Today’s Atlantic Trivia: What’s Light, Sweet, and Undrinkable?

Updated with new questions at 3:05 p.m. ET on March 6, 2026.

There’s an old rule of thumb that you retain about 10 percent of what you read, 20 percent of what you hear, 30 percent of what you see via image or video, and so on up the ladder of experiential learning, until you get to a 90 percent retention rate for the things you learn by doing yourself.

The teeny problem is that none of this is backed by science; it’s a bastardization of the “cone of learning” that the education theorist Edgar Dale developed but never intended to be prescriptive.

But doesn’t it feel right? So don’t just read Atlantic stories. Do them, with this week’s Atlantic Trivia.

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

Friday, March 6, 2026

  1. “There is neither male nor female” in Christ Jesus, writes what author of the biblical Epistle to the Galatians?
    — From Elaine Godfrey’s article on the Texas politics that are “about to get ugly”
  2. Heavy sour and light sweet are common classifications for sorting what naturally occurring liquid by viscosity and sulfur content?
    — From Rogé Karma’s article about a crisis on the horizon
  3. What cosmetic staple of teen-girl culture in the 1990s and early 2000s came in such flavors as strawberry, cotton candy, and—most memorably—Dr Pepper?
    — From Nancy Walecki’s article on the skin-care industry’s newest target demographic

And by the way, did you know that Dr Pepper was created a year before Coca-Cola, making it the oldest widely available soft drink in the United States? (Imagine poor Coke being perennially one year away from that doctorate.)

A Texas druggist invented Dr Pepper in 1885. It didn’t catch on in earnest, however, until its appearance at the 1904 World’s Fair, in St. Louis—perhaps the most revolutionary event in American culinary history, considering that’s also where the world was introduced to the hot dog, the hamburger, and, by God, the ice-cream cone.

Have a great weekend!

Answers:

  1. Apostle Paul. This verse is the Democratic Senate nominee James Talarico’s evidence for his claim that “God is nonbinary.” Elaine writes that “the line might sound like a banger to some of Talarico’s supporters, but it’s hardly a given that his progressive interpretation of scripture will appeal to conservative evangelicals” all over Texas. Read more.
  2. (Crude) oil. Rogé explains that the United States extracts mostly light sweet domestically—but largely exports it, because most U.S. refineries (built long ago) are set up to process heavy sour. It means that for all the crude it pumps, the United States is still vulnerable to the oil crisis that will ensue if the Iran conflict drags on. Read more.
  3. Lip Smackers. A lip-gloss “makeover” was about the extent of skin-care for kids when Nancy was growing up. Now she reports on the companies hawking face masks to girls as young as 3. Read more.

How did you do? Come back tomorrow 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, March 5, 2026

  1. What McDonald’s menu item that was reintroduced last year consists of a chicken strip enveloped in a tortilla, and is meant, as the name suggests, to be eaten between meals?
    — From Yasmin Tayag’s article on the blurring of breakfast, lunch, and dinner
  2. “I should have never surrendered. I should have fought until I was the last man alive” were the final words of what military leader who fought fiercely against both the United States and Mexico in the 1880s?
    — From Carolina A. Miranda’s review of a refreshingly nuanced war story set in the Southwest
  3. From 1798 to 1800, John Adams led the United States through a never–officially declared naval conflict with France known by what name?
    — From Adam Serwer’s essay on the president’s powers of war

And by the way, did you know—prepare yourself here for a comically unlikely connection between two questions—that in 2012, a McDonald’s McNugget resembling the Founding Father George Washington sold on eBay for $8,100?

You can (you must) see a picture of the nugget here. It looks pretty good for having languished in the seller’s freezer for three years before auction; I imagine that winter at Valley Forge must have been good preparation.

