49 Fun Facts About January Trivia for Kids

Which month, named for the god of war, began the Roman year before January did?

March opened the early Roman year. One Roman tradition says King Numa moved the start to January, the month of Janus, their god of beginnings.

Which of these months has 31 days, just like January?

August has 31 days too. To check any month, make a fist and name the months across your knuckles and the dips between them: every knuckle month has 31.

January is named after Janus, a Roman god famous for having what?

Two faces let Janus look both ways at once, back at the past and ahead to the future, which suited the Romans' god of doorways and beginnings.

Which Scottish song is traditionally sung as the clock strikes midnight on New Year's Eve?

Auld Lang Syne means roughly 'for old times' sake'; Robert Burns wrote the words down in 1788 and said he had taken them from an old man's singing.

In New York City, a giant glowing ball drops at midnight on New Year's Eve in which famous place?

Times Square got its ball in 1907 because the city had banned the fireworks that the New York Times used to launch from its tower each New Year's Eve.

In Spain, people traditionally eat twelve of what at midnight on New Year's Eve, one for each chime?

Spain's twelve grapes tradition has one grape eaten on each chime of midnight, a wish for good luck in each month of the new year.

Japanese Buddhist temples mark the end of the old year by sounding which instrument 108 times?

A bell: each of the 108 slow strikes stands for one of the earthly temptations that Buddhists say trouble people, cleared away before the new year begins.

Which Roman leader gave the calendar its 365-day year with a leap day every four years?

Julius Caesar first had to stretch the year 46 BC to 445 days, so the months lined up with the seasons again before his new calendar began.

Martin Luther King Jr. Day falls on which Monday of January each year?

The holiday is fixed to the third Monday of January, so it lands close to King's birthday on 15 January without always falling on that date.

January's birthstone is the garnet, which is usually what colour?

Deep red garnets gave the stone its name, which probably comes from the medieval Latin for pomegranate, a fruit packed with seeds of the same colour.

The Northern Hemisphere's shortest day falls in which month, though January is usually colder?

December has the shortest day, around the 21st, but the land and oceans go on giving up their stored heat for weeks, so the deepest cold arrives in January.

While children in the north bundle up in January, children in Australia are enjoying which season?

Australia's seasons are flipped, so January falls in its summer, which is why Christmas and New Year there mean beach weather.

Benjamin Franklin, born in January 1706, is said to have flown a kite in a storm to study what?

Lightning was what Franklin wanted to prove was electricity, and no bolt ever hit his kite: the key on its string simply sparked from the charged storm air.

Which actress, born on 17 January 1922, played Rose on The Golden Girls?

Betty White was first offered the part of Blanche, but she and Rue McClanahan swapped roles before filming so neither would repeat a character she had played before.

A. A. Milne, born in January 1882, created which famous bear?

Winnie-the-Pooh got his name from Winnie, a real Canadian black bear at London Zoo that Milne's son Christopher Robin loved to visit.

Lewis Carroll, born in January 1832, wrote about the adventures of which girl?

Alice shares her name with young Alice Liddell, who heard the tale on a river outing at Oxford in 1862 and asked Carroll to write it down.

Which composer, born in January 1756, was writing music at five and playing for royal courts a year later?

Mozart and his older sister Nannerl were shown off as child wonders at the courts of Munich and Vienna in 1762, then toured Europe for more than three years.

Which state became the 49th in the US in January 1959?

Alaska joined on 3 January 1959. The US had bought the land from Russia in 1867 for $7.2 million, which worked out at less than two cents an acre.

Wikipedia, launched in January 2001, takes 'wiki' from which language's word for quick?

Hawaiian gave the web 'wiki': the first editable site, WikiWikiWeb, was named after the Wiki Wiki shuttle bus at Honolulu's airport.

Chinese New Year begins a period of celebrations that ends with which event?

The Lantern Festival falls on the fifteenth day, the year's first full moon, when families eat round tangyuan rice balls whose shape stands for togetherness.

Australia Day, celebrated on 26 January, marks the 1788 arrival of which group of ships?

The First Fleet's eleven ships had reached Botany Bay days earlier, but Governor Arthur Phillip rejected the site and led them north to Sydney Cove.

The very first Winter Olympic Games were held in January 1924 in which country?

Chamonix, France, hosted the 1924 Games in the Alps; the IOC only later named them the inaugural Winter Olympics.

Every snowflake starts as a tiny ice crystal of which shape?

A hexagon: water molecules freeze into a six-sided pattern, and an arm then grows from each corner, which is why snowflakes have six points.

Groundhogs and dormice get through the cold winter months by which survival trick?

Hibernation lets animals such as groundhogs and dormice slow their heartbeat and breathing to save energy until spring.

In the Farmers' Almanac tradition, January's full moon is named after which animal?

January's full moon is the Wolf Moon in American almanacs, a name thought to come from wolves being heard howling in midwinter.

