The Atlantic Daily: What Do You Know About 2017?

Twelve questions on topics we covered, from blackmail to aliens

Former White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer gestures during a press briefing on March 24, 2017. (Kevin Lamarque / Reuters)

The Atlantic Daily’s news quiz highlights the hidden nuggets of knowledge that inform each day’s events. To wrap up the year, we’ve compiled a series of questions on some of the topics that we covered in 2017—from health care to catfishing. Test your memory below, and find our coverage of today’s news here.

January–March: Team Trump

1. The Russian word for state-sponsored blackmail is ______________.

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2. An August 2014 memo authored by ____________ shaped the Trump campaign’s anti-immigration platform.

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3. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos is well respected as a philanthropist in ____________, Michigan.

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Emily Jan / The Atlantic

April–June: Costs of Living

4. About ____________ percent of all U.S. households subscribe to Amazon Prime.

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5. ____________ percent of Americans spend as much on health care a year as everyone else combined.

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6. An estimated ____________ Hong Kong residents live in “coffin homes,” or tiny, subdivided housing units.

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Kin Cheung / AP

Answers: 50 / 5 / 200,000


July–September: Nature’s Power

7. The end-Permian mass extinction—the worst such event in Earth’s history—is believed to have been caused by ____________.

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8. The word eclipse is rooted in an ancient Greek word meaning “____________.”

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9. During the first two days of Hurricane Harvey, ____________ gallons of water fell on Houston, Texas.

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Adrees Latif / Reuters

October–December: Tech Futures

10. The term catfish—someone who creates a deceptive personal profile online—was added to the Merriam-Webster dictionary in the year ____________.

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11. New Zealand conservationists hope to use the gene-editing technology ____________ to eliminate rats and other invasive predators from the country by 2050.

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12. One of the most influential voices guiding China’s search for extraterrestrial intelligence is Liu Cixin, a ____________.

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Han Wancheng / Shanxi Illustration

Time of Your Life

Happy birthday to Susan’s loving son Ryan (twice the age of YouTube); to Holly (a year younger than The Godfather); to Frank’s wife, Diane (18 years older than the Environment Protection Agency); to Amalia’s daughter Andrea (the same age as NAFTA); to Vivian’s husband, Aaron (twice the age of the International Space Station); and to Jim, who shares a birthday with Marilyn (both are 18 years older than Doctors Without Borders).

Do you or a loved one have a birthday coming up? Sign up for a birthday shout-out here, and click here to explore the Timeline feature for yourself.


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