June Trivia
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8correct to beat the crowd
This June trivia quiz has 175 free questions with answers and covers the sixth month from every angle: where the name comes from (and which two Roman emperors tried to change it), why June weddings were once thought unlucky, what the strawberry moon is, when the solstice falls and why the Atlantic hurricane season starts on 1 June. It also walks through the month's big anniversaries: Magna Carta, Waterloo, Custer's Last Stand, D-Day, Midway, Juneteenth, the Stonewall riots, Watergate, the first iPhone and the first Harry Potter book. The easy questions are ones anyone can get (how many days June has, which day is Flag Day, what Father's Day falls on). The medium ones ask about birthstones, birth flowers, Bloomsday and famous people born or lost in June, from Paul McCartney and Alan Turing to Michael Jackson. The hard ones dig into rainfall records, meteor showers, Nero and Commodus and the Julian calendar. Use it as a June fun facts round for a pub quiz, a classroom bell-ringer, or a seniors' activity for the start of summer. Every answer has been checked against a reference encyclopaedia, and each question shows its explanation and citation once you have answered.
30 of 175 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01'Thirty days hath September, April, June and' which month?
November
November. Each of them was a 29-day month in the old Roman calendar and gained its thirtieth day in the calendar reform of 46 BC.
Q 02Juno, the goddess June is usually said to be named after, was identified with which Greek goddess?
Hera
Hera. The Romans matched their queen of the gods with the wife of Zeus; Rome's mint later stood in the temple of Juno Moneta, a title that gave English the words 'mint' and 'money'.
Q 03In the original Roman calendar, June was which month of the year?
Fourth
In the ten-month calendar credited to Romulus the year began with March, making June the fourth month; January and February were added later, traditionally by Numa Pompilius.
Q 04A year after the Great Fire of Rome, the Senate renamed June 'Germanicus' to flatter which emperor?
Nero
Nero. Germanicus was one of his own names, and the senator behind the motion argued that 'Junius' had become ill-omened after two men of that family were executed; the two months before it were renamed for the emperor too.
Q 05Which emperor, who fought as a gladiator, renamed every month after himself, June becoming 'Aelius'?
Commodus
Commodus. He gave all twelve months his own names and titles and restyled Rome itself as the 'Colony of Commodus'; the old names came back after he was strangled on the last day of AD 192.
Q 06Whose calendar reform of 46 BC gave June an extra day?
Julius Caesar
Julius Caesar. His reform added ten days to the old 355-day year, one of them to June, and he stretched 46 BC itself to 445 days to pull the calendar back in step with the seasons.
Q 07Ovid was told to delay his daughter's June wedding until the sweepings from Vesta's temple had gone down which river?
Tiber
The Tiber. The wife of Jupiter's priest told the poet that early June was unlucky for brides, and that he should wait until the refuse swept from Vesta's shrine had floated down to the sea.
Q 08Storms of the Atlantic season that officially opens every 1 June are known by which name?
Hurricanes
Hurricanes. The same storms are called typhoons in the north-west Pacific; the six-month season was drawn to start on 1 June because that window takes in about 97% of Atlantic tropical storm activity.
Q 09June's full moon is most commonly known by which name?
Strawberry
Strawberry. Algonquian peoples of north-eastern North America used the name for the weeks when strawberries ripened for picking; Europeans called the same moon the rose moon or the mead moon.
Q 10The June birthstone alexandrite is prized for which unusual trick?
Changing colour
Changing colour. Alexandrite looks green in daylight and raspberry-coloured by lamplight, because bluish and yellowish light each bring out a different one of its two colours; dealers call it 'emerald by day, ruby by night'.
Q 11The rose and which climbing plant are the birth flowers of June?
Honeysuckle
Honeysuckle. It shares June's birth-flower honours with the rose, and its name means just what it says: 'honey-suck', after the sweet nectar that can be sucked from the flowers.
Q 12Someone born on 25 June has which zodiac sign?
Cancer
Cancer. The Sun enters the sign at the June solstice, the day it stands directly over the line of latitude that carries the same name, the Tropic of Cancer; Gemini covers the month before.
Q 13In the United States and Britain, Father's Day falls on which day of June?
The third Sunday
Father's Day is the third Sunday of June in the United States, Britain, Canada and many other countries; Richard Nixon made it a permanent US national observance in 1972.
Q 21The resolution of 14 June 1777 marked by Flag Day said the flag's 13 stars represented 'a new' what?
