At This Point in History Trivia Quiz

Answer: 20th century

From 1961 until 1989, the Berlin Wall was a symbol of the division of the world into east and west. The concrete and barbed wire wall, the "Antifascistischer Schutzwall," or "antifascist bulwark" erected on Khrushchev's orders, not only separated west and east Berlin, but encompassed the whole of West Berlin, making it an islet within the state of East Germany.

The political reforms of "Glasnost" and "Perestroika" promoted by the last Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, when he took over the reins of the mighty Soviet Union in 1985 initiated the fall of communism and the independence of Moscow's satellite countries. At the same time, civil rights activists and opposition leaders across eastern Europe began to gain power. The Solidarity movement in Poland and the opening of the borders between Austria and Hungary paved the way for the changes that led to the peaceful fall of the Berlin Wall on November 9, 1989, and brought the Cold War between East and West to an end.

Answer: 20th century

The Olympic Games at the capital of Catalonia were the first after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War. The 25th Olympic Games were held from 25 July to 9 August for the first time on Spanish soil. Barcelona, the birthplace of then President of the International Olympic Committee Juan Antonio Samaranch, took advantage of the Olympic Games to proceed with a radical redesign of the city, appointing famous architects, designers, and developers. The endeavor was very successful and the city capitalizes on that success to the present day.

The highlights of the Barcelona Olympic Games include the lighting of the Olympic flame with a flaming arrow by Paralympic archer Antonio Rebollo, Belarussian gymnast Vitaly Scherbo winning six gold medals for the Unified Team (former USSR countries), the US basketball "dream team," and South Africa's participation for the first time since 1960 when she was prohibited from participating due to the policy of apartheid.

Answer: 20th century

Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela (1918-2013) was sworn in as South Africa's first black president on May 10, 1994. Two weeks earlier, his party, the African National Congress (ANC), had won with an overwhelming majority in the first multiracial parliamentary elections. Nelson Mandela replaced the National Party's Frederik Willem de Klerk in the South African Presidency.

Nelson Mandela was a lawyer and a member of the Xhosa-speaking Tembu people. He joined the African National Congress in 1944 and ever since apartheid was imposed on the South African political scene in 1948, he initiated and organized rallies, demonstrations, and marches against the regime. He was arrested and imprisoned for 27 years, most of which he spent in the Robben Island Prison, until 1990, when Frederik Willem de Klerk ordered his release and the subsequent end of apartheid. In 1993, Mandela and de Klerk were jointly awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace.

Answer: 20th century

The Kyoto Protocol was an international treaty aimed to reduce gas emissions that contributed to global warming. It was adopted in the Japanese city in 1997, and its implementation began in 2005. 192 countries signed the global effort to reduce greenhouse gases (carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, perfluorocarbons, hydrofluorocarbons, and sulfur hexafluoride) in 41 countries, plus the European Union.

Although the Kyoto Protocol is considered the most significant environmental treaty, it has not proved as successful as initially intended, both because of the reluctance of developed countries to abide by its requirements and the increase of greenhouse gas production in emerging economies.

In 2015, the Paris Climate Agreement was signed by 196 participating countries, which in effect replaced and improved the Kyoto Protocol aiming to reduce greenhouse emissions to levels that would not allow the increase of global temperature levels by more than 2°C (3.6°F) compared to pre-Industrial Revolution levels.

Answer: 20th century

Olof Palme (1927-1986) was a Swedish politician, the Prime Minister of Sweden from 1969 to 1976 and from 1982 to 1986, when he was assassinated. He was a Social Democrat and a devoted pacifist. His policies generated major reforms in the famous Swedish social welfare system of the time, favoring job security, social security and health care, for immigrants, the disabled, single-parent families, and low-income families. He also spoke freely and openly against dictators and oppressive regimes around the world.

On February 28, 1986, Olof Palme and his wife, Lisbeth, were walking home from the cinema, having dismissed their security guards. A single gunshot killed the Swedish Prime Minister and a second one wounded his wife. He died on the way to the hospital. At first, the Swedish Police and the local and international media investigated a conspiracy theory, an assassination that involved foreign agents, among them the CIA, the Kurdish PKK, South Africa, and far-right Chilean groups. Finally, in 1989, Christer Pettersson was convicted of the crime and was sentenced to life imprisonment. The conviction was later revoked in an appeals court and in 2020, Stig Engstrom, a Swedish graphic designer who became known as the "Scandia man", was considered a suspect in the murder. However, Stig Engström had died in 2000, and the case did not proceed further. To this day, the reasons or the people behind the assassination of the Swedish Prime Minister remain a mystery.

Answer: 21st century

Barack Hussein Obama II (1961) was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, to Kenyan economist Barack Obama Sr. and American anthropologist Stanley Ann Dunham. He graduated from Columbia University with a degree in political science and international relations and from Harvard Law School. At Harvard, he became the first African American president of the Harvard Law Review and met his wife, Michelle Robinson. They are married since 1992 and have two daughters.

Barack Obama was the Senator of Illinois from 2005 to 2008 and the 44th President of the United States from 2009 to 2017, the first African-American President of the United States. While in office he addressed challenging issues, both at a domestic and an international level; the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, international terrorism, the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, the American health care system, global warming, and the environmental crisis were among those issues.

Answer: 21st century

Brexit is a portmanteau word for "British exit" meaning "the withdrawal of Great Britain from the European Union." In a referendum held on June 23, 2016, the British people decided to withdraw from the EU. The withdrawal was voted by 51.9% of the registered voters. The British government activated Article 50 of the Treaties of the European Union, which determines how a member state exits the Union.

The UK's withdrawal from the EU was finalized on January 31, 2020, after three extensions. The UK withdrawal is the first-ever of a member state of the European Union.

Answer: 21st century

In 2003, Mark Zuckerberg, Eduardo Saverin, Dustin Moskovitz, and Chris Hughes, all students at Harvard University, developed an online service where the university students could post their pictures and some personal information as a helpful tool for their socializing and fraternizing.

The service became so popular that in February 2004 the social network The Facebook.com was officially launched. Subscriptions were free and, gradually, students from other universities joined in. In 2006 anyone over the age of 13 could become a member. It acquired gigantic dimensions worldwide and nowadays, apart from being a social site, Facebook plays a powerful role in advertising, opinion-forming, politics, and social issues campaigns. As of 2021, Facebook belongs to the Meta Platforms company which also owns Instagram, Messenger, and WhatsApp.

Answer: 21st century

The first country in the world to legalize same-sex marriage was the Netherlands in April 1, 2001. The Dutch Parliament passed the landmark bill which was signed by Queen Beatrix. Since then, and as of 2022, more than 30 countries, most of them in Europe and the Americas, are implementing the law that allows people of the same sex to wed, divorce, adopt children, and have all the rights, privileges, and obligations married people have, concerning their health insurance, pension benefits, general finances, and property-owning.

Answer: 21st century

The Maastricht Treaty, signed in the Dutch city in 1992, is the foundation treaty of the European Union. It established the European Central Bank, introduced European citizenship, common foreign and security policies, and paved the way towards the creation of a single European currency. The twelve countries that were members of the EU at the time signed the Treaty and the banking sector, private companies, retailers, a huge network of services, and people started preparing for the transition from national currencies to the common Euro which took almost a decade.

Euro banknotes and coins were put into circulation on January 1, 2002, in the twelve countries of the Eurozone. Since then, new countries have joined the European Union bringing the number of Eurozone members to 19. In 2022, Belgium, Germany, Ireland, Spain, France, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Austria, Portugal, Finland, Greece, Slovenia, Cyprus, Malta, Slovakia, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania use the Euro.