157 Fun Facts About Easter Eggs

What is the primary Christian symbolism of the Easter egg?

The Empty Tomb from which Jesus rose is what the egg stands for, and cracking the shell represents his resurrection from the dead.

What colour are Easter eggs dyed in Orthodox and Eastern Catholic Churches to represent the blood of Christ?

In Orthodox and Eastern Catholic Churches, Easter eggs are dyed red to represent the blood of Christ, with the hard shell symbolizing the sealed Tomb of Christ.

Beyond Christian symbolism, what have eggs traditionally represented across cultures?

Eggs are a near-universal symbol of new life; painted eggs have decorated Iranian Nowruz tables for at least 2,500 years, and Persepolis reliefs show people carrying eggs to the king.

Ukrainian decorated Easter eggs, 'pysanky', take their name from the verb 'pysaty'. What does 'pysaty' mean?

The word 'pysanky' comes from the Ukrainian word 'pysaty', meaning "to write," referring to the intricate designs written on the eggs with beeswax.

Which Russian Tsar commissioned the first Imperial Fabergé egg as an Easter gift for his wife in 1885?

Tsar Alexander III commissioned the first Imperial Fabergé egg, known as the "Hen Egg," in 1885 as an Easter gift for his wife, Empress Maria Feodorovna.

The tradition of the Easter egg hunt is widely believed to have originated in which country?

The custom is often traced to 16th-century Germany, where Martin Luther is said to have had men hide eggs in the garden for wives and children to find; German migrants later carried it to North America and to Queen Victoria's household.

In medieval Europe, why were eggs traditionally forbidden during the Lenten period before Easter?

During Lent, a period of fasting before Easter, eggs were historically among the animal products (along with meat and dairy) that Christians abstained from eating.

Which 1979 Atari 2600 game hid programmer Warren Robinett's name in a secret room, giving us the term 'Easter egg'?

Adventure's secret room led Atari's Steve Wright to coin the term 'Easter egg' around 1980, in reference to an Easter egg hunt.

Which 1973 video game, predating 'Adventure', has an Easter egg where players can find a McDonald's restaurant?

The earliest known video game Easter egg is found in the 1973 game "Moonlander," where flying the module horizontally through several screens reveals a McDonald's restaurant.

Which famous cheat sequence was first used in 'Gradius' and became widely known through 'Contra'?

The "Konami Code" (↑↑↓↓←→←→BA) was first used in Konami's "Gradius" and gained widespread fame from "Contra," becoming one of the most recognized software Easter eggs.

Typing 'do a barrel roll' into which search engine makes the whole page spin 360 degrees?

Searching "do a barrel roll" (or "z or r twice", the Star Fox button prompt) makes the Google results page spin a full 360 degrees.

What surprising interactive Easter egg did Excel 97 contain?

Microsoft Excel 97 notably contained a full-fledged hidden flight simulator as an Easter egg, accessible through a specific series of steps.

The Christian custom of dyed Easter eggs is traced by many sources to early Christians in which region?

From there it spread through the Orthodox churches into Eastern Europe and Siberia, and later into the West.

In which country were the oldest known decorated eggshells, engraved 60,000 years ago, found?

The engraved ostrich eggshell fragments, about 60,000 years old, come from Diepkloof Rock Shelter in South Africa's Western Cape; ostrich shell is strong enough to be carved without breaking.

Volker Kraft hung about 10,000 decorated eggs on an apple tree in which German town?

The Saalfelder Ostereierbaum in Saalfeld, Thuringia, began with a handful of eggs in 1965 and reached about 10,000 decorated eggs by 2012, drawing crowds each spring until the Kraft family stopped in 2015.

Why did Warren Robinett hide his name in Adventure rather than simply put it in the credits?

Atari refused to credit programmers, fearing rivals would poach named developers; when players found Robinett's secret room, management judged a recall too costly and left it in.

The World Egg Jarping Championships, a knockout egg-tapping contest, are held each Easter Sunday where in England?

The World Egg Jarping Championships take place at Peterlee Cricket Club in County Durham; players tap hard-boiled eggs point to point and the player whose shell survives advances.

Which president brought the annual Easter Egg Roll to the White House lawn in 1878?

Rutherford B. Hayes opened the South Lawn to egg rollers in 1878, two years after Congress's 1876 Turf Protection Law banned the children's games on the Capitol grounds.

The White House Egg Roll is held on which day each spring?

The White House Easter Egg Roll takes place on Easter Monday, the day after Easter Sunday, on the South Lawn, a tradition dating to 1878 under Rutherford B. Hayes.

