Deduct the Decade Trivia Quiz

Answer: 1950s

Mount Lamington is located in the Owen Stanley Range in the Oro province of Papua New Guinea. Prior to the eruption, on 21 January 1951, it was not known to be a volcano as it was covered in dense vegetation and had no known previous volcanic activity.

The stratovolcano explosively erupted causing widespread devastation. An estimated 3,000 people were killed and entire villages were obliterated by pyroclastic flows and the ashfall. This tragic event highlighted the importance of monitoring and understanding volcanic activity in vulnerable regions and contributed to advancements in volcano research and early warning systems around the globe.

Answer: 1950s

Francois Duvalier, also known as 'Papa Doc,' came to power in Haiti in 1957 after winning the presidential elections that year on a Black Nationalist platform. He solidified his rule by incorporating elements of Haitian mythology into a personality cult.

His rule was marked by authoritarianism and characterized by the widespread use of violence. He established a paramilitary force known as the Tonton Macoutes to suppress any opposition. His regime was infamous for human rights abuses, political repression and the creation of a climate of fear.

His presidency lasted until his death in 1971 after which his son, Jean-Claude Duvalier, succeeded him in power.

Answer: 1950s

James D. Watson and Francis Crick, along with contributions from Rosalind Franklin and Maurice Wilkins, discovered the structure of DNA; their ground-breaking work was published in the scientific journal "Nature" on 25 April 1953. The structure they proposed was the double helix - a twisted ladder-like configuration, where two strands of nucleotides are held together by hydrogen bonds between complementary base pairs: adenine (A) with thymine (T) and guanine (G) with cytosine (C).

This discovery laid the foundation for our understanding of how genetic information is stored, replicated and transmitted in living organisms, forming the basis of modern molecular biology. Watson, Crick, and Wilkins were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1962 for this revolutionary work.

Answer: 1960s

After the end of WWII in Europe, Germany was divided into four occupation zones each controlled by one of the four occupying Allied powers: the UK, France, the USA and the USSR. Berlin stood within the Soviet zone but was also divided into four sectors. East Germany, including East Berlin, became part of the Soviet Block and before the construction of the Wall an estimated 3.5 million East Germans defected to the West via West Berlin.

The construction of the Berlin Wall began on 13 August 1961. Initially a barbed wire and concrete barrier it eventually evolved into a heavily fortified structure with guard towers, checkpoints and a no-man's land. The wall became a symbol of the Cold War division and a physical symbol of the Iron Curtain. It stood for nearly 28 years, until its eventual fall in 1989, following a series of political changes and the peaceful revolution that led to the reunification of East and West Germany.

Answer: 1960s

The first heart transplant took place on 3 December 1967 at Groote Schuur Hospital in Cape Town. It was performed by 45 year old South African surgeon Dr Christiaan Barnard. The patient, Louis Washkansky, suffered from heart failure and Barnard and his team replaced his damaged heart with that of a young woman who had died in a car accident. The surgery was a major medical milestone and garnered international attention.

While the patient initially survived the surgery, he unfortunately passed away 18 days later due to pneumonia - largely brought on by the anti-rejection drugs that suppressed his immune system after the procedure. However, it did lay the foundation for further advancements in organ transplantation and it revolutionized the field of cardiac surgery. Barnard's second transplant patient, Philip Blaiberg, whose operation was performed at the beginning of 1968, left the hospital and lived for a year and a half.

Answer: 1960s

The Manson Family was a commune, gang and cult led by the known criminal Charles Manson that was active in California in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The group consisted of about 100 followers, mostly women from middleclass families who were attracted to the hippie lifestyle.

On the night of 8 August 1969 four members of the 'Family' brutally murdered actress Sharon Tate who was 8 months pregnant at the time. Under Manson's orders to kill anyone else that was there they also murdered Jay Sebring, Abigail Folger, Wojciech Frykowski and Steven Parent. The following night these same four and three others entered the home of Leno and Rosemary LaBianca and violently killed them. The murders were intended to incite a race war which Manson called "Helter Skelter."

Answer: 1970s

Smallpox was a severe, highly infectious illness caused by the variole major virus. People who had smallpox had a fever and a distinctive, progressive skin rash. Those who had the disease caused by the variola minor virus had the same, but less severe, symptoms. In late 1975 three-year-old Rahima Banu from Bangladesh was the last person in the world to have naturally acquired variola major. She was also the last person in Asia to have active smallpox and she miraculously survived,

The last person to have naturally acquired smallpox caused by variola minor was Ali Maow Maalin, a hospital cook from Somalia, who caught it from some patients in 1977. He also survived. The last person to die from smallpox was in 1978. Janet Parker worked as a medical photographer at England's Birmingham University Medical School. She worked on the floor above the department where smallpox research was conducted and it was considered a laboratory-acquired infection.

