Fun Spring Trivia About March & More
With March comes the official start to spring, so let’s celebrate with some fun spring trivia. This’ll get your brain limbered up before you join one of our outdoor scavenger hunts all over the country, from New York City’s Central Park to San Francisco’s Chinatown and North Beach.
Or try your hand at one of our trivia games! You can play them as an in-person group or virtually, and they include such light-hearted themes as Pinch Me, It’s a St. Patrick’s Day Trivia Game and the Fascinating Facts Trivia Game.
Now, let’s march onward with these 17 spring trivia questions!
March Mania Trivia Questions
1. If we did as the Romans used to do, we’d celebrate March as the first month of the year! Romulus, co-founder of Rome, started his original Roman Calendar with March in about 738 B.C. What Roman god did he name it after?
A. Morpheus, god of sleep and dreams
B. Mars, god of war and agriculture
C. Mercury, god of commerce
D. Mutunus Tutunus, god of marriage
B. Mars, of course! — That was an easy one. But can you believe we didn’t make up a name like Mutunus Tutunus?!
2. About 800 years later, a certain Julius Caesar demoted March to the third month in his modestly named Julian Calendar. Maybe that’s why Brutus and his fellow senators chose March 15, the “Ides of March,” to stab the guy to death. (Probably not.) Either way, how many of Caesar’s stab wounds were thought to be fatal?
A. 1 out of 23
B. 4 out of 12
C. 26 out of 28
D. 2 out of 3 ain’t bad
A. 1 out of 23 — And Caesar wasn’t the only one who got stabbed that day. He impaled his first attacker, Casca, with a writing utensil. And Cassius accidentally stabbed Brutus in the hand. Don’t you hate when that happens?
3. One of the following films released in March was the source of controversy come Oscar season. A surprise Supporting Actress win at the Academy Awards launched gossip and rumor that the presenter drunkenly announced the wrong winner and the Academy was too embarrassed to correct the record, a totally baseless conspiracy theory that nevertheless persists to this day. What was that film?
A. The Godfather
B. The Sound of Music
C. My Cousin Vinny
D. Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice
C. My Cousin Vinny — Despite facing competition from the likes of Vanessa Redgrave, Marisa Tomei, little known at the time, won the award for her role as the foul-mouthed car expert Mona Lisa Vito.
4. In the northern hemisphere, the spring equinox marks the official start of summer. Depending on the year, it can land on March 19, 20, or 21. What would be your Zodiac sign if the equinox landed on the last date?
A. Aries
B. Pisces
C. Aquarius
D. Ford Taurus
A. Aries — Pisces season ends on March 20, while Aries starts on the 21st!
5. Which one of the following is not associated with March Madness, the NCAA Men’s Division I basketball tournament?
A. Onions
B. Cinderella
C. The Big Dance
D. The Twelfth Man
D. The Twelfth Man — That’s a football reference. As for the others, having “onions” can mean playing with guts; a Cinderella is an underdog who overperforms; and the tournament is nicknamed the Big Dance.
6. One of the world’s great artists was born on March 30, 1853. According to legend, he sold only one painting before he died in 1890. That’s not true, though: He sold at least a few paintings and drawings, and often traded his works for food or art supplies. Who was he?
A. Pablo Picasso
B. Andy Warhol
C. Vincent Van Gogh
D. Salvador Dalí
C. Van Gogh — It is true, however, that he died broke and one-eared.
7. Where did the first St. Patrick’s Day parade in history take place?
A. Ireland
B. New York
C. Florida
D. Boston
C. Florida — The parade was held on March 17, 1601, in a Spanish colony on land that is now St. Augustine, Florida. The colony’s Irish vicar, Ricardo Artur, came up with the idea.
8. Though the idiom has existed for hundreds of years, what story popularized the British phrase “mad as a March hare”?
A. Pinocchio
B. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
C. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
D. The Canterbury Tales
B. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland — The phrase originally comes from the notion that rabbits would act erratically, and sometimes violently, at the peak of their mating season…in March!
9. What TV character once looked at a misprinted calendar at his kids’ elementary school on a cold day and, in typically foolish fashion, complained about the “lousy Smarch weather”?
