June Trivia
0Loading crowd target
0Loading crowd target
8correct to beat the crowd
This June trivia quiz has 178 free questions with answers and covers the sixth month from every angle: where the name comes from (and which two Roman emperors tried to change it), why June weddings were once thought unlucky, what the strawberry moon is, when the solstice falls and why the Atlantic hurricane season starts on 1 June. It also walks through the month's big anniversaries: Magna Carta, Waterloo, Custer's Last Stand, D-Day, Midway, Juneteenth, the Stonewall riots, Watergate, the first iPhone and the first Harry Potter book. The easy questions are ones anyone can get (how many days June has, which day is Flag Day, what Father's Day falls on). The medium ones ask about birthstones, birth flowers, Bloomsday and famous people born or lost in June, from Paul McCartney and Alan Turing to Michael Jackson. The hard ones dig into rainfall records, meteor showers, Nero and Commodus and the Julian calendar. Use it as a June fun facts round for a pub quiz, a classroom bell-ringer, or a seniors' activity for the start of summer. Every answer has been checked against a reference encyclopaedia, and each question shows its explanation and citation once you have answered.
30 of 178 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01How many days does June have?
30
It is one of four 30-day months, alongside April, September and November.
Q 02Juno, the goddess who gave June its name, was identified with which Greek goddess?
Hera
The Romans equated Juno, queen of the gods and wife of Jupiter, with the Greek Hera, wife of Zeus; the Latin month Iunius took its name from her.
Q 03In the original Roman calendar, June was which month of the year?
Fourth
In the ten-month calendar credited to Romulus the year began with March, making June the fourth month; January and February were added later, traditionally by Numa Pompilius.
Q 04In AD 65, June was briefly renamed Germanicus in honour of which Roman emperor?
Nero
Nero, whose names included Germanicus, had the Senate rename June after the deaths of two Junii Silani made the name Junius seem ill-omened; the renaming died with him in AD 68.
Q 05Which emperor renamed June 'Aelius' while renaming every month after his own names?
Commodus
Commodus, whose names included Lucius Aelius Aurelius, renamed all twelve months after his names and titles late in his reign; the Senate reversed it after his murder in AD 192.
Q 06Whose calendar reform of 46 BC lengthened June from 29 to 30 days?
Julius Caesar
Julius Caesar's reform of 46 BC added a day to June, taking it from 29 to 30, and fixed the year at 365 days with a leap day every fourth year.
Q 07Per Ovid, a priestess advised delaying his daughter's wedding until after which date?
15 June
Ovid's Fasti has the wife of the Flamen Dialis advise waiting until 15 June, when the sweepings from Vesta's temple had been carried to the Tiber; before that, marriage was considered unlucky.
Q 08The June solstice, the Northern Hemisphere's longest day, most often falls on which date of the month?
21st
The 21st is the usual date, though the solstice can land anywhere from 20 to 22 June; south of the equator it is the shortest day of the year.
Q 09The Atlantic hurricane season officially begins on which date?
1 June
The Atlantic hurricane season runs from 1 June to 30 November, the six months in which the National Hurricane Center expects nearly all tropical cyclones.
Q 10June's full moon is most commonly known by which name?
Strawberry
It coincides with strawberry-picking season; other names include the rose moon and the honey moon.
Q 11Which of these is NOT one of the three June birthstones recognised in the United States?
Emerald
Emerald belongs to May; June is unusual in having three stones.
Q 12The rose and which climbing plant are the birth flowers of June?
Honeysuckle
Honeysuckle, a twining climber of the genus Lonicera, shares June's birth-flower honours with the rose; its sweet nectar, once sucked from the flowers by children, gives it its name.
Q 13Someone born on 25 June has which zodiac sign?
Cancer
Gemini covers 21 May to 21 June, and Cancer runs from 22 June to 22 July.
In the United States and Britain, Father's Day falls on which day of June?
Q 21The D-Day landings themselves were codenamed what?
Operation Neptune
Overlord was the name for the whole invasion of Normandy; Neptune covered the assault phase on the beaches.
