General Awareness · 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
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The first highly successful commercial robotic vacuum, the Roomba by iRobot, was released in 2002. Although Electrolux demonstrated a prototype of the Trilobite in 1996, 2002 is widely recognized for the mass-market introduction of these devices.
C
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Steve Jobs announced the first-generation iPad on January 27, 2010, and it was released for sale in the United States on April 3, 2010.
C
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Galileo Galilei is often credited with inventing the thermoscope around 1593 to 1600, which allowed temperature variations to be measured. This laid the foundation for the sealed liquid-in-glass thermometers developed later in the 17th century.
A
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William Gilbert published his landmark treatise "De Magnete" in the year 1600, which proposed that the Earth itself behaves as a giant magnet. This publication is widely considered the beginning of the modern scientific study of magnetism.
A
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Steve Jobs introduced the first iPhone on January 9, 2007, and it went on sale later that year in June, revolutionizing the smartphone industry.
C
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John Daugman patented the first algorithms for iris recognition in 1994, which became the basis of all commercial iris recognition systems.
A
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Laszlo Biro, a Hungarian newspaper editor, patented the first commercially successful ballpoint pen in 1938, which falls in the 1930s. Although earlier patents existed, the modern functional design is credited to this decade.
B
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The first patent for an electric bicycle was granted to Ogden Bolton Jr. on December 31, 1895. His design featured a direct-current hub motor mounted in the rear wheel with no gears. Other patents, such as Hosea W. Libbey's double electric motor bicycle, followed shortly after in 1897.
B
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William Pynchon of Springfield, Massachusetts, became the first commercial meat packer in North America when he began packing and exporting salt pork in 1641. This marked the beginning of the commercial meat packing industry in the American colonies.
A
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The English Education Act was passed in 1835, implementing the proposals of Thomas Babington Macaulay. This act redirected educational funding in India toward Western-style curriculum taught in English, sidelining traditional Sanskrit and Arabic learning.
B
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Basketball was invented in December 1891 by Canadian physical education instructor James Naismith in Springfield, Massachusetts. He created it as an indoor game to keep his students active during the cold winter months.
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20th century
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19th century
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18th century
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21st century
A
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Breaking down MCMXLIV, we have M (1000), CM (900, which is 100 subtracted from 1000), XL (40, which is 10 subtracted from 50), and IV (4, which is 1 subtracted from 5). Adding these values gives 1000 + 900 + 40 + 4 = 1944.
A
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The Roman numeral MCMXCIX is composed of M (1000), CM (900), XC (90), and IX (9). Summing these values gives 1999.