208 Fun Facts About Autumn

Which hidden pigments produce the yellows and oranges of autumn foliage?

Carotenoids, the yellow xanthophylls and orange beta-carotene, sit in the leaf all season and only show through once the green fades; the same pigment family colours carrots and egg yolks.

Autumn yellows were in the leaf all along, but which pigment do trees make fresh each fall to turn leaves red?

Red is the only autumn colour a tree has to work for: anthocyanins are made fresh from sugars trapped in the leaf as it seals off, while the yellows are simply unmasked.

Seeds of which tree are threaded on strings for the British autumn game of conkers?

Conkers are the glossy brown seeds of the horse chestnut (Aesculus hippocastanum); each is threaded on a string and players take turns striking an opponent's conker until one shatters.

From which ancient language is the English word 'autumn' derived?

Latin autumnus reached English through French in the 1300s; 'fall', now the American word, began in England too, as a shortening of the 1500s phrase 'fall of the leaf'.

What traditional name is given to the full lunar phase that falls nearest the autumnal equinox?

The Harvest Moon is the full moon nearest the autumnal equinox; it can land up to two weeks either side of it, so in some years it is an October moon.

Munich's Oktoberfest, despite its name, opens in which month?

September: the festival now opens in the second half of that month and closes in early October, so only its final days fall in the month it is named after.

What nickname is given to tourists who travel to New England each autumn to admire the foliage?

Leaf peepers, a term first recorded in the 1960s, are a mainstay of the region's autumn economy, though Vermonters have complained of visitors jamming roads and trespassing for photos.

What term describes the autumn feeding frenzy of bears and other large hibernators?

Hyperphagia is the late-summer and autumn spell of excessive eating and drinking in which a bear makes feeding almost a full-time job to fatten up for hibernation; torpor is the low-metabolism state itself.

Which English Romantic poet, dead at 25, wrote the ode 'To Autumn' that opens 'Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness'?

John Keats wrote 'To Autumn' in 1819; it proved the last of his great odes, and within days, short of money, he was telling friends he would take a cheap lodging and write for the papers.

Why do meteorologists start autumn on 1 September instead of at the equinox?

To keep records in whole months: seasons that begin on the 1st cover the same days every year, so climate statistics are easy to compare, whereas astronomical seasons shift and vary in length.

Shakespeare's Sonnet 73 calls autumn's leafless boughs 'bare ruined' what, 'where late the sweet birds sang'?

Choirs: the birds that sang there have gone with the leaves, but the sonnet then turns it round, since seeing how little time is left 'makes thy love more strong'.

As late summer ends, which environmental change is the main trigger for trees to begin reclaiming nutrients from their leaves?

Shortening daylight, reinforced by cooling nights, tells a broadleaf tree to pull nitrogen and other nutrients back out of its leaves before sealing them off and dropping them.

Which Pre-Raphaelite, the painter of 'Ophelia', showed four girls piling up fallen leaves in 'Autumn Leaves'?

John Everett Millais painted it in his garden in Perth, intending, his wife Effie wrote, a picture 'full of beauty and without a subject'; its twilight is usually read as an image of passing time.

Which of these conifers drops all its needles every autumn?

The European larch is a deciduous conifer: its soft needles turn gold in October and fall, leaving bare branches until spring, while pines, spruces and firs keep theirs through winter.

Which pigment is broken down in autumn, unmasking the others?

Chlorophyll, the green pigment, is broken down into colourless compounds as the tree pulls nutrients back out of the leaf, letting the yellow and orange pigments beneath show through.

What term describes trees that shed all their leaves each autumn?

Deciduous comes from a word meaning 'tending to fall', which is why the same term is used for milk teeth and for antlers that drop off each year.

Which insect migrates each autumn from across North America to a few mountain forests in central Mexico, thousands of kilometres away?

The eastern monarch butterfly population squeezes into so few Mexican fir groves each winter that scientists track it by the hectares of forest the clusters cover, not by counting insects.

During which Jewish autumn harvest festival, called the Festival of Ingathering in the Torah, do families eat meals in a temporary hut?

Sukkot's hut, the sukkah, recalls the shelters of the Exodus; the Torah calls the festival the Festival of Ingathering, marking the end of the agricultural year in the Land of Israel.

Which of these holidays is widely celebrated in autumn, particularly on October 31st?

Halloween, 31 October, is the eve of All Hallows' Day and overlaps the old Gaelic quarter day Samhain, kept from 31 October to 1 November in Ireland, Scotland and the Isle of Man.

What term describes a spell of unseasonably warm, dry weather in late autumn?

An Indian summer is an American term: it reached Britain only in the 1800s, where the same warm autumn spell had long been called St Martin's summer after the saint's day on 11 November.

Which fish fight their way upriver each autumn to spawn in the stream where they hatched?

Salmon find their home river by smell, a memory laid down when they left it as young fish; a few lose the trail and spawn in a neighbouring stream instead.

Which genus, tapped for syrup in spring, is famous for red, orange, and yellow autumn foliage?

Maples, tapped for syrup in early spring, run from bright yellow through orange to fluorescent red in autumn, and single trees often colour unevenly.

After the harvest party that opens Vivaldi's 'Autumn', the slow movement carries a marking describing what?

Sleeping drunkards is the caption Vivaldi wrote over the slow movement: he published each concerto with a sonnet and keyed its lines to the music, so the revellers doze before the hunt sets out.

Candy corn, a Halloween staple invented in the 1880s, was long marketed under what farm-themed name?

Chicken Feed was the Goelitz company's name for it from 1898, later with a rooster on the box: corn was then seen as cheap fodder for farm animals, not as food for people.

What was missing from Starbucks' spiced autumn latte recipe from its 2003 launch until 2015?

Starbucks' Pumpkin Spice Latte launched in 2003 without any real pumpkin; in 2015 the chain added pumpkin puree to the sauce and dropped its artificial colouring.

Which Roman goddess of fruit trees and orchards is linked to Halloween's apple customs?

Pomona takes her name from pomum, the Roman word for fruit; some writers suggest the Romans brought her apple rites to Britain, where they merged with older autumn festivals.

Which US president made the Thanksgiving turkey pardon an official annual tradition in the late 1980s?

