Today’s Atlantic Trivia

Updated with new questions at 3:45 p.m. ET on October 21, 2025.

In the 1950s, the TV quiz show Twenty-One stumbled upon a viewership-boosting strategy that for a brief period of time would be all the rage: cheating. The program fixed winners and losers, coached contestants, and generally dabbled in malfeasance. Other shows followed suit, scandal ensued, and Congress—Congress!—got involved.

I’m relieved to say that this quiz operates beyond the revisions to the Communications Act of 1934, so I’ll happily give you all the answers: They’re right there in The Atlantic.

Find last week’s questions here, and to get Atlantic Trivia in your inbox every day, sign up for The Atlantic Daily.

Tuesday, October 21, 2025

1. Rudy Giuliani’s son and Osama bin Laden’s niece were among the guest hosts of the podcast War Room while what permanent host served four months in prison for refusing to cooperate with the congressional investigation into January 6?
   — From Jonathan D. Karl’s “[REDACTED] and the Murderers and Hitmen Who Became His ‘Besties’”
2. What barnyard term is used to describe the easily generated and artistically valueless AI content that litters the internet?
   — From Charlie Warzel’s “A Tool That Crushes Creativity”
3. What is the name of the national legislature that contains parties including Likud, Blue and White, and Yesh Atid?
   — From Yair Rosenberg’s “Can Trump Contain [REDACTED]’s Hard Right?”

And by the way, did you know that it’s been well over a century since one pig did, in fact, fly? And for three and a half miles, at that? Granted, this was a ride-along in the airplane of Lord John Moore-Brabazon of Kent, a peer and aviation pioneer, but considering that the flight occurred in November 1909, it’s still no small feat. (The pig was called Icarus II, and he fared rather better than his eponym.)

Fly high until tomorrow.

Answers:

1. Steve Bannon. Karl looks into Bannon’s time in prison last year—what he learned there, whom he befriended, how he managed to wield his influence over MAGA world even from behind bars. Read more.
2. Slop. What with Donald Trump’s fondness for spammy AI videos and the proliferation of social networks dedicated to soullessly generated content, we’re living in “the golden age of slop,” Charlie contends. “There is no realm of life that is unsloppable.” Read more.
3. The Knesset. Last week, Israel’s Parliament hosted Trump for a speech celebrating the cease-fire in the war in Gaza, but, Yair writes, members of the legislature’s far right feel jilted. Trump, he says, will have to restrain them if he is to bring peace to the region. Read more.

How did you do? Come back tomorrow for more questions, scroll down for more, or click here for last week’s. And if you think up a great question after reading an Atlantic story—or simply want to share a scintillating fact—send it my way at trivia@theatlantic.com.

Monday, October 20, 2025

From the edition of The Atlantic Daily by David A. Graham:

1. What retailer recently announced that it will carry the weight-loss drug Ozempic at a discounted price of $499 a month—meaning you can get your GLP-1, a hot dog, and a fountain drink for $500.50?
   — From Emily Oster’s “Ozempic for All”
2. The cultural theorist Dominic Pettman defines what modern-relationship term as “abandonment with a contemporary garnish” (adding, “When we came up with texting, we also came up with not texting”)?
   — From Anna Holmes’s “The Great [REDACTED] Paradox”
3. In the way that runners have Strava, birders have eBird, and readers have Goodreads, what hobbyists are most likely to use the app Ravelry?
   — From Tyler Austin Harper’s “The Unexpected Profundity of a Movie About Bird-Watching”

And by the way, did you know—speaking of hobbies—that when he wasn’t writing contributions to the Western canon, the novelist Vladimir Nabokov kept himself busy observing and even discovering new species of butterflies? His lepidoptery fieldwork impelled full-time scientists to reconsider the classification of an entire genus.

That he also composed chess problems is thus hardly surprising. But before you go beating yourself up, consider what he didn’t do much of: sleep.

Answers:

1. Costco. It’s a sign that prices for these “near-miracle drugs” are falling and will keep falling, Oster writes—undercutting the argument that they’re too costly to offer via Medicaid. Increasing the drugs’ accessibility through Medicaid, she says, would save lives. Read more.
2. Ghosting. Holmes writes that Pettman’s new book might offer a less upsetting way to think about the sudden cutoff of communication, though it will require growing a thicker skin. Read more.
3. Knitters. All of these hobby-specific apps have to some extent been gamified, with progress bars, unlockable achievements, or other metrics that Tyler worries are sucking the joy out of the hobbies themselves. Read more.