January Trivia
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This January facts and trivia quiz has 178 free questions with answers and covers the whole month: where the name comes from (a two-faced Roman god), how January became the first month of the year, its birthstone, birth flowers and zodiac signs, and the traditions that fill it, from the Times Square ball drop and Scottish first-footing to Epiphany cakes, Burns Night haggis, Coming of Age Day in Japan and Republic Day in India. There is also a run of famous January dates: the Emancipation Proclamation, Ellis Island's first day, the Challenger disaster, the first Super Bowl, the euro's arrival and more. Roughly a third of the questions are easy enough for kids or a classroom warm-up in the first week back, a third are medium, and the rest will stretch adults who think they know their calendar. Every question is multiple choice with four options. Every answer has been checked against a primary or encyclopaedic source, and each question links to the page that confirms it.
30 of 178 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01The month of January takes its name from which Roman god of beginnings and transitions?
Janus
Janus was invoked at the start of every Roman ceremony, whichever god the ceremony was actually for, which suits a month of beginnings.
Q 02January had 29 days until whose calendar reform of 45 BC gave it 31?
Julius Caesar
Julius Caesar added two days to January, and before his new calendar began he stretched 46 BC to 445 days so that the months could catch up with the seasons.
Q 03The god January is named for is usually shown with what unusual feature?
A double-sided head
A double-sided head: Janus, the Roman god of doorways and beginnings, has two faces on one neck, one looking back to the past and the other ahead to the future.
Q 04Which successor of Romulus is traditionally credited with adding January and February to Rome's ten-month calendar?
Numa Pompilius
Numa Pompilius, Rome's second king, is credited with adding January and February to a ten-month year of 304 days that had simply left the winter uncounted.
Q 05In 153 BC Rome's consuls began taking office on 1 January, moved up from the middle of which month?
March
March: the consuls had taken office on the 15th, the Ides, but a rebellion in Hispania needed commanders sooner, so the new pair started on 1 January instead.
Q 06The doors of the Temple of Janus in Rome were shut only when?
Rome was at peace
The doors of Janus's shrine in the Forum stood open in wartime and were shut only when Rome was at peace; Augustus boasted of closing them three times.
Q 07Which gemstone is the birthstone for January?
Garnet
Garnet is January's birthstone; its name probably comes from the Latin granatum, pomegranate, a fruit whose red seeds look much like the crystals.
Q 08Which band gave its final public performance on a London rooftop on 30 January 1969?
The Beatles
The Beatles played for 42 minutes on the roof of their Savile Row headquarters before police, called out over the noise, climbed up and had the volume turned down.
Q 09Galanthus, the snowdrop's genus name, combines the Greek for flower with the Greek word for what?
Milk
Milk: Linnaeus formed the name in 1753 from the Greek gála, milk, and ánthos, flower; the same gála gives us 'galaxy', named after the Milky Way.
Q 10Which two zodiac signs fall in January?
Capricorn and Aquarius
Capricorn and Aquarius: the signs change around 20 January, but the stars have drifted since the dates were fixed, so the Sun really sits in front of Sagittarius for most of the month.
Q 11In most of the Northern Hemisphere, January is on average the year's what?
Coldest month
Coldest month: January is usually colder than December even though its days are already getting longer, because land and sea go on losing heat for weeks after the winter solstice.
Q 12Earth is closest to the Sun in early January, so what makes that month winter in the north?
A tilted axis
A tilted axis: in January the north leans away from the Sun, so its light arrives low and brief, even though Earth is about 5 million km closer than it is in July.
Q 13The full moon in January is traditionally named after which animal?
Wolf
Wolf: January's full moon is the Wolf Moon, a name spread by American almanacs and said to recall hungry wolves howling in the depths of midwinter.
Q 21In Mexico, whoever finds the baby Jesus figure in a Three Kings' Day rosca must do what?
Host a party on Candlemas
The finder must host a party on Candlemas, Día de la Candelaria on 2 February, usually serving tamales and atole to everyone who shared the rosca.
Q 22Superstition says it is unlucky to leave Christmas decorations up after which January date?
