Endless Lockdown Quiz!

In the 2020 US elections, some 60.2% of the eligible voting-age population voted. That’s the highest turnout since 1968 (60%) when Richard Nixon won the presidency – and a record-high number of voters.

Miles Taylor was a top official at the Department of Homeland Security. He is better known as ‘‘Anonymous’, the writer of a New York Times column, claiming to be part of a group of “like-minded colleagues” intent on bringing down the Trump administration from the inside. Taylor revealed himself to be ‘Anonymous‘ on Wednesday, Oct. 28, 2020.

You might be sorry to hear that after a 14 year and 20 season run, “Keeping Up With the Kardashians” will be ending next year. The Kardashians themselves, it appears, are here to stay indefinitely. 

That’s right. Everyone is missing their flight experience these days – even though our perception of saltiness and sweetness drops 30% at high altitudes. More than 100 diners flocked a new pop-up restaurant by Thai Airways, that serves inflight meals on the ground. The same goes for a Nigerian restaurant that offers the illusion of flight without leaving the ground.

Correct.

Harry and Meghan stepped away from royal duties in early 2020, saying they wanted to become self-sufficient. They moved to a multi-million dollar estate in California’s Santa Barbara County. In a video discussion as part of the GQ Heroes Conference, Harry said it took him many years to understand the reality of unconscious bias. “Unconscious bias, from my understanding, having had the upbringing and the education that I have, I had no idea what it was,” He said. “It took me many, many years to realize it, especially then living a day or a week in my wife’s shoes.”

Read Battle of Brothers: William and Harry – The Inside Story of a Family in Tumult by Robert Lacey.

Patrick Dempsey played Ellen Pompeo’s love interest, and then her husband in Grey’s Anatomy, TV’s longest-running primetime medical drama, ever. The beloved dead character made a surprise appearance in Grey’s Anatomy’s season 17 premiere – a season that centers around the COVID-19 pandemic.

• Watch Grey’s Anatomy Season 17 on Amazon Prime.

Exactly. In the 1988 movie,  Willow is a reluctant farmer who protects a baby from a tyrannical queen. A new Willow series started streaming on Disney+ on Nov. 30, 2022, starring the original Willow, Warwick Davis.

That’s right. On Nov. 13, 1970,  Hafez Assad, AKA The Syrian Lion, launched a bloodless coup in Syria. 50 years later, the Assad family still rules Syria through his son, Bashar Assad.

• Read and listen: Assad or We Burn the Country: How One Family’s Lust for Power Destroyed Syria.

Belarus activist Maria Kolesnikova (pictured) was kidnapped and sent to the Ukraine border, where she tore her passport to avoid expulsion. One year later, on Sept. 8, 2021, She was sentenced to 11 years in prison for extremism, conspiring to seize power illegally, and damaging state security.

Anne Hathaway is starring in HBO Max’s adaptation of The Witches as the Grand High Witch, who, in this version, has hands resembling bird feet with only three fingers on each hand. The limb difference community defined using this trait to make Hathaway’s character look non-human as problematic, and both Hathaway and HBO immediately apologized. The Witches is an adaptation of Roald Dahl’s 1983 novel of the same name. In the 1990 film adaptation of the book, Anjelica Huston played the same role, but with five fingers on each hand.

• Read The Witches: The Graphic Novel by Roald Dahl and Pénélope Bagieu.
• Watch the 1990 movie The Witches.

The new Apple iPhone 12 models sport a tougher, more resilient glass over its screen –  a feature the company dubbed Ceramic Shield.

Maria Kolesnikova, the opponent of Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko, was allegedly seized by masked men in Minsk and taken away in a van. She is now detained in the Ukraine border.

Correct. The European Union on Thursday, Oct. 22, 2020,  awarded its top human rights prize to the Belarus opposition movement and its leader, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya. The 38-year old former English teacher took her husband’s place in the opposition after he was jailed. Tsikhanouskaya shares the prize with several leading members of the opposition, including Nobel winner Svetlana Alexievich, musician Maryia Kalesnikava, and others.