Test your knowledge of the people, events, milestones and disappointments of 2011. No cheating!
1. Where did Mohamed Bouazizi ignite a national revolution that overthrew a president in January?
2. Name one of the two Cabinet ministers President Jacob Zuma fired this year.
3. Who was playing when the FNB Stadium notched up a record attendance this year?
4. The informal settlement Duduza was rocked by what in October?
5. Doctor Conrad Murray was convicted of administering a lethal dose of Propofol to which of his patients?
6. Who won the 2011 Oscar for best actress? Score a bonus point by naming the movie.
7. Which movie won the 2011 Oscar for best film?
8. Swede Tomas Tranströmer won what this year?
9. Lindiwe Mazibuko defeated who to become the Democratic Alliance’s new parliamentary caucus chairperson?
10. Who was re-elected chairman of the ANC in Limpopo in December?
11. Thabo Mbeki is the “best leader” the ANC has ever produced, according to whom?
12. With which ousted leader are “bunga-bunga” parties associated? For a bonus point: What do such parties feature?
13. What does the COP in COP17 stand for?
14. Which “green” author died violently this year?
15. What mainly streetless part of the world does Google’s Street View now map?
16. Name the fruity new mobile operating system that Microsoft launched in July.
17. What is Lulz Security, also known as LulzSec?
18. Which hacker collective’s targets included the Syrian defence ministry, Mexico’s Los Zetas drug cartel and Irish political party Fine Gael?
19. Name the South African photographer who was killed in Libya’s civil war this year.
20. Which former SABC chief executive was in Julius Malema’s legal team during his ANC disciplinary hearing?
21. The 2010 matric pass rate, announced in January 2011, was controversial because it was unexpectedly so (a) high or (b) low?
22. Who said there was “an over-concentration of coloureds” in the Western Cape?
23. Name one of the three South African rugby players who retired from the international stage.
24. Who was shot dead in Abbottabad, Pakistan, in May?
25. The revelation that murdered 13-year-old Milly Dowler’s cellphone was one of many hacked by journalists contributed to the closure of which newspaper?
26. Briton Jonathan May-Bowles received a six-week-long jail sentence for throwing a shaving-foam pie at whom?
27. What are darmstadtium, roentgenium and copernicium?
28. Who became the first Asian singles player to take a tennis Grand Slam title when she won the French Open?
29. Which landmark did Amazon reach in May? (Clue: Kindle)
30. Name the community activist killed in Ficksburg by riot police in April.
31. Which new nation became Africa’s 54th country?
32. Which South African Cabinet minister was kicked off a flight because she refused to put her handbag through a security scanner at a Norwegian airport?
33. Who did Mohamed Ismail say assaulted him outside a mosque in Overport, KwaZulu-Natal? (Clue: parole)
34. What did the BBC’s Panorama television programme find in Marange, Zimbabwe?
35. Who resigned after 12 years as chairperson of the Independent Electoral Commission?
36. South Africa banned the use of Bisphenol A (or BPA), associated with breast cancer, in the production of what?
37. 2011 is the year of what in the Chinese zodiac?
38. Former Talk Radio 702 newsreader Mark Esterhuysen’s on-air rant used “fuck” (a) five times (b) 10 times or (c) 13 times?
39. Ratanang is the name of both who and what?
40. Colloquially it’s called the secrecy Bill but what’s its formal name?
41. Black Wednesday commemorates what in South Africa annually? Get a bonus point for the date.
42. Why was November 22 this year dubbed “Black Tuesday” in South Africa?
43. Name one of the two ANC MPs who abstained from voting on the secrecy Bill.
44. Which eminent photographer protested against the secrecy Bill by declining to accept his national order award?
45. What is R2K?
46. Of which parliamentary party was the late Mavis Matladi president?
47. Name one of the three South African universities now under administration.
48. Michael Sata became president of which African country in September?
49. Which designer chose Johannesburg’s Nelson Mandela Bridge as the runway for Joburg Fashion Week?
50. South Africans held their breath after who was admitted to Milpark Hospital in Johannesburg in January?
51. A sex scandal involving a 27-year-old Johannesburg model implicated which South African Cabinet minister in October?
52. Kim Kardashian’s marriage lasted for (a) 24 days (b) 48 days (c) 72 days?
53. What is the Japanese name for Kenny Kunene’s favourite party dish?
54. Ylva-Maria Thompson opened a school in Vienna for the “hands-on teaching” of what?
55. Model Tracy McGregor featured on the cover of the first South African edition of which magazine?
56. Who is South Africa’s new chief justice?
57. Which prominent South African legal figure is a pastor in the Winners Chapel International church, which preaches that homosexuality is a perversion that can be cured?