George H. W. Bush made the pardon official in 1989; Reagan had only joked about pardoning his turkey two years earlier, when the bird was already bound for a petting zoo.

Who skips trick-or-treating to wait in the pumpkin patch in 'It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown'?

Linus spends the night in the pumpkin patch, certain the Great Pumpkin rises from the most sincere one, while Charlie Brown goes trick-or-treating and is handed nothing but rocks.

Which character traditionally brings up the rear of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade?

Santa Claus rides the final float, his arrival marking the start of the Christmas season; in the late 1920s the giant balloons were simply released at the end, with a reward for whoever found one.

Which sport's championship is nicknamed the 'Fall Classic'?

Baseball's World Series has been played every autumn since 1903 with two gaps: in 1904 the National League's Giants refused to face the rival league's champions, and in 1994 a players' strike wiped it out.

The very first Oktoberfest, in 1810, was held to celebrate what?

Munich threw the party on 12 October 1810 for the royal wedding of Crown Prince Ludwig, the future King Ludwig I of Bavaria; the citizens were invited to festivities on the meadows outside the city gates.

Why do apples float when you go bobbing for them on Halloween?

Apples float because they are less dense than water, so they bob at the surface while players, hands behind their backs, try to catch one in their teeth; Scots call the game dooking.

Farmers flood their bogs to harvest cranberries because the ripe berries do what?

Ripe cranberries float to the surface, so growers flood the bog, knock the berries off the vines with a water reel and push the floating fruit to one side to be lifted out.

In American folklore, the woolly bear caterpillar's brown band predicts what?

Folklore says the band shows how severe the coming winter will be: wide means mild, narrow means harsh. Banner Elk, North Carolina, races the caterpillars each October and reads the forecast off the champion.

Since 2007, daylight saving time in the United States ends on which day?

Since 2007 US daylight saving time has ended on the first Sunday of November; the Energy Policy Act of 2005 pushed the change a week later than the old last Sunday of October.

What term names the night-time restlessness caged songbirds show in the migration seasons?

Zugunruhe, German for migration restlessness, is the hopping and wing-fluttering of caged migrants on the nights their wild relatives are travelling; the way they face shows where they would be heading.

Guy Fawkes, remembered every 5 November, was caught guarding explosives beneath which building?

Fawkes was found in the early hours of 5 November 1605 in the undercroft beneath the House of Lords with 36 barrels of gunpowder, ready for the state opening of Parliament that day.

What do British farms call the seasonal attraction of paths cut through a field of tall corn?

A maize maze is the British name for a corn maze: in Britain 'corn' traditionally means wheat or any grain, so the tall American crop goes by its other name, maize.

In the Southern Hemisphere, autumn begins in which month?

Seasons are reversed in the southern half of the world, so autumn begins in March: on the 1st by the meteorological convention or around the 20th at the equinox, while Europeans watch spring blossom.

Which US holiday is informally treated as the end of summer and start of autumn?

Labor Day, the first Monday in September, informally closes the American summer; old etiquette even frowned on wearing white after it.

Under the East Asian solar-term system, autumn starts around the 8th of which month?

August: Liqiu, 'start of autumn', comes around the 7th or 8th, when the Sun is exactly midway between the June solstice and the autumn equinox, so the equinox falls halfway through the season, not at its start.

Which red-capped, white-spotted toadstool of autumn birch woods is the classic fairy-tale mushroom?

Fly agaric is said to owe its name to an old household use: pieces of the cap were left in a saucer of milk to attract and kill flies.

Which ancient civilization's root word 'autu-', linked to the passing year, may underlie 'autumn'?

Etruscan is only one suggestion, a root autu- tied to the turning year; another theory derives the word from a term for 'drying up', and the question remains open.

Which W. B. Yeats poem uses the maturing autumn season as a symbol of the poet's own ageing?

'The Wild Swans at Coole' (1917) opens 'The trees are in their autumn beauty'; counting the swans nineteen years after his first visit, Yeats measures his own ageing against their undimmed vigour.

Which French poet wrote the sorrowful 'Chanson d'automne'?

Paul Verlaine published it in Poèmes saturniens (1866); in June 1944 the BBC broadcast its opening lines as the coded signal telling the French Resistance that the invasion was at hand.

Which African country, alongside Canada and the US, celebrates Thanksgiving Day?

Liberia's founding by freed American slaves explains the shared holiday.

Which ancient Iranian festival, dedicated to Mithra, celebrates the autumn harvest?

Mehregan falls on the 16th day of the month of Mehr in the Zoroastrian calendar because that day and that month both bear Mithra's name, and a feast was kept whenever the two met.

Which Hindu goddess of learning is known as Sharada, 'goddess of autumn'?

Saraswati, goddess of learning and the arts, bears the epithet Sharada, 'she of autumn', and is worshipped on the closing days of the autumn Navaratri in many regions of India.

In Chinese five-element theory, autumn is associated with which element?

Metal is autumn's phase in the wuxing cycle, the season of gathering in and contraction after wood's spring growth and fire's summer heat; water, for stillness and storage, takes winter.

Which part of New Zealand is noted for coloured autumn foliage?

The South Island, above all the old gold-rush town of Arrowtown, is the place to go; the colour stands out because most of New Zealand's native plants are evergreen.

What TV term describes shows that debut outside the autumn launch window?

Mid-season replacements usually arrive between December and May, taking the slot of a show from the autumn schedule that was cancelled or put on hiatus.

Which two Christian holy days fall in Northern Hemisphere autumn on 1 and 2 November?

All Saints' Day and All Souls' Day honour first the saints, then all the faithful departed; the second was fixed on 2 November by Abbot Odilo of Cluny for his monasteries, and the custom spread from there.

Pando, a Utah grove of some 47,000 trunks that turns gold each autumn, is one giant clone of which tree?

Quaking aspen spreads by sending up new shoots from its roots, so Pando's trunks are one genetically identical plant covering 43 hectares and weighing about 6,000 tonnes.

What is the zone of special cork cells that forms at a leaf's base before it drops?

The abscission layer is a band of cork-like cells at the base of the leaf stalk; as it thickens, water and minerals are cut off, and the leaf finally breaks away.

What weather produces the most vivid autumn colours?