How many Imperial Easter eggs did Fabergé deliver to the tsars between 1885 and 1916?

Fabergé delivered 50 Imperial eggs: ten to Alexander III and forty to Nicholas II; two more were begun for Easter 1917 but never presented because of the revolution.

The Ukrainian pysanka is decorated using hot wax applied with a stylus called what?

The kistka is a small funnel-tipped stylus that lays molten beeswax onto the egg before each dye bath, the same wax-resist principle used in batik.

In the German Lutheran folk belief that gave us the Easter Bunny, the 'Easter Hare' originally played what role for children?

A judge of their behaviour, like Santa's naughty-or-nice list: only good children got coloured eggs in the nests they made in their caps.

The Cadbury Creme Egg was launched in 1963 under which sister brand's name?

The egg debuted in 1963 as Fry's Creme Egg, under the J. S. Fry & Sons name that Cadbury had absorbed, and was renamed Cadbury's Creme Egg in 1971.

Kinder Surprise, launched in 1974, was created by which Italian confectioner?

Ferrero's Michele Ferrero and William Salice modelled it on the Italian Easter custom of giving children a big chocolate egg with a toy inside.

Confetti-filled cascarones, cracked over heads at Easter and Carnival, come from where?

They are said to descend from perfume-filled eggs Marco Polo brought from China; the custom is now common in the US Southwest.

An early egg dance reference comes from Philibert II of Savoy's wedding to which princess?

Margaret of Austria, daughter of Emperor Maximilian I, married Philibert II of Savoy; an account of their wedding festivities describes an egg dance, one of the earliest references to the custom.

In the Pace Egg folk plays of Lancashire and Yorkshire, performed at Easter, which saint smites all challengers?

St George does the smiting in some versions, and a fool called Toss Pot rejoices at the outcome; the plays were revived in Lancashire and West Yorkshire.

Nicaea in 325 fixed Easter as the first Sunday after the first full moon on or after what?

Easter is the first Sunday after the first full moon on or after the vernal equinox, fixed in church tables as 21 March; the moon is calculated, not observed, so dates can differ from the astronomical one.

The Osterbrunnen, an Easter fountain decorated with painted eggshells, is a tradition from which German region?

The Osterbrunnen custom comes from Franconia, especially the Franconian Switzerland region of Bavaria; the Bieberbach fountain entered Guinness World Records in 2001 with 11,108 hand-painted eggshells.

Disney's 'Hidden Mickey' Easter eggs trace back to Imagineers designing which park?

Hidden Mickeys began when Imagineers designing Epcot, a park meant to have no Disney characters, slipped three-circle Mickey silhouettes into its details; Disney's cast newsletter Eyes and Ears later published the first sightings.

The Wilhelm scream stock sound effect was named after a character in which 1953 Western?

The 1953 Western The Charge at Feather River has Private Wilhelm shot by an arrow with the scream; the sound itself was first recorded for Distant Drums in 1951, probably by Sheb Wooley.

Audiences learned to watch for which director's cameo in most of his own films?

Alfred Hitchcock appeared briefly in most of his films, usually early so audiences would stop looking for him; he also hosted TV's Alfred Hitchcock Presents from 1955.

Ready Player One centres on an Easter egg hunt in a virtual world called what?

The OASIS is the virtual world of Ernest Cline's 2011 novel; finding creator James Halliday's hidden Easter egg wins his fortune, and Spielberg's film adaptation arrived in 2018.

According to Bede, the goddess Ēostre, source of the word Easter, had her feasts in which month?

Bede's De temporum ratione says Ēosturmōnaþ, the month now called April, was named for feasts held in honour of Ēostre; Easter took its English name from that month.

Which Pennsylvania company took over the marshmallow Peeps chick line in 1953?

Just Born bought the Rodda Candy Company in 1953 and mechanised its hand-piped marshmallow chicks, going on to become the world's largest marshmallow candy maker.

In Australia, chocolate versions of which endangered marsupial are sold as an alternative to Easter bunnies?

The Easter Bilby, a long-eared native marsupial, has been promoted since 1991 as an alternative to the Easter Bunny, to highlight the damage introduced rabbits do to native wildlife.

Searching Google for which word produces the result 'Did you mean: nag a ram'?

Searching Google for 'anagram' returns 'Did you mean: nag a ram', itself an anagram of the word; 'recursion' similarly suggests 'recursion' in an endless loop.

The Turin widow Giambone is credited in 1725 with a first in Easter confectionery: what did she do?

Chocolate eggs had first appeared at the court of Louis XIV in Versailles.

In old Lancashire lore, why must eggshells be crushed carefully after Easter egg rolling?