Answers:

  1. Snack Wrap. Yasmin reports that as Americans’ eating habits change—thanks to inflation, Ozempic, or whatever other cause you can cook up—restaurants are going all in on snacks. See, too, Chipotle’s little bowl of chopped chicken, or the definition-defying “kids’ menu for all ages” at some TGI Fridays locations. Read more.
  2. Geronimo. In the new English translation of Álvaro Enrigue’s adventurous novel Now I Surrender, Miranda writes, the Apache people edged out by the United States and Mexico take center stage. She writes that the book correctly casts the border not as “a hard line between us and them” but rather as a “polyglot meeting point.” Read more.
  3. The quasi-war. It is true that the requirement of congressional approval for presidential acts of war was challenged very early in U.S. history, Adam writes, but in Adams’s case (and Jefferson’s), the conflict was “limited and defensive in nature.” Donald Trump’s aggression against Iran is nothing of the sort, he writes, and not what the Founders intended. Read more.

Wednesday, March 4, 2026

The questions in today’s double-wide Atlantic Trivia all come from Graeme Wood’s profile of Pete Buttigieg and his time away (sorta, kinda) from politics.

  1. In high school, Buttigieg wrote an essay contending that what still-sitting senator’s identification as a socialist was a “self-inflicted gunshot wound”?
  2. What hockey legend played 25 seasons, from 1946 to 1971, for the Detroit Red Wings?
  3. What handheld baked good originating in (and named for) the county on England’s southwestern tip is also a culinary symbol of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula?
  4. What tool, heavier and with a wider head than an axe’s, is used for splitting large, dense logs? Its four-letter name, fittingly, is also a verb that means “to violently cut or tear flesh.”
  5. What partially recognized state on the Horn of Africa shares the first six letters of its name with the country from which it declared independence in 1991?
  6. In the Roman republic, the defined track that a political aspirant followed from low to high office was known by what Latin name meaning “course of honors”?

And by the way, did you know that just north of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula lies the largest island in the largest freshwater lake on the largest island in the world’s largest freshwater lake?

Let’s break that down: The northern shore of the UP abuts Lake Superior; within Lake Superior is Isle Royale; on Isle Royale is Siskiwit Lake; and the biggest island in Siskiwit Lake is Ryan Island.

For a time, it was claimed that a seasonal pond existed on Ryan Island and that out from the center of that pond jutted a boulder—the largest “island” in the largest “lake” on the largest island in the largest lake on the largest island in the largest lake.

Alas, that was debunked when a mother and son visiting the area verified that no such pond exists. Too much of a good thing, eh.

Answers:

  1. Bernie Sanders. Buttigieg admired Sanders’s integrity in using the label, Graeme reports, but also Sanders’s “courageous” decision to endorse the very un-socialist Bill Clinton for president—it was, as Graeme writes, “perhaps a preview of Buttigieg’s later pragmatism.” Read more.
  2. Gordie Howe. Graeme asked Buttigieg, now a resident of Traverse City, Michigan, whether he knew where Howe had operated a restaurant in town in the 1990s: “I noticed Buttigieg tense up, as if unsure whether he might alienate a key demographic, Detroit Red Wings fans over the age of 65, by admitting that he had no idea what I was talking about.”
  3. Cornish pasty. Buttigieg, meanwhile, told Graeme that pasties are “quintessentially a UP thing” because “you can take them camping or hunting.” It’s a thing he’s learned in adulthood, Graeme notes, not from a childhood spent taking “hunting trips up north.”
  4. Maul (or splitting maul). Likewise, Buttigieg recently became the owner of a splitting maul and chops his own wood, as part of what Graeme sees as a remaking of himself into the Everyman.
  5. Somaliland. Yet Buttigieg is not the Everyman; the Everyman doesn’t take a pleasure trip to a breakaway region of Somalia just out of curiosity. As Graeme writes, “Every candidate hopes to be the guy you want to have a beer and talk football with. Buttigieg … is the candidate you want to sit down and have Somali camel stew with while you banter about Arabic verb forms.”
  6. Cursus honorum. Graeme writes that Buttigieg has followed the modern version of the cursus from local to national office: “In some ways Buttigieg is a perfect candidate, and in some ways he feels like a candidate perfect for an era that has slipped away.”

