Smash Weekend Quiz: Leaders, Twitters, and Amazons

Signal is a free, privacy-focused messaging and voice talk app. The company created the encryption protocol that others, including WhatsApp and Skype, use. It has previously been the communication method of choice for activists, people in the hacker community, and others concerned about privacy.

What’s new?

Recently, Facebook-owned WhatsApp began issuing a privacy update making clear that it is sharing user data with Facebook, leading users to search for alternatives. Elon Musk’s Jan. 7, 2021 tweet, “Use Signal,” helped raise awareness of the app.

In Friends’ classic 1996 Thanksgiving episode, the gang brings up their respective worst Thanksgiving.  Joey gets his head stuck inside a turkey in his story of the 1992 Thanksgiving.

Mr. Bean VS. Friends Fact

Rowan Atkinson accused Friends of stealing this joke from his Mr. Bean sitcom in a Jan. 2021 ITV series Happy Birthday Mr. Bean, honoring the comedy character’s 30th anniversary. In the show, Atkinson remembered a 1992 Mr. Bean scene where his character ran around with a turkey on his head. He blamed Friends for repeating the joke on its 1996 Thanksgiving episode. Interestingly, Joey gets his head inside the turkey in the ’92 story – The same year the Mr. Bean joke aired.

Pictured is Twitter’s Former CEO, Jack Dorsey. Having already briefly suspended Donald Trump’s account on Jan.6, 2021, the day of the Capitol riots, Twitter later banned Trump entirely, then smacked down the president’s attempts to tweet using other accounts. In a Twitter thread posted Thursday, Jan. 14, 2021, Dorsey wrote: “I do not celebrate or feel pride in our having to ban @realDonaldTrump from Twitter. I believe this was the right decision for Twitter.”

Billie Eilish and FINNEAS (Finneas O’Connell) are sister and brother. He also co-wrote and produced all of her albums. Eilish is releasing a collection of hundreds of rarely seen photos in May, as Grand Central Publishing announced Tuesday, Jan. 12, 2021. The book is called “Billie Eilish” and, according to Grand Central, will offer “readers personal glimpses into her childhood, her life on tour, and more.” – which should include photos of the two siblings home-schooled together.

R.I.P Sheldon Adelson. The billionaire mogul and Jewish-Republican power broker died after a long illness Tuesday, Jan. 12, 2021. He was 87 years old. Apart from donating 100s of millions of dollars to Republican campaigns over the years, including a $75 million donation to the Trump campaign in Oct. 2020, Adelson was also a big supporter of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He funded a widely-read free daily newspaper called “Israel Hayom,” or “Israel Today,” so supportive of Netanyahu that some Israelis nicknamed it “Bibi-ton.”

US Vice President Kamala Harris attended Howard University in Washington, DC, where she was part of the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority. We know this because Harris posed against colors inspired by her sorority for US Vogue’s Feb. 2021 Edition. The informal picture was meant for the magazine’s inner pages but found its way to the cover, much to Harris’s team’s dismay.

Détente is French for relaxation. The term, in politics, originated when France and Germany tried unsuccessfully to reduce tensions around 1912. The expression is often used to describe a policy of relaxing tensions between the Soviet Union and the West during the Cold War. 

President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence appear to have come to a détente after nearly a week of silence amid the Capitol riots. According to a senior administration official, the two met Monday, Jan. 11, 2021, in the Oval Office and had a “good conversation,” according to a senior administration official. During their conversation, the official said, Trump and Pence pledged to continue to work for “the remainder of their term.”

Nancy Pelosi quoted Israeli poet Ehud Manor’s song ‘I Have No Other Country’ in Congress on Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2021, one day before Donald Trump’s historic second impeachment. The lyrics go, ‘I won’t be silent because my country has changed her face / I will not give up reminding her / And sing in her ears until she will open her eyes.’ 

Watch Israeli Indie rocker Ninet Tayeb perform this song in a Yitzhak Rabin memorial (Hebrew).

Chancellor Angela Merkel has been in office for 16 years. Now 66, Merkel has led Germany, the European Union’s biggest economy, since she took office in 2005. She said over two years ago that she wouldn’t seek a fifth term as chancellor. Merkel’s center-right party is choosing a new leader in 2021.

Micronesia is a small Pacific nation that’s home to 100,000 people and was one of a handful of island nations to have avoided the coronavirus. That is until Jan. 12, 2021, when Micronesia reported its first case of the virus after a crewmember on an arriving ship tested positive.

The word “Amazon,” meaning “warrior,” is likely rooted in the Persian (Iranian) language.

Bonus Fact

While the story of a race of warrior women first appeared in Greek mythology, excavations across the north and east of the Black Sea region have revealed that warrior women like the Amazons existed in real life. Experts have identified depictions of the women in battle with Greek men on vases and other ceramics dressed in Persian-style clothing. 

Although it is widely assumed that “chav” is an abbreviation for “council housed and violent,” it probably originated from the Romani word “Chavi,” meaning “child.” In British slang, “chav” is a slur meant for a young working-class person, stereotypically known for aggressively loutish behavior, flashy jewelry, and athletic tracksuits. In recent years the word saw a revival in the fashion world, even more so as an Instagram or Tik-Tok challenge trend. Throughout the 2020-2021 lockdowns, social influencers who have lounged around their houses in matching loungewear sets replaced the word “lazy” with “chav” on their ads.