100 1960s Trivia Questions & Answers

The 1960s packed moonshots, mass movements, miniskirts, and music revolutions into ten unforgettable years.

Set the lava lamp aglow and see how much of this world-changing decade you can place on the timeline.

A Decade on the World Stage

Start with the headlines, then explore more eras in our world history trivia.

1. Which wall began dividing East and West Berlin in 1961?
   Answer: The Berlin Wall.
2. What 1962 confrontation brought the United States and Soviet Union close to nuclear war?
   Answer: The Cuban Missile Crisis.
3. Which African country gained independence from Belgium in 1960?
   Answer: The Democratic Republic of the Congo.
4. What war dominated American foreign policy during the late 1960s?
   Answer: The Vietnam War.
5. Which country hosted the 1968 Summer Olympics?
   Answer: Mexico.
6. What 1967 conflict lasted only six days?
   Answer: The Six-Day War.
7. Which Soviet leader was removed from power in 1964?
   Answer: Nikita Khrushchev.
8. What reform movement in Czechoslovakia was crushed in 1968?
   Answer: The Prague Spring.
9. Which nation became independent from Britain in 1962 under Milton Obote?
   Answer: Uganda.
10. What European organization adopted the Common Agricultural Policy in 1962?
    Answer: The European Economic Community.

Civil Rights and Social Change

These questions honor the organizers, court battles, and brave public action that moved history.

11. Who delivered the “I Have a Dream” speech in 1963?
    Answer: Martin Luther King Jr.
12. What landmark 1964 law outlawed discrimination in public accommodations and employment?
    Answer: The Civil Rights Act of 1964.
13. Which 1965 law targeted racial discrimination in voting?
    Answer: The Voting Rights Act of 1965.
14. Who refused to give up her bus seat years before, inspiring a movement that shaped the 1960s?
    Answer: Rosa Parks.
15. What Alabama city was the destination of voting-rights marches in 1965?
    Answer: Montgomery.
16. Which civil rights leader was assassinated in New York in 1965?
    Answer: Malcolm X.
17. What student-led organization was founded in 1960 in Raleigh, North Carolina?
    Answer: The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee.
18. Which labor leader organized the Delano grape strike with Dolores Huerta?
    Answer: César Chávez.
19. What 1969 uprising became a major milestone in LGBTQ+ history?
    Answer: The Stonewall uprising.
20. Which Supreme Court case struck down laws banning interracial marriage in 1967?
    Answer: Loving v. Virginia.

Space Race Milestones

For more countdowns and capsules, launch into our Space Race trivia.

21. Who became the first human in space in 1961?
    Answer: Yuri Gagarin.
22. Who became the first American to orbit Earth in 1962?
    Answer: John Glenn.
23. Which Soviet cosmonaut became the first woman in space?
    Answer: Valentina Tereshkova.
24. What was the name of NASA’s program that landed humans on the Moon?
    Answer: Apollo.
25. Which Apollo mission first carried astronauts around the Moon?
    Answer: Apollo 8.
26. Who took the first human steps on the Moon in 1969?
    Answer: Neil Armstrong.
27. Who followed Neil Armstrong onto the lunar surface?
    Answer: Buzz Aldrin.
28. Which astronaut remained in lunar orbit during Apollo 11?
    Answer: Michael Collins.
29. What 1967 spacecraft fire killed three Apollo 1 astronauts?
    Answer: The Apollo 1 cabin fire during a launch-pad test.
30. Which mission achieved the first crewed rendezvous between two spacecraft?
    Answer: Gemini 6A and Gemini 7.

Politics and Presidential Moments

Campaign buttons ready? This round stays inside the halls of power.

31. Who won the 1960 United States presidential election?
    Answer: John F. Kennedy.
32. Which vice president became president after Kennedy’s assassination?
    Answer: Lyndon B. Johnson.
33. What domestic policy agenda did Johnson call the Great Society?
    Answer: Programs addressing poverty, education, health, and civil rights.
34. Who won the 1968 United States presidential election?
    Answer: Richard Nixon.
35. Which televised 1960 debates helped make television central to presidential campaigns?
    Answer: The Kennedy-Nixon debates.
36. Which senator became the first woman placed in nomination for president at a major-party convention in 1964?
    Answer: Margaret Chase Smith.
37. Which U.S. senator was assassinated while seeking the presidency in 1968?
    Answer: Robert F. Kennedy.
38. What 1964 campaign advertisement controversially showed a girl and a nuclear explosion?
    Answer: The “Daisy” ad.
39. Which British politician became prime minister in 1964?
    Answer: Harold Wilson.
40. Who became prime minister of India in 1966?
    Answer: Indira Gandhi.

Records, Radio, and Rock Revolution

The needle drops here, with a bonus encore waiting in our music trivia.

41. Which Liverpool band made its American television breakthrough on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1964?
    Answer: The Beatles.
42. Who recorded the 1967 album Are You Experienced?
    Answer: The Jimi Hendrix Experience.
43. Which Motown group sang “My Girl”?
    Answer: The Temptations.
44. What Beach Boys album included “God Only Knows”?
    Answer: Pet Sounds.
45. Who wrote and recorded “Blowin’ in the Wind”?
    Answer: Bob Dylan.
46. Which singer released “Respect” in 1967?
    Answer: Aretha Franklin.
47. What 1969 music festival took place near Bethel, New York?
    Answer: Woodstock.
48. Which Rolling Stones song opens with a famously fuzzy guitar riff and a complaint about satisfaction?
    Answer: “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction.”
49. Who sang “Son of a Preacher Man”?
    Answer: Dusty Springfield.
50. Which record label was founded by Berry Gordy and defined the Detroit sound?
    Answer: Motown Records.

