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70 free U.S. Holiday trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This quiz covers the holidays Americans actually get off work and the ones they celebrate anyway: the federal holidays from New Year's Day to Christmas, the observances Congress named but never closed the banks for, and the state-only days like Utah's Pioneer Day, Illinois' Casimir Pulaski Day and Nevada Day. Expect questions on how each holiday started, who lobbied for it, which president signed it and the odd traditions that grew up around it, from the turkey pardon to the Chicago River. It is written for anyone hosting a July 4th, Thanksgiving or office holiday quiz, for teachers who want a civics-flavoured round, and for trivia players who know the dates but not the stories. The questions run from easy (which day is Groundhog Day?) to genuinely hard (which town did Congress name the birthplace of Memorial Day?), so a group of mixed ages can play together. Every answer was checked against a primary or encyclopaedic source, and each question carries a citation you can open, so you can settle arguments at the table.
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Q 01How many federal holidays did the U.S. government designate each year as of 2025?
11
The count grew from four in 1870 to eleven with Juneteenth's 2021 addition. Federal workers in the Washington, D.C. area get a twelfth day off every fourth January.
Q 02In which year did Congress pass the Uniform Monday Holiday Act?
1968
The act took effect in 1971 and created the modern three-day weekends for Memorial Day, Columbus Day and Presidents' Day. Veterans Day was moved too, but the backlash sent it back to November 11.
Q 03Which day is a paid holiday only for federal employees who work in the Washington, D.C. area?
Inauguration Day
It exists to ease crowds and traffic in the capital every fourth January 20. Federal workers elsewhere in the country get no day off.
Q 04What is the official federal name of the February holiday most Americans call Presidents' Day?
Washington's Birthday
Congress never renamed it; the 'Presidents' Day' label spread through state laws and advertising after the 1971 move to a Monday. Some states officially honour Lincoln on the same day.
Q 05On which day of February was George Washington born, a date the third-Monday holiday can never land on?
the 22nd
The third Monday always falls between February 15 and 21, one day short at best. Washington was born February 11, 1731 under the old Julian calendar, which became February 22, 1732 after the switch.
Q 06Which president signed the bill that created Martin Luther King Jr. Day in 1983?
Ronald Reagan
The holiday was first observed in January 1986. It took until 2000 for every state to observe it, South Carolina being the last to make it a paid holiday for all state employees.
Q 07Which musician released the single 'Happy Birthday' in 1980 as part of the campaign for a King holiday?
Stevie Wonder
The song became an anthem of the campaign, and its singer also hosted the 1981 Rally for Peace Press Conference. Millions of signatures were delivered to Congress before the bill passed.
Q 08After voters rejected a King holiday in 1990, the NFL pulled Super Bowl XXVII from which state?
Arizona
The game went to Pasadena instead. The state's voters approved the holiday in 1992 and Tempe hosted Super Bowl XXX in 1996.
Q 09Juneteenth marks General Order No. 3, announcing freedom in 1865, read in which Texas city?
Galveston
Union Major General Gordon Granger arrived on the island with more than 2,000 troops, two and a half years after the Emancipation Proclamation. The day is also known as Jubilee Day and Freedom Day.
Q 10In which year did Juneteenth become a federal holiday, the first new one since 1983?
2021
President Biden signed the law on June 17 and the first federal observance came just two days later. Texas had recognised the day by legislation back in 1979.
Q 11From which city did Opal Lee, 'grandmother of Juneteenth', begin her 2016 walk to Washington?
Fort Worth
She set out in September 2016 and arrived in the capital in January 2017. At the signing ceremony she received the first pen the president used.
Q 12Whose decades of editorials prompted Abraham Lincoln to proclaim a national Thanksgiving in 1863?
Sarah Josepha Hale
The magazine editor, also credited with 'Mary Had a Little Lamb', had lobbied five presidents. Lincoln's proclamation set the last Thursday of November.
Q 13What did critics nickname the 1939 Thanksgiving after Roosevelt moved it a week earlier?
Franksgiving
Q 21Which Founding Father wrote to his wife that 'the second day of July' would be America's great anniversary?