Egg rolling has been held for centuries at Avenham Park in Preston, though chocolate eggs are now often used.

What Trinitarian symbolism do Easter eggs carry in Christianity?

An egg's shell, yolk and albumen form three parts of one whole, so Christian writers have used it as an image of the Trinity, three persons in one God.

In Python, typing 'import antigravity' opens a strip from which webcomic?

Python's 'import antigravity' Easter egg, added in 2008, opens xkcd strip 353, 'Python', in which a character flies after typing that very line; 'import this' prints the Zen of Python.

Android 5.0 Lollipop's hidden game, reached by tapping the version number, cloned which mobile hit?

Android 5.0 Lollipop's Easter egg, opened by repeatedly tapping the version number in Settings, was a Flappy Bird clone in which an Android mascot flaps between lollipop-shaped pillars.

What is Pancake Day, on Shrove Tuesday, traditionally meant to use up before Lent?

Mardi Gras, 'Fat Tuesday', marks the same last feast of eggs and dairy.

Which Spanish Easter dish contains hard-boiled eggs as a primary ingredient?

Hornazo, a Salamanca pastry filled with pork, chorizo and hard-boiled eggs, is eaten around Easter, traditionally during the city's Lunes de Aguas festivities after Easter week.

What is the Polish Holy Saturday blessing of decorated Easter baskets called?

Święconka is the Polish blessing of Easter baskets on Holy Saturday; the basket holds eggs, bread, salt, ham and a butter lamb for the priest to bless before the Easter breakfast.

Greek women traditionally dye Easter eggs with what on Holy Thursday?

On Holy Thursday Greek women traditionally boil eggs with onion skins and vinegar to turn them red; the kokkina avga are cracked against one another and baked into tsoureki bread.

During which Egyptian holiday, following Eastern Easter, are boiled eggs decorated?

Sham el-Nessim, held the Monday after Coptic Easter, takes its name from 'smelling the breeze'; Egyptians picnic with coloured boiled eggs, salted fish (fesikh) and green onions.

What are decorated Easter shells called in the North of England, from Middle English 'pasche'?

Pace eggs take their name from Middle English 'pasche', Easter; decorated pace eggs appear in Edward I's household accounts of 1290 and are rolled down hills at Easter in northern towns such as Preston.

What did Lithuanians call their intricately detailed decorated Easter eggs?

Margučiai are Lithuania's decorated Easter eggs, made either by drawing hot wax onto the shell before dyeing or by dyeing first and scratching designs into the colour.

Which 2000 action RPG answered a long-running rumour with a secret level full of cows?

Diablo II's Secret Cow Level, opened by combining Wirt's Leg and a Tome of Town Portal in the Horadric Cube, turned a joke rumour about the first Diablo into a field of axe-wielding cows.

What do men in Czech and Slovak tradition give women in exchange for their eggs?

The ritual is believed to preserve the women's health and beauty.

What feature lets visually impaired children join Easter egg hunts?

Eggs that beep or click (some play music) can be found by sound, so visually impaired children can hunt alongside everyone else.

Which Swiss chocolatier has sold a foil-wrapped Gold Bunny with a red ribbon since 1952?

Lindt's Gold Bunny, introduced in 1952, is a hollow milk-chocolate rabbit in gold foil with a red ribbon and bell; Lindt has gone to court to defend the bunny's shape and wrapping as trademarks.

Which Fabergé egg sold at Christie's London in 2007 for a record £8.9 million?

The Rothschild Egg, a 1902 clock egg with a cockerel automaton, fetched £8.9 million at Christie's London in November 2007, then a record for any Fabergé object and any Russian artwork.

In South Louisiana's 'pocking' game, what does the round winner get?

In Louisiana egg pocking, players knock the ends of hard-boiled eggs together; whoever's shell cracks loses and hands the egg over, so the winner eats the losers' eggs. Marksville in Avoyelles Parish holds a public contest every Easter Sunday.

The Pizza Planet delivery truck, a recurring Pixar Easter egg, first appeared in which film?

The Pizza Planet truck, a battered yellow pickup, first appears in Toy Story (1995) and has since been slipped into nearly every Pixar feature as a running in-joke.

'The cake is a lie' is a hidden message scrawled in which 2007 puzzle game?

In Portal (2007), the graffiti 'The cake is a lie' in hidden dens behind the test chambers warns that GLaDOS's promised cake is a ruse, and the line became a famous gaming meme.

Which comics writer's cameos in Marvel films became a running Easter egg?

Stan Lee, co-creator of Spider-Man and the X-Men, appeared in cameos from X-Men (2000) through Avengers: Endgame (2019), the last ones filmed before his death in November 2018.