Movies and Television in Living Color

From spies to sitcom witches, screens found plenty of new ways to surprise audiences.

51. Which 1960 Alfred Hitchcock film features the Bates Motel?
    Answer: Psycho.
52. Who played Mary Poppins in the 1964 Disney film?
    Answer: Julie Andrews.
53. Which movie won the Academy Award for Best Picture for 1965?
    Answer: The Sound of Music.
54. Who played James Bond in Dr. No?
    Answer: Sean Connery.
55. What science-fiction television series debuted in 1966 with Captain Kirk?
    Answer: Star Trek.
56. Which sitcom starred Elizabeth Montgomery as a witch named Samantha?
    Answer: Bewitched.
57. What animated prime-time family lived in Bedrock?
    Answer: The Flintstones.
58. Which 1968 film featured the computer HAL 9000?
    Answer: 2001: A Space Odyssey.
59. Who directed The Graduate?
    Answer: Mike Nichols.
60. Which 1969 drama became the first X-rated film to win Best Picture?
    Answer: Midnight Cowboy.

Champions and Sporting Firsts

The scoreboard includes historic victories, iconic athletes, and a famous raised-fist salute.

61. Which boxer changed his name from Cassius Clay to Muhammad Ali?
    Answer: Muhammad Ali.
62. Who won the men’s decathlon at the 1960 Rome Olympics?
    Answer: Rafer Johnson.
63. Which baseball team won the 1969 World Series in a celebrated upset?
    Answer: The New York Mets.
64. Who hit 61 home runs in the 1961 Major League Baseball season?
    Answer: Roger Maris.
65. Which NFL team won the first two Super Bowls?
    Answer: The Green Bay Packers.
66. Who coached those Green Bay Packers?
    Answer: Vince Lombardi.
67. Which Brazilian soccer star won his second and third World Cups during the 1960s?
    Answer: Pelé.
68. Who became the first Black player inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1962?
    Answer: Jackie Robinson.
69. Which American sprinters raised gloved fists at the 1968 Olympics?
    Answer: Tommie Smith and John Carlos.
70. Who became the first woman to officially run the Boston Marathon with a race number in 1967?
    Answer: Kathrine Switzer.

Inventions, Science, and Everyday Technology

This is where office machines, medicine, and household gadgets start looking recognizably modern.

71. Who demonstrated the computer mouse during the 1968 “Mother of All Demos”?
    Answer: Douglas Engelbart.
72. What audio format did Philips introduce in 1963?
    Answer: The compact cassette.
73. Who created the first practical visible LED in 1962?
    Answer: Nick Holonyak Jr.
74. What medical procedure did Christiaan Barnard perform successfully in 1967?
    Answer: The first human-to-human heart transplant.
75. Which programming language for beginners was created at Dartmouth in 1964?
    Answer: BASIC.
76. What kitchen appliance became increasingly common after countertop models improved in the 1960s?
    Answer: The microwave oven.
77. Which scientist popularized environmental concern with Silent Spring in 1962?
    Answer: Rachel Carson.
78. What communication satellite relayed live television across the Atlantic in 1962?
    Answer: Telstar 1.
79. Which hand-held calculator company released the Cal Tech prototype near decade’s end?
    Answer: Texas Instruments.
80. What artificial sweetener was banned in the United States in 1969?
    Answer: Cyclamate.

Fashion, Food, and Daily Life

Now for the details that turned a decade into a look, a mood, and sometimes a very bright kitchen.

81. Which British designer is closely associated with popularizing the miniskirt?
    Answer: Mary Quant.
82. What tall white footwear became a symbol of mod fashion?
    Answer: Go-go boots.
83. Which colorful liquid-filled lamp was launched commercially in 1963?
    Answer: The lava lamp.
84. What fabric pattern became a symbol of psychedelic fashion?
    Answer: Tie-dye.
85. Which doll introduced in 1959 became a major toy icon throughout the 1960s?
    Answer: Barbie.
86. What countertop baking toy debuted in 1963?
    Answer: The Easy-Bake Oven.
87. Which fast-food chain introduced the Big Mac nationally in 1968?
    Answer: McDonald’s.
88. What powdered orange drink became linked with astronauts through advertising?
    Answer: Tang.
89. Which British model became famous by the nickname Twiggy?
    Answer: Lesley Hornby.
90. What geometric fashion style took its name from a London youth movement?
    Answer: Mod style.

Final Flashback

Close with ten snapshots from books, art, protest, and pop culture.

91. Who wrote the 1960 novel To Kill a Mockingbird?
    Answer: Harper Lee.
92. Who wrote and illustrated the 1963 children’s book Where the Wild Things Are?
    Answer: Maurice Sendak.
93. Who created the Campbell’s Soup Cans artwork shown in 1962?
    Answer: Andy Warhol.
94. What 1963 novel introduced readers to Meg Murry?
    Answer: A Wrinkle in Time.
95. Which musical opened on Broadway in 1964 with “If I Were a Rich Man”?
    Answer: Fiddler on the Roof.
96. What dance craze inspired a Chubby Checker hit?
    Answer: The Twist.
97. Which 1967 event brought counterculture crowds to San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury?
    Answer: The Summer of Love.
98. Who published The Feminine Mystique in 1963?
    Answer: Betty Friedan.
99. Which animated holiday special first aired in 1965 and featured a sparse little tree?
    Answer: A Charlie Brown Christmas.
100. What peace symbol became common at antiwar demonstrations?
     Answer: The nuclear disarmament symbol.

Sources and Further Reading

• National Archives: 1960s records
• NASA Apollo 11 mission overview
• Library of Congress National Recording Registry
• Smithsonian National Museum of American History
• Olympics results and history