Sunny cool days and frost-free nights work best: sunshine loads the leaf with sugar, cool nights keep it there to be turned into red pigment, and a hard frost would kill the leaf first.

Which compounds, left behind as other pigments break down, give oak leaves their brown autumn colour?

Tannins are named for tanning: oak bark was the tanner's raw material, and the same bitter compounds are still in the leaf once the brighter pigments have broken down.

One evolutionary theory says bright autumn leaves are a tree's warning signal to which sap-sucking insects?

Aphids are the target in W. D. Hamilton and Sam Brown's 2001 'handicap signal' theory: vivid autumn colour is costly to make, so it honestly advertises a well-defended tree that pests should avoid.

Which hypothesis says autumn's red pigments help a tree reabsorb leaf nitrogen on bright, cold days?

Photoprotection: the red pigments soak up excess light like a sunscreen, so the leaf's machinery is not damaged before the tree has pulled its nitrogen back out.

Which common North American plant has red autumn foliage and off-white berries that birds eat?

Poison ivy turns red, orange or yellow in autumn and ripens greyish-white berries that birds eat and spread without harm, while its urushiol oil gives most people an itchy rash.

Which 'living fossil' tree turns butter-yellow in autumn before quickly shedding its fan-shaped leaves?

Ginkgo leaves turn clear yellow and can all fall within days, sometimes in a single one; the tree is the last survivor of an order that first appeared over 290 million years ago.

What traditional name is given to the September equinox point on the celestial sphere?

The First Point of Libra is the traditional name for the September equinox point; precession carried it out of Libra around 730 BCE, but the name stuck, as did the First Point of Aries for the March point.

In which constellation has the September equinox point lain since about 730 BCE?

Precession carried the September equinox point from Libra into Virgo around 730 BCE, where it remains until it crosses into Leo in the 25th century.

The September equinox marked New Year's Day in which revolutionary system of dating?

The French Republican Calendar began its Year I on 22 September 1792, the autumnal equinox, and each new year was fixed to the equinox as observed in Paris.

Japan's autumnal equinox is a public holiday on which people traditionally do what?

Visit family graves: Shūbun no hi, a public holiday since 1948, falls in the Buddhist week of Higan, when relatives tend their ancestors' graves and call at temples.

Perry is made in much the same way as cider, but from the juice of which fruit?

Pears for perry are small, bitter varieties quite unlike eating pears, grown above all in Gloucestershire, Herefordshire and Worcestershire; the French version, from Normandy, is called poiré.

What name is given to the full moon after the harvest one?

Hunter's moon was already what 'the country people' called it in 1710; the name is traditionally tied to hunting game by its light to lay in meat for winter.

Near which Indiana city has the Feast of the Hunters' Moon been held since 1968?

The Feast of the Hunters' Moon is held at Fort Ouiatenon, just outside West Lafayette on the Wabash, recreating the 1700s gatherings of French traders and Native Americans at the trading post.

Fat Bear Week, an online vote each autumn for the bear that bulked up best, is run by which Alaskan national park?

Katmai began the contest in 2014: webcams at Brooks Falls show its brown bears fattening for winter, and viewers around the world vote for the one that has laid on the most.

What early British festival at the start of harvest took its name from 'loaf Mass'?

Lammas, from Old English hlafmaesse, 'loaf mass', fell on 1 August: farmers baked loaves from the new wheat and brought them to church to be blessed.

What was the Scots name for the harvest-home feast held when the last corn was cut?

The kirn was the Scots harvest-home feast held when the last stalk was cut; that final handful, the kirn-dolly, was plaited or dressed like a doll and hung in the house until the next harvest.

Which people, Ethiopia's largest ethnic group, celebrate the harvest thanksgiving festival Irreecha?

Irreecha is the Oromo people's thanksgiving for the end of the rainy season: at lakes such as Hora Harsadi in Bishoftu, celebrants lay freshly cut grass and flowers on the water.

Police in which US city are credited with popularising 'Black Friday' for the traffic-choked day after Thanksgiving?

Philadelphia police used 'Black Friday' for the jams and crowds that hit the city the day after Thanksgiving; in 1961 its merchants tried to rebrand the day 'Big Friday', and failed.

Which Indian harvest festival, big in Kerala, falls at the turn of summer into autumn?

Onam welcomes home the legendary king Mahabali, believed to visit Kerala once a year; households lay flower carpets called pookkalam and sit down to the sadya feast.

Which dynasty fell, according to legend, after rebels passed messages hidden in mooncakes?

Legend says Zhu Yuanzhang's rebels hid notes in mooncakes to coordinate the uprising that toppled the Mongol Yuan dynasty in 1368, after which Zhu founded the Ming.

What is Japan's moon-viewing version of the Mid-Autumn Festival called?

Tsukimi means 'moon viewing': people set out susuki grass and round tsukimi dango dumplings as offerings and watch the full moon of the eighth lunar month.

By what alternative name is the Mid-Autumn celebration known in Vietnam?

In Vietnam Tet Trung Thu is also called the Children's Festival: children parade with star lanterns, watch lion dances and receive toys, and most of its songs are sung by them.

In the legend behind the Mid-Autumn Festival, which woman swallowed an elixir of immortality and rose to the Moon?

Chang'e, wife of the archer Hou Yi, has lived on the Moon ever since in the tale, with a rabbit for company; China named its lunar probes after her.

What is Chuseok's alternative name Hangawi said to mean?

Hangawi is said to mean 'the great middle of autumn', from han, 'great', and gawi, 'middle'; Chuseok itself literally means 'autumn evening'.

Which crescent-shaped rice cake is the signature food of Korea's Chuseok?

Songpyeon are half-moon rice cakes filled with sesame, beans, chestnut or honey and steamed over pine needles, which give them their name (song means pine).

What competition is Chuseok popularly said to have originated from during the Silla kingdom?

Chuseok is popularly traced to gabae, a month-long weaving contest under King Yuri of Silla: two teams of women wove for a month, and the losers treated the winners to a feast on the 15th of the eighth month.

What do millions of South Koreans traditionally do over the three-day Chuseok holiday?

Return to their ancestral hometowns: families gather there for charye, a morning memorial rite offering the new harvest to their forebears; North Korea marks only the day itself.