Which text editor ships with games at 'M-x tetris' and a therapist at 'M-x doctor'?

GNU Emacs bundles Easter-egg programs such as M-x tetris, M-x snake and M-x doctor, an ELIZA-style psychotherapist, along with M-x butterfly, a nod to an xkcd strip.

Roughly how long is the giant pysanka sculpture in Vegreville, Alberta?

The Vegreville pysanka is about 7.8 metres long and 5.6 metres wide; it sits on a base that lets it turn in the wind like a weather vane.

Which saint's eggs are said to have turned red at the sight of the risen Christ in Eastern legend?

Eastern legend says Mary Magdalene was carrying cooked eggs to share with the women at the tomb, and they turned bright red when she saw the risen Christ; another version has an egg redden before Emperor Tiberius.

Which 1976 text game includes the secret teleport word 'xyzzy'?

Colossal Cave Adventure, written by Will Crowther in 1976, lets players teleport with the magic word 'xyzzy'; the word became a running in-joke in later games, including Windows Minesweeper.

Which 1977 arcade game hides the message 'Hi Ron!' from programmer Ron Milner?

Starship 1, Atari's 1977 arcade game, prints 'Hi Ron!' when a hidden button sequence is entered; Ed Fries identified it in 2017 as the earliest known arcade Easter egg, placed by programmer Ron Milner.

What are catapult projectiles turned into by the Easter egg in the original Age of Empires?

Entering the cheat 'JACK BE NIMBLE' in the original Age of Empires makes catapults hurl cows and villagers instead of stones, a purely cosmetic joke left in by Ensemble Studios.

Which entire earlier game can be played on a computer inside Day of the Tentacle?

Day of the Tentacle (1993) is the sequel to Maniac Mansion, and the whole original 1987 game can be played on the computer in Weird Ed's bedroom in the Edison mansion.

Which 2009 game hid a secret room of sequel blueprints that went unfound for months?

Batman: Arkham Asylum (2009) hid a room behind a breakable wall in Warden Sharp's office containing Arkham City blueprints; Rocksteady waited six months before revealing how to reach it.

Who created the Konami Code while porting Gradius to the NES?

Kazuhisa Hashimoto added the code while porting Gradius to the NES in 1986 so he could test the game with full power-ups, then forgot to remove it; he died in 2020.

What happens if you hit the side of a Sonic 3D Blast cartridge while it's slotted in?

Traveller's Tales' Jon Burton explained it was default exception handling to pass Sega's certification.

Who added the 'make love' / 'not war?' Easter egg to the PDP-6 COMPIL program?

William F. Weiher wrote the egg into COMPIL, the Stanford AI Lab's PDP-6 command program, between October 1967 and October 1968: typing 'make love' drew the reply 'not war?'.

Doom II's two secret levels rebuild maps from which earlier id Software game?

Doom II's secret levels 31 and 32, Wolfenstein and Grosse, rebuild Wolfenstein 3D maps complete with SS guards, and level 32 has hanged Commander Keens for the player to shoot.

What message does OpenVMS return for 'exit %xb70'?

The Monty Python phrasebook line sits beside an 'All your base' status code.

Which game was hidden in Microsoft Word 97?

Word 97 hid a pinball game, reached through a sequence that starts by typing the word 'Blue' and ends with a Ctrl+Shift click in the About box; Microsoft's 2002 Trustworthy Computing initiative banned such hidden code.

What was the Doom-style hidden room in Excel 95 called?

Excel 95's Hall of Tortured Souls is a Doom-style 3D room reached via row 95 and a Ctrl+Alt+Shift click on the Tech Support button; scrolling credits and a wall of developers' names wait inside.

What does typing 'apt-get moo' produce on Debian systems?

Running 'apt-get moo' prints an ASCII cow asking 'Have you mooed today?', the 'Super Cow Powers' that apt-get's help text teases; aptitude replies that it has no such powers.

What did Steve Jobs do about Easter eggs upon returning to Apple?

The first post-Jobs egg timestamped Mac App Store downloads as 24 January 1984.

What did some AMI BIOS versions do on 13 November 1993 instead of booting?

Some 1993 AMI BIOS releases carried a birthday egg: on 13 November the machine played 'Happy Birthday' through the PC speaker instead of booting normally, baffling users and support staff.

Which classic game clone hides in the HP 54600B oscilloscope?

The HP 54600B oscilloscope hides a Tetris clone in its firmware, played on the scope's screen with the front-panel knobs; the later HP 54622D holds an Asteroids imitation called Rocks.

