It Happened in 1993 Trivia Quiz

Answer: Czechoslovakia

It was on the very first day of the year that Czechoslovakia ceased to exist, dissolving into the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Czechoslovakia was formed in 1918, after World War I came to end and, with it, the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Although there was support for a continued federation of the two nations, the Slovaks declared in July 1992 their intention to become independent and negotiations began.

The entire process was peaceful, leading to it gaining the "Velvet Divorce" moniker, similar to the peaceful Velvet Revolution of 1989.

Answer: Bill Clinton

Then-incumbent Republican president George H W Bush was running for a second term in office, having held the position since 1989. However, Bill Clinton, the Democratic party candidate, prevailed in the election, edging out Bush by less than 6% of the vote. Clinton went on to serve two terms in office, before being succeeded by George W Bush, the son of Clinton's predecessor, returning the Republican party to government.

Answer: Eritrea

Political changes continued in 1993 with Eritrea voting decisively in a referendum overseen by the United Nations to become an independent country. The Eritrean War of Independence leading up to this spanned some thirty years following Haile Selassie's decision to bring the UN-created federation of Eritrea and Ethiopia to an end and arrogate Eritrea as part of Ethiopia.

This caused significant unrest amongst the population and the eventual referendum resulted in a monumental majority voting for independence (less than 0.2% of the voting populace opted to remain part of Ethiopia). Around a month after the vote, Eritrea had officially become independent.

Answer: Fermat's Last Theorem

Put very simply, Fermat's Last Theorem, posited by the French mathematician Pierre de Fermat, suggests that there are no solutions for the equation a^n + b^n = c^n when n is greater than 2. The theorem was put forward in 1637 and it was one of the great unproven mysteries of mathematics for over three hundred years. Eventually, in 1993, Andrew Wiles, who had spent years working on finding proof using his own work and the prior work of others in his field, announced his proof during a lecture about elliptical curves (amongst other things).

A couple of flaws were subsequently found in Wiles' research and, by mid-1995, he and his colleagues had successfully rectified these and the proof was finally accepted by the mathematical community.

Answer: Windows NT 3.1

NT 3.1 was an advancement from the original 3.1, offering a 32-bit operating environment. Although NT 3.1 was quickly superseded by NT 3.5 the following year, the framework behind the scenes would prove to be extremely beneficial for the future of Windows operating systems.

The NT series is primarily used for Microsoft's main Windows releases, though the NT part was dropped with the release of Windows 2000. The NT series eventually merged with the regular DOS-based line with the release of Windows XP in 2001.

Answer: Trading card game

Richard Garfield conceived the idea for what would eventually become "Magic: The Gathering" while he was at university. His other project at the time, a board game called "RoboRally", was initially rejected by publisher Wizards of the Coast for being too costly to make.

A suggestion was made for a smaller game with better portability. This led Garfield to create "Magic: The Gathering", the first trading card game. Players use their decks (with different types of spell and creature cards) to defeat their opponent by making them drop to zero life.

Answer: Beijing, China

Numerous cities put themselves forward to host the 2000 Olympics, though it was reduced to 5 candidates before official IOC voting began. Across the first three rounds of voting, Istanbul, Berlin and Manchester were outvoted by Beijing and Sydney. Up until the final vote, Beijing had the lead over Sydney, but a mere two votes separated them in the final result which awarded the games to Sydney on 23 September 1993 (though Beijing was later awarded the 2008 games during the voting in 2001).

Answer: European Union

While the 1958 Treaty of Rome created the European Economic Community, the Maastricht Treaty renamed it to the EU and established it as a political union. The treaty led to the eventual introduction of the euro in 1999 (with physical notes and coins circulating from 2002) as well as what were referred to as the three pillars of the European Union, covering economic, foreign and judicial policies.

Answer: "Doom"

Originally a DOS and Mac release, "Doom" sees players exploring bases on Mars and its moons (and eventually Hell itself), defeating all manner of demons and infernal creatures. Played from a first-person perspective, its rather graphic violence caused quite the stir.

Many territories gave the game a mature rating and some blamed it for a rise in youth violence and school shootings. Despite this, it is regarded as one of the most influential video games. It took around a year for development studio id Software to produce "Doom", starting with initial concepts towards the end of 1992 and following the release of their previous game "Wolfenstein 3D".

Answer: Steven Spielberg

Based on Thomas Keneally's novel "Schindler's Ark", "Schindler's List" centres on a German factory owner called Oskar Schindler and his efforts to save a great many Jews from being killed in the Holocaust. Liam Neeson played the title role, with a cast that also included Ralph Fiennes and Ben Kingsley. The film was recognised with seven Academy Awards the following year.