58. Name the now-former vice-chancellor whose PhD came under scrutiny. For a bonus point, name the university where he worked.
59. The Sense of an Ending won which British author the 2011 Booker Prize?
60. Which company briefly toppled oil giant Exxon this year as the world’s most valuable firm?
61. Which country had the fastest internet speed in 2011? A bonus point for the speed to the nearest 500 kilobytes per second.
62. Which senior ANC MP was given the maximum possible penalty for not disclosing to Parliament the “generally corrupt” benefits she received?
63. What JK Rowling project was launched this year that will open to the public in 2012?
64. Which star of the Harry Potter movies confessed that he became “reliant on alcohol” during the filming of the sixth movie in the series?
65. What happened to US Congress member Gabrielle Giffords in the parking lot of an Arizona supermarket?
66. What name did Facebook assign to author Salman Rushdie before backing down and restoring his online identity?
67. Whose “silly” demand made US President Barack Obama produce his birth certificate?
68. Which royal wedding took place in July?
69. Whose bottom, featured globally on TV in April, earned her the offer of a role in a porn movie?
70. A blonde and a “dwarf-throwing contest” got which royally connected sportsman into hot water?
71. For what did “blade-runner” Oscar Pistorius qualify this year?
72. An earthquake registering a magnitude of 9.0 hit where in March?
73. Name the South African woman who was executed in China in December for drug smuggling.
74. Harvard-trained legal scholar Lobsang Sangay politically succeeded whom this year?
75. President Jacob Zuma announced that Judge Willie Seriti would chair what?
76. Who was New Zealand’s referee of the year? (Clue: South African rugby fans loathe him)
77. The phrase “entitlement horse” went viral after which prominent politician used it on Twitter?
78. Who laid criminal charges against the Mail & Guardian and two of its investigative journalists?
79. South Africa banned which painkiller in November following fears that it increases the risk of heart attacks?
80. What are ANAs? (Clue: literacy and numeracy)
81. John Young and Christopher Ferguson mark the beginning and end of what? (Hint: space)
82. Which Absa Premier Soccer League coach was fired after winning a treble? A bonus point for his team.
83. Which Orlando Pirates striker last played for West Ham?
84. How did Muammar Gaddafi help Bafana Bafana qualify for the 2013 Africa Cup of Nations?
85. A health green paper released this year described what envisaged scheme?
86. The national government put departments in how many provinces under its administration this year? Bonus: name the province(s).
87. Which oil-for-food report was released at last?
88. “Bean-counters versus books”, said those outraged by the announced closure of the Boekehuis. Who are the “bean-counters”?
89. Which cellphone manufacturer now makes more than half the industry’s worldwide profits?
90. To the nearest 5%, what is this company’s market share by volume?
91. The global software company Adobe abandoned its foray into which market this year?
92. Which late IT luminary had predicted Adobe would do so?
93. Whose incautious media comments in December about Thabo Mbeki cost him the job that President Jacob Zuma had given him two weeks earlier? Bonus: What is the job?
94. R1-trillion will be the estimated worth of a proposed tender to build six new what in South Africa?
95. Who did music magazine Rolling Stone feature on the cover of its first South African edition?
96. Masana Technologies is the company involved in Johannesburg residents’ migraine about what?
97. Who headed the planning team that produced a 400-page “2030 vision” for South Africa?
98. Politics in My Blood is the title of whose posthumously published memoir?
99. Whose presidential ambitions ended in a Manhattan hotel room?
100. What do Nafissatou Diallo and Tristane Banon have in common?
101. Dave van Vuuren won which much-worshipped prize?