What tune does the HP ScanJet 5p play via its stepper motor as an Easter egg?

With the SCSI ID set to 0, holding the scan button while powering on makes the HP ScanJet 5p's stepper motor grind out Beethoven's 'Ode to Joy'.

Whose dog's paw print is embossed inside the Commodore Amiga 1000 case?

Later Amigas carried B-52's song titles printed on their motherboards.

Which 1992 fighting game hid Reptile, a green ninja reachable only under strict conditions?

In the arcade Mortal Kombat (1992), Reptile appeared only after a double flawless victory on The Pit without blocking, finished with a fatality, while silhouettes crossed the moon.

What Russian phrase is etched into the 1984 CVAX microchip?

The CVAX team etched a Cyrillic message reading 'VAX: When you care enough to steal the very best' onto the die, a Hallmark-slogan jab at Soviet engineers who reverse-engineered DEC's chips.

What hidden message sits inside the Nintendo Switch Pro Controller's right stick socket?

A Japanese Twitter user spotted it a day after launch in March 2017.

Which artist hid an insult to Marvel editor Bob Harras in Universe X: Spidey #1?

Al Milgrom, inking Universe X: Spidey #1 (2001), lettered the spines of a background bookshelf with 'Harras ha ha he's gone good riddance to bad rubbish'; Marvel pulped the print run and fired him.

What word did Ethan Van Sciver hide throughout New X-Men #118?

Ethan Van Sciver hid the word 'SEX' in backgrounds throughout New X-Men #118 (2001), in foliage, shirts and cloud shapes, later saying he had been annoyed with Marvel at the time.

Which artist was dropped by Marvel in 2017 over political Easter eggs in X-Men Gold #1?

Ardian Syaf hid '212' and 'QS 5:51', references to Jakarta protests against the city's Christian governor and a Quran verse read as anti-Jewish and anti-Christian, in X-Men Gold #1; Marvel fired him in 2017.

Which character hides once per episode in She-Ra: Princess of Power?

Loo-Kee, a small striped creature, hid somewhere in the scenery of every She-Ra: Princess of Power episode and popped out at the end to ask viewers whether they had spotted him before delivering the moral.

What did the pizza van phone number in Stranger Things season 4 connect callers to?

Callers to Surfer Boy Pizza's on-screen number, (805) 45-PIZZA, reached a recorded message from the show's laid-back delivery driver Argyle, played by Eduardo Franco.

In which Doctor Who episode do DVD Easter eggs help solve the plot?

In 'Blink' (2007), the Doctor's half of a conversation is hidden as an Easter egg on seventeen DVDs owned by Sally Sparrow, letting her piece together his warning about the Weeping Angels.

Typing 'hello, sailor' in Infocom's Zork games produces what running-joke response?

'Hello, sailor' is an Infocom in-joke: Zork answers 'Nothing happens here', and the phrase recurs through the company's games as a teasing non-password that the manuals never explain.

Firefox's about:robots page greets visitors with a line from which 1951 film?

Firefox's about:robots page is headed 'Gort! Klaatu barada nikto!', the command from The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951), and its text riffs on Asimov's laws, Blade Runner and Futurama.

In which two years were no Imperial Fabergé eggs made?

No Imperial eggs were presented in 1904 and 1905, when the Russo-Japanese War and the 1905 unrest made such luxuries unseemly; the series resumed with the 1906 eggs.

For which industrialist did Fabergé make a series of eggs, of which seven were completed?

Alexander Kelch, a Siberian gold-mining magnate, commissioned seven eggs from Fabergé between 1898 and 1904 as Easter gifts for his wife Barbara Kelch-Bazanova.

Which James Bond film's Fabergé egg heist inspired a modern Fabergé collection?

The 1983 film's plot centred on an elaborate egg.

Which Fabergé egg was the first made for Tsar Nicholas II's wife Alexandra?

The Rosebud Egg of 1895 was Nicholas II's first Easter gift to Alexandra; its red enamel shell opens on a yellow enamel rosebud, recalling the prized yellow roses of her native Darmstadt.

Which goldsmith founded the famous St Petersburg jewellery house in 1842?

Gustav Fabergé, a goldsmith of Huguenot descent, opened the firm in St Petersburg in 1842; his son Peter Carl took over in 1872 and built it into the court jeweller famed for the Imperial eggs.

What is the Croatian word for a decorated Easter egg?

Pisanica (plural pisanice) is the Croatian word for a decorated Easter egg; 'Sretan Uskrs', Happy Easter, is a common inscription, and red is the traditional colour.

In classic Windows Solitaire, which key combination instantly won the game?

