50 Fun Facts About Children's Day

Which affectionate title did Indian children give their first prime minister, whose birthday became Children's Day?

Chacha (Uncle) Nehru's birthday was first marked as Children's Day in 1954 and made official by a government edict in 1957.

Japan's Children's Day windsocks are shaped like which fish, said to become a dragon by swimming upstream?

Carp streamers date from the Edo period, when samurai households merged their crested banners into the first koinobori in what is now Tokyo.

The UN adopted its 1959 Declaration and 1989 Convention on children's rights on which date, now World Children's Day?

The 1954 UN resolution that created Universal Children's Day left each country to pick its own date; 20 November stuck because the 1959 Declaration and the 1989 Convention were both adopted on it.

Which country's Día del Niño, on 30 April, has radio and TV hosts bring their children onto their shows?

Mexico fixed 30 April in the 1920s under President Álvaro Obregón, steering clear of 1 May's Labour Day and Cinco de Mayo, while the UN's own date clashes with Revolution Day.

Children's Day began in the 1850s as 'Rose Day' at Charles Leonard's Universalist church in Chelsea, in which US state?

Massachusetts still issues an annual proclamation for the second Sunday in June, and the Universalist Convention of 1867 urged every church to set aside one Sunday a year for children.

Eglantyne Jebb, who drafted the 1924 Geneva Declaration of the Rights of the Child, had founded which charity in 1919?

Save the Children was launched in London in 1919 to feed children in Germany and Austria-Hungary still suffering under the Allied blockade after the Armistice.

Norway's Children's Day on 17 May shares its date with which national celebration, known for children's parades?

Constitution Day parades of schoolchildren double as Norway's Children's Day, a deliberate pairing that puts children at the centre of the national day.

Kashiwa mochi eaten on Japan's Children's Day comes wrapped in which tree's leaf, which stays on until new leaves grow?

Oak leaves are not eaten, unlike the cherry leaf on sakura mochi; the tree's habit of keeping old leaves until new ones appear makes it a charm for prosperity of offspring.

Since 1950, Children's Day on 1 June has been kept mainly by countries that belonged to which Cold War grouping?

The Eastern Bloc date was set in 1949 by the Women's International Democratic Federation, and it survives from Russia and Poland to China, Cuba and Vietnam.

Which country, the first to make Children's Day a holiday, lets children sit in for its president and ministers?

Turkey's children send representatives into the offices of the president, cabinet ministers, governors and mayors every 23 April, and since 1979 the festival has flown in children from abroad.

Which body endorsed the 1924 Geneva Declaration of the Rights of the Child as its World Child Welfare Charter?

The League of Nations made it the first human rights document approved by any intergovernmental institution, and heads of government pledged to write its principles into domestic law.

Which South Asian product does the child-labour-free label founded by 2014 Nobel laureate Kailash Satyarthi certify?

Rugs carried the label first as Rugmark, Kailash Satyarthi's scheme that became GoodWeave in 2009 and was the first voluntary certification of child-labour-free carpets.

The UN dubbed 12 July 2013 'Malala Day' when Malala Yousafzai addressed it on which birthday?

Her 16th birthday speech called for worldwide access to education; two years later, on her 18th, she opened a school for Syrian refugees in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley.

Congo, Gabon, Chad and the Central African Republic mark Children's Day on which date, already a major Christian feast?

25 December doubles as Children's Day across much of Central Africa, while Eritrea keeps 8 December and Tunisia has marked 11 January since 1995.

Japanese families displaying hina dolls for Girls' Day traditionally pack them away fast to spare a daughter which fate?

A late marriage is the superstition for dolls left out past the day after Hinamatsuri, the 3 March Doll Festival that is the girls' counterpart to Children's Day.

Which country's Children's Day, on the second Saturday of January, lets children sit at the prime minister's desk?

Thailand's 'Wan Dek', a holiday since 1955, comes with a theme and slogan from the prime minister, and Government House, Parliament and military bases open their doors to families.

The World Day Against Child Labour, marked every 12 June since 2002, was launched by which UN agency?