A. Archie Bunker
B. Al Bundy
C. Mike Brady
D. Homer Simpson
D. Homer Simpson — The misprint appears in a calendar at Springfield Elementary School in the 1995 episode “Treehouse of Horror VI.” Smarch is evidently the 13th month of the year and has 28 days.
10. Born on March 6, 1475, the artist Michelangelo painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel between 1508 and 1512. What otherwise innocuous body part on the Biblical Adam got Michelangelo labeled a heretic?
A. Belly button
B. Fingernails
C. Receding hairline
D. Webbed toes
A. Belly button — Michelangelo painted Adam with one. But never having been in a womb, Adam shouldn’t have a belly button at all!
11. What movie-turned-Broadway-show does this synopsis describe? “Two schmucks try to defraud investors by purposely staging perhaps the most offensive musical in history: Springtime for Hitler.”
A. Book of Mormon
B. The Producers
C. A Chorus Line
D. Cabaret
B. The Producers — Mel Brooks’ ‘The Producers’ first appeared as a non-musical film in 1967. In the Broadway musical version, and its movie-musical adaptation, the titular producers are played by Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick.
12. Complete this phrase, based on old weather-related folklore: “If March comes in like lion, it will…”
A. “…snarl with wind and rain.”
B. “…bring April showers.”
C. “…go out like a lamb.”
D. “…be a roarin’ good time!”
C. “…go out like a lamb.” — The phrase came from the old belief that harsh weather in early March would be balanced by tame weather later in the month.
13. What nerdy “holiday” is celebrated on March 14?
A. Pi Day
B. Star Wars Day
C. Pythago-palooza
D. Smarch Madness, a.k.a. Simpsons Day
A. Pi Day — Math nerds choose 3/14 to commemorate the mathematical constant π (pi), which starts with 3.14.
14. The Eiffel Tower was completed on March 31, 1889. The playwright Guy de Maupassant famously claimed to eat lunch at the tower’s restaurant nearly every day. Why?
A. He couldn’t get un oeuf of their cooking.
B. He lived in the tower as Gustave Eiffel’s guest.
C. His gout made finding other restaurants too painful.
D. So he didn’t have to look at the Eiffel Tower.
D. So he didn’t have to look at the Eiffel Tower. — Guy de Maupassant was one of many Parisians who despised, and protested against, the “Tower of Monsieur Eiffel.”
15. Long before we had Women’s History Month in March, the first Women’s History Day was celebrated on February 28, 1909. It marked the one-year anniversary of a march by 15,000 women in New York City. They were protesting the awful working conditions in what sort of industry?
A. Food canning
B. The garment industry
C. Public schools
D. Video game development
B. The garment industry — Protestors included workers from the Triangle Shirtwaist Company, only a few years before a deadly fire there pushed lawmakers to pass worker-protection legislation.
16. Alexander Graham Bell made the first telephone call on March 10, 1876. What did he say?
A. “I give you the marvel of talking with electricity.”
B. “Mr. Hammond, the phones are working.”
C. “Mr. Watson, come here. I want to see you.”
D. “Can you hear me now?”
C. “Mr. Watson, come here. I want to see you.” — Bell did describe using a telephone as “speaking with electricity,” but humanity’s first phone call was perfectly pedestrian. Bell used it to summon Mr. Watson, his assistant.
17. Which of the following is a nickname for a full moon when it occurs in March?
A. Sap Moon
B. Worm Moon
C. Chaste Moon
D. All of the above
D. All of the above — A full moon in March can be called many things, including all three of these. Sap Moon is so named for the tapping of maple trees in March. Worm Moon gets its name from the return of earthworms and other insects in the warmer spring weather. Chaste Moon comes from the “purity” of the season as life returns anew after winter.
Find More Fun
For a more challenging experience, join one of our outdoor scavenger hunts all over the country, from New York City’s Central Park to San Francisco’s Chinatown and North Beach. Or try your hand at one of our virtual trivia games, which include Pinch Me, It’s a St. Patrick’s Day Trivia Game and the Fascinating Facts Trivia Game. Our games are available to private groups of any size at just about any time, and most of our virtual games can also be played in-person.
~
Image credits: ‘The Death of Caesar’ painting in the public domain; Zodiac photo by James Lee on Unsplash; rabbit photo by Gary Bendig on Unsplash; Eiffel Tower photo by Anthony DELANOIX on Unsplash;