John Adams
Congress voted for independence on July 2 and adopted the Declaration on July 4, and the later date stuck. He and Jefferson both died on July 4, 1826, the Declaration's 50th anniversary.
Q 22Independence Day became an unpaid federal holiday in 1870. In which year did Congress make it a paid one?
1938
The same 1938 change made the other federal holidays paid days off. Before that, a federal clerk taking the Fourth off simply lost the wages.
Q 23Which small town claims the country's oldest continuous Independence Day celebration, since 1785?
Bristol, Rhode Island
Sixteen states refused to move, so the country ate turkey on two different days for two years. Congress ended the confusion by fixing the fourth Thursday in law.
Q 14In which year did federal law first fix Thanksgiving as the fourth Thursday of November?
1941
Roosevelt signed the bill the day after Christmas. Before that the date rested on an annual presidential proclamation.
Q 15Which NFL team has hosted a game every Thanksgiving Day since 1945, after also doing so in the mid-1930s?
Detroit Lions
Owner George A. Richards started the tradition to fill his stadium and get national radio attention. Dallas joined the Thanksgiving slate in 1966.
Q 16The Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade has marched through New York every year since which year?
1924
The first parade used live animals borrowed from the Central Park Zoo; the giant balloons arrived in 1927. It was suspended only for World War II, when the rubber and helium went to the war effort.
Q 17Which president made the annual turkey 'pardon' a permanent Thanksgiving tradition in 1989?
George H. W. Bush
Turkeys had been presented to presidents since 1947, but most were eaten. From 2005 to 2009 the pardoned birds retired to Disneyland or Walt Disney World.
Q 18Which president first received an official National Turkey Federation Thanksgiving turkey, in 1947?
Harry S. Truman
The presentation began as an industry promotion, not a pardon. John F. Kennedy spontaneously spared a 55-pound bird in 1963, three days before his assassination.
Q 19Police in which US city coined 'Black Friday' for the traffic chaos opening the Christmas shopping season?
Philadelphia
Rochester police used it too. Retailers later pushed the friendlier story that it is the day their books go from red ink into the black.
Q 20'Cyber Monday' was invented in 2005 by a division of which organisation?
National Retail Federation
Shop.org coined it after noticing that online sales spiked when people returned to fast office connections after the holiday weekend. It has since outgrown Black Friday online.
The town paints its main-street centre line in patriotic colours for the parade. It began as a 'Patriotic Exercise' organised by a Revolutionary War veteran and clergyman.
Q 24In which New York neighbourhood does Nathan's hold its July 4th hot dog eating contest?
Coney Island
The story that it began in 1916 with four immigrants was admitted to be a 1970s publicity invention. Joey Chestnut set the record of 76 hot dogs and buns.
Q 25Which competitive eater transformed the Nathan's contest in 2001 by eating 50 hot dogs?
Takeru Kobayashi
The previous mark was 25.5. He won six straight years before losing to Chestnut in 2007, and the winner still takes home the bejeweled mustard-yellow belt.
Q 26Before 1971, Memorial Day was fixed on which date, and what was the holiday originally called?
May 30, Decoration Day
The name came from the practice of decorating soldiers' graves with flowers. Flags fly at half-staff only until noon, then rise to full staff for the rest of the day.
Q 27General John A. Logan, whose 1868 order launched the grave-decorating holiday, led which organisation?
Grand Army of the Republic
It was the fraternal organisation of Union Civil War veterans, and a powerful political lobby. Its members later objected to the Indianapolis 500 being scheduled on the holiday.
Q 28Which town did LBJ's 1966 proclamation name the official birthplace of Memorial Day?
Waterloo, New York
More than two dozen towns claim to have started the tradition, and the other three options are all rival claimants. The proclamation marked the centennial of the town's 1866 observance.
Q 29The National Moment of Remembrance Act asks Americans to pause on Memorial Day at what time?
3:00 pm
The idea came from a group of children who were asked what Memorial Day meant and answered 'that's the day the pool opens'. Amtrak trains sound their whistles at the moment.
Q 30Which state was the first to make Labor Day an official public holiday, in 1887?
Oregon
Thirty states had followed by the time it went federal. The first big labor parade had been held in New York City in 1882 under the Central Labor Union.