Weekly Quiz #17

A free weekly 20-question general knowledge quiz

Welcome to the 17th weekly quiz!

As always, we’re aiming for interesting questions that could come up in future quizzes across a range of difficulties and topic areas: new stuff, traditional quiz areas, “I should know this but I don’t” questions. Enjoy.

Questions

In the news

1. Announced this month, Kiss All the Time. Disco, Occasionally is the fourth studio album by which English singer-songwriter, his first since 2022’s Harry’s House?

2. Which Oscar category will be introduced for the first time at this year’s Academy Awards? Nominees, which were announced this week, include Nina Gold for Hamnet, Jennifer Venditti for Marty Supreme, and Francine Maisler for Sinners.

3. Last week, which Swiss three-time Grand Slam winner became the first man aged 40 or older to reach the third round of the Australian Open since Ken Rosewall in 1978?

4. This week saw the publication of Half His Age, the debut novel by which woman, known for her role as Sam Puckett in iCarly (2007-2012) and her best-selling 2022 memoir I’m Glad My Mom Died?

5. The only man to win four Olympic gold medals in basketball, which Houston Rockets forward overtook Wilt Chamberlain and Dirk Nowitzki this month to move to sixth in the all-time NBA points scoring list?

6. After nine years, which 86-year-old announced last week that she would be stepping down from her role as a judge on The Great British Bake Off?

7. Beginning in February, the 2026 Men’s T20 Cricket World Cup will be jointly hosted by which two countries, both of whom have won the tournament before?

Mixed bag

8. Also the given name of both a French impressionist painter and a prominent French composer, what name is given to the range of large language models developed by Anthropic?

9. The former capital of the historical region of Moravia, Brno is the second-largest city in which European country?

10. With around 60 million speakers, Amharic is the most widely spoken language and one of five official languages in which African country?

11. The ilium and the ischium are bones in which part of the human body?

12. What first and last name are shared by a member of the R&B girl group Destiny’s Child and an actress known for films including Blue Valentine (2010), My Week with Marilyn (2011), and The Fabelmans (2022)?

13. Taking place over a week in 532 AD, the Nika riots are often considered the most violent riots in the history of which city?

14. Which New Zealand-born scientist (1871-1937) won the 1908 Nobel Prize in Chemistry and is known for leading a series of gold foil experiments that led to the discovery that every atom has a nucleus?

15. “Because I could not stop for Death –
    He kindly stopped for me –”
    These are the opening lines of a poem by which American, published after her death in 1886?

Pictures

16. Known formally as the Plaza de la Constitución, the Zócalo is the main square in which capital city?

    

17. Seeing recent popularity as an internet meme accompanying controversial or unpopular opinions, the 1943 painting Freedom of Speech is one of a series of four oil paintings known as the Four Freedoms by which American artist (1894-1978)?

    

18. Sharing their name with a group of peaks in England’s Lake District, what is the shared surname of Lucy, Martha, Rufus, and their father Loudon, seen below performing on Jimmy Kimmel Live?

    

19. This is the logo of which video editor app developed by ByteDance, primarily used for creating and editing short-form videos for social media platforms?

    

20. Thought to be the ancestor of all modern domestic sheep breeds, what is the name of this wild sheep native to Cyprus and parts of the Caspian region?

    

And that’s this week’s quiz! I hope you enjoyed it.

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Answers

1. Harry Styles. Alongside the album announcement, Harry Styles announced a seven-city world tour from May to December, called Together, Together, which will see him play 50 shows across London, New York, Amsterdam, São Paulo, Mexico City, Melbourne and Sydney.

2. Best Casting. Officially the Academy Award for Achievement in Casting, it is the first new Oscar category introduced since Best Animated Feature Film in 2001.

3. Stan Wawrinka. Wawrinka went down to ninth seed Taylor Fritz in four sets, and then shared a post-match beer on court with Tennis Australia CEO Craig Tiley. Wawrinka won the 2014 Australian Open, 2015 French Open, and 2016 US Open.

4. Jennette McCurdy. The novel follows a relationship between a teenager and her teacher. Her 2022 memoir I’m Glad My Mom Died recounted her childhood as a Nickelodeon TV star and her difficult relationship with her abusive and controlling mother. The book is also being adapted into an upcoming Apple TV+ series starring Jennifer Aniston as McCurdy’s mother.

