General Knowledge
Derived from the Latin word aurum, meaning "shining dawn," "Au" is the chemical symbol for this precious metal.
Gold
To escape the shadow of her famous wizarding franchise, this author adopted the pen name Robert Galbraith to write the Cormoran Strike crime fiction series.
J.K. Rowling
Botanically speaking, this sweet, red, summery treat is not actually a berry, and its "seeds" on the outside are actually the plant's true individual fruits, called achenes
Strawberry
This chaotic Netflix true-crime docuseries focusing on the eccentric zoo owner Joe Exotic and his fierce rivalry with Carole Baskin became a global phenomenon during the early 2020 lockdowns.
Tiger King
Invented during the Great Depression to teach about wealth inequality, this classic property-trading game famously features a mascot named Rich Uncle Pennybags.
Monopoly
This animated 1994 Disney film features the songs "Circle of Life" and "Can You Feel the Love Tonight," composed by Elton John.
The Lion King
This American horror maestro initially published books like Thinner and The Running Man under the name Richard Bachman to test if his success was a fluke.
Stephen King
While we treat it entirely as a vegetable, this heavy, crunchy green gourd holds the Guinness World Record for the heaviest botanical fruit ever grown, often weighing over 2,000 pounds.
Pumpkin
Breaking away from the European Union after four years of intense negotiations, United Kingdom officially enacted this on January 31, 2020.
Brexit
In this aggressive game of global domination, players command armies to capture territories across a map divided into six continents and 42 regions.
Risk
The 1494 Treaty of Tordesillas divided newly discovered lands outside Europe along a meridian between these two Iberian maritime empires.
Portugal and Spain
Born Samuel Langhorne Clemens, this legendary American humorist took his nautical pen name from a riverboat term meaning "two fathoms deep."
Mark Twain
Named for its distinct cross-sectional shape when sliced, this translucent yellow tropical fruit is natively known as the carambola.
Starfruit
This South Korean thriller directed by Bong Joon Ho made cinematic history in February 2020 by becoming the first non-English language film to win the Academy Award for Best Picture
Parasite
In a standard game of Connect Four, this is the total number of open vertical columns available on the grid into which players can drop their checkers.
This 14th-century Italian epic poem tracks the author's journey through Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso.
Divine Comedy
Under the pseudonym Silence Dogood, this 16-year-old apprentice covertly slipped 14 satirical letters under the door of his brother's printing shop, mocking Boston society.
Benjamin Franklin
Known as the "King of Fruits" in Southeast Asia, this large, spiky fruit is famous for its intense, pungent odor that has led to it being banned on public transit and in hotels.
Durian
Breaking records as the most active Atlantic season on record with 30 named storms, the 2020 hurricane season exhausted the traditional alphabet and forced meteorologists to use this alphabet for storm names.
Greek Alphabet
The base value of the word EPOXY in a standard game of Scrabble.
17 points
This narrow, treacherous body of water at the southern tip of South America connects the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, bypassing Cape Horn.
Strait of Magellan
This Chilean poet and diplomat born Ricardo Eliécer Neftalí Reyes Basoalto chose his famous pen name in honor of a nineteenth-century Czech writer and journalist.
Pablo Neruda
Native to West Africa, this small red berry contains a glycoprotein called miraculin that temporarily binds to taste receptors, making sour foods like lemons taste incredibly sweet.
miracle fruit (or miracle berry)
On August 4, 2020, a catastrophic explosion involving thousands of tons of unsafely stored ammonium nitrate devastated the port and central districts of this Middle Eastern capital city.
Though we think of it as a standard abstract strategy game, this ancient Indian race game originally called Moksha Patam was designed to teach children about the concepts of karma, destiny, and good versus evil deeds.
Snakes and Ladders (Chutes and Ladders)