August Fun Facts and Trivia
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100 free August Fun Facts and trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
42 free August Fun Facts and trivia questions with answers. Forty questions on August, the eighth month and one of high summer in the north, deep winter in the south. The first round is the month itself: how it got its name from Augustus, why it was once called Sextilis, the myth about its length, the peridot birthstone, the gladiolus, the Leo and Virgo signs, the Perseid meteors and the sultry 'dog days' named for the Dog Star. Then it turns to the events history stacked into August: Hiroshima, Woodstock, the March on Washington, Katrina, the Berlin Wall going up, the 19th Amendment, Krakatoa, Nixon's resignation, Indian independence and the launch of MTV. A run of famous August birthdays closes it out, from Napoleon and Louis Armstrong to Obama, Madonna, Michael Jackson and Coco Chanel. It works for a classroom, a quiz night or a monthly newsletter. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on the month, the events and the people involved, and the sentence that establishes it is shown under each explanation.
30 of 100 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01In which year did the Roman Senate rename the eighth month in honour of Augustus?
8 BC
The Senate's decree of 8 BC gave the month its name in honour of Augustus, who had held the honorific title Augustus since 27 BC and ruled until his death in AD 14.
Q 02What was August originally called in the Roman calendar?
Sextilis
Sextilis, meaning 'sixth', was the month's name because the early Roman year began in March, which made it the sixth month; it kept that name until the Senate renamed it for the emperor.
Q 03Which medieval scholar invented the myth that August was lengthened to match July?
Johannes de Sacrobosco
Johannes de Sacrobosco, writing in the 1200s, claimed the emperor padded his month to rival July; in fact the month had the same length before it was renamed, so the tale is false.
Q 04August's best-known birthstone is which yellow-green gem?
Peridot
Peridot, the gem form of the mineral olivine, is August's traditional birthstone; it occurs only in shades of green and has even been found in pallasite meteorites.
Q 05Which flower is a birth flower of August?
Gladiolus
The poppy is also associated with the month; the gladiolus is said to signify strength of character.
Q 06The two Western zodiac signs that fall in August are Virgo and which other?
Leo
Leo, the lion, covers roughly 23 July to 22 August in the Western zodiac, after which Virgo the maiden takes over for the rest of the month.
Q 07The Perseid meteor shower, which peaks in mid-August, comes from debris left by which comet?
Swift-Tuttle
Comet Swift-Tuttle, which orbits the Sun about every 133 years, sheds the debris; the meteors appear to radiate from the constellation Perseus, which gives the shower its name.
Q 08The hot, sultry 'dog days' of August are named after the rising of which star?
Sirius
Sirius, the Dog Star in Canis Major, rose with the Sun in late summer; its Greek name means 'scorching', and the Greeks blamed it for heat, fevers and mad dogs.
Q 09In the Southern Hemisphere, August falls during which season?
Winter
Winter in the Southern Hemisphere runs through June, July and August, so Australians and South Africans have their coldest weeks while the north is in high summer.
Q 10On which day of August 1945 was the atomic bomb 'Little Boy' dropped on Hiroshima?
The 6th
Hiroshima was bombed on the morning of the 6th of August 1945 by the B-29 Enola Gay; the plutonium bomb 'Fat Man' hit Nagasaki three days later, on the 9th.
Q 11The Woodstock music festival of August 1969 was held on the New York dairy farm of whom?
Max Yasgur
Max Yasgur, a dairy farmer, rented his 600-acre farm near Bethel for the festival, which drew about 400,000 people; the site was some 40 miles from the town of Woodstock itself.
Q 12From the steps of which landmark did Martin Luther King Jr. give his 'I Have a Dream' speech?
The Lincoln Memorial
King spoke from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial on 28 August 1963 to a March on Washington crowd of about 250,000; gospel singer Mahalia Jackson urged him to 'tell 'em about the dream'.
Q 13Elvis Presley died at Graceland on 16 August 1977 at what age?
42
Q 21Which song's video was the first ever played on MTV when it launched in August 1981?
Video Killed the Radio Star
'Video Killed the Radio Star' by the Buggles was the first clip MTV aired, at 12:01 am on 1 August 1981; the song had been a UK number one in 1979.