Pressing Alt+Shift+2 in the Windows Solitaire shipped from Windows 3.0 to XP instantly triggered the bouncing-cards victory animation, a developer shortcut left in the program.

What is the UK advertising question for Cadbury Creme Eggs?

'How do you eat yours?' has fronted Cadbury's UK Creme Egg advertising since 1985, inviting people to share their biting, licking or finger-scooping technique.

Which comedian flagged shrinking US Creme Eggs on Conan O'Brien's show in 2007?

B. J. Novak of The Office held up old and new eggs on Late Night with Conan O'Brien in 2007 to show US Creme Eggs had shrunk from 39 g to 34 g, despite Cadbury's denials.

What gives the Creme Egg 'yolk' its yellow colour?

The yellow 'yolk' is white fondant tinted with paprika extract; the fondant itself is sugar, glucose syrup, invert sugar and dried egg white with flavourings.

What 2015 change to Creme Eggs reportedly cost Cadbury over £6 million in sales?

Packs also shrank from six eggs to five.

In Vim, ':help 42' opens a joke note about which author?

Typing ':help 42' in Vim opens a note lamenting that Douglas Adams, 'the only person who knew what this question really was about', is dead; ':help holy-grail' and ':help UserGettingBored' are sibling jokes.

Which 1938 US law keeps Kinder Surprise off American shelves?

The Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act of 1938 bans confectionery with a 'non-nutritive object' embedded inside, which keeps Kinder Surprise out of the US; Kinder Joy, with its toy in a separate half, is sold instead.

How does Kinder Joy differ from Kinder Surprise?

Kinder Joy has been sold in the US since 2017.

Which 1987 Apple computer's ROM hid four photos of its design team?

The 1987 Macintosh SE's ROM holds four digitised photos of its design team, shown by pressing the interrupt switch and typing 'G 41D89A' into the debugger.

Where is Peeps maker Just Born based?

Sam Born founded Just Born in Brooklyn in 1923 and moved it to Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, in 1932; his shop sign, 'Just Born', punned on his name and his fresh-made candy.

How many Peeps did Matt Stonie eat in five minutes to win a 2017 contest?

Matt Stonie ate 255 Peeps in five minutes at the 2017 World Peeps Eating Championship at National Harbor, Maryland, a Major League Eating record.

What is a 'Peepshi'?

It mimics a sushi roll.

Mistyping 'ls' as 'sl' on many Unix systems summons what across the terminal?

The 'sl' program, written by Toyoda Masashi in 1993, punishes a mistyped 'ls' by running an ASCII steam locomotive across the terminal, and by default it ignores Ctrl+C until the train has passed.

Which first lady proposed opening the White House Egg Roll to Black children in 1953?

Mamie Eisenhower, seeing Black children watching through the fence at the 1953 Egg Roll, insisted they be admitted, and the event was integrated from 1954.

Which 1982 Atari 2600 game hides designer Howard Scott Warshaw's initials?

Yars' Revenge (1982) hides Howard Scott Warshaw's initials, displayed as 'HSWWSH' when the Qotile is destroyed under specific conditions and the Yar is flown to the right spot.

What item, found in the Black Castle catacombs, unlocks Warren Robinett's secret room?

The Gray Dot, a one-pixel object hidden in the Black Castle catacombs, opens a hidden wall when carried to it with two other objects, revealing a room reading 'Created by Warren Robinett'; the egg works in games 2 and 3.

How many dragons roam the game world of Atari's Adventure?

Adventure has three dragons, the yellow Yorgle, green Grundle and red Rhindle, each able to swallow the player's square; a bat also flits about, stealing and dropping items.

How many copies of Adventure were sold, making it a top Atari 2600 title?

Adventure sold more than a million copies, making it one of the best-selling Atari 2600 titles; John Dunn borrowed its prototype code to build 1979's Superman cartridge.

What alternative names does the famous Konami cheat sequence go by?

It gave players 30 lives in Contra on the NES.

What does the Konami Code unlock in BioShock Infinite?

Entering the Konami Code at BioShock Infinite's main menu unlocks 1999 Mode, a punishing difficulty otherwise available only after finishing the game, named for the year System Shock 2 was released.

Who wrote the first published article on Hidden Mickeys in 1989?

Arlen Miller's 1989 piece in Eyes and Ears, the weekly newsletter for Walt Disney World cast members, was the first published article on Hidden Mickeys and set off the hunt among guests.

Which 1997 N64 shooter secretly contained a ZX Spectrum emulator?