The Tsutenkyo Bridge at Tofuku-ji temple, famed for its view of autumn leaves, is in which Japanese city?

Kyoto's Tofuku-ji draws leaf-viewers from all over Japan each November; its covered Tsutenkyo Bridge spans a valley of red foliage and gets so crowded at the peak that the walk across is a tradition in itself.

What is the Japanese term for hunting autumn leaves?

Momijigari, 'red-leaf hunting', has been a Japanese pastime since the Heian period; despite the name nothing is caught or picked, because the 'hunt' is simply an outing to admire the autumn colour.

On which of Japan's main islands does the 'koyo front' of autumn colour begin each September?

Hokkaido, the northernmost island, colours first: from mid-September the koyo front creeps south, reaching central and southern Japan around late November, the reverse of spring's cherry-blossom front.

By the traditional New England definition, a true Indian summer comes only after what?

The first killing frost has to come first: a warm spell before it is only late summer, so a true Indian summer is the hazy, windless thaw that falls between that frost and the first snow.

What name is given to the autumn mating season of deer, when stags roar and clash antlers?

The rut runs from late September into November for red deer: stags roar and fight to hold a harem of hinds, and the winners barely feed, losing up to a fifth of their body weight.

Which Shakespeare character does Prince Hal tease as 'All-hallown summer', a late-autumn warm spell?

Falstaff gets the nickname in Henry IV, Part 1: Hal's 'farewell, All-hallown summer!' likens the old knight, still chasing youthful mischief, to a burst of warm weather that arrives far too late in the year.

British folklore warns against picking which hedgerow fruit after Michaelmas, when the Devil is said to spoil it?

Blackberries are off limits after Michaelmas because, in the tale, the Devil landed in a bramble bush when St Michael threw him out of heaven, and he has cursed or spat on its fruit every year since.

What bird was traditionally eaten at Michaelmas to guarantee money all year?

Goose at Michaelmas was said to keep a household in funds: 'Eat a goose on Michaelmas Day, want not for money all the year.' The bird was a 'stubble-goose', fattened on grain left in the harvested fields.

Saffron, the world's costliest spice, is hand-picked each autumn from the flowers of which plant?

Crocus sativus, the saffron crocus, blooms in autumn, and each flower yields only a few crimson stigma threads that must be plucked by hand, which is why the spice costs more by weight than any other.

In Greek myth, eating the seeds of which fruit in the underworld bound Demeter's daughter to return there each year?

Pomegranate seeds were the food of the dead: having tasted them in Hades's realm she had to spend part of every year below, and her mother's grief in those months was the Greeks' reason for the barren season.

Calan Gaeaf is which Celtic nation's counterpart of the Gaelic festival Samhain?

Wales keeps Calan Gaeaf on 1 November; its eve, Nos Galan Gaeaf, was a 'spirit night' when ghosts were said to wait on every stile, so people steered clear of stiles, churchyards and crossroads.

Why do Samhain celebrations begin on the evening of 31 October?

The Celtic day began and ended at sunset, so 1 November's feast opened the evening before. Caesar wrote that the Gauls reckoned time by nights because they claimed descent from Dis, god of the underworld.

The Gaelic festival Samhain, kept on 1 November, marked the start of which season?

Winter began at Samhain, which opened the 'darker half' of the Gaelic year; the border between the living and the dead was thought to thin that night, which on one theory is a root of 31 October's ghosts.

Which wind does Shelley hail as the 'breath of Autumn's being' in an 1819 ode?

The west wind drives the dead leaves 'like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing' in Shelley's 'Ode to the West Wind', written in a wood near Florence; he ends by begging it to scatter his words the same way.

A Sunday walk in September 1819 near which English cathedral city inspired the ode 'To Autumn'?

Winchester gave the poet his subject: after a Sunday walk there he wrote to a friend that the stubble fields looked so warm, 'this struck me so much... that I composed upon it'.

Who composed the melody of 'Les Feuilles mortes', later known as 'Autumn Leaves'?

Jacques Prévert wrote the French words; Johnny Mercer added English lyrics in 1950.

Roger Williams took 'Autumn Leaves' to number one in the US in 1955 as an instrumental on which instrument?

Piano runs tumbling down the keyboard were the hook: Williams, given a single weekend to arrange the tune, said he tried to make it sound like falling leaves.

Which singer introduced 'Les Feuilles mortes' in the 1946 film Les Portes de la nuit?

Yves Montand got the lead in Les Portes de la nuit by default, in a part first planned for Jean Gabin opposite Marlene Dietrich; on screen the tune is only hummed and half-sung, yet it became a standard.

Which trumpeter is the star guest on Cannonball Adderley's 1958 album Somethin' Else, which opens with 'Autumn Leaves'?

Miles Davis was officially the sideman, a rarity for him by 1958, yet the liner notes say he chose most of the tunes; the saxophonist was a member of Davis's own group at the time.

Vernon Duke's 1934 jazz standard, later a hit for Frank Sinatra, celebrates autumn in which city?

New York got its autumn anthem from a holiday elsewhere: Duke wrote both words and music in Westport, Connecticut, in summer 1934, then placed the song in the Broadway revue Thumbs Up!

Which Greek goddess's abduction to the underworld explains the seasons in myth?

Persephone's abduction by Hades explains the seasons: her mother Demeter grieves while she is underground, and her return each year brings spring and growth.

What is the Roman name of Demeter's daughter, queen of the underworld?

Proserpina was seized by the god of the dead as she picked flowers beside a Sicilian lake, in Ovid's telling; her mother Ceres searched the world for her, and Romans also identified her with the old goddess Libera.

Which seabird makes the longest known migration of any animal, a round trip it repeats every year?

Arctic terns breed in the far north and fly to Antarctic waters for the southern summer; one tagged on England's Farne Islands flew a 96,000 km round trip, and over a 30-year life that adds up to more than three trips to the Moon and back.

As of 2025, which wading bird holds the record for the longest non-stop flight, an 11-day Pacific crossing from Alaska?

Bar-tailed godwits fuel the crossing by shrinking their digestive organs to carry more fat; in 2022 a four-month-old bird flew 13,560 km from Alaska to Tasmania in 11 days without landing.

