In 2020, "Blinding Lights" topped the charts, Bad Boys for Life packed theaters, a stamp cost 55¢, the average home went for about $297,000.
🎵 Top songs of 2020
"Blinding Lights" — The Weeknd
"Circles" — Post Malone
"The Box" — Roddy Ricch
🎬 In theaters
Bad Boys for Life
Sonic the Hedgehog
Tenet
What things cost in 2020
$2.17
Gallon of gas
55¢
Postage stamp
$9.37
Movie ticket
$3.32
Gallon of milk
$297,000
Average home
$39,600
New car
$67,500
Household income
Pandemic-era 2020 gas at $2.17 equals only about $2.70 in today's dollars — some of the cheapest real gas prices in decades — while the $9.37 ticket converts to roughly $11.60.
The biggest moments of 2020
The COVID-19 pandemic reshaped daily life worldwide.
SpaceX flew NASA astronauts to the ISS — the first crewed launch from U.S. soil since 2011.
The Tokyo Olympics were postponed to 2021.
John Krasinski's homemade "Some Good News" web show became must-watch comfort viewing.
100-year-old Captain Tom Moore walked laps of his garden and raised over £30 million for health workers.
Cities everywhere leaned out windows at 7 p.m. to cheer for hospital staff.
Toys, TV & trends of 2020
Families built dream islands in Animal Crossing: New Horizons while staying home.
Among Us made "sus" everyone's favorite word during game nights over video chat.
Kids went to school over Zoom and helped whip up frothy dalgona coffee at home.
Sourdough starters and banana bread took over every kitchen (and Instagram feed).
The Michael Jordan documentary The Last Dance gave sports-starved families five weeks of appointment TV.
"Murder hornets" buzzed into the headlines — and every group chat.
The music scene
With concerts canceled, TikTok became pop's hit-making machine — viral dances turned songs like Doja Cat's "Say So" into chart-toppers. BTS released "Dynamite," their first all-English single, and scored the first Hot 100 No. 1 ever by a K-pop act. And in a comforting throwback, vinyl records outsold CDs for the first time since the 1980s.
At the movies
In February, Parasite made history as the first non-English-language film ever to win Best Picture. Weeks later theaters went dark: Trolls World Tour skipped cinemas entirely for home rental, Mulan and Soul went straight to Disney+, and Hollywood's century-old release playbook was rewritten in a single year.
Cartoons kids loved
Bluey
The Loud House
SpongeBob SquarePants
Stuck at home, whole families turned cartoons into comfort food, and streaming services reported huge jumps in kids' viewing. Bluey's early seasons hit Disney+ in the U.S. at the perfect moment, and animators kept working from home while live-action film sets sat frozen.
The world in 2020
World population: about 7.8 billion
U.S. President: Donald Trump
Joe Biden won the U.S. presidential election in November
Brexit officially took effect as the U.K. left the European Union on January 31.
Australia battled catastrophic bushfires as the year began, and volunteers worldwide sewed pouches for rescued koalas.
A massive explosion devastated the port of Beirut, Lebanon in August.
2020 birthday questions
How old is someone born in 2020?
Someone born in 2020 turns 6 in 2026 (5 if their birthday has not come round yet).
What was the number one song in 2020?
"Blinding Lights" by The Weeknd was among the biggest hits of 2020.
What movie came out in 2020?
Bad Boys for Life was one of the films packing theaters in 2020.
How much did gas cost in 2020?
A gallon of gas ran about $2.17 in 2020, and a postage stamp cost 55¢.
How much did a house cost in 2020?
The average home went for roughly $297,000 in 2020, against a typical household income of about $67,500.