5. Kevin Durant. Durant won two NBA Championships with Golden State (2017, 2018), winning Finals MVP both years, and is the only player to have won MVP in the NBA, Olympics, and Basketball World Cup.

6. Prue Leith. In her announcement on Instagram, Leith wrote, “now feels like the right time to step back (I’m 86 for goodness sake!), there’s so much I’d like to do, not least spend summers enjoying my garden.” Nigella Lawson is rumoured to be replacing Leith, who herself replaced Dame Mary Berry in 2017.

7. India and Sri Lanka. India were the first winners (in 2007) and are the reigning champions, having defeated South Africa in the 2024 edition of the biennial tournament. Sri Lanka won in 2014. Italy will be making their World Cup debut at the 2026 tournament, having qualified for the first time.

8. Claude. The impressionist painter referenced is Claude Monet, and the composer is Claude Debussy. Anthropic’s LLM Claude is a competitor to ChatGPT and Google Gemini.

9. Czech Republic (Czechia). Some notable people born in Brno include author Milan Kundera, tennis player Jana Novotná and mathematician Kurt Gödel.

10. Ethiopia. Amharic has been the official working language of Ethiopia and the language of the courts, trade, and everyday communications since the late 12th century. The other official languages are Oromo, Afar, Somali, and Tigrinya (the most widely spoken language in Eritrea).

11. The pelvis. The ilium, ischium and pubis bones form the pelvis, along with the sacrum and coccyx at the base of the spine.

12. Michelle Williams. Singer Michelle Williams was a member of the most prominent lineup of Destiny’s Child, alongside Beyoncé and Kelly Rowland. Actress Michelle Williams has been nominated three times for Best Actress and twice for Best Supporting Actress. Last year she starred in the comedy drama series Dying for Sex.

13. Constantinople (or Byzantium or Istanbul). According to historian Procopius, around 30,000 people were killed in the riots against emperor Justinian, which saw nearly half of Constantinople destroyed or burned, including the Hagia Sophia, which was later rebuilt.

14. Ernest Rutherford. Rutherford’s other achievements include the discovery of the radioactive element radon in 1899, with Robert B. Owens, and the discovery of the proton, which he named in 1920. Element 104 on the Periodic Table is named rutherfordium in his honour.

15. Emily Dickinson. Almost all of Dickinson’s nearly 1,800 poems were published posthumously. Because I could not stop for Death uses ballad metre, or common metre, which means that it can be sung perfectly to the tune of the Pokémon Theme or Australia’s national anthem, Advance Australia Fair. Enjoy the first 30 seconds of this example.

16. Mexico City. The location of the Zócalo was also the main ceremonial square in the centre of the Aztec city Tenochtitlan, a block south of the Templo Mayor, which according to Aztec mythology was considered the centre of the universe. In 1968, it was the starting point of the marathon at the Summer Olympics.

17. Norman Rockwell. The Four Freedoms paintings were inspired by US President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s 1941 State of the Union address, also known as Four Freedoms. The paintings appeared in issues of The Saturday Evening Post, as did many of Rockwell’s illustrations of everyday life.

18. Wainwright (the Wainwrights). Father Loudon Wainwright III is known for his witty, self-mocking style, such as his 1972 novelty song Dead Skunk. He also appeared as Captain Calvin Spalding, the singing surgeon, in three episodes of M*A*S*H. Singer-songwriters Martha and Rufus are children of Loudon and mother Kate McGarrigle, herself part of the folk due Kate & Anna McGarrigle. Half-sister Lucy is daughter of Loudon and Suzzy Roche, of the vocal group the Roches. And the Wainwrights are 214 English peaks (fells) in the Lake District described in Alfred Wainwright’s seven-volume Pictorial Guide to the Lakeland Fells (1955-66).

19. CapCut. By the end of 2024, global downloads of the very popular video editing app had reached 1.4 billion, with 800 million active users.

20. Mouflon. The mouflon (Ovis gmelini) was the logo of Cyprus Airways until it ceased operations in 2015, and it is also depicted on the 1-cent, 2-cent, and 5-cent Cypriot euro coins.