Sapere Aude #1
First edition of Quizarc's "week in review" newsletter
This is Business!
🚗Hyundai IPO, which is the largest public issue in India to date, debuted with a loss.
Quizarc Insight:
The top 3 biggest IPOs in Indian history are:
1. Hyundai Motor India Limited - 27870.16 Cr
2. Life Insurance Corporation of India - 21008.48 Cr
3. One 97 Communications Limited - 18300.00 Cr
🚀SpaceX achieved a catch of its Starship megarocket booster using its "Mechazilla" arms for the first time.
Quizarc Insight:
The original name for the rocket was Big Falcon Rocket (BFR), which was later changed to Mars Colonial Transporter, which was changed again to Interplanetary Transport System before the current name: Starship.
🚘 Stellantis recalled 1.5 million Ram trucks with software bug.
Quizarc Insight:
Stellantis designs, manufactures, and sells automobiles bearing its 14 brands: Abarth, Alfa Romeo, Chrysler, Citroën, Dodge, DS, Fiat, Jeep, Lancia, Maserati, Opel, Peugeot, Ram Trucks, and Vauxhall.
🎴 The world's first Nintendo Museum is now open in Japan.
Quizarc Insight:
Nintendo originally produced handmade hanafuda playing cards. The name "Nintendo" is commonly assumed to mean "leave luck to heaven", but the assumption lacks historical validation; it has also been suggested to mean "the temple of free hanafuda", but even descendants of the founder Fusajiro Yamauchi do not know the true intended meaning of the name.
🕶️An investigation by two Harvard students went viral as they demonstrated how they used Meta’s Ray-Ban smart glasses to access the personal information of people on Harvard’s campus.
Quizarc Insight:
ConnectU, (originally HarvardConnection) was a social networking website was founded by Harvard students Cameron Winklevoss, Tyler Winklevoss, and Divya Narendra in 2002.
🍟 McDonald’s is distancing itself from Donald Trump following the former president’s stop at a Pennsylvania outlet.
Quizarc Insight:
Bill Gates and Warren Buffett have McDonald's Gold Cards, which give them free meals for life. Although Gates' card is valid at any McDonald's worldwide; Buffett's card is limited to McDonald's locations in his hometown of Omaha, Nebraska.
🖥️ NVIDIA to collaborate with India on new custom AI chip, tapping into local talent.
Quizarc Insight:
Nvidia was founded by Jensen Huang, Chris Malachowsky and Curtis Priem. The three men agreed to start the company in a meeting at a Denny's roadside diner on Berryessa Road in East San Jose.
🪆 Mattel has launched a special Diwali Barbie, designed by Anita Dongre.
Quizarc Insight:
The first celebrity Barbie doll was based on British fashion model Twiggy and was released in 1967.
🎤 Comedian Kunal Kamra and Ola founder Bhavish Aggarwal have been at loggerheads about the dismal state of servicing of Ola scooters.
Quizarc Insight:
Ola Electric is India’s leading electric two-wheeler manufacturer, with a valuation of US$5.4 billion, followed by Bajaj Auto and TVS Motor. Ather Energy, another start-up founded in 2013 by Tarun Mehta and Swapnil Jain takes the 4th spot.
🥘 Zomato’s Deepinder Goyal said that Shark Tank ‘kicked’ him out because of Swiggy’s sponsorship for next season.
Quizarc Insight:
The origin of Shark Tank traces back to the Japanese show The Tigers of Money, which launched in 2001. The name of the show was a pun on "The Tiger of Malaya", the nickname of WWII general Tomoyuki Yamashita.
Deepinder Goyal is also set to enter health and mental fitness space with the brand ‘Continue’.
💰RBI has issued a directive to Navi and three more non-bank finance companies to stop lending.
Quizarc Insight:
In December 2018, Sachin Bansal, after his exit from Flipkart, along with IIT-Delhi batch mate Ankit Agarwal, founded BACQ Acquisitions Private Limited which was later renamed as Navi Technologies Private Limited.
🛰️The Indian government is working on launching satellite internet services in India, paving the way for Starlink's entry into India.
Quizarc Insight:
Starlink recently brought internet to a remote tribe in Amazon; and now they are lazy, addicted to social media and adult content!
Starlink, has also been a critical tool for Ukraine in its war with Russia.
MELA!
🎥Francis Ford Coppola’s epic science fiction drama film Megalopolis has grossed only $12 million worldwide on a budget of $130 million.
Quizarc Insight:
Coppola had the idea to make a film drawing parallels between the fall of the Roman Republic and the future of the United States by retelling the Catilinarian conspiracy in modern-day New York way back in 1977. Disillusioned by the studio system, Coppola did not produce Megalopolis until he built a large fortune in the winemaking business and spent $120 million of his own money to make the film.
