Up to date with new questions at 4:50 p.m. ET on November 18, 2025.
If I’ve offered you with any factoids in the midst of Atlantic Trivia, I apologize, as a result of a factoid, correctly, is not a small, fascinating truth. A factoid is a chunk of knowledge that appears like a truth however is unfaithful. Norman Mailer popularized the time period in 1973, very deliberately giving it the suffix -oid. Is a humanoid not a creature whose look suggests humanity however whose nature belies it? Thus is it with factoid.
So what of these enjoyable, itty bits of information which can be appropriate? Within the Nineties, William Safire urged factlet for the small-but-true truth (and The Atlantic in 2012 agreed), although minifact is usually used. And for the statements someplace in between fascinating and unfaithful—factinimaybe? Begin with 5 elements fascinating to at least one half incorrect; regulate to style.
Discover final week’s questions right hereand to get Atlantic Trivia in your inbox on daily basis, join The Atlantic Each day.
Tuesday, November 18, 2025
From the version of The Atlantic Each day by Isabel Fattal:
- The producer Abbott as soon as produced about 40 % of the U.S. provide of a specific product. A 2022 recall by Abbott subsequently contributed to nationwide shortages. What is the product?
— From Nicholas Florko’s “America Has a (REDACTED) Downside—Once more” - A U.S. trial jury is smaller than a grand jury—therefore its additionally being identified by what identify containing French’s reverse of grand?
— From Quinta Jurecic’s “The Trump Administration’s Favourite Instrument for Criminalizing Dissent” - What is the time period for a paradoxical anecdote or riddle utilized by practitioners of Zen Buddhism to deepen their meditation?
— From Julie Beck’s “The best way to Cheat at Dialog”
And by the best way, do you know that fewer people have visited the underside of the ocean than have gone to house? Relying on the way you depend, someplace between 600 and 800 have slipped the surly bonds of Earth; only some dozen have pulled these bonds as tight as they’ll go by placing seven miles of Pacific Ocean over their head on the Mariana Trench’s Challenger Deep.
Then there may be Kathy Sullivan. She has been to each. Her trench journey was in 2020, and in 1984, she was the primary lady to finish a spacewalk. She is now, reasonably charmingly, known as the world’s “most vertical” particular person.
See you tomorrow!
Solutions:
- Child components. The availability-chain catastrophe prompted regulators to discover methods to make the weak trade rather less so, however Nicholas writes {that a} new recall from a unique producer is a reminder of how simply components making can crack. Learn extra.
- Petit jury. Quinta studies that neither the grand juries empowered to indict nor the petit juries empowered to convict have been significantly satisfied by the Trump administration’s circumstances in opposition to the folks it alleges are “assaulting, resisting, or impeding” federal officers. Learn extra.
- Koan. “How do you cheat at a dialog?” sounds as if it might be one, Julie muses, however it’s in actual fact the worth proposition of a brand new artificial-intelligence device. Cluely guarantees to provide customers any reply they could want in a social interplay, however Julie says it solely makes them worse. Learn extra.
How did you do? Come again tomorrow for extra questions, or click on right here for final week’s. And for those who assume up an excellent query after studying an Atlantic story—or just need to share a top-notch truth—ship it my means at (electronic mail protected).
Monday, November 17, 2025
From the version of The Atlantic Each day by David A. Graham:
- U.S. pennies are plated in copper however principally manufactured from what different metallic on the finish of the alphabet?
— From Caity Weaver’s “Pennies Are Trash Now” - What beverage is historically manufactured from floor tencha leaves, ready with a whisk, and drunk from a ceramic bowl known as a cha-wan?
— From Ellen Cushing’s “The (REDACTED) Downside” - Damaged chains and shackles have been initially supposed to be held within the left hand of what American landmark earlier than a brand new design changed these gadgets with a pill?
— From Clint Smith’s “Inform College students the Fact About American Historical past”
And by the best way, do you know that for greater than six a long time the USA produced half-cent items? They have been one hundred pc copper and stamped with Girl Liberty, who sported quite a lot of hairdos over time. The coin was nearly the scale of a contemporary quarter, which appears large till you think about that on the finish of its run, the half-cent had a buying energy of about 17 cents in at the moment’s cash.
Nonetheless, in 1857 it was deemed insufficiently useful to maintain minting—at 17 up to date cents! Contemplating that the federal government is as soon as once more within the coin-discontinuing temper, the nickel and dime may need to be careful, too.
Solutions:
- Zinc. Penny minting abruptly stopped final week. The cash will quickly drop out of circulation, and their composition—zinc is way much less useful than copper—makes them unappealing to recycle. What this implies, Caity writes, is that these 300 billion pennies floating round are actually People’ drawback. Learn extra.
- Matcha. This old-school Japanese preparation is a far piece from the power drinks and sugary drinks that new corporations are advertising and marketing as matcha. Ellen explores the ramifications of the collision between matcha’s custom and its present world-historic demand. Learn extra.
- The Statue of Liberty. The present from France, Clint writes, was meant not simply to welcome immigrants but additionally to rejoice America’s abolition of slavery; he wonders whether or not the change was supposed to make the statue “extra palatable” to a wider viewers. That intuition has by no means gone away, and it’s the job of educators to withstand it. Learn extra.
