The Dating Game: Which Came First?

Question: Which came first?

Answer: A busy debut year for Disney’s famous rodent, Mickey Mouse appeared in three shorts in 1928: Plane Crazy, Gallopin’ Gaucho, and Steamboat Willie. Bugs Bunny has been asking “What’s up, Doc?” since his first appearance in 1940’s A Wild Hare.

Question: Which came first?

Answer: Thomas Edison patented the light bulb in 1879, improving on electrical-light innovations dating back even further. The Wright brothers flew the first plane in 1903.

Question: Which came first?

Answer: Gamers have been digging Minecraft since its official release in 2011 (with playable alpha and beta builds dating back to 2010), while Fortnite’s battle bus has been flying since 2017.

Question: Which came first?

Answer: Vincent van Gogh was born in 1853, and his artistic career started in 1880 and lasted only about 10 years. Pablo Picasso was born in 1881 and lived until 1973.

Question: Which came first?

Answer: The toy and game company Parker Brothers began marketing the modern version of Monopoly in 1935. Older versions of the game, like Lizzie G. Magie’s Landlord’s Game, date back to 1904. Clue was first published in England (under the name Cluedo, as it is still called there) in 1949.

Question: Which came first?

Answer: The first World Series was played in 1903, more than half a century prior to the first Super Bowl (then called the AFL-NFL Championship Game) played in 1967.

Question: Which came first?

Answer: The Man of Tomorrow first flew (or rather leapt—in early appearances Superman could not fly, just jump really far) off comic book shelves in 1938. Spider-Man would not get into the swing of things until 1962.

Question: Which came first?

Answer: “Without a doubt,” the Magic 8 Ball was released as a paperweight in 1946. Hungarian designer Erno Rubik put his first cube together in 1974, and it made it to store shelves around the world in 1980.

Question: Which came first?

Answer: The Titanic sank in 1912, while the 804-foot-long airship Hindenburg caught fire and was destroyed in 1937.

Question: Which came first?

Answer: The Academy Awards ceremony, commonly called the Oscars, was first held in 1929. The first Emmy Award was given in 1949.

Question: Which came first?

Answer: The Great Pyramid of Giza was completed about 2560 BCE. The Colosseum was built about two and a half millennia later, about 70 CE.

Question: Which came first?

Answer: Star Trek first appeared as a television series on CBS in 1966. The first Star Wars film hit the big screen in 1977.

Question: Which came first?

Answer: Johann Sebastian Bach lived from 1685 to 1750, meaning he had been dead for 20 years when Ludwig van Beethoven was born in 1770.

Question: Which came first?

Answer: Carved from a block of wood and featuring just one button, the first prototype mouse (then called by the less catchy name “X-Y Position Indicator for a Display System”) was created in 1964. The first email was sent in 1971.

Question: Which came first?

Answer: Humans domesticated dogs about 15,000 years ago, much earlier than horses, which were tamed about 6,000 years ago.

Question: Which came first?

Answer: Its path to statehood hastened by the Gold Rush, California was admitted to the United States in 1850. Arizona was the last of the lower 48 states, joining the union in 1912.

Question: Which came first?

Answer: Young audiences have been making their way to Sesame Street since 1969. NBC’s Saturday Night debuted in 1975 (the name Saturday Night Live was adopted after Howard Cosell’s ABC variety show of the same name ended).

Question: Which came first?

Answer: The Suez Canal was completed in 1869, while the Panama Canal opened about 45 years later, in 1914.

Question: Which came first?

Answer: Pac-Man began gobbling up arcade-goers’ quarters in 1980. In 1981 the Donkey Kong arcade cabinet introduced gamers to an overall-wearing, mustachioed hero then called Jumpman, later renamed Mario.

Question: Which came first?

Answer: Alexander the Great was born in 356 BCE. Julius Caesar was born around 100 BCE.

Question: Which came first?

Answer: The first mass-produced hybrid vehicle, Toyota’s Prius, was released worldwide in 2000. Apple’s iPhone debuted in 2007.

Question: Which came first?

Answer: Jackie Robinson joined the Los Angeles Dodgers in 1947, breaking Major League Baseball’s color barrier. The following year, President Harry Truman issued an executive order banning segregation in the U.S. armed forces.