Weekly Quiz #9

A free weekly 20-question general knowledge quiz!

Welcome to the ninth weekly quiz!

With eight weeks in the books here at Quiz Notes, a quick recap:
Quizzes: 20
Words: 30,000+
Subscribers: 110

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. I hope you’re enjoying it and getting some value from it. I’m certainly enjoying writing it.

Please feel free to comment with your score, any questions you were pleased to pull or annoyed to miss, information you found interesting… or anything really! And please also feel free to share this quiz with anyone else who you think might enjoy it.

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. Which rapper recently took legal action against Australian beach brand Swim Shady, alleging trademark infringement?

2. In the upcoming TV miniseries Amadeus, adapted from Peter Shaffer’s 1979 play, Will Sharpe stars as Mozart and Paul Bettany stars as which rival composer?

3. Which country will adopt the euro as its currency from January 1, 2026, replacing the lev?

4. Which 25-year-old Canadian swimmer, a seven-time Olympic medallist, was last week suspended for two years for an anti-doping violation after failing to provide her whereabouts for drug testing?

5. A decade after his sister won, which Australian won the 34th US series of Dancing with the Stars last week?

6. Which former Brazilian president was sentenced to 27 years in prison in September for his role in a planned coup following the 2022 election?

7. 19-year-old Javokhir Sindarov, who won the 2025 Chess World Cup last week, hails from which country? His compatriot Nodirbek Abdusattorov won the 2021 World Rapid Chess Championship, aged 17.

Mixed bag

8. What six-letter word can refer to a type of overskirt or short section attached to the waistline of a blouse, jacket, or dress; and also describe the genre of Italian-made sword-and-sandal historical epic films of the 1950s and 1960s?

9. The British overseas territories of Akrotiri and Dhekelia consist of two separate areas on which island country?

10. Fenty Beauty is a cosmetics brand created by which singer and actress?

11. The Fraud (2023), The Autograph Man (2002), and On Beauty (2005) are novels by which English writer? She is best-known for her debut novel which focuses on the later lives and families of two wartime friends, Archie Jones and Samad Iqbal.

12. Which former UN Secretary-General is the only person to have been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize posthumously, doing so in 1961?

13. In the Hebrew Bible, which prophetess is the older sister of Moses and Aaron?

14. My Life on the Plains is an 1874 book by which US general, who died aged 36 at the Battle of the Little Bighorn?

15. What surname is shared by Jacques, the 1997 Formula One World Champion, and Denis, the director of Arrival (2016) and Dune (2021), both of whom are Canadian?

Pictures

16. This scene showing Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint on Mount Rushmore is from which 1959 film directed by Alfred Hitchcock?

    

17. Dubbed the “most famous picture of a lunch break in New York history,” the iconic 1932 photograph Lunch atop a Skyscraper was taken during the construction of which Manhattan building?

    

18. This character from The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring and this character from Street Fighter II share what six-letter name?

    

19. The House of the Five Senses, seen below, is the entrance to which fantasy-themed theme park, the largest in the Netherlands and one of the oldest in the world?

    

20. Who is this footballer, the only African player to win the Ballon d’Or and FIFA Player of the Year, both of which he won in 1995? He later served as president of his country from 2018 to 2024.

    

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

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Answers

1. Eminem. Court documents show Eminem trademarked his alter ego name Slim Shady in the US in 1999, but did not file a trademark for the name in Australia until January this year.

2. Antonio Salieri. Played by F. Murray Abraham in the 1984 Best Picture-winning film, Salieri was rumoured to have poisoned Mozart, though this is almost unanimously rejected today.

3. Bulgaria. The milestone will see Bulgaria become the 21st member state to join the eurozone. The previous most recent country to adopt the euro was Croatia, in 2023.

4. Penny Oleksiak. Canada’s most decorated female Olympian accepted the ban after three whereabouts failures within a 12-month period, which she described as “an administrative mistake”. Oleksiak reiterated on social media, “I am and always have been a clean athlete.”

5. Robert Irwin. The earnest and extremely likeable son of Steve Irwin was an audience favourite, with YouTube views of his performances reaching the millions. He and partner Witney Carson scored an 89 out of 90 in the final. You love to see it.

6. Jair Bolsonaro. Bolsonaro was in the news again this week, taken into custody from house arrest after trying to open his ankle monitor with a soldering iron.

7. Uzbekistan. Sindarov’s performance qualified him for the 2026 Candidates Tournament, which will determine the next challenger for the World Chess Championship. Uzbekistan, who won the 2022 Chess Olympiad and finished third last year, will host next year’s edition of the biennial tournament.

8. Peplum. The word comes from the Ancient Greek peplos, which referred to a body-length tunic.

9. Cyprus. The two areas, which comprise about 3% of the total area of the country, were retained as British territory as part of the 1960 Treaty of Guarantee that led to Cyprus’s independence.

10. Rihanna. Rihanna was born Robyn Rihanna Fenty. She launched the brand “after years of partnering with the best of the best in the beauty industry—and still seeing a void for products that performed across all skintones + types and hair textures.”

11. Zadie Smith. Her debut novel White Teeth (2000) won many awards, including the Commonwealth Writers First Book Prize and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize. It was also adapted into a 2002 TV miniseries.

12. Dag Hammarskjöld. Hammarskjöld died in a plane crash along with 15 others en route to ceasefire negotiations regarding the Congo Crisis.

13. Miriam. Miriam appears in the Book of Exodus and is named in the Talmud as one of the seven major female prophets of Israel.

14. George Armstrong Custer. The battle is commonly referred to as Custer’s Last Stand.

15. Villeneuve. The French-origin surname is roughly equivalent to the English Newton. Jacques Villeneuve’s brother Gilles, also a racing driver, died in 1982 after a crash in qualifying for the Belgian Grand Prix.

16. North by Northwest. Eva Marie Saint is still alive at 101 years old, and is the oldest living and earliest surviving Academy Award winner. Her feature film debut was 1954’s On the Waterfront opposite Marlon Brando, which won her the Best Supporting Actress Academy Award, two days before she gave birth to her son.

17. 30 Rockefeller Plaza (often shortened to 30 Rock, originally named the RCA Building, and now officially the Comcast Building). The building is the centrepiece of the Rockefeller Center.

18. Balrog. Confusingly, in Japan, the Street Fighter II character Vega is known as Balrog, the character Balrog is known as Mike Bison, and the character M. Bison is known as Vega. The name changes were made to the English version because the boxer, a thinly veiled pastiche of Mike Tyson, might cause legal trouble for Capcom if he was named Mike Bison, so the name was repurposed for the final boss as M. Bison.

19. Efteling. Opened in 1952, three years before the original Disneyland in the US, it began as the 15-acre Fairytale Forest, which featured figures inspired by Hans Christian Andersen, the Brothers Grimm, and Charles Perrault.

20. George Weah. Considered one of the greatest strikers of all time, in 1996 he was also named African Player of the Century, and in 2018 became the 25th President of Libera.