Atlantic Trivia on ‘A’ Countries and Architecture
And did you know that Britain used to pay its poet laureates in wine?
Updated with new questions at 4:20 p.m. ET on February 13, 2026.
You won’t find this in Cortina d’Ampezzo over the next few weeks, but for several decades of the Olympics’ history, the contest awarded medals not just for sport but for art too.
In the Summer Games from 1912 to 1948, musicians, painters, and plenty of other aesthetes went brain-to-brain in events such as lyric poetry and chamber music. “Town planning” was even contested one year under the umbrella of the architecture competition.
Lest you think the arts’ inclusion odd—one wonders what muscles need stretching before going for gold in watercolor—the submissions had to be at least about sports.
The Olympic committee ought to bring these events back. Well, maybe not town planning—but add trivia to the mix instead. Organizers can throw in a few sports questions for good measure, but with trivia, if you’re not working up a sweat thinking, you’re not doing it right.
Find previous questions here, and to get Atlantic Trivia in your inbox every day, sign up for The Atlantic Daily.
Friday, February 13, 2026
- What 2006 indie film about a dysfunctional family traveling to a children’s beauty pageant was launched to global fame by its success at the Sundance Film Festival?
— From Shirley Li’s article on Sundance’s changing sensibilities - The Trump administration recently brokered a peace framework between what two “A” countries in the South Caucasus that have long fought over the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh territory?
— From Thomas Graham and Alan Cullison’s article about Vladimir Putin’s weakness in a newly multipolar world - The Catholic Church offered services exclusively in Latin until the reforms of the 1960s collectively known by what name?
— From Robert F. Worth’s profile on the conservative writer Rod Dreher
And by the way, did you know that at least until 2012, the Vatican was home to an ATM operating in Latin? Connected to the papal bank, the machine offered options like deductio ex pecunia—“cash withdrawal.”
The ATM hasn’t been reported on since—the pope’s bank is not exactly famous for its openness. But maybe an American Express Black cardholder might have luck. After all, it’s got a centurion on it.
Have a great holiday weekend!
Answers:
- Little Miss Sunshine. Shirley writes that by the time the movie’s filmmakers left the festival, “they were practically rock stars.” She says it’s hard to imagine that outcome from today’s Sundance, which feels much more muted as the indie-film business struggles with high costs and industry uncertainty. Read more.
- Armenia and Azerbaijan. Putin abhorred the world order with the United States at the very top, Graham and Cullison write, but now that a new order is emerging, it is revealing all the vulnerabilities keeping Russia from rising to the top in America’s stead. The U.S. involvement in the Caucasus—Russia’s backyard—is one example of many. Read more.
- Vatican II. Dreher—widely read and very influential in conservative Christian circles—is set on a goal much more ambitious than returning merely to the 1960s, Worth reports: Dreher, who contends that the Enlightenment was a mistake, wants to persuade the world to join him on a return to the culture of the Middle Ages. Read more.
How did you do? Come back next week for more questions, and if you think up a great question after reading an Atlantic story—or simply want to share a fact—send it my way at [email protected].
Thursday, February 12, 2026
- Windsor, Ontario, the main hub of Canada’s automotive industry, is closest to what other major city?
— From Jonathan Chait’s article on the recent, ridiculous fight over the bridge to that city - What poet had already become famous for his massive work In Memoriam when Queen Victoria in 1850 made him Britain’s poet laureate?
— From James Parker’s essay on what makes the 19th-century writer feel so modern - What emperor and Stoic philosopher who ruled at the end of the Pax Romana led Rome through the pandemic known as the Antonine Plague?
— From Vann R. Newkirk II’s essay on physical health reflecting democratic health
And by the way, did you know that Britain used to pay its poets laureate mostly in wine? Beginning in 1630, the perk for taking on the job of voice of a nation was a small stipend and a “butt of sherry” from the monarch. In case you are not familiar with butts, they hold around 500 liters of wine, which I imagine really got the poetry flowing.