The ILO (International Labour Organization) created the day to keep child labour in view; Kailash Satyarthi's 1998 Global March across 103 countries and 80,000 km had pressed it for a treaty on the worst forms of child labour.

Argentina moved its Children's Day from the second to the third Sunday of August in 2013 to stop it clashing with what?

Primary elections fall on the second Sunday of August, so the toy-giving day shifted a week; neighbouring Chile still keeps the older second-Sunday date.

The UK holds its National Children's Day in summer rather than on the UN's date, for what stated reason?

So they can be outdoors on their own day, the UK skips the UN's autumn date even though a UK Children's Day was set up under the 1954 UN resolution.

Which country's 2025 presidential decree moved its Children's Day from 1 June to the UN's World Children's Day date?

Ukraine had kept the Soviet-era 1 June 'Day of Children's Protection' under a 1998 decree before switching to the UN's autumn date from 2025.

Japan's 1948 holiday law, which turned Boys' Day into Children's Day, also says the day expresses gratitude toward whom?

Mothers get the thanks in the law's wording, while the old Boys' Day customs of armour displays, samurai dolls and streamers were opened to girls as well.

Kintarō dolls shown on Japan's Children's Day honour a folk hero said to have beaten which animals at sumo as a boy?

Bears lost to the 'Golden Boy', thought to be based on a real Heian-period retainer, Sakata Kintoki; families decorate a newborn boy's room with his dolls so he grows up strong.

Which flower, prized by samurai for its sword-shaped leaves, goes into the bathwater on Japan's Children's Day?

Iris leaves shaped like blades, and a name, shōbu, that sounds like 'valuing military affairs', made it the samurai's plant; people also steep it in sake and tuck it into pillows.

Brazil's Dia das Crianças on 12 October shares its date with the feast of which patron saint of the country?

Our Lady of Aparecida's feast is the patron-saint holiday that gives 12 October its day off, and Brazilian children mark it by receiving presents from parents and relatives.

Families in the former East Germany mostly kept Children's Day on 1 June rather than which West German date?

20 September's Weltkindertag became official for all Germany in 1990, yet most eastern families still mark the GDR's 1 June Kindertag; Thuringia made 20 September a state holiday in 2019.

Which West African country's Children's Day, a 27 May school holiday since 1964, has selected schools parade?

Nigeria is so large that only a few selected schools get to parade; other pupils spend the day on outings or doing the jobs adults normally do.

New Zealand's Children's Day, on the first Sunday in March, honours children with which Māori word for 'treasure'?

Taonga is the word, and in 2012 the day's theme turned to peace and aroha, the Māori word for love.

In April 1919, Eglantyne Jebb was arrested in Trafalgar Square for distributing leaflets carrying what?

Famine photographs of starving children in Central Europe, taken by photographers she had sent out, filled the leaflets; weeks later her new children's fund launched at the Royal Albert Hall and quickly raised a large sum.

The UN's 1959 Declaration of the Rights of the Child, doubling Eglantyne Jebb's 1924 list, set out how many principles?

Ten principles, up from the five points Jebb published in 1923 and the seven of a 1948 UN version, passed unanimously, with a resolution proposed by Afghanistan urging governments to honour them.

The UN's Day of the Girl Child, first held in 2012, grew from which NGO's 'Because I Am a Girl' campaign?

Plan International took the idea to the Canadian government, whose status-of-women minister Rona Ambrose sponsored the UN resolution that passed in late 2011.

In 1949 the new People's Republic of China gave its schoolchildren how much time off for Children's Day on 1 June?

A half day, copied from the Soviet Union, became a full day in 1956, and the date is formally styled 'the June 1 International Children's Day'.

A giant koinobori made for Children's Day in Kazo, Saitama, in 1988 stretched roughly how far?

100 metres of streamer weighing 350 kg was the Kazo giant, against ordinary koinobori of a few centimetres to a few metres flown above homes with children.

The Vatican's first World Children's Day, in May 2024, opened at which Rome venue before moving to St Peter's Square?

Stadio Olimpico, Rome's Olympic Stadium, hosted the festival's first day, and Pope Francis then announced that the next Vatican World Children's Day would not be held until 2026.

Which Baltic-coast country made 1 June's Day for Protection of Children a national flag day in 2021?

