Happy Birthday Trivia
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174 free Happy Birthday trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
60 free happy birthday trivia questions with answers. This happy birthday trivia quiz is built for the party itself: the story of the world's most recognised song and the $14 million copyright settlement that finally freed it, the German count whose 1746 cake had a candle for every year, why 23 people in a room is all it takes for two to share a birthday, and what people born on 29 February call themselves. It then goes round the world: seaweed soup in Korea, longevity noodles in China, a fifteenth-birthday tiara in Mexico, fairy bread in Australia, Trooping the Colour for a monarch whose real birthday is in the wrong season, and a Dutch national holiday that moved because the queen was born in January. Pop culture gets a look in too, from Marilyn Monroe's dress to Bilbo's eleventy-first party. Most questions suit a mixed table of adults and older kids; a handful at the end will stump the birthday nerd. Every answer was checked against a reference page and shows its source once you have answered.
30 of 174 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01The tune of 'Happy Birthday to You' was originally published in 1893 as a classroom song called what?
Good Morning to All
Good Morning to All was written by kindergarten teachers Patty and Mildred Hill and published in their 1893 collection Song Stories for the Kindergarten; the birthday lyrics were attached to the tune later.
Q 02Per Guinness (1998), which song is the second most recognised in English after 'Happy Birthday to You'?
For He's a Jolly Good Fellow
Guinness World Records 1998 ranked 'For He's a Jolly Good Fellow' second behind 'Happy Birthday to You', with 'Auld Lang Syne' third among the most recognised English-language songs.
Q 03Which publisher refunded $14 million in 2016 after its copyright claim on 'Happy Birthday to You' was voided?
Warner/Chappell
Warner/Chappell agreed in 2016 to refund about $14 million to licensees after a 2015 federal ruling found its 1935 registration covered only a piano arrangement, not the words and melody.
Q 04In the European Union, the copyright on 'Happy Birthday to You' expired on the first day of which year?
2017
The EU term runs 70 years after the author's death; Patty Hill, the last surviving Hill sister, died in 1946, so protection ended on 1 January 2017.
Q 05Marilyn Monroe famously sang 'Happy Birthday' to President Kennedy in May 1962 at a gala held where?
Madison Square Garden
Monroe sang at a Democratic fundraising gala at Madison Square Garden on 19 May 1962, ten days before Kennedy's 45th birthday; he quipped that he could retire from politics after being sung to so sweetly.
Q 06How many rhinestones were sewn into the sheer dress Marilyn Monroe wore to sing to JFK?
2,500
Jean Louis's sheer, flesh-coloured dress carried about 2,500 rhinestones; Monroe was sewn into it, and it sold for $4.8 million in 2016 before Kim Kardashian wore it to the 2022 Met Gala.
Q 07Which Canadian billionaire bought Marilyn Monroe's 'Happy Birthday' dress for $4.8 million in 2016?
Jim Pattison
Jim Pattison's company, owner of Ripley's Believe It or Not!, paid $4.8 million at Julien's Auctions in 2016; the dress had fetched $1.26 million at Christie's in 1999, then a record for a dress.
Q 08Stevie Wonder released 'Happy Birthday' in 1981 to campaign for a national holiday honouring whom?
Martin Luther King
Stevie Wonder's 'Happy Birthday', from the album Hotter than July, pushed for a Martin Luther King holiday; Reagan signed it into law in November 1983 and it was first observed in 1986.
Q 09The Beatles' song 'Birthday' opens the third side of which 1968 double LP?
The White Album
'Birthday' opens side three of The Beatles (the White Album), released November 1968; mostly McCartney's, it was written and recorded on 18 September 1968, and he played it at Ringo's 70th at Radio City.
Q 10'In da Club', the rap track that made 'Go shorty, it's your birthday' a party staple, came from whose 2003 debut album?
50 Cent
It comes from 50 Cent's 2003 debut album Get Rich or Die Tryin'; produced by Dr. Dre and Mike Elizondo, it became his first Billboard number one and won Best Rap Video at the 2003 VMAs.
Q 11The birthday cake with one candle per year of age is generally traced to 18th-century celebrations where?
Germany
Germany is the usual answer: at Count Ludwig von Zinzendorf's 1746 party at Marienborn the cake was 'as large as any oven could be found to bake it', with a candle in each hole and one in the middle.
Q 12One theory says ancient Greeks lit candles on cakes to honour which goddess's birth each lunar month?
Artemis
Artemis, goddess of the moon and the hunt, was honoured with round honey cakes lit with candles to glow like the moon, her symbol; the Romans also occasionally served cakes at special birthdays.