🤡Joker: Folie à Deux is another box office failure and debuted behind the re-release of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets’ in China.
Quizarc Insight:
Lady Gaga released an album Harlequin as a "companion album" to the film.
🎞️ Amidst ‘Jigra’ controversy and box office faliure, director Vasan Bala deactivated his X account.
Quizarc Insight:
Divya Khossla Kumar accused Jigra of plagiarising her movie Savi, which was in turn a modern reletting of the tale of Savitri and Satyavan.
📽️ CBFC has pulled down Akshay Kumar's no smoking ad after 6 years.
Quizarc Insight:
The ad featuring Akshay Kumar was released during the time of release of his 2018 Independence Day film, Gold. It also helped in promoting his film Padman, which was based on the life of Arunachalam Muruganantham, who made low-cost sanitary pads for women in rural areas.
🎬 India has officially selected Kiran Rao's Laapata Ladies as its entry for the 2025 Oscars in the Best International Feature Film category.
Quizarc Insight:
Payal Kapadia’s All We Imagine as Light , which was the first film from India to compete in the Cannes main competition since 1994, and won the Grand Prix; was one of the 4 films shortlisted by France's Oscar committee to be selected as the country's official submission for the same category.
🧑🎤 Former One Direction singer Liam Payne died last week aged 31 after falling from a third-floor hotel room in Buenos Aires. Initial toxicology reports indicate he had multiple drugs, including methamphetamine, in his system.
Quizarc Insight:
Niall Horan, Zayn Malik, Liam Payne, Harry Styles, and Louis Tomlinson auditioned as solo candidates for the 2010 series X Factor. They all failed to progress in the "Boys" category, but were instead put together to form a five-piece boy band, forming One Direction.
It’s in the game!
🏏 New Zealand script history with a Test win in India after 36 years.
Quizarc Insight:
India's remarkable collapse to 46 all out in the first innings was India's lowest at home, the previous lowest being 75 against West Indies in Delhi in November 1987. India’s all time lowest score is 36 against Australia in 2020.
🏏 Kagiso Rabada shattered Waqar Younis' record for being quickest to 300 Test wickets(in terms of number of balls)
Quizarc Insight:
Rabada took 11817 deliveries to reach the mark, surpassing Waqar’s record of 12602 deliveries. The fastest player to 300 wickets in terms of matches played is Ravinchandran Ashwin, who achieved the feat in 54 games, against Rabada’s 64 matches.
🏏 With 18 double hundreds, Cheteshwar Pujara is 4th in the list of most double centuries in FC cricket.
Quizarc Insight:
Don Bradman with 37 double tons is at the top of the list.
🏏 Agni Dev Chopra, son of Vidhu Vinod Chopra, scored a century and double century against Arunachal Pradesh in his debut Ranji season.
Quizarc Insight:
Agni Dev plays for Mizoram in the Ranji Trophy and has scored five centuries in four games in the Plate Group.
💸 Ajay Jadeja surpasses Virat Kohli as India's richest athlete after $175m inheritance of the Jamnagar throne.
Quizarc Insight:
Nawanagar was founded in 1540 by Jam Sri Rawalji, a descendant of the Jadeja ruler of Kutch. K. S. Ranjitsinhji, one of the world's greatest cricketers also became Jam Saheb of Nawanagar from 1907 to 1933.
🎾 Novak Djokovic asked his biggest rival Rafael Nadal not to retire after his win for third-place at the Six Kings Slam in Riyadh.
Quizarc Insight:
This was the first edition of the 6 Kings Slam and the six players headlining this event were Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal, Jannik Sinner, Carlos Alcaraz, Daniil Medvedev and Holger Rune. Jannik Sinner won the tournament by defeating Carlos Alcaraz in the final.
⚽ Messi will wear a camera on his chest, streaming his every move during Inter Miami’s run at the MLS Cup 2024.
Quizarc Insight:
Following Messi's arrival in 2023, resale ticket prices for his first games with Inter Miami increased by over 1,000%. The club became the top selling team across all sports on e-commerce retailer Fanatics, while Messi broke the record for most shirt sales in 24 hours.
⚽ Barcelona will have to pay a fine of 500,000 euros after losing another appeal against a ruling by the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA), which accused the Spanish club of “wilfully and consciously” misreporting income in a bid to comply with European soccer's financial rules.
Quizarc Insight:
The supporters own and operate Barcelona. It is the third-most valuable football club in the world, worth $5.51 billion, and the world's fourth richest football club in terms of revenue, with an annual turnover above €800 million.
⚽ Cristiano Ronaldo has launched his own watch collection with Jacob and Co. The line includes two models; Flight of CR7 and Heart of CR7.
