64

Among the range of terms that could be put forth as symbols for the Baby Boomer generation, high among them, would be fear, socialism and the Cold War and - to this point in the quiz - both McCarthyism and the Berlin Wall epitomize those perfectly. So too does this event, the Cuban Missile Crisis.

On October 22, 1962, US President John F. Kennedy made a televised address to the nation to inform the people that:
- - The Soviet Union had placed nuclear armed missiles on Cuban soil, a mere 90 miles away from the United States.
- - As a consequence, the US had placed a naval blockade around Cuba and
- - That they, the US, were prepared to use force if necessary to neutralize any perceived threat to their country.
This political (and military) stand-off between the USA and the USSR lasted for thirteen tense days. The tension was felt, not just in the USA, but across the globe. Suddenly, the threat of a nuclear war had become very real.

Disaster was averted when the Soviet leader, Nikita Khrushchev, agreed to withdraw from Cuba on Kennedy's promise that the USA would not invade Cuba and (secretly) withdraw US missiles from Turkey.

Answer: Boomers 1945-64

On November 22, 1963, the CBS Evening News were preparing to do a light entertainment segment about a phenomenon in the United Kingdom known as Beatlemania. The Beatles were huge in the UK but their first two single releases in the States had been flops. The story did not go to air because the news was dominated by the assassination of US President John F. Kennedy.

It would be eighteen days later (December 10) that Walter Cronkite finally aired the story and this prompted a young girl, fifteen year-old Marsha Albert, to write to her local radio station and ask, "why can't we have music like that here in America?" Some favours were called in by the radio station and the hard word was placed on Capitol Records, who'd lost interest in the band at this point, to push forward the release of the Beatles' latest single "I Want to Hold Your Hand".

Fledgling Beatlemania had established its roots in the USA, which blossomed into full bloom less than two months later when the band appeared on the "Ed Sullivan Show" (February 9, 1964). Drawing some 73 million viewers this came to be considered a landmark event in the history of rock and roll music.

Answer: Gen X 1965-79

Martin Luther King was a Baptist minister who'd created the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Established in 1957 this was an organization responsible for the coordination of non-violent protests against segregation and discrimination in the south. Both King and the organization were at the forefront of the Civil Rights movement.

On April 3, in 1968 he delivered the following speech which, eerily, sounded almost prescient...

"I've seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land. And I'm happy tonight. I'm not worried about anything. I'm not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord."

The following day, King was shot dead.

Anger flowed from black Americans and the nation slipped into a period of mourning. His passing did speed up the passing of the Equal Housing Bill, which proved to be the last of the pieces of legislation that underscored the Civil Rights era but the undercurrent that rose to the surface after his death was more sinister. The rioting that occurred in over 100 cities was not unexpected but, with it, came a radical shift in the Civil Rights movement. With the rise of the Black Power ideology, violence now became a factor, but it also indicated that racial tensions and injustices still existed and that further change was needed.

Answer: Gen X 1965-79

In the early hours of June 17, 1972, a number of burglars had broken into the offices of the Democratic National Committee (DNC), housed in the Watergate building in Washington D.C. They were discovered and arrested. However, it would prove to be more than just an ordinary burglary.

Let's backtrack a little. In 1972, President Richard Nixon was running for re-election in a United States that was anything but united. It was a country that was deeply immersed in and profoundly divided by a most unpopular war in Vietnam. Accordingly, Nixon and his advisors felt that their campaign needed to be an aggressive one. Sadly, that aggression included illegal espionage.

In May of that year Nixon's Committee to Re-Elect the President (bearing the unfortunately prescient acronym CREEP) broke into the DNC's headquarters, planted taps on the phones and stole a cache of top-secret documents. Issues arose when the taps they'd installed did not work properly, which meant that another break-in had to be organized. It was those burglars that were caught and CREEP's plans soon started to unravel.

In August, Nixon swore that the White House staff were not involved in the affair. Many Americans believed him and Nixon got re-elected. Some people, however, were not so convinced of this story. High among those were Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, and trial judge John Sirca. With the work of these three men and the arrival of key information from an anonymous whistleblower, known only as "Deep Throat", the conspiracy fell apart. To cut a long story short, by August of 1974 US President Richard Nixon was looking down the barrel of impeachment and resigned in disgrace to avoid that embarrassment.

Answer: Gen X 1965-79

The root to the Energy Crisis goes way back to 1948 when the Allied powers carved out a chunk of territory from the British controlled Palestine to create Israel. This did not sit well with the Arab populations in the area, leading to a period of instability and numerous conflicts. The breaking point arrived in 1973 when Egypt and Syria attacked Israel (Yom Kippur War) and the USSR lent their support to the two antagonists. The USA and the Netherlands responded by re-supplying Israel. This prompted the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries (OAPEC) to place an embargo on oil shipments to the USA and the Netherlands.