Rare's GoldenEye 007 (1997) shipped with a hidden ZX Spectrum emulator and ten of Rare's old Ultimate Play the Game titles; the feature was disabled in the final ROM and unlocked by hackers in 2012.

Apple's 'Sosumi' alert sound of 1991 was a jab at a lawsuit from which company?

Apple Corps, the Beatles' company, had sued Apple over music-related uses of the name; when lawyers objected to a sound named 'Chime', Jim Reekes renamed it 'Sosumi' ('so sue me') and told them it was Japanese.

Which physician recorded the earliest reference to the Easter Hare in 1682?

Georg Franck von Franckenau's 1682 treatise De ovis paschalibus ('About Easter Eggs') is the earliest written reference to the Easter Hare, describing Alsatian children hunting for the eggs it laid.

Among which German-American community was the egg-laying 'Osterhase' first told of in the US?

German immigrants brought the egg-laying Osterhase, or 'Oschter Haws', to the Pennsylvania Dutch country in the 1700s, where children built nests in caps and bonnets for its coloured eggs.

Why were hares linked to the Virgin Mary in medieval art?

Pliny, Plutarch and others held the belief.

What is the Easter Bunny in Northwest European folklore, strictly speaking?

'Hase' means hare, not rabbit.

Which anniversary was the Vegreville pysanka's federal grant tied to?

Vegreville's pysanka was built in 1975 with a federal grant for projects marking the RCMP's centennial, honouring the Mounties who brought order to the Ukrainian settlers' district.

Who designed the Vegreville egg?

Paul Maxym Sembaliuk, a Ukrainian-Canadian artist, designed the pysanka's pattern, and computer scientist Ronald Resch worked out the geometry of its thousands of aluminium tiles.

Roughly how much does the Vegreville egg weigh?

The Vegreville pysanka weighs about 2,270 kg (5,000 lb), close to 2.5 tonnes, and stands 31 feet high on a base that lets it turn in the wind.

What does the Easter egg 'A113' refer to?

A113 is the number of the character-animation classroom at CalArts where Brad Bird, John Lasseter and other Pixar veterans studied; it appears in almost every Pixar film, starting with the licence plate of Andy's mum's car.

Caricaturist Al Hirschfeld hid which name in the folds and hair of his drawings?

Al Hirschfeld hid his daughter's name, NINA, in the folds and hair of his caricatures from her birth in 1945, and wrote the number of NINAs beside his signature.

What colour were the original marshmallow Peeps chicks?

The first Peeps chicks were yellow, the colour Rodda's candy-makers piped by hand in the 1940s; other colours and bunny shapes came later under Just Born.

Entering the Konami Code on Facebook in 2009 added what effect to the page?

In 2009 entering ↑↑↓↓←→←→BA on Facebook and then clicking or scrolling produced flashing lens flares across the page, a short-lived Easter egg that spread by word of mouth.

Which holiday outsells Easter for candy in the United States?

Halloween is the biggest US candy holiday by sales, with Easter second, ahead of Christmas and Valentine's Day, in the National Confectioners Association's rankings.

Which 1999 film flashes its co-lead into single frames before he is formally introduced?

Fight Club (1999) splices Tyler Durden into single frames four times before Brad Pitt's character is properly introduced, echoing his job inserting stray frames into family films.

Which nine-year-old wrote 'Billy the Aussie Easter Bilby' in 1968?

Rose-Marie Dusting wrote 'Billy the Aussie Easter Bilby' in 1968, aged nine, and published it as a book eleven years later in 1979, helping launch the Easter Bilby as an alternative to the rabbit.

Which group promoted the Easter Bilby in 1991 to highlight the damage done by introduced pests?

The Foundation for Rabbit-Free Australia began promoting the Easter Bilby in 1991 under Nicholas Newland, to raise awareness of the damage introduced rabbits do to native species such as the bilby.

What was the first general-release film with a post-credits scene, in 1966?

The Silencers (1966), the first Matt Helm spy spoof, closed with Dean Martin's Helm surrounded by women after the credits, teasing the sequel Murderers' Row and setting the post-credits precedent.

Which Muppet yells 'GO HOME!' at the audience after The Muppet Movie credits?

After The Muppet Movie's 1979 credits, Animal bursts through the screen shouting 'GO HOME! GO HOME!' at the audience, then 'Bye-bye', a gag many later films have imitated.

What does Skeletor say in the post-credits scene of Masters of the Universe (1987)?

Masters of the Universe (1987) ends with Skeletor's head rising from the water at the bottom of the pit to say 'I'll be back!', teasing a sequel that never came.

Which 2008 film's post-credits scene had Nick Fury propose the 'Avenger Initiative'?