Quizarc Insight:
After announcing the creation of his YouTube channel, UR Cristiano on 21 August 2024, it became the fastest to reach the 1 million subscribers milestone, doing so in 90 minutes. The channel also became the fastest to reach 5, 10, 20, 30 and 50 million subscribers.
⚾ For the first time in 43 years, the New York Yankees and Los Angeles Dodgers — two of the most iconic brands in the entire sport — will face off for baseball’s ultimate trophy in the 2024 World Series.
Quizarc Insight:
New York Yankees have won the most titles in the world Series at 27 titles.
General!
🔫 On 16 October 2024, during their operations in the Israel–Hamas war, Israel Defense Forces (IDF) troops killed Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar.
Quizarc Insight:
In 1989, Sinwar was sentenced to four life sentences in Israel for orchestrating the abduction and killing of two Israeli soldiers and four Palestinians he considered to be collaborators. He spent 22 years in prison until his release among 1,026 others in a 2011 prisoner exchange for Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit.
🌶️Mexico's first woman president promised double-digit minimum wage hikes annually and lowering of working hours from 48 to 40 per week.
Quizarc Insight:
A scientist by profession, Claudia Sheinbaum has received her Doctor of Philosophy in energy engineering and has authored over 100 articles and two books on energy, the environment, and sustainable development.
📡 The Union Ministry of Earth Sciences approved the installation of an X-band radar in Kerala's Wayanad district after the devastating floods and landslides in July 2024. The radar will be used to monitor soil particle movements and help issue landslide warnings.
Quizarc Insight:
The search for a "death ray" led to the discovery of radar. In 1934, the Air Ministry asked Robert Watson-Watt to investigate rumors that the Germans had created a "death ray". Watson-Watt and his assistant Arnold Wilkins concluded that the death ray was not possible because it would require too much power. Wilkins suggested using radio waves to detect aircraft at long distances. Watson-Watt was intrigued and proposed the idea of transmitting radio waves and detecting the location of oncoming aircraft which eventually led to the discovery of Radar.
🌪️ Typhoon Yagi left dozens dead in Vietnam, with major damage to infrastructure.
Quizarc Insight:
Typhoon Yagi was named after the Japanese word for goat and the constellation Capricornus.
🏞️ Kaziranga National Park has been declared India's second butterfly biodiversity hotspot with 446 species.
Quizarc Insight:
The history of Kaziranga as a protected area can be traced back to 1904, when Mary Curzon, the wife of the Viceroy of India, Lord Curzon visited the area and after failing to see a single-horned rhinoceros, for which the area was renowned, she persuaded her husband to take urgent measures to protect the dwindling species which he did by initiating planning for their protection.
Brand in Focus!
🧬 23andMe
23andMe’s entire board resigned on the same day.
23andMe is a personal genomics and biotechnology company founded in 2006 by Linda Avey, Paul Cusenza and Anne Wojcicki. The company's name is derived from the 23 pairs of chromosomes in a diploid human cell.
It became a publicly traded company in 2021 and soon had a market capitalization of US$6 billion. By 2024, its valuation had fallen to 2% of that peak. On September 17, 2024, all seven independent directors of the company resigned, voicing concerns about the strategic direction of the company and Wojcicki's stated intention to take the company private.
AD in focus!
👖 Levi's
Levi's 'Reiimagined' the Iconic 'Launderette' Campaign with Beyoncé.
The new ad for Levi’s, "Reiimagine" reinterprets some of the brand's most iconic ads and takes direct inspiration from "Launderette," an iconic Levi's ad from 1985 that put the song "I Heard It Through the Grapevine" back on Billboard charts.
In this ad, Beyoncé stars in a new "Launderette" commercial set to her chart-topping hit "Levii's Jeans" from the album "Cowboy Carter."
Interestingly, although Beyonce used a different spelling of Levi’s to stay clear of leagal tussles, hours after the tracklist was unveiled, Levi’s changed its name and logo on social media to “Levii’s,” adding an extra “i” to match the title of her upcoming song.
Pop Culture recommendation!
🤼 Mr. McMahon
The Netflix miniseries investigates the career and life of charismatic and super-controversial WWE boss, Mr. McMahon. Featuring interviews of the biggest WWE stars, this serves as a trip down the nostalgia lane for millennials who gorged on attitude era wrestling and is also an eye-opener about the behind the scenes of pro wrestling.
And that’s a wrap for the first edition of Quizarc’s Sapere Aude newsletter. Let us know about your opinions about it in the comments or by emailing at query@quizarc.com.
And keep following Quizarc on Instagram for your daily dose of trivia!
Until next time.
Team Quizarc.