Which ancient thinker wrongly suggested that swallows hibernate rather than migrate?

Aristotle wrote in his History of Animals that swallows and other birds hibernate in holes; the idea lasted so long that Elliott Coues could catalogue 182 papers on swallow hibernation in 1878.

Besides the Sun and stars, migrating birds are known to steer by sensing which feature of the Earth?

Magnetic field sensing gives birds a built-in compass alongside the Sun and stars; experiments on European robins suggest it relies on a quantum effect, the radical-pair mechanism.

What term describes the summer equivalent of hibernation?

Aestivation is summer dormancy, used by snails, lungfish and some desert tortoises to sit out heat and drought; brumation is the term sometimes used for reptiles' winter dormancy.

In which month do American black bears typically give birth inside the winter den?

January births follow a built-in delay: black bears mate in summer, but the fertilised eggs do not implant until November, so the cubs, each weighing under a pound, arrive in the den in midwinter.

What term does Vermont use for the weeks after leaf-fall but before snow?

Stick season is Vermont's name for the bare, grey weeks between leaf-fall and the first lasting snow, usually November into early December; Noah Kahan's 2022 song 'Stick Season' took the phrase national.

Charles Darwin's last book studied which creatures that drag autumn's fallen leaves underground?

Earthworms were the subject of Darwin's final book in 1881; he noticed that they pull leaves into their burrows by the pointed tip, the easiest way in, and took it as a sign of some degree of intelligence.

Which two New England states ban roadside billboards, keeping their autumn foliage drives free of advertising?

Vermont and Maine wrote the reason into law: both statutes find that scattered roadside advertising harms the scenery that draws tourists, and so the state's economic base.

Which 1796 book, the first known cookbook written by an American, included pumpkin puddings baked in a pastry crust?

American Cookery, by Amelia Simmons, 'an American Orphan', was written for cooks whose only printed guides had been British, using native ingredients; it even suggests serving roast turkey with 'cramberry-sauce'.

Which spice in the classic pumpkin-pie blend is the dried seed of a Myristica tree's fruit?

Nutmeg is the seed of Myristica fragrans, native to Indonesia's Banda Islands; in 1667 the Dutch prized it enough to leave Manhattan in English hands in return for Run, a tiny nutmeg island.

As of 2025, which US state grows the most pumpkins, most of them bound for canneries rather than doorsteps?

Illinois grew about 533 million pounds in 2025, slightly more than the next four states combined; nearly 70% of its pumpkin acreage is for processing, and one plant in Morton packs most of America's canned pumpkin.

Where was the first full-size corn maze reportedly created in 1993?

A California ranch may have had one as early as 1989.

Which Russian poet's famously productive 'Boldino autumn' came in 1830?

Alexander Pushkin, trapped at his Boldino estate by a cholera quarantine in autumn 1830, used the three months to finish Eugene Onegin and write the Belkin tales and the Little Tragedies.

What Guinness record did a 2012 corn maze in Lacombe, Alberta earn?

Largest scannable QR code was the title: the Kraay family's maze covered about 29,000 square metres, and to prove it worked they flew over in a helicopter and scanned it with a phone held out of the window.

Which apple variety was found as a chance seedling by a farmer in Ontario in 1811?

The McIntosh sprang from a seedling John McIntosh found on his farm at Dundela, Ontario, in 1811; Apple's Jef Raskin later named his computer project after it, respelled Macintosh.

What are Halloween-season wagon rides with actors and special effects called?

Haunted hayrides are Halloween-season wagon rides, usually tractor-drawn through fields or woods, where costumed actors, props and lighting effects ambush the riders; Pennsylvania's Field of Screams in Mountville is one of the best known.

Which bird buries more than a thousand acorns each autumn and, by forgetting some, plants new oak trees?

Jays hide acorns one by one as stores for the cold months, and the ones they never return for sprout; those forgotten caches are credited with the rapid spread of oaks after the last Ice Age.

Which animals are turned loose in Spain's oak pastures each autumn to fatten on acorns?

Pigs roam the oak dehesas eating little but acorns in their last months, and the marbled meat becomes jamón ibérico de bellota, the top grade; 'bellota' is Spanish for acorn.

Which animals can be poisoned by eating too many acorns?

Horses and cattle can be poisoned by a glut of acorns because they cannot neutralise the nuts' bitter compounds, which attack the gut and kidneys; goats and deer are far more resistant.

What is the collective term for acorns and other forest nuts?

Mast is the crop of acorns, beechnuts and other tree nuts; trees are thought to stage bumper 'mast years' so that mice and squirrels cannot eat it all and some seeds survive to sprout.

What is the spiny outer casing of a chestnut called?

A bur is the chestnut's spiny green case; as the nuts ripen it turns yellow-brown and splits open in two or four sections, often only after it has dropped to the ground.

Why are two chestnut trees needed to produce nuts?

Their flowers are not self-compatible: a chestnut's own pollen will not set nuts, so growers plant at least two trees, even though every tree carries both male and female flowers.

What is North America's unfiltered sweet cider called in most of the rest of the world?

Outside North America the unfiltered sweet drink is simply cloudy apple juice, because elsewhere 'cider' means the alcoholic drink Americans call hard cider.

Massachusetts pioneered cranberry farming, but which state grew over half the 2021 US crop?

Wisconsin grew 59% of the 2021 crop, with Massachusetts second; growers in both still spread sand over their vines every few years, a boost the first Cape Cod grower is said to have spotted when sand blew across his bog.

As of 2020, which South American country joins the United States and Canada as the world's third big cranberry grower?

Chile grows the North American cranberry far from its native bogs: with the United States and Canada it produced 97% of the world's crop in 2020, most of it bound for juice, sauce and dried fruit.

Which flower is the Japanese imperial emblem and the traditional birth flower of November?

The chrysanthemum became the imperial emblem after the retired emperor Go-Toba took it as his personal mark in the Kamakura period; Japan's monarchy is still called the Chrysanthemum Throne.

The golden November bloom is one of the 'Four Gentlemen' in which art tradition?

It shares the honour with plum blossom, orchid and bamboo.

Which solemn fast day ends the Jewish High Holy Days each autumn?

Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, ends the Days of Awe that open at Rosh Hashanah; after a day of fasting and confession, its closing service finishes with one long blast of the shofar, a ram's horn.

Which fruit joins palm, myrtle and willow in a Jewish autumn rite?

Citron, or etrog, is prized for its fragrance rather than its dry, bitter flesh; a flawless one is sought out for the ritual, and afterwards some families turn theirs into jam or marmalade.

What is the name of the Munich fairground that hosts Oktoberfest?

Theresienwiese means 'Therese's meadow'; Munich locals shorten it to 'the Wiesn', which has become their everyday name for the festival itself.

What phrase does Munich's mayor cry after tapping the first Oktoberfest keg?

'O'zapft is!', Bavarian for 'it's tapped!', has been the mayor's cry since Thomas Wimmer opened the 1950 festival; a twelve-gun salute follows and the beer may flow.

Roughly how many visitors did Munich's Oktoberfest draw in 2023, its record year as of 2025?

Seven million and more: the record 7.2 million came over 18 days rather than the usual 16, because the festival was stretched to take in the German Unity Day holiday on 3 October.

What event formed the core of the first Oktoberfests in 1810 and 1811?

A horse race on a meadow outside the city gates closed the 1810 festivities on 17 October; repeating it in 1811 is what turned a one-off celebration into an annual fair.

Oktoberfest beer must obey Bavaria's 1516 purity law, which allowed only water, hops and which grain?

Barley was the only grain the 1516 Reinheitsgebot allowed, largely to keep wheat and rye for the bakers and bread prices down; purer beer was a side effect.

What does 'Dipavali', the Sanskrit source of 'Diwali', mean?

A row of lights is the literal meaning, from Sanskrit dipa, 'lamp', and avali, 'row'; in northern India the rows of clay lamps recall the welcome given to King Rama on his return to Ayodhya.

Bandi Chhor Divas, kept alongside Diwali, marks the release from prison of a guru of which religion?

Sikhism's sixth guru, Hargobind, would not leave a Mughal prison without 52 captive princes; told that only those holding his cloak could go, tradition says he had one made with 52 tassels.

Which magazine editor's long campaign preceded Lincoln's 1863 proclamation of a national Thanksgiving?

Sarah Josepha Hale, editor of Godey's Lady's Book, wrote to five presidents urging a national Thanksgiving before Lincoln proclaimed one in 1863, fixing it on the final Thursday in November.

What nickname did critics give FDR's 1939 move of Thanksgiving a week earlier?

Franksgiving, a blend of Franklin and Thanksgiving, mocked Roosevelt's 1939 move to lengthen the Christmas shopping season; many states refused to follow, and Congress fixed the fourth Thursday from 1942.

Which explorer's 1578 voyage is credited by some as North America's first Thanksgiving?

Martin Frobisher's fleet, scattered by ice and storms on its 1578 search for the Northwest Passage, regrouped in what is now Nunavut, where the chaplain preached a sermon of thanks for their deliverance.

What medieval Allhallowtide custom of sharing cakes is a suggested origin of trick-or-treating?

Souling saw the poor go door to door at Allhallowtide singing for soul cakes in return for prayers for the dead; Shakespeare alludes to it in The Two Gentlemen of Verona, 'puling like a beggar at Hallowmas'.

From which language's form of 'All Hallows' Even' does the word Halloween come?

Lowland Scots shortened 'All Hallows' Even' to Hallowe'en, 'even' being the Scots word for evening; it is the form Robert Burns used as the title of his 1785 poem 'Halloween'.

In which year did the Frankish Empire officially adopt 1 November as All Saints' Day?

In 835 Emperor Louis the Pious, at the urging of Pope Gregory IV, ordered 1 November kept as All Saints' Day throughout the Frankish Empire; churches in Ireland and Northumbria were already keeping the feast on that date by 800.

What was Guy Fawkes Night known as in the American colonies?

Pope Day saw effigies of the pope paraded and burned in colonial Boston; George Washington banned his troops from joining in 1775, anxious not to offend the Catholic Canadians he hoped to win as allies.

Which ruler did the Gunpowder Plot of 1605 aim to kill, prompting a law making 5 November a yearly thanksgiving?

James I was the target; within months the Observance of 5th November Act ordered yearly church thanksgiving for his escape, and it stayed on the statute book until 1859.

Which dystopian film, based on a British graphic novel, turned the Guy Fawkes mask into a worldwide symbol of protest?

V for Vendetta put David Lloyd's mask design on an anarchist hero; the hacker group Anonymous wore it to protests in 2008, and it has since spread through movements such as Occupy.

Which orange flower decorates Day of the Dead altars?

Cempazúchitl, the Aztec marigold, covers altars and the paths to them because its bright petals and strong scent are believed to guide the souls of the dead back to their family homes.

Which skeleton lady in a plumed hat has become the face of the Day of the Dead?

La Catrina began around 1910 as a print by José Guadalupe Posada, just a head in a fancy French-style hat that mocked high society; Diego Rivera gave her a full figure and gown in a 1940s mural.

What are the humorous mock epitaphs written for living friends on the Day of the Dead called?

Calaveras literarias tease the living, friends and presidents alike, with rhymes about their imagined deaths; 19th-century newspapers used them as political satire, and many were censored or destroyed.

A 2,749-pound pumpkin set a world record in 2023 at the Half Moon Bay weigh-off in which US state?

California's Half Moon Bay weigh-off pays $30,000 for a world record; this giant was grown in Minnesota and hauled there by road, a drive its grower put at 35 hours.

What type of fruit, botanically, is a pumpkin?

A pepo berry is what botanists call it: a berry with a hard rind, like cucumbers and watermelons, so by the botanical definition a pumpkin is a berry while a strawberry is not.

Where were the oldest pumpkin fragments, dated 7,000-5,500 BC, found?

The oldest pumpkin seeds, dated 7,000-5,500 BC, were found in Mexico, in the Guilá Naquitz cave in Oaxaca; pumpkins later grew alongside maize and beans in the Three Sisters planting method.

As of 2025, which two US states do not observe daylight saving time and its autumn 'fall back'?

Hawaii and Arizona keep standard time all year; within Arizona the Navajo Nation does change its clocks, while the Hopi Reservation inside it does not.