The 1790 laureate gave up his sherry—boo!—for a higher salary, ending the practice. But in 1984, the laureate Ted Hughes rekindled the tradition, and sherry has been delivered to every officeholder since. Alas, it’s now typically spread out over the laureate’s 10-year term; 72 bottles a year is nothing to sneeze at, but there’s nothing like a butt.
Answers:
- Detroit. Surprise U.S. city! The two auto centers sit on opposite sides of the Detroit River, and only one bridge currently connects them. A second was all ready to open up, Jonathan reports—until the billionaire owner of the first bridge managed to get a word in with the Trump administration. Read more.
- Alfred, Lord Tennyson. Parker, reviewing a new book about the poet, writes that the Victorians, for all their social constipation, somehow managed to pick the perfect “medicine man” for their era. His encampment “at the outer reaches of the psyche,” James writes, allowed him to see into the modern era and shepherd poetry right into it. Read more.
- Marcus Aurelius. Vann cites research about how the ancient pandemic might have hastened Rome’s fall, despite the best efforts of its Stoic in chief. Looking around at a United States once again beset with measles and other preventable diseases, he sees a worrying resemblance, and writes that “the ability to beat back our more routine pathological menaces is a good indicator of the country’s ability to take on bigger, more virulent threats.” Read more.
Wednesday, February 11, 2026
- Years before founding a humanitarian organization, what battlefield nurse helped establish a cemetery for soldiers who died at the Confederate prison camp in Andersonville, Georgia?
— From Drew Gilpin Faust’s analysis of a new book on the Civil War’s atrocious prisons - The United States’ 924 richest people would feel right at home living in the luxe three-block length of San Francisco known by what nickname shared with a similar stretch of New York’s 57th Street?
— From Matteo Wong’s dispatch from a topsy-turvy protest defending the ultrawealthy - The inverted-pyramid shape of Dallas City Hall was designed by what Chinese American architect more famous for a right-side-up pyramid in Paris?
— From Henry Grabar’s article on the atrophying of Dallas’s city center
And by the way, did you know that the Andersonville prison popularized the word deadline? Before it came to mean “due date,” the word had a gory, literal meaning: Prisoners at Andersonville and camps like it who crossed a certain boundary marked on the ground—the deadline—would be shot without warning. As dispatches emerged from Andersonville toward the end of the Civil War, understanding of (and horror at) the term quickly spread.
By the 1920s, newspapers had taken up the “do not cross” meaning to describe the time by which they had to finalize their next edition, and the rest of the world took the papers’ lead.
Answers:
- Clara Barton. From the book, Faust pulls out the detail that three times as many Union soldiers died at Andersonville as at the Battle of Gettysburg; nearly 13,000 men, Faust writes, are buried in the cemetery set up by Barton, who went on to found the American Red Cross. Faust traces how the prison camps’ cruelty led to the creation of international humanitarian law. Read more.
- Billionaires’ Row. This was the starting point of a recent protest demanding better treatment for billionaires, writes Matteo, who spent considerable effort making sure the whole thing wasn’t a hoax. Sincere demonstrators showed up, he writes, but by the end of their march, their chanting had practically converged with the slogans shouted by those mocking them. Read more.
- I. M. Pei. Whereas the Louvre’s glass pyramid is in no danger of disappearing, Dallas leaders have said that Pei’s pioneering City Hall “is in such bad shape that the city might be better off tearing it down,” Henry reports. He writes that it is a textbook example of a downtown being destroyed by people who don’t understand downtowns. Read more.
Tuesday, February 10, 2026
- The inaugural Golden Globe for Best Podcast was awarded last month to Good Hang, hosted by what comedian (and four-time Golden Globes emcee)?
— From David Sims’s review of the first episodes of Pete Davidson’s new podcast - At the opening ceremony of this year’s Winter Olympics, the musician Giovanni Andrea Zanon played a 300-year-old violin built by what master famed for his long-lasting string instruments?
