Calendar Trivia
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99 free Calendar trivia questions with answers — science & nature quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
50 free Calendar trivia questions with answers. Calendars look boring until you notice how much arguing, politics and astronomy went into them. This quiz covers the whole story: Julius Caesar's 46 BC reform and the astronomer behind it, the ten days Pope Gregory XIII deleted in 1582, the eleven Britain lost in 1752, why September means 'seven', which gods hide inside Tuesday and Wednesday, and the leap-year rule that made 1900 an ordinary year. It then heads abroad: the Chinese lunisolar year and its zodiac race, the Hebrew and Islamic calendars, the Maya Long Count and the 2012 fuss, the French Republican ten-day week, Ethiopia's 13 months, Kodak's 13-month year, leap seconds, the date line, and John Conway's Doomsday trick. Easy questions suit anyone who has ever wondered why February is short; the hard ones are for people who know what a bʼakʼtun is. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on the calendars, reforms and people involved, and each question carries the sentence that supports it.
30 of 99 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What did the Romans call the first day of every month?
Kalends
Kalends: debts fell due on that day, and the account book that tracked them, the calendarium, gave English the word calendar.
Q 02Which Roman leader stretched one year to 445 days to fix the calendar?
Julius Caesar
Julius Caesar added the extra days in 46 BC because Rome's calendar had slipped about three months out of step with the seasons; his new calendar took over the next year, built to stay in step without further tinkering.
Q 03Which pope issued the 1582 bull Inter gravissimas that reformed the calendar?
Gregory XIII
The bull was dated 24 February 1582 and the new calendar took effect that October.
Q 04Which country skipped straight from 4 to 15 October 1582, adopting the pope's new calendar at once?
Spain
Spain made the jump on the first possible night. Teresa of Ávila died there that night, between 4 and 15 October, and 15 October is now her feast day.
Q 05Which English writer died on 23 April 1616, a day that Catholic Europe was already calling 3 May?
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare died under England's old calendar, then ten days behind; Cervantes, long given the same death date, in fact died more than a week before him.
Q 06Leap years exist because Earth's orbit takes 365 days plus roughly how much extra time?
6 hours
6 hours is the rounded figure: the true excess is about 11 minutes less, an error the old calendar ignored until it had piled up to ten days by 1582.
Q 07Century years such as 1900 skip their leap day unless they divide evenly by which number?
400
400 is the test, so 1700, 1800 and 1900 had no leap day but 2000 did; anyone born on a leap day in 1896 had to wait until 1904 for a true birthday.
Q 08When the American colonies switched calendars in 1752, which future president's birthday moved from 11 to 22 February?
George Washington
George Washington was born on 11 February 1731 by the old reckoning; the switch dropped eleven days and moved the start of the year, so his birth date became 22 February 1732.
Q 09Which country's tax year begins on 6 April, a leftover from its switch of calendars in the 18th century?
Britain
Britain's tax year once turned on Lady Day; when eleven days were dropped in 1752 the Treasury kept its year at full length by moving its dates on by eleven days, into April.
Q 10Which satirist's painting An Election Entertainment underpins the 'Give us our eleven days!' riot myth?
William Hogarth
William Hogarth painted a stolen Tory banner reading 'Give us our Eleven Days' into a 1755 tavern scene; no record of any actual calendar riot has ever been found.
Q 11When Soviet Russia switched to the Gregorian calendar in February 1918, how many days were dropped?
13
Wednesday 31 January was followed by Thursday 14 February, and Julian dates had to be written in brackets until July.
Q 12Which country's calendar contained a 30 February in 1712?
Sweden
Sweden dropped its 1700 leap day to begin a gradual switch, kept the next two in error, then gave up and added a second leap day in 1712 to return to the old calendar.
Q 13Which US state switched calendars and sides of the International Date Line when it changed owner?
Alaska
Alaska passed from Russia to the US on 18 October 1867, trading the Julian calendar for the Gregorian and the Asian side of the date line for the American; the date is still kept as Alaska Day.
Q 21Wednesday takes its name from which Germanic god?
Woden
Woden is the Old English name for Odin; 'Woden's day' was coined to translate the Roman day of Mercury, which is why French calls it mercredi.
Q 22Under the ISO 8601 standard, which day is treated as the first day of the week?
Monday
Monday is day 1 under ISO 8601, so the standard's weekend really does end the week; the older Jewish and Christian count makes it the second day instead.
Q 23In the ISO week-date system, week 1 of a year is defined as the week containing the year's first what?
Thursday
Equivalently, it is always the week that contains 4 January.
Q 14The legendary calendar of Romulus had ten months and began in spring with which month?
March
March opened Romulus's ten-month year, which ran only to December; the winter days that followed belonged to no month at all.
Q 15Which Roman king is traditionally credited with adding the months of January and February?
Numa Pompilius
The addition, around 713 BC, brought the calendar up to a 354-day lunar year.
Q 16Which month is named after the Roman god of doorways and gates?
January
January honours Janus, god of doorways and beginnings; from 153 BC Rome's consuls took office on its first day, fixing it as the start of the official year.
Q 17The Roman month Quintilis was renamed in 44 BC and is known today by which name?
July
July honours Julius Caesar, who was born in the month then called Quintilis; it was renamed for him in 44 BC, the year he was assassinated.
Q 18Which month did the Roman Senate rename in 8 BC in honour of Rome's first emperor?
August
August was called Sextilis until the Senate renamed it for Augustus, choosing the month of his greatest triumphs, among them the conquest of Egypt.
Q 19September's name comes from the Latin word for which number?
Seven
Seven is septem in Latin: September was the seventh month of the early Roman year and kept the name even after the year's starting point moved and made it the ninth.
Q 20Which day of the week is named after Tiw, the one-handed Germanic god the Romans equated with Mars?
Tuesday
Tuesday is 'Tiw's day'. In Norse myth, where he is called Týr, he lost the hand to the wolf Fenrir, having put it in the beast's jaws as a pledge while the gods bound it.
Q 24How many years in every 400-year cycle have a 53rd ISO week?
71
They are the years containing 53 Thursdays; the ISO year can start as early as 29 December.
Q 25The traditional Chinese calendar is which type of calendar?
Lunisolar
Lunisolar: months follow the lunar phases, and a 13th month is slipped into some years so that the New Year always falls in late winter instead of drifting through the seasons.
Q 26According to legend, which animal won the Jade Emperor's race and got the first year of the zodiac cycle?
Rat
The Rat won, in the best-known telling, by hitching a ride across the river on the Ox's back and jumping off at the last second, which is why the Ox comes second.
Q 27The Hebrew calendar numbers its years from which event?
The Creation
The Creation is the count's starting point, a date rabbis worked out from the Bible; before it took hold, Jewish scribes dated their contracts by the Greek era of the Seleucid kings.
Q 28The Islamic calendar is tied to the cycles of which heavenly body alone?
The Moon
The Moon alone sets the Islamic year of 354 or 355 days, some 11 days short of the solar year, so Ramadan passes through every season in about 33 years.
Q 29The Islamic calendar counts its years from Muhammad's migration from Mecca to which city?
Medina
Medina took Muhammad in during 622, but he never used the count himself: it was introduced some 17 years later and backdated to the year of his arrival.
Q 30Which country's official calendar begins each year on the first day of spring, the festival of Nowruz?
Iran
Iran's Nowruz, 'new day' in Persian, has Zoroastrian roots; Iranians see out the old year by leaping over bonfires in its final week.