At this point, in the USA, oil consumption had been rising rapidly whilst the country's domestic production had endured a significant downturn in production. Before the embargo, the dwindling supply and the spikes in prices were not a concern. US policy makers believed that the Arab states were dependent upon the revenue that oil sales generated and, as a consequence, they could not afford to lose the US market. They were wrong! Overnight, the price of oil, jumped from $3 per barrel to $12 per barrel and, the hike in price, for the Arab nations, more than made up for the loss in volume sales. This also turned the issue into a global concern.

The embargo was eventually lifted in March of 1974 but the prices did not drop as much as initially expected and, as a result, the crisis lingered. The positives to emerge from this included a stronger leaning toward environmental concerns when it came to policy making, national speed limits being created in numerous countries, a move toward more efficient motor vehicles (another blow to the American car manufacturing industry) and the search for alternative sources of energy became a focus.

Answer: Gen X 1965-79

The 1972 Summer Olympic Games in Munich were only ten days old when a group of athletes, coming back to the Olympic village at 4:30 am on September 5, after a night of celebrations, mistook a group of terrorists, dressed in tracksuits and carrying gym bags, as fellow Olympians and helped them over a wire fence. Moments later the eight Black September members breached the dormitory of the Israeli team, and killed the wrestling coach Moshe Weinberg, along with weightlifter Yossef Romano. They then took nine other athletes and officials from the team as hostages and demanded the release of some 234 Arab prisoners from Israeli jails. The sporting event that had been labelled the "Games of Peace and Joy" had become anything but.

After a twenty three hour stand-off during which negotiations kept falling apart the terrorists made their final demand... passage to Cairo. They and their hostages were transported to the Furstenfeldbruck air base where a botched rescue attempt resulted in the death of five of the eight terrorists, a German police officer and, sadly, all nine hostages. The incident was viewed by more than 900 million people in what was the first act of terror to be broadcast on live television.

Answer: Gen X 1965-79

Woodstock's three day music festival began on August 15, 1969 on a dairy farm in Bethel, New York. It was attended by approximately half a million people.

By the time the festival took place on the USA's east coast, the radiant glow that had been San Francisco's "Summer of Love" (1967) had dissipated and all but disappeared. Commercialism of the event had turned the movement into what it had aspired against, free love had become an opportunity to rape and many had become homeless and drug addicted... and yet, against this backdrop, despite a lot of sex, drugs, rain, mud and rock and roll (or perhaps that it was because of all this) Woodstock managed to succeed and live up to its name - "An Aquarian Experience: Three Days of Peace and Music". The event became synonymous with the counter-culture movement of the 1960s but it would be Max Yasgur, the man from Bethel that had loaned his farm for that weekend, that would sum it up best... "you have proven to the world that half a million kids can get together and have three days of fun and music and have nothing but fun and music and God bless you for it!"

Answer: Millennials 1980-94

During the 1980s and the early parts of the 1990s outbreaks of both HIV (Human Immunodeficiency Virus) and AIDS (Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome) had spread across the globe. Yes, the disease had been around before the 1980s but the public's awareness (and the subsequent fear) didn't occur until the Centres for Disease Control (CDC), in 1981, reported an incidence of five homosexual men becoming infected with Pneumocystis pneumonia, which is a type of pneumonia that "did not" affect people with uncompromised immune systems.

Hot on its heels, in 1982, the New York Times published an article that told of an immune system disorder that had killed 136 people of the 335, an extraordinary percentage, of the people that had been affected. Most of these were also homosexual men which led to it being coined a "gay disease" or GRID (Gay Related Immune Deficiency). Once the CDC discovered all of the ways that the disease could be transmitted, the name was quickly changed to AIDS, to stimulate awareness that this disease was open to anyone, not just homosexual men, and that it shouldn't be seen as a "gay plague".

Whilst Millennials (Gen Ys) would grow up learning of the threats posed by sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), it was tougher going for the Generation Xers during these times. Most would have been teenagers whose movement into adulthood and, ultimately, sex would have been clouded by mists of confusion, misinformation, ignorance and fear. That said, by 1995 the number of AIDS related deaths in developed countries had declined significantly. This was due, primarily, to improved awareness, education, new medications and the introduction of HAART (Highly Active Antiretroviral Therapy).

Answer: Millennials 1980-94

The acquittal of four police officers for the beating of African American construction worker, Rodney King, was the spark that lit the fuse to the 1992 Los Angeles riots. The powder-keg, however, had been brewing for some time beforehand.