Iron Man (2008) ends with Samuel L. Jackson's Nick Fury waiting in Tony Stark's home to discuss the 'Avenger Initiative', the post-credits scene that launched the Marvel Cinematic Universe's habit.

What does Google display for the Seinfeld holiday search?

Searching Google for 'Festivus' adds a bare aluminium Festivus pole down the left of the results and the line 'A festivus miracle!' beside the result count, a nod to Seinfeld's 1997 episode 'The Strike'.

Which 1982 Spielberg film shows a trick-or-treater dressed as Yoda?

In E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982), E.T. spots a child in a Yoda costume on Halloween and calls 'Home', a nod to George Lucas; Lucas answered by putting E.T.'s species in The Phantom Menace's senate.

What does searching 'kerning' do to the word in Google's results?

'keming' removes the spaces instead, mocking bad kerning.

A toy of Nemo appears among Boo's things in which 2001 Pixar film?

Monsters, Inc. (2001) shows Boo handing Sulley a clownfish toy that is Nemo, two years before Finding Nemo was released, one of Pixar's habitual teasers for its next film.

Which mathematician's cellular automaton runs beside Google results when you search its name?

Searching 'Conway's Game of Life' runs John Conway's 1970 cellular automaton beside the results, cells blinking and spreading across the page; Google added the egg in 2012.

What does searching 'dvd screensaver' make Google's logo do?

When you return to the tab, the logo is always about to hit a corner.

In Aladdin (1992), the Genie briefly takes the form of which other Disney character?

When Aladdin lies about his plans, the Genie's head turns into Pinocchio's with a growing nose; Sebastian from The Little Mermaid also pinches him in another gag.

What have cheats reportedly filled egg-tapping eggs with?

Egg tapping cheats have reportedly used eggs of cement, alabaster or even marble, so some contests inspect eggs before play; the holder of the last intact egg wins.

Which British prisoner of war recorded 'egg picking' in Maryland in 1781?

Thomas Anbury, a British officer held prisoner in Maryland with Burgoyne's surrendered army, described 'egg picking' in his Travels Through the Interior Parts of America; locals dyed eggs crimson with logwood, said to give them strength.

R2-D2 and C-3PO appear as hieroglyphs in which 1981 film?

In Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), a pillar in the Well of Souls bears hieroglyphs of R2-D2 and C-3PO, a nod from Spielberg and Lucas to Star Wars.

Which painter depicted a springtime egg-and-bowl dance game?

Pieter Aertsen's The Egg Dance (1552), now in the Rijksmuseum, shows a tavern game in which a dancer had to roll an egg out of a bowl with his feet and cover it again, all within a chalk circle.

Homer Simpson's hair and ear form which two letters, his creator's initials?

Matt Groening drew Homer so that the zigzag hairline forms an 'M' and the ear a 'G', his own initials, a signature he has pointed out in interviews.

Clicking the 16-bit hedgehog on Google's 'green hill zone' results 25 times turns him into what?

Google's Sonic card, shown for 'green hill zone' or 'sonic the hedgehog', has a pixel Sonic who spins when clicked; after 25 clicks he turns gold as Super Sonic.

What HTTP-style status code does Google's hidden kitchenware-themed page report?

Google.com/teapot returns '418. I'm a teapot', the joke status from the 1998 Hyper Text Coffee Pot Control Protocol April Fools' RFC; clicking or tilting a phone makes the teapot pour into a cup.

For April Fools' Day 2015, Google Maps let users play which arcade game along real streets?

For April Fools' Day 2015 Google Maps turned real street grids into Pac-Man mazes playable in the browser; Ms. Pac-Man followed in the Maps app for April Fools' 2017.

Who designed Chrome's 'Lonely T-Rex' that appears when the browser is offline?

Google designer Sebastien Gabriel drew the pixel T-Rex for Chrome's offline page in 2014 as a joke about the 'prehistoric' feeling of having no connection; the endless-runner game arrived that September.

Entering the Konami Code on a Chromebook Pixel does what?

The same code on Google's 2013 laptop had no gameplay payoff, just a light show.

What undocumented feature is hidden in HP's 1973 HP-45 pocket calculator?

The HP-45 of 1973 hid an undocumented stopwatch mode, reached with an unlikely key combination; HP left it out of the manual because its timing was inaccurate, and the HP-55 later made a timer official.

Which Zelda game shows Mario-series portraits through a Hyrule Castle courtyard window?

In Ocarina of Time (1998), peering through a window in the Hyrule Castle courtyard reveals portraits of Mario, Luigi, Peach and Bowser, a nod to its N64 sibling Super Mario 64.