The World Health Assembly declared smallpox eradicated on 8 May 1980. It was the first human disease to be eradicated globally through concerted international efforts. Its eradication stands as a remarkable achievement in public health and a testament to the effectiveness of vaccination campaigns with global cooperation.

Answer: 1970s

The 'Year of Three Popes' was an unusual sequence of events that led to three different popes serving within the same single calendar year, 1978. It began with the death of Pope Paul VI on 6 August 1978. Cardinal Albino Luciani was elected as his successor on 26 August 1978 and took the name Pope John Paul I. His papacy was tragically short-lived, lasting only 33 days, as he died on 28 September 1978.

Following his death Cardinal Karol Jozef Wojty³a of Poland was elected as the next pope on 16 October 1978. He adopted the name of his predecessor as a tribute to him and became Pope John Paul II. He was the first non-Italian pope since Adrian VI in the 16th century and, at 58, was one of the youngest. His papacy became one of the longest and most influential in history lasting for 27 years until his death in 2005. Only Pius IX and St. Peter had a longer term. He was later canonised as Pope Saint John Paul II.

Answer: 1970s

Jonestown was the informal name of 'The Peoples Temple Agricultural Project' a remote settlement in Guyana established by the Peoples Temple, an American cult under the leadership of Jim Jones. No one has quite decided on the official name for what happened there - mass suicide, mass murder-suicide, a massacre or simply mass murder. I have called it the Massacre as that is what it is commonly known as.

U.S. Congressman Leo Ryan and his delegation visited Jonestown to investigate the cult amid growing concerns from their American relatives. As they attempted to leave, with some members of the cult who had chosen to leave with him, they were shot and killed at the airstrip. This triggered the horrific massacre of 18 November 1978 where Jones ordered a mass cyanide poisoning that killed 909 people in the compound itself. Most drank the spiked flavour aid willingly but there is video tape of the event which shows people also being injected against their will.

Jones himself was found lying next to a chair with a self-inflicted gunshot wound to his left temple. The Jonestown events constituted the greatest deliberate loss of American civilian life until the incidents of 11 September 2001.

Answer: 1980s

Microsoft released Windows 1.0 on 20 November 1985. It was the first graphical user interface-based operating system developed by Microsoft for IBM-compatible personal computers. It introduced a visual environment with overlapping windows, icons and a mouse-driven interface, providing a more user-friendly experience compared to the previous predominantly text-based MS-DOS.

Although Windows 1.0 had limited success and functionality compared to modern operating systems, it laid the foundation for the future success of the Windows operating system. Subsequent versions of Windows, such as Windows 3.0 and the immensely popular Windows 95, built on the concepts introduced in Windows 1.0, contributing to Microsoft's dominance in the personal computer operating system market.

Answer: 1980s

Traditional surrogacy involves using the surrogate's egg and fathers sperm. Gestational surrogacy has no relation to the mother, the embryo itself is transplanted to the surrogate's uterus.

The first recorded legally compensated traditional surrogacy occurred in 1980. This was followed by the first gestational surrogacy in 1984 which was a straightforward transaction.

The second child born from traditional surrogacy was the first with legal complications, this was Melissa Stern also known as Baby M. She was born in New Jersey, USA on 27 March 1986. The arrangement involved Mary Beth Whitehead as the gestational surrogate and William and Elizabeth Stern as the intended parents. The process used an egg from Mary Beth and sperm from William Stern. The legal and ethical complexities surrounding Baby M's surrogacy arrangement led to a highly publicized and controversial legal battle.

Mary Beth Whitehead decided she wanted custody of the child, leading to court cases that brought attention to the legal and ethical considerations of gestational surrogacy and played a role in shaping surrogacy laws and regulations in various jurisdictions. It went through multiple court cases, both legal and family court, and appeals as custody and visitation rights were changed back and forth between the two parties. In March 2004, upon reaching legal maturity, Melissa Stern legally terminated Mary Beth's parental rights and formalized Elizabeth's maternity through adoption proceedings.

Answer: 1980s

The Lockerbie Pan Am disaster occurred on 21 December 1988. Pan American World Airways Flight 103 was en route from London Heathrow Airport to New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport when a bomb exploded on board causing large sections of the plane to break apart and crash into Lockerbie down below.

All 259 people on board, 243 passengers and 16 crew, were killed along with 11 people on the ground in Lockerbie. The bombing was later determined to be an act of terrorism. After three years of investigations warrants were issued for two nationals from Libya. It took 8 years for Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi to finally hand the men over to be tried in the Netherlands.

In 2001 a Libyan intelligence officer, Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, was finally convicted of the bombing. He was the only person found guilty in connection with it. Gaddafi always maintained that he had never given the order for the attack. With a total of 270 fatalities, it was the deadliest terrorist attack in the history of the United Kingdom.