The 2,261st Mixed General Trivia Quiz

Answer: Penny Cups

H. B. Reese launched his now-legendary peanut butter cups under the simple name 'Penny Cups'. You can probably guess how much each one cost. Reese had previously worked on a dairy farm owned by Milton Hershey, before going out to find fame and fortune in the candy-making business. He did well. As it turned out, mixing chocolate and peanut butter turned out to be a civilization-changing event.

I dedicate this question to my wife, whose life force is sustained primarily by this glorious creation.

Answer: T. rex

It weighed in at 20.5 pounds (9.28 kg).

In length, it measured an impressive 26.5 inches (67.5 cm).

By all accounts, it was a majestic turd... or 'coprolite', as scientists call it when trying to sound smart in front of non-scientists.

But I hear you. What makes them believe it came from Tyrannosaurus rex? You don't think scientists did imaging tests on a turd that big? I mean, wouldn't YOU? Inside, they saw large, crushed bones, too big to have been eaten by any other dinosaur known to have been in the area. The T. rex skeletons found nearby may also have provided a clue.

The paleontologists named it "Barnum", because of course they did. It's currently located in Williams, Arizona. You can find it at the... um, Poozeum, the self-proclaimed 'Dinosaur Poop Museum and Gift Shop'. I only wish I was making that up.

Answer: The Department of Defense

In September 2025, Trump signed an executive order allowing the Department of Defense to publicly use a secondary title the 'Department of War', because why not? The name is a callback to the one the agency officially used before 1947. The actual legal name did not officially change because that would require an act of Congress. However, just because it wasn't official doesn't mean bureaucratic headaches didn't avalanche out of control. Every letterhead, every sign, every mention on every website. Never a dull moment at the department previously known as defense.

Politically, people sided in the usual ways. A department by any other name...

Answer: 20

Mary Shelley was only 20 years old when 'Frankenstein' first appeared in 1818. It feels horribly unfair to any of us who have stared hopelessly at a blinking cursor well into adulthood. She began writing the tale even earlier, at 18, during the legendary gathering at Lake Geneva with Percy Shelley, Lord Byron, and John Polidori. Stuck indoors by miserable weather caused partly by a volcanic eruption halfway around the world, the group challenged each other to write ghost stories.

And that's how Mary Shelley accidentally invented modern science fiction.

Answer: Sharks

Sharks have been cruising through the oceans for more than 400 million years, well before even the dinosaurs (and their coprolites). Trees, meanwhile, arrived much later, with the earliest true forests appearing roughly 385 million years ago. So yes, sharks are older than trees. They're also older than the rings of Saturn and the Atlantic Ocean.

Answer: A Bug's Life

'A Bug's Life' was produced by Pixar and released by Disney, not DreamWorks. I understand the confusion, though. 1998 somehow became the year of competing animated ant movies. DreamWorks released 'Antz' just weeks before Pixar rolled out 'A Bug's Life', leading to one of the weirdest rivalries in Hollywood history. I've seen neither myself. DreamWorks went on to build an impressive catalog with animated films like 'Shrek', 'Madagascar', and 'Kung Fu Panda'.

Answer: Quadrilateral

Whether it's a square, rectangle, trapezoid, or some poor lopsided thing that not even Euclid could love, all quadrilaterals have interior angles adding up to 360 degrees. One neat way to see it is by picturing a diagonal connecting opposite corners of the screen you're looking at. That diagonal splits your quadrilateral-shaped screen into two triangles. Since each triangle contains 180 degrees, together they total 360. Mathematicians love this stuff.

Answer: Gold

Yes, gold. Discoveries in places like Ballarat and Bendigo drew prospectors from around the world, especially from Britain, China, and the United States. The population surged, the economy was turned up to 11, the social structure of the colonies shifted overnight.

Some miners struck it rich. Most came up empty. But dreams of imagined riches kept everybody digging. The gold rushes are considered some of the most transformative events in the history of the country.

Answer: Horse

Everyone knew James Watt was wrong when he defined the unit of horsepower, but in 1993, the joke came full circle. That's when researchers calculated that an actual horse could briefly produce around 24 horsepower at peak output.

Watt originally defined one horsepower as a practical comparison for steam engines, based on the estimated sustained work a draft horse could perform over the course of a whole day. It wasn't a great estimate to begin with, but we have since learned that a motivated horse going full beast-mode can completely tear past that limit.

Answer: Frederic Chopin

The birth of the compact disc had a classical ring to it. On August 17, 1982, the very first commercially manufactured CD rolled off the line at a Philips plant in Germany. It contained tracks by pianist Claudio Arrau performing Chopin waltzes. Yeah, Chopin. The first music released in the digital age was written in the 1800s. That might be an example of what the kids call irony.

A few months later, pop joined the party when ABBA's 'The Visitors' became one of the first pop music albums pressed on a CD. Remember staring at that green laser and wondering what was going on in there? Maybe that was just me.

For the record (get it?), my first CD was -- to my eternal embarrassment -- 'The Final Countdown' by Europe.