remember when...

The following events all occurred in a year in living memory. Can you guess the year?

1. Dusty Springfield died

2. Talvin Singh won the Mercury Music Prize

3. The Euro was born

4. Lindsay Davenport won the women’s title at Wimbledon

impossipuzzles

“You’d better write it down,” said Ted. “You’ll never remember such a very ordinary 4-digit number.”

But Harry had been scribbling on the back of an envelope. “There is something special about it,” he declared. “It’s two less than three times what you get if you subtract the square of the last two digits from the square of the first two.”

What was the number?