Which New Zealand entomologist made the first realistic proposal to shift clocks, in 1895?

George Hudson, a Wellington entomologist who wanted more daylight for collecting insects after work, proposed a two-hour seasonal shift in 1895; Franklin's 1784 essay had only joked about waking earlier.

Which country made the first nationwide switch to daylight saving time in 1916, to save wartime fuel?

Germany and Austria-Hungary put their clocks forward on 30 April 1916 to save coal for the war effort; Britain and much of Europe followed within weeks.

Which shopping day after US Thanksgiving got its name from Philadelphia police describing traffic chaos?

Black Friday first described workers calling in sick after the holiday, in a 1951 trade journal. A 1961 push to rebrand the congested shopping day as 'Big Friday' was quickly forgotten.

Which band's 1978 hit asks 'Do you remember the 21st night of September?', a date its singer said just sounded right?

Earth, Wind & Fire singer Maurice White said he chose the 21st simply for how it sang. Co-writer Allee Willis begged him to rewrite the 'ba-dee-ya' gibberish, and he refused.

US federal elections fall each November on which weekday, fixed in 1845 with travelling farmers in mind?

Tuesday let voters attend church on Sunday, travel to the county seat the next day and still be home by Wednesday, when farmers usually sold their produce at market.

Which red flower is worn in Commonwealth countries each November, inspired by the war poem 'In Flanders Fields'?

Poppy pins recall the red flowers that grew over soldiers' graves in the poem by Canadian physician John McCrae. France wears a different bloom, the bleuet de France.

Which emblem of the autumn harvest is tied in Greek myth to the goat Amalthea?

Cornucopia means 'horn of abundance', and the Greeks called it the horn of Amalthea. In their stories she fed the infant Zeus with her milk in a cave on Crete.

Which hard rock band's 1992 ballad 'November Rain', almost nine minutes long, was then the longest US top-ten hit?

Guns N' Roses took the Axl Rose epic to number three on the Billboard Hot 100 and to number one on the rival Cash Box Top 100.

Which nut, baked into a classic Thanksgiving pie, comes from a hickory tree native to the southern United States?

Pecan is technically a drupe, a stone fruit inside a husk, rather than a true nut. Its name comes from Algonquian words for pecans, walnuts and hickory nuts alike.

October, November and December are named for the numbers eight, nine and ten in which ancient calendar?

The Roman calendar of Romulus made October its eighth month. The number names stuck even after two more months were inserted into the year.

Which rodents each bury several thousand small food caches ahead of winter, a habit known as scatter-hoarding?

Squirrels find the stores again with accurate spatial memory, steering by landmarks near and far. They also use deceptive behaviour to stop other animals raiding the caches.

Which autumn school tradition, with a parade and a crowned queen, do Baylor and Missouri each claim to have started?

Homecoming welcomes alumni back, most often around a game of American football in late September or early October. Illinois and Southwestern also claim to have begun it.

Which American author set the Headless Horseman's ride on an autumn night in 'The Legend of Sleepy Hollow'?

Washington Irving wrote the tale while living abroad in Birmingham, an ocean away from its setting. The ending leaves open the possibility that the ghostly rider was a love rival in disguise.

Which ship carrying the Pilgrims anchored off Cape Cod in November 1620 after ten weeks at sea?

Mayflower sailed alone because its companion Speedwell proved unseaworthy and was left behind. The delay meant landing just as a harsh winter set in.

The Atlantic season for which storms runs from 1 June to 30 November, peaking on 10 September?

Hurricanes are most active between mid-August and mid-October. Early forecasters worked to a shorter window, from 15 June to 15 November.

Which comedian co-stars with Steve Martin in the 1987 Thanksgiving road comedy 'Planes, Trains and Automobiles'?

John Candy plays Del Griffith, an over-friendly travelling salesman. The film opened the day before Thanksgiving 1987 and became closely tied to the holiday.

Which American illustrator painted 'Freedom from Want', in which a matriarch serves a roast turkey to her family?

Norman Rockwell photographed his own cook presenting the bird on Thanksgiving Day 1942. The painting ran in The Saturday Evening Post early the next year.

Which 1998 Tom Hanks romantic comedy features the line 'Don't you love New York in the fall?'

You've Got Mail has his character follow it with a wish to send 'a bouquet of newly-sharpened pencils'. It was the third Hanks film with Meg Ryan.

Which New York Yankees slugger was nicknamed 'Mr. October' for his clutch hitting in the World Series?

Reggie Jackson once hit three home runs in a single World Series game. Added to his final swing of the game before, that made four homers on four consecutive swings.

Which NFL team has hosted a Thanksgiving Day game since 1934, a tradition begun as a gimmick to sell tickets?

Detroit Lions owner George A. Richards also owned a radio station, and he talked NBC into carrying the game live across its network. Dallas only joined the holiday bill in 1966.

Which French red wine goes on sale each year at one minute past midnight on the third Thursday of November?

Beaujolais nouveau is made from Gamay grapes and fermented for just a few weeks before its release. Until 1985 the release date was fixed at 15 November instead.

The shofar, a ram's horn, is blown in synagogues during which Jewish festival, usually held in September?

Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, is marked by the horn's blasts. It also sounds every weekday morning in the month before, and once more at the end of Yom Kippur.

Which famous comet sheds the debris that Earth meets each late October as the Orionid meteor shower?

Halley's Comet last swept through the inner Solar System in 1986, on an orbit of 75 to 76 years. Its dust trail also causes a second annual shower, the Eta Aquariids.

Which Italian painter's 1573 'Autumn' forms a surly man's profile entirely from fruit, vegetables and plants?

Arcimboldo made the head as one of a Four Seasons set, which he first offered to Emperor Maximilian II in 1569. The Louvre holds a full set of his later copies.

Which Swedish director made the 1978 drama 'Autumn Sonata', about a concert pianist and the daughter she neglected?

Ingmar Bergman gave his namesake Ingrid Bergman her final film role as the pianist, opposite Liv Ullmann as the daughter. It was the only time the two Bergmans worked together.

Which children's classic features an orphan heroine who rejoices at living 'in a world where there are Octobers'?

