General Awareness ยท History

Historical Dates and Firsts

2,518 Questions

Historical dates and firsts questions test your memory of significant global milestones in sports, science, technology, and literature. These factual questions appear regularly in SSC, banking, and state PSC general awareness papers. Use these questions to quickly memorize important historical events and their exact years.

Inventions and launchesSports world firstsHistorical prize awardsTechnology milestones

Historical Dates and Firsts Questions

Multiple choice technology programming languages
  1. 1959

  2. 1993

  3. 1972

  4. 1970

Reveal answer Fill a bubble to check yourself
B Correct answer
Explanation

Lua was developed at the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil, first released in 1993. It was designed as a lightweight scripting language for embedding in applications. Options 1959, 1972, and 1970 are incorrect as they predate Lua's creation.

Multiple choice technology web technology
  1. December 1998

  2. December 2001

  3. November 1998

  4. November 2001

Reveal answer Fill a bubble to check yourself
D Correct answer
Explanation

The W3C published the first public Working Draft of the SOAP specification in November 2001. This marked an important step in the standardization of the protocol. The earlier date options (1998) are incorrect as SOAP was developed by Microsoft and other companies in 1998-1999, but the W3C standardization process began later.

Multiple choice technology web 2.0
  1. 1995

  2. 1999

  3. 2001

  4. 2005

Reveal answer Fill a bubble to check yourself
C Correct answer
Explanation

Wikipedia was officially launched on January 15, 2001, by Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger. The other options are incorrect; 1995 was the launch year of the first wiki (WikiWikiWeb), while 1999 and 2005 do not correspond to the project's inception.

Multiple choice technology operating systems
  1. Feb 1942

  2. May 1941

  3. Feb 1941

  4. May 1942

Reveal answer Fill a bubble to check yourself
B Correct answer
Explanation

The Zuse Z3, built by Konrad Zuse, became operational in May 1941. It was the first operational digital computer, though it was electromechanical (using relays) rather than electronic. The Z3 was completed and performed its first calculations in May 1941, making this the correct answer over the February dates and 1942 options.

Multiple choice technology
  1. dateadd(year,1,getdate())

  2. datediff(year,1,getdate())

  3. dateadd(year,-1,getdate())

  4. datediff(year,-1,getdate())

Reveal answer Fill a bubble to check yourself
C Correct answer
Explanation

The DATEADD function in SQL Server adds a specified interval to a date. To get the previous year's date, we need to subtract 1 year using DATEADD(year, -1, GETDATE()). Option A adds 1 year (future), while Option C correctly subtracts 1 year to get the previous year's date. DATEDIFF calculates the difference between dates, it doesn't add or subtract intervals.

Multiple choice technology web technology
  1. 1978

  2. 1998

  3. Perl hasn't yet been released

  4. 1988

  5. 1980

Reveal answer Fill a bubble to check yourself
D Correct answer
Explanation

Perl was created by Larry Wall and first released to the public in 1987. The option listing 1988 is closest to this date. Perl 1.0 was released in 1987, making 1988 the most accurate choice among the given options.

Multiple choice technology web 2.0
  1. 2004

  2. 1994

  3. 2008

  4. 1990

Reveal answer Fill a bubble to check yourself
A Correct answer
Explanation

The term Web 2.0 achieved mainstream popularity in 2004 due to the O'Reilly Media conference. Years like 1990 and 1994 represent the early days of Web 1.0, while 2008 represents a period after the term had already become thoroughly popularized and standard.

Multiple choice technology web 2.0
  1. 2004

  2. 1994

  3. 2008

  4. 1990

Reveal answer Fill a bubble to check yourself
A Correct answer
Explanation

The term Web 2.0 became widely popular following the first Web 2.0 conference hosted by O'Reilly Media in October 2004. The years 1990 and 1994 precede the Web 2.0 era entirely (Web 1.0 era), and by 2008 the term was already fully established.