Estonia's lastekaitsepäev obliges government offices to hoist the national flag, and the day fills the country with free public events.

Until 2024 Bangladesh kept Children's Day on 17 March, the birthday of which founding leader known as Bangabandhu?

Sheikh Mujibur Rahman's birthday took over after the JAAGO Foundation had, from 2009, popularised the UN's own date across Bangladesh.

Which Burmese independence hero's birthday, 13 February, is Myanmar's Children's Day, revived after the 2011–12 reforms?

Aung San was chosen because 'he fought for a better future for Burmese children', and the military government of the late 1980s discouraged marking his birthday until the reforms.

Japan's Shichi-Go-San festival for children aged 3, 5 and 7 hands them which long 'thousand-year' candy?

Chitose ame, red and white and 'thousand-year' for longevity, rewards ages picked because East Asian numerology holds odd numbers lucky, on a date fixed after shogun Tsunayoshi held rites for his son.

India's first Children's Day in 1954 drew more than 50,000 schoolchildren to the National Stadium in which city?

Delhi's National Stadium crowd gathered in the run-up to a 1957 edict that made the day official, when the Posts department issued commemorative stamps for 'Bal Din'.

V. M. Kulkarni's plan for a child-welfare 'Flag Day' on Nehru's birthday copied a British flag day on whose birthday?

Queen Elizabeth II's birthday flag day raised money for a children's fund, and Kulkarni, a UN social welfare fellow studying juvenile rehabilitation in the UK, realised India had no such system at all.

How did Jawaharlal Nehru first react when asked to let his birthday become a fundraising day for child welfare?

Embarrassed, then reluctant, Nehru conceded; he later said 'the children of today will make the India of tomorrow', and founded the Children's Film Society in 1955.

Which founder of the children's magazine Eorini led the creation of Korea's Children's Day in the 1920s?

Bang Jeong-hwan's Saekdong-hoe student group in Tokyo proclaimed the first Children's Day in 1923, and Google marked his 117th birthday with a Doodle in 2016.

In Tango no Sekku, Japan's old Boys' Day, the 'go' is a form of the character for which zodiac animal?

Horse is the 'go', so tango first meant the first horse day of the fifth month; because go also sounds like 'five', the festival settled on the fifth day of the fifth month.

Why did samurai originally bring out armour and helmets each May, the origin of Japan's Children's Day kabuto displays?

To air them before the rains, samurai took armour, kabuto and swords out of storage each May, and since this coincided with Tango no Sekku they began displaying them to protect their children.

In some Japanese regions, what do young boys do with a koinobori streamer on Children's Day for good fortune?

Crawl through it they do, in a local custom alongside kite-fighting and samurai-doll displays; through the day children also thank parents, relatives and teachers for their support.

Which country ordered the 1924 Geneva Declaration of the Rights of the Child displayed in every school?

France's classroom order followed the 1924 endorsement, which was reaffirmed in 1934, and the UN resolved in 1946 to adopt the text in a much expanded form as its own.

India co-sponsored the 1954 UN resolution that created Universal Children's Day with which South American country?

Uruguay and India's joint resolution, passed in 1954, aimed to promote mutual exchange and understanding among children and the ideals of the UN Charter.

Paraguay's 16 August Children's Day remembers children who died in which 1869 battle of the War of the Triple Alliance?

Acosta Ñu, called the Children's Battle in Paraguay and the Battle of Campo Grande in Brazil, saw 3,500 Paraguayans, mostly boys aged nine to fifteen, old men and the wounded, face 20,000 Allied veterans.

Which former East German state made Weltkindertag, the West German Children's Day, a state holiday in 2019?

Thuringia's move came nearly 30 years after reunification made the West German Weltkindertag official nationwide, a change much of the East never took to.

The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, which examines each country's record on the treaty, has how many members?

18 experts of 'high moral standing' sit on the committee; states party to the convention nominate and elect them, but they act in a personal capacity.

Which country joined South Sudan in ratifying the Convention on the Rights of the Child in 2015?

Somalia finished domestic ratification in January 2015 and deposited the instrument that October, taking the treaty to 196 parties.