Anne of Green Gables has Anne add that it would be terrible to skip straight to November. L. M. Montgomery set the 1908 novel on Canada's Prince Edward Island.

Which Romantic poet addressed an autumn gale as the 'wild West Wind' in an 1819 ode written near Florence?

Percy Bysshe Shelley closes the ode with one of poetry's most quoted questions: 'If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?'

Which Latin American Nobel laureate wrote 'The Autumn of the Patriarch', a 1975 novel about an eternal dictator?

Gabriel García Márquez called the book a 'poem on the solitude of power'. He wrote it in Barcelona, with Spain's Franco among the real strongmen behind its general.

Which Native American people, led by the sachem Massasoit, taught the Plymouth Pilgrims to grow corn and squash?

Wampanoag farmers showed the newcomers the 'Three Sisters' of corn, squash and beans. Squanto lived among the settlers and acted as their middleman with the sachem.

Which gemstone, prized for its shifting play of colour, is the traditional birthstone for people born in October?

Opal gets its flashes from microscopic silica spheres, packed so regularly that they diffract light into colours. Tourmaline is the month's alternative stone.

The title of the 1999 film 'October Sky' is an anagram of which Homer Hickam memoir that it adapts?

Rocket Boys was renamed for cinemas because studio research suggested women over thirty would not see a film with that title. Jake Gyllenhaal starred.

Which F. Scott Fitzgerald novel has Jordan Baker say life 'starts all over again when it gets crisp in the fall'?

The Great Gatsby gives the line to its golfer as she tells Daisy not to be morbid. Daisy, close to tears, only protests that the day is far too hot.

From its roots aequus and nox, what does the word 'equinox' literally mean?

Equal night is the literal meaning, though the name flatters the date. Atmospheric refraction and the width of the Sun's disc stop light and dark matching exactly.

On the day of the autumn equinox, in which exact compass direction does the Sun rise for almost everyone on Earth?

Due east is where the Sun comes up on an equinox, and it sets due west. Sky-watchers tracked that day long before anyone compared the lengths of light and dark.

At which Maya city do equinox shadows make a feathered serpent seem to crawl down the pyramid El Castillo?

Chichén Itzá crowds gather to watch triangles of light slide down the side of the temple of Kukulcán. The effect lasts for several weeks, so nobody knows if it was designed.

At which spot on Earth does the Sun set just after the September equinox and not rise again for six months?

The North Pole gets a single sunrise and a single sunset each year, and they are the slowest on Earth. The Sun circles the sky for months before it sinks from view.

On the September equinox, the noon Sun stands exactly overhead somewhere along which line on the globe?

The equator is the only place where the Sun can be exactly overhead on that day. The two equinoxes are also the only times of the year when it happens there.

Since 'autumn equinox' is wrong for half the planet, astronomers also name the September equinox after which direction?

Southward is the way the Sun appears to be travelling across the sky's midline at that moment. The hemisphere-neutral names avoid calling one event both autumnal and vernal.

Which night-sky display, set off by geomagnetic storms, becomes more frequent in the months around the equinoxes?

Auroras follow geomagnetic activity, known since 1856 to run higher near the spring and autumn equinoxes. The leading explanation, the Russell-McPherron effect, lies in how Earth's magnetic field meets the solar wind.

Which ancient Greek astronomer is usually credited with discovering the slow 26,000-year drift of the equinoxes?

Hipparchus spotted the drift in the second century BC. The equinox points creep around the sky by about one degree every 72 years.

Which name for the autumn equinox festival did Wiccan writer Aidan Kelly coin in the 1970s from a figure of Welsh myth?

Mabon borrows the name of Mabon ap Modron, a character in Welsh mythology. The same writer also named the modern pagan midsummer festival Litha.

What name is given to the date near the autumn equinox when day and night are the same length?

Equilux is a young word, believed to date from the 1980s. On the equinox itself, measured from sunrise to sunset, the day is a little longer than twelve hours.

Autumn arrives because of which feature of Earth, rather than any change in its distance from the Sun?

Its tilted axis matters far more than distance: Earth is actually closest to the Sun in the depths of northern winter. The tilt changes the Sun's height and the length of the day.

A low autumn full moon glows golden because the thicker air it shines through scatters which colour of light most?

Blue and other short wavelengths are scattered out of the beam, leaving the longer reds and yellows to dominate. The same effect reddens a totally eclipsed Moon.

What is the botanical term for oaks and beeches holding on to their dead, withered leaves through winter?

Marcescence shows up mostly on young trees and on the lower branches of older ones. The dead foliage hangs on until wind and weather finally strip it.

Which gaseous plant hormone, also used to ripen fruit in storage rooms, helps trigger trees to drop their autumn leaves?

Ethylene was the first gas known to act as a hormone. Plants respond to mere traces of it when ripening fruit, opening flowers and shedding leaves.

Autumn goldenrod gets blamed for hay fever, but which wind-pollinated weed blooming beside it is the real culprit?

Ragweed plants can each release about a billion grains of wind-borne pollen. They cause up to half of all pollen-related hay fever in North America.

Frost forms on a cold autumn morning when water vapour turns straight to ice in which phase change?

Deposition skips the liquid stage entirely, which is why it is sometimes called desublimation. Its reverse turns ice straight into vapour.

Which hormone signals the lengthening nights to animals, helping them time autumn fattening, moulting and hibernation?

Melatonin is produced mostly at night and also sets the daily sleep-wake cycle. It was discovered in 1958 in a cow-gland extract that lightened the skin of frogs.

Autumn mushrooms are only the fruiting bodies of which hidden network of thread-like fungal hyphae in the soil?

Mycelium feeds by secreting enzymes onto its food and absorbing the broken-down results. A mushroom is just the spore-bearing part it pushes above ground.

Which nutrient do UK health bodies advise everyone to consider supplementing through autumn and winter?

Vitamin D levels in the blood can be a third to a half lower by the end of winter than at the end of summer. Shorter days at high latitudes let too little UVB reach the skin.

Fog forms on cool autumn mornings once air chills to which temperature, where its relative humidity hits 100%?

Dew point is not a fixed number: it depends on how much moisture the air holds. Water condensing in the air counts as fog or cloud depending only on its altitude.