Q 22Flag Day in the United States, on 14 June, commemorates the adoption of the flag in which year?
1777
The Second Continental Congress adopted the Stars and Stripes by resolution on 14 June 1777, the date Flag Day commemorates; Congress made the observance official by law in 1949.
Q 23Magna Carta was sealed by King John on 15 June 1215 at which meadow beside the Thames?
Runnymede
Runnymede, a water-meadow on the Thames near Windsor, was neutral ground between the royal castle and the barons' camp at Staines; the charter is dated 15 June 1215.
The third Sunday
Father's Day is the third Sunday of June in the United States, Britain, Canada and many other countries; Richard Nixon made it a permanent US national observance in 1972.
Q 15In the United States, June is observed as which month-long celebration?
Pride
June is Pride Month in the United States, commemorating the Stonewall riots of June 1969; it is also Caribbean-American Heritage Month and National Safety Month there.
Q 16The Stonewall riots began in the early hours of 28 June 1969 in which New York neighbourhood?
Greenwich Village
The Stonewall Inn stands on Christopher Street in Greenwich Village; patrons of the Mafia-owned bar fought back against a police raid in the early hours of 28 June 1969.
Q 17In Catholicism, June is dedicated to which devotion?
The Sacred Heart of Jesus
The Feast of the Sacred Heart falls on the Friday after the second Sunday after Pentecost, so it usually lands in June.
Q 18Brazil's Festas Juninas are celebrated most intensely in which region of the country?
Northeast
The Northeast is the heartland of the Festas Juninas; Campina Grande in Paraíba and Caruaru in Pernambuco each claim the world's biggest São João, with weeks of forró and quadrilha dancing.
Q 19Juneteenth marks General Gordon Granger enforcing emancipation in 1865 in which state?
Texas
On 19 June 1865 General Gordon Granger issued General Order No. 3 in Texas, announcing that all enslaved people there were free; Juneteenth became a federal holiday in 2021.
Q 20D-Day, the largest seaborne invasion in history, took place on which day of June 1944?
6th
The five landing beaches were Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno and Sword; Omaha, with its high cliffs, saw the worst casualties.
Q 24The Battle of Waterloo, Napoleon's final defeat, was fought on 18 June 1815 in what is now which country?
Belgium
Waterloo lies south of Brussels in what is now Belgium, then part of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands; Wellington's army and Blücher's Prussians beat Napoleon on Sunday 18 June 1815.
Q 25On 17 June 1972, burglars tied to Nixon's campaign were caught inside which organisation's headquarters?
The Democratic National Committee
The five burglars were caught in the Democratic National Committee's offices in the Watergate complex; the cover-up that followed forced Nixon's resignation in August 1974.
Q 26Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914 by which student?
Gavrilo Princip
Gavrilo Princip, a 19-year-old Bosnian Serb student, shot the Archduke and his wife Sophie; Čabrinović, Ilić and Grabež were fellow conspirators in the same Sarajevo plot.
Q 27In which room of the palace was the Treaty of Versailles signed on 28 June 1919?
The Hall of Mirrors
The Hall of Mirrors was chosen because the German Empire had been proclaimed there in January 1871; the signing fell on the fifth anniversary of the Sarajevo assassination.
Q 28How many Japanese fleet carriers were sunk at the Battle of Midway on 4-7 June 1942?
Four
All four Japanese fleet carriers engaged, Akagi, Kaga, Sōryū and Hiryū, were sunk, along with the heavy cruiser Mikuma; the Americans lost only the carrier Yorktown and a destroyer.
Q 29Custer's Last Stand, on 25-26 June 1876, was fought along which river?
The Little Bighorn
The Little Bighorn River in Montana Territory gave the battle its name; the Lakota call it the Battle of the Greasy Grass, and Custer's entire immediate command of the 7th Cavalry was killed.
Q 30Which war began on 25 June 1950 with a surprise invasion across a partition line?
The Korean War
The Korean War began when North Korean forces crossed the 38th parallel on 25 June 1950; fighting lasted until the armistice of 27 July 1953.