This June trivia quiz has 130 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 130 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 02June is ultimately named after which Roman goddess?
Juno
The Latin month was Iunius; the Old English name it displaced was ærra liþa.
Q 03In the original Roman calendar, June was which month of the year?
Fourth
January and February were tacked on to the start later; Roman scholars dated the change to 153 BC.
Q 04In AD 65, June was briefly renamed Germanicus in honour of which Roman emperor?
Nero
A senator argued the name Junius had become unlucky after two Junius Silanus executions; the new name did not outlast the emperor.
Q 05Which emperor renamed June "Aelius" in AD 184, renaming every month after part of his own title?
Commodus
The vanity project was repealed as soon as he died in AD 192.
Q 06Which reformer's calendar of 46 BC first made June 30 days long?
Julius Caesar
The reform fixed the year at 365 days with a regular leap day, slightly too long, which Gregory corrected in 1582.
Q 07Per Ovid, a priestess advised delaying his daughter's wedding until after which date?
15 June
Mid-May to mid-June was considered unlucky for marriage; Plutarch, by contrast, thought all of June better than May.
Q 08In the Northern Hemisphere, the summer solstice most often falls on which date of the month?
21st
It can land anywhere from 20 to 22 June and is the shortest day of the year south of the equator.
Q 09The Atlantic hurricane season officially begins on which date?
1 June
It runs all the way to 30 November.
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
Roses are also the source of one of the alternative names for June's full moon.
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.
Q 14In most countries, Father's Day is celebrated on which day in 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
Woodrow Wilson proclaimed the day in 1916 and Congress made it official in 1949.
Q 23Magna Carta was sealed by King John on 15 June 1215 at which meadow beside the Thames?
Runnymede
John had first met the rebel barons there five days earlier.
The third Sunday
Global Running Day, by contrast, is the first Wednesday of the month.
Q 15In the United States, June is observed as which month-long celebration?
Pride
It is also Caribbean-American Heritage Month and National Safety Month there, and ALS Awareness Month in Canada.
Q 16The Stonewall riots began in the early hours of 28 June 1969 in which New York neighbourhood?
Greenwich Village
The Stonewall Inn was Mafia-owned and the police raid that night quickly spun out of control.
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 month-long Festas Juninas celebrate what?
The harvest
They fill the whole of June and are held across the country.
Q 19Juneteenth marks General Gordon Granger enforcing emancipation in 1865 in which state?
Texas
The name, a blend of June and nineteenth, was first used in the 1890s; it 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
It was a Sunday, and Wellington's British-led army was joined by Blücher's Prussians.
Q 25On 17 June 1972, burglars tied to Nixon's campaign were caught inside which organisation's headquarters?
The Democratic National Committee
The offices were in the Watergate complex, which gave the whole scandal its name.
Q 26Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914 by which student?
Gavrilo Princip
He was one of six would-be assassins in the city that day; the others in the options were part of the same plot.
Q 27The Treaty of Versailles was signed on 28 June 1919, exactly how many years after the Sarajevo assassination?
Five
The date was chosen deliberately, and the signing took place in the palace's Hall of Mirrors.
Q 28How many Japanese fleet carriers were sunk at the Battle of Midway on 4-7 June 1942?
Four
Akagi, Kaga, Sōryū and Hiryū all went down, six months to the day after Pearl Harbor.
Q 29Custer's Last Stand, on 25-26 June 1876, was fought along which river?
The Little Bighorn
The Lakota call it the Battle of the Greasy Grass; it was fought in what was then Montana Territory.
Q 30Which war began on 25 June 1950 when the North crossed the 38th parallel?
The Korean War
Fighting lasted until the armistice of 27 July 1953.