Constellation
Constellation. The one-sentence resolution never said how the stars should be laid out, so early flag makers set them in rows, in a circle or even as one big star.
Q 22Magna Carta was sealed by King John on 15 June 1215 at which spot beside the Thames?
Runnymede
Runnymede, a water-meadow on the Thames near Windsor, was neutral ground between the royal castle and the barons' camp at Staines; the charter is dated 15 June 1215.
Q 23The Battle of Waterloo, Napoleon's final defeat, was fought on 18 June 1815 in what is now which country?
Belgium
Q 14In the United States, June is observed as which month-long celebration?
Pride
Pride. The month marks the Stonewall riots of June 1969, and the first Pride marches were held a year later, on the uprising's first anniversary.
Q 15The Stonewall riots began in the early hours of 28 June 1969 in which New York neighbourhood?
Greenwich Village
The Stonewall Inn stands on Christopher Street in Greenwich Village; patrons of the Mafia-owned bar fought back against a police raid in the early hours of 28 June 1969.
Q 16In Catholicism, June is dedicated to which devotion?
The Sacred Heart of Jesus
The Sacred Heart of Jesus. Its feast falls 19 days after Pentecost, on a Friday that usually lands in June, and the devotion spread after the French nun Margaret Mary Alacoque reported visions of Christ's heart in the 1670s.
Q 17Brazil's Festas Juninas are celebrated most intensely in which region of the country?
Northeast
Northeast. In its semi-arid backlands the June parties double as thanks for the rainy season, and Campina Grande and Caruaru draw the biggest crowds with forró, bonfires and mock country weddings.
Q 18Juneteenth marks General Gordon Granger enforcing emancipation in 1865 in which state?
Texas
Texas. Granger's order of 19 June 1865 told Texans that all enslaved people were free, the final enforcement of an Emancipation Proclamation that Lincoln had issued two and a half years earlier.
Q 19D-Day, the largest seaborne invasion in history, took place on which day of June 1944?
6th
6th. Eisenhower had picked the 5th, but Channel storms forced a 24-hour delay; waiting any longer would have cost at least two weeks, because the tides and moon suited only a few days each month.
Q 20Overlord's naval assault phase on D-Day was codenamed what?
Operation Neptune
Operation Neptune. Days before the landings the word turned up as a Daily Telegraph crossword answer, after Utah, Omaha and Overlord, and MI5 went to question the schoolmaster who set the puzzles.
Belgium did not exist yet: Waterloo, south of Brussels, then lay in the United Kingdom of the Netherlands, and it was there that Wellington's troops and Blücher's Prussians beat Napoleon on 18 June 1815.
Q 24On 17 June 1972, burglars tied to Nixon's campaign were caught inside which organisation's headquarters?
The Democratic National Committee
The five burglars were caught in the Democratic National Committee's offices in the Watergate complex; the cover-up that followed forced Nixon's resignation in August 1974.
Q 25Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914 by which student?
Gavrilo Princip
Gavrilo Princip. A grenade thrown by a fellow plotter had bounced off the Archduke's car that morning; Princip got his chance when the driver, unsure of a changed route, turned into the street where he was standing.
Q 26In which room of the palace was the Treaty of Versailles signed on 28 June 1919?
The Hall of Mirrors
The Hall of Mirrors was chosen because the German Empire had been proclaimed there in January 1871; the signing fell on the fifth anniversary of the Sarajevo assassination.
Q 27Which battle of 4-7 June 1942 cost Japan four aircraft carriers in the Pacific?
Midway
Midway. American codebreakers had read Japan's plans, so US carriers were waiting in ambush; Akagi, Kaga, Sōryū and Hiryū all went down, for the loss of the Yorktown.
Q 28Custer's Last Stand, on 25-26 June 1876, was fought along which river?
The Little Bighorn
The Little Bighorn. Custer split the 7th Cavalry into three before attacking a Lakota, Cheyenne and Arapaho camp, and every man of the five companies that rode with him was killed; the Lakota call it the Greasy Grass.
Q 29Which war began on 25 June 1950 with a surprise invasion across a partition line?
The Korean War
The Korean War. North Korean troops crossed the 38th parallel that day; the armistice of July 1953 stopped the fighting, but it was never followed by a peace treaty.
Q 30The first iPhone went on sale on 29 June 2007 tied exclusively to which American phone network?
AT&T
AT&T. Apple had signed the exclusive deal with Cingular, which took the AT&T name before launch day, and American buyers had no other choice of network until Verizon's iPhone arrived in February 2011.