In Spain, who brings children their presents on the morning of 6 January?

The Three Kings ride through Spanish towns the evening before while their pages throw sweets to the crowd, and children leave out their shoes for the gifts.

Which flower is January's birth flower?

Carnation: it is also the emblem of Mother's Day, chosen by the holiday's founder, Anna Jarvis, because it had been her own mother's favourite.

Which zodiac sign takes over from Capricorn around January 20?

Aquarius, the water-bearer, is often said to be Ganymede, the boy in Greek myth whom Zeus carried off to pour drinks for the gods of Olympus.

Which month's name means 'eighth', its place in the ten-month calendar of early Rome?

October kept its number name, from the Latin octo, even after January and February joined the calendar and pushed it down to tenth place.

The famous Rose Parade opens each new year in which California city?

Pasadena's Valley Hunt Club began the Rose Parade in 1890 to show off California's mild winter while the East was buried in snow.

The Rose Parade moves to 2 January whenever New Year's Day falls on which day?

Sunday has been off limits since 1893, when organisers feared the parade would upset the horses hitched outside churches and disturb the services inside.

What do people in Scotland call their big New Year's Eve celebration?

Hogmanay long outshone Christmas in Scotland, where the church discouraged Christmas for nearly 400 years and Christmas Day only became a public holiday in 1958.

In Scotland, what is the earliest visitor to enter your home in the new year called?

The first-foot is whoever crosses the threshold earliest after midnight, traditionally bringing coal, shortbread or salt for good luck.

Louis Braille, born on 4 January 1809, devised his raised-dot alphabet while still what?

A schoolboy: Louis Braille, who lost his sight after an accident at three with a tool in his father's workshop, worked out his six-dot code at 15 as a pupil at a Paris school for the blind.

J. R. R. Tolkien, born on 3 January 1892, wrote which 1937 adventure about Bilbo Baggins?

The Hobbit began with a single line that Tolkien scribbled on a blank exam paper he was marking: 'In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.'

Jackie Robinson, born on 31 January 1919, broke the colour barrier in which sport?

Baseball retired his number 42 for every major league team in 1997, and each 15 April, the date of his 1947 debut, all the players wear it in his honour.

Wayne Gretzky, born on 26 January 1961 and nicknamed 'the Great One', starred in which sport?

Ice hockey came early: his father Walter made a rink in the family's backyard in Brantford, Ontario, and coached Wayne and his brothers on it.

Muhammad Ali, born on 17 January 1942, became a world champion in which sport?

Boxing found him at 12: furious that his bicycle had been stolen, he told a policeman he would whup the thief, and the officer, a boxing coach, offered to train him.

Elvis Presley, born on 8 January 1935, is known by which royal nickname?

The King of Rock and Roll got his first guitar for his 11th birthday, a January present, and took lessons from two uncles and a pastor at the family's church.

Ellis Island in New York Harbor opened in January 1892 to welcome about 12 million what?

About 12 million immigrants passed through Ellis Island between 1892 and 1954, and by one estimate two in five Americans descend from one of them.

On 1 January 1863, which US president issued the Emancipation Proclamation?

Abraham Lincoln's proclamation applied only to the states in rebellion: it left slavery untouched in the border states that had stayed loyal to the Union.

In January 1848, what did James Marshall find at Sutter's Mill, starting a California rush?

Marshall's gold find at Sutter's Mill on 24 January 1848 set off the Gold Rush, and California grew so fast it became a state in 1850.

Which team won the very first Super Bowl, played in January 1967?

The Green Bay Packers beat the Kansas City Chiefs 35-10 in Los Angeles in a game then officially called the AFL-NFL World Championship Game.

The Australian Open, the year's first tennis major, is played each January in which city?

Melbourne was not always the host: the championship once moved from city to city and was twice staged in New Zealand, at Christchurch and at Hastings.

What is the name for Earth's closest point to the Sun, reached each January?

Perihelion comes around 3 January, when Earth is about 147 million km from the Sun; seasons come from Earth's tilt, not its distance.

Isaac Newton, born on 4 January 1643, is famous for his three laws of what?

Motion's three laws came out in 1687 in his Principia, which Edmond Halley paid to print because the Royal Society had spent its book budget on a history of fish.

Betsy Ross, born on 1 January 1752, is famously credited with sewing the first what?

Betsy Ross's family first told the American flag story in 1870, nearly a century after the event, and historians doubt it; she was a real Philadelphia upholsterer.

Martin Luther King Jr., born on 15 January 1929, led which cause in the 1950s and 1960s?

King led the civil rights movement with peaceful protest as a Baptist minister; he was born Michael King Jr., and his father later changed both their names.

Paul Revere, born on 1 January 1735, rode at midnight in 1775 to warn that who was coming?

The British troops caught him too: a patrol stopped Revere on the road to Concord, and another rider, Samuel Prescott, escaped to carry the warning on.