In the 1960s, the authors of one of the world’s first popular compendiums of fun and interesting facts entreated readers not to mistake the “flower of Trivia” for the “weed of minutiae.” Trivia stimulates the mind, Edwin Goodgold and Dan Carlinsky wrote in More Trivial Trivia; minutiae stymie it.
Happily, The Atlantic’s garden bursts with the former and is almost entirely lacking in the latter, and in this new project of daily quizzes, I get to share a bunch of that trivia with you, curious readers. So set down the Snapple cap and stop to smell the blooms—is that geranium?—with questions from recently published stories.
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From the edition of The Atlantic Daily written by Tom Nichols: • What international spo