Q 22Diana, Princess of Wales, died in a Paris car crash on which date in 1997?
31 August
Diana died in the early hours of 31 August 1997 after the Mercedes she was travelling in crashed in the Pont de l'Alma road tunnel; Dodi Fayed and driver Henri Paul also died.
Q 23The Panama Canal opened to shipping in August of which year?
1914
The canal opened to traffic in August 1914, when the SS Ancon made the first official transit; the United States had taken over the stalled French project in 1904.
Elvis was 42: born on 8 January 1935 in Tupelo, Mississippi, he was found dead at his Graceland home in Memphis on 16 August 1977.
Q 14Hurricane Katrina devastated the US Gulf Coast in late August 2005 after the failure of what?
The city's levees
The city's levees and floodwalls failed in more than 50 places under the storm surge, flooding about 80 percent of the city; the storm killed well over a thousand people.
Q 15Construction of the Berlin Wall began on which date in 1961?
13 August
Work began overnight on 13 August 1961, when East German troops sealed the border with barbed wire; the Wall then divided the city for 28 years until 9 November 1989.
Q 16The 19th Amendment, giving American women the vote, took effect in August of which year?
1920
Ratification was completed in 1920: Tennessee became the decisive 36th state on 18 August, and Secretary of State Bainbridge Colby certified the amendment on 26 August 1920.
Q 17In 79 AD, an August eruption of which volcano buried Pompeii and Herculaneum?
Vesuvius
Vesuvius erupted in AD 79 and buried Pompeii and Herculaneum under ash and pyroclastic flows; Pliny the Younger's letters give the traditional date of 24 August, though an inscription found in 2018 points to October.
Q 18The 1883 eruption of Krakatoa, in late August, produced a sound heard how far away?
Nearly 3,000 miles
The blast was heard nearly 3,000 miles away on Rodrigues Island near Mauritius, the most distant sound ever documented; over 36,000 people died, mostly in the tsunamis that followed.
Q 19India celebrates its Independence Day on which day of the month?
The 15th
The prime minister traditionally raises the flag and speaks from the Red Fort in Delhi.
Q 20Richard Nixon became the first US president to do what, in August 1974?
Resign from office
Nixon became the first president to resign from office, announcing it on 8 August 1974 and leaving at noon on the 9th, after the House Judiciary Committee had approved three impeachment articles.
Q 24The US Open tennis tournament starts in late August at a park in which New York borough?
Queens
The USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center sits in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park in Queens; the US Open is the year's fourth and final Grand Slam, played on hard courts.
Q 25The Little League World Series is played each August in South Williamsport, in which US state?
Pennsylvania
South Williamsport, Pennsylvania, has hosted the series at Howard J. Lamade Stadium since 1959; the tournament began in neighbouring Williamsport in 1947 and is for players aged 10 to 12.
Q 26The Sturgis Motorcycle Rally is held each August in which state?
South Dakota
Sturgis is a small city in the Black Hills of South Dakota; the rally began in 1938 when local Indian Motorcycle dealer Clarence 'Pappy' Hoel and the Jackpine Gypsies club staged races and stunts.
Q 27The Edinburgh Fringe, held every August, holds what distinction?
World's largest performing arts event
The Fringe is the world's largest performing arts event, with thousands of shows staged across the city each August; it began in 1947 when eight uninvited troupes performed alongside the first Edinburgh International Festival.
Q 28Which American sprinter won four gold medals at the Berlin Olympics in August 1936?
Jesse Owens
Jesse Owens won the 100 m, 200 m, long jump and 4x100 m relay in the first nine days of August 1936, a public rebuke to the Nazi hosts' racial ideology.
Q 29Neil Armstrong, the first person to walk on the Moon, was born in August 1930 in which state?
Ohio
Armstrong was born on 5 August 1930 near Wapakoneta in western Ohio; he commanded Apollo 11 and stepped onto the Moon on 20 July 1969.
Q 30Which pop superstar was born on 16 August 1958 in Bay City, Michigan?
Madonna
Madonna Louise Ciccone was born in Bay City, Michigan, on 16 August 1958 and moved to New York in 1978 to pursue dance before her self-titled 1983 debut album.