The 37-volume Naturalis Historia, written by the Roman naturalist Pliny the Elder, is the world’s earliest surviving encyclopedia. In the first century C.E., Pliny set out to collect the breadth of human knowledge, and millennia later, it’s still a great document for learning a little bit about everything. It has chapters on sugar, Germany, the rainbow, Cesarean births, the art of painting, and hypothetical antipodes.It also makes delightfully apparent where Pliny’s most passionate interests lay: Consider the chapters “Elephants (Their Capacity),” “When Elephants Were First Put Into Harness,” “The Docility of the Elephant,” and “Wonderful Things Which Have Been Done by the Elephant.”I hope you find a topic you enjoy just as much in this week’s trivia.Find last week’s questions here, and to get Atlantic Trivia in your inbox every day, sign up for The Atlantic Daily.Monday, November 3, 2025What president who assumed office after the 1901 assassination of William McKinley constructed the original West Wing and East Wing of the White House?— From Neil Flanagan’s “White House Architecture Was an Honor System. Trump Noticed.”What poetic meter consisting of 10 syllables per line was likely introduced to English drama by Christopher Marlowe and then widely popularized by William Shakespeare?— From Isaac Butler’s “The Stubborn Myth of the Literary Genius”In baseball notation, a strikeout is represented by what letter—flipped backwards if the batter goes out without swinging?— From Steve Rushin’s “The Best Postseason in Baseball History?”And, by the way, did you know that the Athletics’ (formerly of Oakland) mascot is—this one is for you, Pliny—an elephant? The origin of the mascot is a dig from a rival manager, who in the early 20th century said that the A’s had a “big white elephant on their hands” in the form of a roster of expensive and useless players. Those players and their fans took it in stride.See you tomorrow!Answers:Teddy Roosevelt. The low-slung annexes respected the design of the original White House architect, James Hoban, and the project established a norm for protecting the historic character of the complex. But, as Flanagan writes, norms can always be ignored. Read more.Iambic pentameter. Shakespeare gets a lot of credit for inventiveness, but Marlowe was the more daring cultural vanguard, especially in the way he conducted his life—“probably gay, possibly a spy, often in trouble with the law,” Butler writes. It is therefore easy for histories of him to veer into myth. Read more.K. The Toronto Blue Jays pitcher Trey Yesavage notched 12 Ks in Game 4 of this year’s World Series—the most ever by a rookie in series history. Rushin writes that Yesavage was hardly the lone star in a postseason that proved baseball can still surprise. Read more.How did you do? Come back tomorrow for more questions, or click here for last week’s. And if you think up a great question after reading an Atlantic story—or simply want to share a wild fact—send it my way at trivia@theatlantic.com.