Tuesday, March 3, 2026

  1. “People grew up, got married, got divorced, had children, got old and all the time the portrait of [him] hung over their heads,” wrote the Soviet poet Joseph Brodsky in March 1973, 20 years after the death of what man?
    — From Gal Beckerman’s essay on crying at moments of dramatic change
  2. Which two members of Congress introduced the piece of legislation enacted in summer 2010 that overhauled financial regulation after the Great Recession?
    — From Annie Lowrey’s article on the disappearing American mortgage
  3. In what film does a cowboy explain to peers who are impressed by an interloper’s seemingly advanced weaponry that “it’s not a laser. It’s a—it’s a little light bulb that blinks”?
    — From Jacob Stern’s article on modern militaries’ use of lasers

And by the way, did you know that a sufficient supply of standard-issue laser pointers, arrayed so as to focus their beams on a single point, could theoretically burn clean through an eyeball?

Some back-of-the-napkin math from a scientist at the American Physical Society found that 200,000 or so laser pointers mounted on the inside curve of a sphere the size of a small car would do the trick—and melt the brain, too, if the laser-ee sat still for long enough.

A grisly end to be sure, but also delicious vindication for all the moms who ever said Careful where you point that thing.

Answers:

  1. Joseph Stalin. Brodsky understood what Gal has seen in the days since the death of Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei: Loyalists and dissidents alike cry when a dictator who has deeply wormed into their consciousness is suddenly no longer there. It is a reaction to the loss, Gal writes, of “what felt like a fixed reality.” Read more.
  2. Chris Dodd and Barney Frank. One of the effects of the Dodd-Frank Act, Annie writes, was the tightening of mortgage lending and underwriting standards, which “made the financial system safer, but also made buying a home harder for many people.” Now, even amid low unemployment and rising wages, the share of U.S. homeowners hasn’t increased in half a decade, Annie reports; young and working-class people are missing out on the “property ladder.” Read more.
  3. Toy Story. The lasers that militaries are starting to deploy today are rather more powerful than Buzz Lightyear’s piddly facsimile. Stern provides an overview of the technology and the geopolitical implications—but he also warns that by focusing too much on the details, one risks losing sight of “something arguably even more profound: Laser guns are real now.” Read more.

Monday, March 2, 2026

  1. In a 1977 book by Beverly Cleary, what titular little girl suddenly finds herself spending more time with Mr. Quimby, her out-of-work father?
    — From Eric Magnuson’s essay on literary depictions of stay-at-home dads
  2. What term collectively refers to the mysterious and debilitating health issues that have affected dozens of U.S. personnel in Cuba since the mid-2010s?
    — From Vivian Salama’s article on where Cuba fits into President Trump’s interventionism
  3. The popular Thai beverage Krating Daeng—named after a horned bovine of Southeast Asia—was adapted for the West in the 1980s by an Austrian businessman who gave it what English name?
    — From Ellen Cushing’s article on how a certain category of drink is pivoting toward women

And by the way, did you know that the United States once reportedly planned to assassinate Cuban President Fidel Castro with a booby-trapped seashell? U.S. intelligence knew that Castro was an avid scuba diver, so it allegedly planned to load a particularly irresistible-looking mollusk with explosives and hope that Castro drifted by to investigate.

The scheme stands out as particularly outlandish, which is really saying something: The retired Cuban counterintelligence chief Fabián Escalante alleged that the CIA came up with 638 plans in total to assassinate Castro.

Answers:

  1. Ramona. Magnuson, who recently pulled together what he reckons is literature’s most comprehensive list of stay-at-home dads, notes that Ramona’s time with her father isn’t of particularly high quality; he mostly smokes and watches TV. It’s a sad stereotype of the incompetent at-home dad, Magnuson writes, that persists even decades later. Read more.
  2. Havana syndrome. For decades, Vivian writes, Cuba has been a “persistent and bipartisan annoyance,” and now, after dramatic interventions in Venezuela and Iran, Trump might think he has the momentum to end that annoyance once and for all. She expects that the pressure for regime change will only grow. Read more.
  3. Red Bull. The energy-drink market has transformed time and again since then, Ellen writes. In the early 2000s, it aligned itself with masculinity. After that, energy drinks were all about fitness. Now, in pastels and pinks and such flavors as Guava Lava, Ellen says, the drinks are coming for the ladies. Read more.

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