Q 13In Vietnamese tradition, everyone adds a year to their age on which holiday?
Tết (Lunar New Year)
Q 21Which dish is traditionally served at a Chinese birthday meal?
Longevity noodles
Longevity noodles (changshou mian) are served uncut at Chinese birthdays, the single long strand standing for a long life; dumplings belong to New Year and mooncakes to the Mid-Autumn Festival.
Q 22In Mexico, what is the birthday custom of pushing the celebrant's face into the cake called?
La mordida
La mordida ('the bite') has guests chant 'mordida!' while the birthday person takes the first bite of the cake hands-free and is usually shoved face-first into the frosting.
Q 23Fairy bread, an Australian and New Zealand party staple, is buttered white bread covered in what?
Hundreds and thousands
Tết, the Vietnamese Lunar New Year, is the traditional shared birthday: everyone turns a year older together and elders hand children lucky money in red envelopes (lì xì); individual birthday parties are a later Western import.
Q 14How many people need to be in a room for there to be a better than 50% chance that two share a birthday?
23
It feels wrong because you are not comparing everyone to you, but every pair to each other: 23 people make 253 pairs.
Q 15Someone born on 29 February is commonly nicknamed a what?
Leapling
A leapling (or leaper) celebrates on 28 February or 1 March in ordinary years; someone born on 29 February 2000 had only six true birthday anniversaries by 2024.
Q 16Which Texas town declared itself the 'leap year capital of the world' in 1988?
Anthony
Anthony, which straddles the Texas–New Mexico line, took the title in 1988 at the urging of two residents born on 29 February, and holds a multi-day leap year festival every four years.
Q 17Which saint, per Irish legend, got St Patrick to let women propose on 29 February?
St Brigid
St Brigid, in the legend, complained that women waited too long for proposals; Patrick offered one day every seven years, she bargained him down to every four, and a man who refused owed gloves or a silk gown.
Q 18Between 1973 and 1999, which date was the most common birthday in the United States?
September 16
Harvard economist Amitabh Chandra's tally of US births from 1973 to 1999 put 16 September first, with most of the top ten in mid-September, about nine months after the Christmas holidays.
Q 19What is Korea's traditional first-birthday celebration, where a baby picks an object, called?
Doljanchi
Doljanchi marks the first birthday (dol) with the doljabi, where the baby's pick foretells its future: thread or noodles for long life, money for wealth, a brush or book for scholarship; Baek-il is the earlier 100-day feast.
Q 20Koreans traditionally eat miyeok-guk, a seaweed soup, on the day they were born, to honour whom?
Their mother
New mothers eat the same soup for months after childbirth, so eating it on your birthday thanks her for having you.
Hundreds and thousands (nonpareil sprinkles) are shaken onto buttered white bread cut into triangles; the name was first recorded in the Hobart Mercury in April 1929, describing a children's party.
Q 24What are the points of a traditional star-shaped Mexican piñata said to represent?
The deadly sins
The seven points stand for the seven deadly sins, the decorated pot for evil and the sweets inside for temptation; Spanish friars used the game for catechism in 16th-century Mexico.
Q 25Which annual London ceremony marks the British sovereign's official birthday?
Trooping the Colour
Trooping the Colour has marked the official birthday since 1748; Edward VII, born in November, kept the parade in early summer for the sake of the weather.
Q 26The British sovereign's official birthday was first marked in 1748 for which monarch?
George II
Since 1959 the UK observance has been fixed on a Saturday in early June, chosen for the odds of decent weather.
Q 27Why did Queen Beatrix keep the Dutch national holiday on Queen Juliana's date, 30 April, rather than her own?
Hers fell in mid-winter
Beatrix was born on 31 January; the holiday moved again to 27 April when her son Willem-Alexander became king in 2013.
Q 28The North Korean holiday named the Day of the Sun in 1997 celebrates whose birthday?
Kim Il Sung
Kim Il Sung was born on 15 April 1912, the day the Titanic sank; his birthday became the Day of the Sun in 1997, while son Kim Jong Il's 16 February is the Day of the Shining Star.
Q 29Since 1971 the US federal holiday for Washington's Birthday has been observed on which day?
The third Monday of the month
The Uniform Monday Holiday Act created the three-day weekend, which means the holiday can never actually fall on the 22nd.
Q 30In the Torah, the only birthday celebration mentioned is that of whom?
Pharaoh
Genesis 40:20 describes Pharaoh's birthday feast, at which he restored his chief cupbearer and hanged his chief baker; Herod's feast in the Gospels is the only other biblical birthday party.