Significant 2020s Decade Events Quiz

Answer: 2021

Design of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) started in earnest shortly after the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) was launched in 1990. JWST was launched on 25 December 2021. Built for infrared astronomy, the JWST has a similar resolution to the HST despite having a mirror diameter nearly three times larger.

This is due to targeting the infrared spectrum with its longer wavelengths compared to the visible spectrum targeted by the HST. The JWST takes its name from a 1960s-era NASA administrator.

Answer: 2021

Bitcoin was the first decentralised cryptocurrency, launched in 2008 by an unknown person using a pseudonym. There are now thousands (even millions, by some counts) of cryptocurrencies. El Salvador was the first country to adopt bitcoin as legal tender currency, which it did on 5 June 2021.

This decision drew international criticism, not least because of its exchange rate volatility. El Salvador revoked its legal tender status in 2025, partly in exchange for a $1.4 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund.

Answer: 2021

The invasion of Afghanistan by the US was sparked by the 9/11 attacks on the US in 2001. Afghanistan was controlled by the Taliban at the time and played host to the pan-Islamic militant organisation al-Qaeda which was responsible for the 9/11 attacks.

The Taliban were overthrown. Conflict continued over the next 20 years until a decision was taken in 2021 to withdraw US troops. The Taliban quickly took over the country again with the capital Kabul falling on 15 August 2021.

Answer: 2021

The NASA rover Perseverance was part of the Mars 2020 mission and its purpose was to look for evidence of ancient life. It landed on Mars on 18 February 2021 and has operated for over five years. It also carried the experimental helicopter Ingenuity which flew dozens of sorties before being retired in 2024. China also landed a rover on Mars, the Zhurong rover on 14 May 2021.

Answer: 2023

With an epicentre in Turkey, this magnitude 7.8 was the largest to hit Turkey since 1939 and the deadliest since the Antioch earthquake of 526 which killed an estimated 250,000. The 2021 one caused widespread severe damage over an area about the size of Germany and tens of thousands of deaths, mostly in Turkey. There were more than 30,000 aftershocks in the following three months.

Answer: 2023

Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022 resulted in both Swedish and Finnish public opinion moving from maintaining neutrality to becoming members of NATO. Finland and Sweden both applied for membership in 2022 with Finland becoming a member in 2023. Sweden followed in 2024, ending a policy of neutrality that had been in place since the Napoleonic Wars at the beginning of the 19th century.

Answer: 2023

Tourist experiences involving the wreck of the ocean liner RMS Titanic range from museum visits, to immersive recreations and actual submarine expeditions. The latter ones don't come cheap with OceanGate being one such provider. Its Titan submersible (originally called Cyclops 2) conducted several tourist dives on the wreck during 2021 and 2022 before it imploded during a dive in 2023 with the loss of five lives.

The design appears to have been at fault.

Answer: 2023

India's Chandrayaan programme was for lunar exploration. The failure of the Chandrayaan-2 mission in 2019, where the lunar lander crashed on landing, was followed up by the successful Chandrayaan-3 mission in 2023. This made India the fourth nation to successfully land on the Moon, in this case near the lunar south pole.

The propulsion module which brought the lander to the Moon returned to a high Earth orbit where it was tasked with making scientific observations.

Answer: 2025

Pope Leo XIV was elected in 2025 following the death of Pope Francis. Like Pope Francis, he was born in the Americas. Prior to their elections, the last non-European Pope was the 8th century Pope Gregory III from Syria. Pope Leo XIV was born in Chicago with the birth name Robert Francis Prevost and spent much of his service prior to his election doing missionary work in Peru.

Answer: 2025

Nicolas Paul Stéphane Sarközy de Nagy-Bocsa was president of France between 2007 and 2012. He has been dogged by criminal investigations since his presidency and has been prosecuted on various corruption and influence peddling charges. He was jailed in 2025 on a 5-year sentence for his part in obtaining Libyan financing for his 2007 presidential campaign, becoming the first French postwar leader to serve jail time.

He appealed.

Answer: 2025

Disguised as construction workers, thieves stole eight pieces of the French Crown Jewels from the Louvre, the national art museum in Paris, France. The robbery took place during regular opening hours and was over within eight minutes, only four of which were in the museum itself.

Although the first Louvre theft since 1998, four other French museums also suffered significant thefts during 2024 and 2025.

Answer: 2025

The Air India flight 171 crashed about 30 seconds after take-off on 12 June 2025, resulting in the death of 260 people. This included 19 people on the ground. A further 67 on the ground were seriously injured. The cause appeared to be that two fuel control switches had been shut off, resulting in the engines shutting down.

This was the deadliest incident in Indian airspace since the 1996 Charkhi Dadri mid-air collision.