Science
This planetary neighbor spins retrograde, meaning the Sun appears to rise in the west and set in the east.
Venus
The Magna Carta was sealed in this century beside the Thames at Runnymede
13th century
In poetry, this five‑foot meter has unstressed–stressed pairs—Shakespeare’s favorite.
iambic pentamete
The strait connecting the Mediterranean and the Atlantic.
Strait of Gibraltar
This director’s “Inception” and “Interstellar” turned mind‑bending sci‑fi into blockbusters.
Christopher Nolan
This gas makes balloons float and is the second‑lightest element after hydrogen.
helium
She was the Habsburg empress who fought the War of the Austrian Succession.
Maria Theresa
Her 1813 novel begins, “It is a truth universally acknowledged…”
Jane Austen (Pride and Prejudice)
This Asian capital sits along the Chao Phraya River and used to be called Krung Thep Mahanakhon officially.
Bangkok
On a QWERTY keyboard, this key is directly above the “Enter/Return” on many laptops.
Backspace/Delete
The Mendelian principle stating allele pairs separate during gamete formation.
law of segregation
This ancient empire built Persepolis and used satraps to govern provinces.
Achaemenid (Persian) Empire
This figure of speech addresses an absent person or abstract idea—“O, Death…”
apostrophe
This landlocked South American country has two capitals: La Paz (administrative) and Sucre (constitutional
Bolivia
This term describes video game non‑player characters powered by algorithms.
NPCs (non‑player characters)
This SI unit measures electrical resistance and is named after a German physicist.
ohm
The Meiji Restoration began after the fall of this shogunate.
Tokugawa shogunate
The narrator of The Great Gatsby who says, “So we beat on, boats against the current…”
Nick Carraway
Europe’s longest river flows to the Caspian Sea.
Volga
The protocol that secures websites—look for the padlock and these five letters.
HTTPS
These cloud types form anvils and can produce severe thunderstorms and tornadoes.
cumulonimbus clouds
The 1648 treaties ending the Thirty Years’ War are collectively known as this.
Peace of Westphalia
This mythic trickster stole fire for humanity and suffers for it.
Prometheus
These winds blow from the Indian Ocean and shape South Asia’s wet and dry seasons.
monsoons
This streaming series’ pilot is titled “Winter Is Coming.”
Game of Thrones