Weekly Quiz #5
A free weekly 20-question general knowledge quiz!
Welcome to the fifth weekly quiz!
Here’s a quick recap after four weeks here at Quiz Notes:
Quizzes: 9
Posts: 16
Words: 16,086
Subscribers: 83
As I said in my Welcome Post, this is an experiment, but it’s off to a great start, as far as I’m concerned! Thanks for your support so far.
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
Dubbed Jamaica’s “storm of the century”, what is the name of the hurricane that this week became the strongest-ever on record to hit the island?
Ongoing demand for its chips saw which American company become the world’s first $5 trillion company last week?
Introduced in May 2025, Evie is the new baby sister of which children’s TV character?
Which country, the newest in the region, became the 11th member state of ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) this week, after a 14-year wait?
All the Way to the River is a 2025 memoir by which author, better known for her memoir Eat, Pray, Love 19 years earlier?
After winning the Mexico City Grand Prix last week, Lando Norris overtook teammate Oscar Piastri for the lead in the 2025 World Drivers’ Championship. Norris and Piastri drive for which team?
Directed by Kathryn Bigelow, which film that debuted on Netflix last month follows the US government as they navigate responding to a nuclear missile launched by an unknown enemy?
Mixed Bag
In what year did the following all occur?
A) Fall of the Berlin Wall
B) Disney’s The Little Mermaid premieres in theatres
C) Taylor Swift is born.Which Belgian fashion designer is best known for her knitted jersey wrap dress, introduced around 1973?
The 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan and Cortina d’Ampezzo will be the first Games under the IOC Presidency of which Zimbabwean, a former Olympic gold medallist herself?
After serving as vice president for only 42 days, who became US president in April 1865 after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln?
EY is one of the Big Four global accounting and professional services networks, alongside Deloitte, KPMG and PwC. The letters EY stand for what two names?
Mined throughout ancient history since at least the Bronze Age, cassiterite remains the main commercial source of which element?
Read in its entirety in the 1994 romantic comedy Four Weddings and a Funeral, the 1936 poem Funeral Blues, also known as Stop all the clocks, is a work by which British poet?
Echoes of Wisdom, Tears of the Kingdom, and Breath of the Wild are titles in which video game series, set in the land of Hyrule?
Pictures
Known for his role as River Cartwright in the Apple TV series Slow Horses, who is this Scottish actor (b. 1990)? He will star as Mr Darcy opposite Emma Corrin in Dolly Alderton’s upcoming Netflix adaptation of Pride and Prejudice.
Black and Violet is a 1923 painting by which Russian artist, during his time teaching at the Bauhaus school in Germany?
Built from red and pink sandstone, the Hawa Mahal is a palace in which Indian city in the state of Rajasthan?
What term, from the Middle French for “to cut out”, is the art of decorating an object by gluing on coloured paper cutouts and other decorative elements, and then typically finishing with a layer of varnish?
This is the logo of which exclusive app, which was originally marketed as a celebrity dating app? It is now described as a “private, membership based community for people all over the world to connect and collaborate.”
And that’s this week’s quiz! I hope you enjoyed it.
Answers
Hurricane Melissa. The hurricane recorded the highest ever wind gust measured by dropsonde1 at 406 km/h (252 mph). The death toll across the Caribbean has reached at least 49.
Nvidia. The valuation would see the company worth more than the GDP of India, Japan, and the UK, according to the IMF. AI bubble schmubble.
Peppa Pig (also George Pig). Evie was apparently born on May 20, and the family even gave a “live” interview(!) on Good Morning Britain. Despite living in Peppatown, baby Evie was apparently officially born at the private Lindo Wing of London’s St Mary’s Hospital, the same maternity ward where Princess Kate had her children.
Timor-Leste (East Timor). The country is now ASEAN’s smallest, youngest, and poorest member, and the first new member since the 1990s.
Elizabeth Gilbert. The book has been described as “raw and deeply personal”, as it chronicles her relationship with Rayya Elias and Elias’s death from cancer, via a moment where Gilbert unsuccessfully attempts to murder her(!). The book also chronicles her struggles with co-dependency and sex addiction. Raw and deeply personal indeed.
McLaren. It is the first time that McLaren has won the Mexican Grand Prix since they went back to back in 1988 and 1989, with Alain Prost and Ayrton Senna.
A House of Dynamite. The film, starring Idris Elba and Rebecca Ferguson, has prompted some pushback from the Pentagon on the accuracy of its portrayal of US defence systems, and elsewhere has prompted discussions on game theory-optimal responses.
1989. The year also saw protests at Tiananmen Square, the Exxon Valdez oil spill, and the premiere of the first full episode of The Simpsons.
Diane von Fürstenberg. Born Diane Halfin in 1946, she married German Prince Egon von Fürstenberg in 1969, separating in 1972 and divorcing in 1983. Soon after launch of the wrap dress in Women’s Wear Daily, 25,000 were being sold a week, and one million had been sold by 1976.
Kirsty Coventry. Coventry won three medals in Athens 2004, including gold in the 200m backstroke. She later served as the Minister of Youth, Sport, Arts and Recreation in Zimbabwe’s Cabinet, and earlier this year became the first woman to be elected as president of the International Olympic Committee.
Andrew Johnson. Johnson is one of three US presidents to be impeached (though none have been convicted), along with Bill Clinton and Donald Trump.
Ernst & Young. In 2013, the company officially changed their name from Ernst & Young to EY, a rebrand that I’m confident cost a lot of money.
Tin. Bronze is typically about 88% copper and 12% tin. Tin also has the most stable isotopes of any element, with 10. Analysis of the isotopes in the tin found in the 3,600-year-old Nebra sky disc, found in Germany, shows that the tin from the artefact came from Cornwall.
WH Auden. Auden also won the 1947 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for his long poem, The Age of Anxiety.
The Legend of Zelda. 2024’s The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom is the first game in the main series with Princess Zelda as the main playable character.
Jack Lowden. Lowden has been in a relationship with Saiorse Ronan since 2018, and they welcomed their first child this year. I haven’t seen much about it yet, but I’m hoping the new adaptation of Pride and Prejudice can approach the heights of the 1995 BBC series. Olivia Colman and Rufus Sewell will also appear as Mr and Mrs Bennet, and Fiona Shaw as Lady Catherine de Bourgh.
Wassily Kandinsky. One of the pioneers of abstract art, he embraced many styles throughout his career.
Jaipur. Jaipur, the capital of Rajasthan, is also known as the Pink City because of the colour of many prominent buildings in its old city.
Decoupage. The practice has roots in 12th century China, and even earlier in East Siberian tomb art.
Raya. Raya’s membership is very restrictive and is typically limited to high-profile individuals. Users must be invited or go through a lengthy application process.
A dropsonde is an expendable weather device designed to be dropped from an aircraft at altitude over water to measure and track storm conditions as it falls to the surface. A similar device, a driftsonde, is a high altitude weather balloon that contains a bank of dropsondes that can be dropped remotely or automatically.