Twelfth Night
Twelfth Night, 5 or 6 January depending on how the twelve days are counted, is the modern deadline; in medieval and Tudor England the greenery stayed up until the start of February.
Q 23Why do many Russians celebrate Christmas on 7 January?
Q 14The Times Square ball drop borrows from 'time balls', dropped daily at Greenwich from 1833 to help whom set their clocks?
Ships' captains
Ships' captains on the Thames set their chronometers by the Greenwich ball, vital for fixing longitude at sea; Times Square first borrowed the idea to welcome 1908.
Q 15When wartime lighting limits halted the Times Square ball drop in 1942 and 1943, what marked midnight instead?
A silence, then chimes
A silence, then chimes: with the ball dark for two wartime years, the crowds still came and stood quiet before bells rang out from sound trucks parked at the foot of the tower.
Q 16From 1752 an Act of Parliament began England's year on 1 January and brought in which calendar?
The Gregorian calendar
The Gregorian calendar: the same Act moved the start of the legal year from Lady Day in spring and cut eleven days out of September 1752 to catch up with the Continent.
Q 17New Year's Day cold-water plunges are nicknamed after which animal?
Polar bear
Polar bear plunges are named after clubs like Coney Island's Polar Bear Club, founded in 1903 by fitness guru Bernarr Macfadden, who held that a winter dip in the sea built stamina and immunity.
Q 18Hogmanay is the Scots word for what?
The last day of the year
Hogmanay is the Scots name for 31 December, the last day of the year; the celebration runs so long that 2 January is also a Scottish bank holiday.
Q 19Who is traditionally preferred as the first-foot across a Scottish threshold after midnight?
A tall, dark-haired man
A tall, dark-haired man is the luckiest first-foot, a preference often traced to Viking raids, when a fair-haired stranger meant trouble; he brings coal, shortbread, whisky or black bun.
Q 20In Western Christianity, the feast of Epiphany on 6 January principally commemorates what?
The visit of the Magi
Western Epiphany commemorates the visit of the Magi to the infant Jesus; Eastern churches instead mark his baptism in the Jordan and call the feast Theophany.
The Orthodox Church uses the Julian calendar
The Orthodox Church uses the Julian calendar, which runs 13 days behind the civil one until 2100, so its 25 December falls on 7 January; after that the feast slips to 8 January.
Q 24Martin Luther King Jr. Day is observed on which day each year?
The third Monday of January
The third Monday of January can fall anywhere from the 15th to the 21st, so the holiday lands on King's actual birthday, 15 January, only in years when that date is a Monday.
Q 25On 15 January 2009, Captain 'Sully' Sullenberger ditched a stricken airliner in which river?
The Hudson
The Hudson: a flock of Canada geese knocked out both engines minutes after take-off from LaGuardia, and all 155 people on board were picked up by ferries and rescue boats.
Q 26Martin Luther King Jr. was born on 15 January 1929 in which city?
Atlanta
King was born in Atlanta, at 501 Auburn Avenue in the Sweet Auburn district; born Michael King Jr., he and his father took the name Martin Luther in 1934.
Q 27Australia Day marks the 1788 raising of the Union Flag by which governor?
Arthur Phillip
Arthur Phillip raised the flag at Sydney Cove on 26 January 1788, having rejected Botany Bay, the fleet's intended landing place, for its poor soil and scarce fresh water.
Q 28India's Republic Day on 26 January commemorates what event in 1950?
The Constitution coming into effect
The Constitution coming into effect made India a republic; the date was picked because the Indian National Congress had declared Purna Swaraj, complete independence, on 26 January 1930.
Q 29Burns Night, celebrated on 25 January, traditionally centres on which dish?
Haggis
Haggis is the centrepiece, piped in and greeted with Burns's 'Address to a Haggis'; the first supper, held by his friends in 1801, fell in July, on the anniversary of his death.
Q 30Japan moved Coming of Age Day in 2000 from 15 January to the second Monday to create what?
A three-day weekend
A three-day weekend: the 'Happy Monday System' shifted several holidays to Mondays, and as a second Monday falls between the 8th and the 14th, the day can no longer land on its old date.