— From Ellen Cushing’s article on the retro feel of the Olympic kickoff - In the capital city Ashgabat, a 40-foot-tall golden statue honors Saparmurat Niyazov, former president of what country?
— From Gal Beckerman’s essay on President Trump’s monuments to himself
And by the way, did you know that—well, where to begin with Ashgabat? The massive statue of Niyazov is, like, the ninth thing you notice about the city.
All the marble hits visitors first. The capital has nearly 550 buildings clad in white marble, the highest concentration anywhere in the world. Combine that with the desert setting and the wide avenues that international visitors report as spotless and eerily empty, and you get an otherworldly effect.
Hoping to get around the ghostly city? Enjoy your ride in a white car; darkly colored cars are outlawed. You can head to the airport modeled on a flying white falcon, or to the world’s largest enclosed Ferris wheel, made of white steel. There is also the massive (white) Palace of Happiness, which can accommodate seven weddings at once. And in case you were wondering, brides in the country typically wear—got you here!—red.
Answers:
- Amy Poehler. To begin with, David isn’t really sure that Davidson’s new project is a “podcast”: You can watch it only on video and, then, only on Netflix. But if we’re judging it as a podcast, then we should judge it a failure, David says—too slack, too slouch. Celebrities hanging out does not always a hit podcast make. Read more.
- Antonio Stradivari. His instruments—each of which is known as a Stradivarius—are a core part of Italy’s heritage, which skews very, very old; Ellen writes that Italy is “a country whose best-known cultural influences lived during the Renaissance.” But she imagines that’s not the sole reason this Games’ opening show was so focused on the past. Read more.
- Turkmenistan. If the size of the statue that Niyazov built doesn’t telegraph his opinion of himself, consider that it used to rotate 360 degrees every day so that it always faced the sun. Likewise, Gal writes, Trump’s instinct to monumentalize himself is clarifying—and alienating—for anybody watching. Read more.
Monday, February 9, 2026
- What is the name—all too familiar to athletes—of the knee ligament between the femur and tibia that acts as a stabilizer for pivoting motions?
— From Sally Jenkins’s essay on Lindsey Vonn’s Olympic spill on the ski slopes - The tradition of crotch-related controversies at the Super Bowl halftime show can be traced to the 2007 performance by what artist (or “the artist formerly known as” what)?
— From Spencer Kornhaber’s article on Bad Bunny’s buoyant performance - Despite its name, what beverage actually contains only 3.25 percent fat, rather than the full 4 percent or more that naturally occurs?
— From Sarah Zhang’s article on what happens to all that extra fat
And by the way, did you know that humans have a bone that does not connect to any other? We think of the skeleton as pretty contiguous, but in the middle of the neck, the hyoid bone, which supports the base of the tongue, is articulated only distantly to the rest of the skeleton by muscles and ligaments. It is, as scientists call it, a “floating bone.”
Because it’s not readily attachable, the hyoid is often left off of model skeletons. High-end ones hang it with string or wire.
You know how to select a good avocado (squeeze) or watermelon (slap); now, next time you’re skeleton shopping, you’ll be able to pick a winner.
Answers:
- ACL. Vonn, the American favorite in this Olympics’ downhill-skiing competition, tore her left ACL just more than a week before competing. But, as Sally writes, the 41-year-old who had spent decades pushing her body to the limit was never going to bow out rather than risk further injury. Read more.
- Prince. Spencer writes that the sight of (and scattered pearl clutching over) Bad Bunny’s crotch grabs is actually refreshing—that amid the suffocating “fascism discourse” elsewhere, some sexy gyrating feels “subtly throwback-y and weirdly wholesome.” Read more.
- Whole milk. As Sarah reports, the milk that cows produce hovered for decades around 3.65 percent fat by weight, but selective breeding in recent years has pushed it as high as 4.24 percent. This has led to a great butterfat glut; cheese makers find the milk too rich to work with, and dairy farmers selling whole milk at 3.25 percent fat have to figure out where to put all the excess. Read more.
