Entertaining 2013 Trivia Quiz

Answer: Beyoncé

The "Beyoncé" album and its seventeen accompanying videos were recorded in secrecy with the intent of a surprise release in 2013; Beyoncé's record company and her spokesman had both stated that the album would be released in 2014. "Beyoncé" sold over 800,000 digital copies within three days and debuted at number one on the Billboard charts. Physical copies of the album were available a week later.

The surprise release took the Internet by storm, with the website Twitter reporting over 1.2 million tweets about the album in the first twelve hours.

Other artists, such as Drake, Miley Cyrus and D'Angelo followed Beyoncé's tactic with surprise releases of their own, and when "Weird Al" Yankovic released eight videos in eight days for his "Mandatory Fun" album in 2014, he was credited with "pulling a Beyoncé" by the "Billboard" website.

Answer: Breaking Bad

"Breaking Bad" had an unlikely plot for a hit TV series: A mild-mannered chemistry teacher, who was diagnosed with terminal cancer, decided to manufacture methamphetamine to support his family. But creative scripts by series creator Vince Gilligan and his staff and top notch performances from the cast made the show an Emmy favorite (it won 16 Emmys during its run from 2008 to 2013). For portraying protagonist Walter White, Bryan Cranston took home four Outstanding Lead Actor Emmys and reinvented his career (remember him as the goofy dad on "Malcolm in the Middle"?) Besides the Emmy accolades, "Breaking Bad" frequently showed up on lists of the best television shows of all time.

Answer: Frozen

The animated film "Frozen" was inspired by Hans Christian Andersen's "The Snow Queen" and featured Idina Menzel and Kristen Bell as two princesses of the Kingdom of Arendelle. It was released at the end of November and became the number one film in the U.S. in its second week of release.

It remained in the top ten in the U.S. for sixteen weeks, which at the time, was the first film to do so in over a decade. At the end of 2013, the total worldwide receipts for "Frozen" were $1.274 billion, just ahead of "Iron Man 3"'s $1.215 billion.

It went on to win two Academy Awards in the following year for Best Animated Feature and Best Original Song "Let it Go". Other top-grossing films of 2013 included "Despicable Me 2", "The Hunger Games: Catching Fire" and "The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug".

Answer: Grand Theft Auto V

Released in September for both Playstation and Xbox 360, the fifth installment in the Grand Theft Auto (GTA) series was a commercial and critical success, earning $800 million on its first day of release and receiving Game of the Year accolades from numerous entities, including Spike Video Game Awards, Golden Joystick Awards, Game Pro and Metacritic.

The game play offered either first-person or third-person player options, and as with the other GTA games, the goal was to complete criminal missions.

The game received praise for its design and for the ability to quickly switch between the three main characters. It did receive the usual criticism for its violence and its treatment of women. Other best-selling games of 2013 included "Call of Duty: Ghosts", "Pokemon X&Y" and "The Last of Us", which also received many votes for Game of the Year.

Answer: Miley Cyrus

The daughter of country singer Billy Ray Cyrus, Miley Cyrus was a teen idol thanks to her starring role on the television show "Hannah Montana", which ran from 2006 to 2011. After the series ended, she transformed herself in 2012 by cutting off her long brown hair into a choppy pixie cut and dying it blonde, and then in 2013, she emerged with a sexually explicit persona thanks to the "Bangerz" album and some controversial performances.

The provocative videos to the singles "We Can't Stop" and "Wrecking Ball" and her twerking performance with Robin Thicke at the 2013 MTV Video Music Awards kept her in the news, and then there was the unicorn outfit: She uploaded a video of herself twerking to J. Dash's "Wop" song wearing a unicorn onesie. And the "Time" magazine Person of the Year honors? Miley lost out to Pope Francis.

Answer: Daniel Day-Lewis

Daniel Day-Lewis won the Best Actor Academy Award in 2013 for the title performance in "Lincoln". At the time, it had been his fifth Best Actor Oscar nomination; he had previously been nominated and won for "My Left Foot" (1990) and "There will be Blood" (2008) and been nominated for "In the Name of the Father" (1994) and "Gangs of New York" (2003).

He had also received BAFTA nominations for all of those films plus "The Last of the Mohicans" (1993) and had won the BAFTA for "My Left Foot", "Gangs of New York", "There will be Blood" and "Lincoln". Known for being a method actor who would become completely immersed in his roles, Day-Lewis reportedly requested a year to prepare for the role of Abraham Lincoln, after Liam Neeson, who was originally cast in the role, pulled out.

Although nominated for 12 Academy Awards, including Best Picture, "Lincoln" only won two: the acting award for Day-Lewis and Best Production Design.

Answer: Cyndi Lauper

"Matilda the Musical" was the favorite going in, but "Kinky Boots" took top honors at the Tony awards in June 2013. Based on a 2005 film, the musical told the story of a struggling shoe factory that switched over to making high-heeled boots, popular with drag queens, to stay in business. Cyndi Lauper composed the music and lyrics for the show, and she became the first woman to win the award solo in that category. With her win, Lauper achieved "GET" status: Grammy, Emmy and Tony.

She first won a Grammy back in 1985 as Best New Artist, and she won an Emmy in 1995 for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series in "Mad About You".

Answer: Netflix

Founded in 1997 as a mail order DVD rental service, Netflix began offering video-on-demand streaming in 2007, and in 2011 moved into realm of original programming when they purchased the broadcast rights to "House of Cards", an American version of the BBC series from the early 1990s.

The new "House of Cards" starred and was produced by Kevin Spacey and featured Robin Wright. Both received Emmy nominations for their roles as the ruthless and manipulative Frank and Claire Underwood, but the awards won by the show in its first season were Best Director (David Fincher), Outstanding Casting and Outstanding Cinematography.

Answer: Pharrell Williams

Pharrell Williams co-wrote and produced Robin Thicke's "Blurred Lines" and was featured on the song and video, and he was featured as a vocalist on Daft Punk's "Get Lucky". The two songs were worldwide hits and in June 2013, were ranked number one and two on the "Billboard" charts, making Williams only the twelfth artist to reach the top two spots at the same time. Williams wrote the song "Happy" for the soundtrack to the film "Despicable Me 2" and also featured it on his album, "Girl", which was released in November 2013.

The video for the infectious song featured various people dancing and lip-syncing along, including Steve Carell, Jimmy Kimmel and Magic Johnson, and the song topped the charts in over 20 countries around the world.

Answer: Peter O'Toole

Peter O'Toole had been nominated for eight Academy Awards between 1963 and 2007 - all of them for Best Actor: "Lawrence of Arabia", "Becket", "The Lion in Winter", "Goodbye Mr. Chips", "The Ruling Class", "The Stunt Man", "My Favorite Year", and "Venus".

He also received BAFTA nominations for several of those roles and a BAFTA nomination for Best Supporting Actor for "The Last Emperor", and he won the BAFTA for "Lawrence of Arabia". In 2002, he received an honorary Oscar for his "lifetime contribution to film", although he initially didn't want to accept it because he wanted to win the award himself. Peter O'Toole was 81 when he died in London, England at the end of 2013.