The poorer neighbourhoods of Los Angeles, during the 1980s, were beset by unemployment, which gave rise to gangs, drugs and violent crime. The Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) used aggressive tactics as their plan to quell this culture and, whilst it had some effect, it also built a belief amongst its officers that their abusive actions came without liability. Among these actions were the following:
- 1988, a drug sweep, called "Operation Hammer", which destroyed two apartment buildings in south LA, leaving many of its residents homeless.
- 1990, a traffic incident saw skirmishes develop between the LAPD and some Nation of Islam members, which resulted in the death of 27 year-old Oliver Beasley.
The came the King beating...

March 3, 1991, a high speed chase ensued between the police and an intoxicated Rodney King. At the conclusion of the chase, in Lakeview, the four officers involved in the chase beat on King, leaving him with a fractured skull and cheekbone... and, the whole scene was captured on video by a Lakeview resident. Despite this video evidence, all four officers were acquitted, which sparked several days of violence, looting and arson. It required the introduction of the National Guard and federal troops to put an end to the rioting. At the end of it all, more than sixty people had been killed and damage to property was assessed at more than a billion dollars.

Answer: Millennials 1980-94

If you ever thought that the largest single day drop in the Dow Jones Industrial Index happened in 1929, you would need to think again. On October 19, 1987 the Dow fell 508 points (22.60%) compared to 1929's "Black Tuesday", which fell 305.8 points.

There were a number of events that led to this drama, cum panic. President Reagan's spell in the White House as President, saw the implementation of a range of policies that were very business friendly. Consequently, businesses prospered and the markets boomed. By 1987 though, the signs that this bullish period was coming to a close started to appear. Problem was not too many people were paying attention. During this period, the US recorded a large trade deficit, which took punters by surprise. This then triggered a decline in the value of the US dollar. Add to this speculation that certain tax loopholes were going to be shut down... and investors started to get nervous.

Other events that played a part in the lead-up to "Black Monday", which added to the nervousness and instability, included Iran's attack on two Kuwaiti oil tankers. Th USA responded to this with Operation Nimble Archer on October 19 (Black Monday). A few days prior, there was a freak storm that hit England which virtually paralyzed that nation and forced her markets to close early on the Friday. The Hong Kong market then began to spiral and this soon spread through Europe. By the time that the US markets had opened on that Monday, panic had already set in.

Then, the computers took over. A common practice that had been adopted was to program computers to execute trades if certain conditions were in place. As everyone rushed to sell, so too did the computers, compounding the issue. However, unlike 1929, which saw the crash lead to the Great Depression, governments took immediate measures to "correct" the markets, which led to them turning a full circle within the space of two years.

Answer: Millennials 1980-94

Most Baby Boomers would vividly remember man's landing on the moon in 1969. Whilst this occurred during the years of the Generation Xers, many of those would have been way too young or, in most cases, not even born yet, for it to have had any significant impact on them. Space Shuttle flights began during the time of the Millennials (1981) and many Gen Xers would recall that these did a lot more to renew public interest in the quest for space. However, by the time the space shuttle Challenger was about to embark on its ninth mission, that same public had started to become a little blasé about it all. Not, however, Challenger's tenth mission.

This one was different because, for the first time, NASA was about to put an ordinary citizen into space. That "lucky" citizen was school teacher Christa McAuliffe and she was about to make space that little bit more accessible to everyone and, yet again, Americans were taking more interest in its final frontier.

That interest was shattered 73 seconds into the shuttle's flight. Two rubber O-rings failed and the shuttle exploded into a giant fireball, killing all members on board. It is estimated that 17% of Americans viewed this horror in real time on television and that 85% of the nation knew of it within the hour.

Answer: Millennials 1980-94

The Berlin Wall came down in 1989 and, hot on its heels, came the workings to reunify Germany in 1990. Suddenly, that virtually impossible optimism of lasting peace in the West, seemed almost tangible.

That dream started to develop cracks in August of 1990 when Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein arranged for his country to invade Kuwait and seize control of their oil-fields. While Hussein defied orders from the United Nations to withdraw, the leaders of Egypt and Saudi Arabia called upon the West, in particular the USA, to assist. In January of 1991 Operation Desert Storm, also known as the Persian Gulf War, came into effect. This was led by a massive US air offensive and the whole ordeal lasted 42 days. After seeing that most of the Iraqi forces in Kuwait had either fled or surrendered, US President George H.W. Bush called a ceasefire on February 28.

What became unforgettable (not in a nice way) of this conflict was that the war, for the first time in television history, was being viewed live in lounge rooms across the globe. CNN bombarded our screens with real time images of bombings and assaults, forever changing the face of television broadcast news.