Celebrate National Trivia Day on January 4
Did you know? …
Trivia is the plural of trivium?
Trivium literally translates as “place where three roads meet” (from the Latin tri-, meaning three and via, meaning road)?
And the historical definition is, according to the Oxford dictionary, “An introductory curriculum at a medieval university involving the study of grammar, rhetoric, and logic.” ?
Doesn’t seem to have much to do with the modern meaning of trivia (details or bits of information with little value), does it?
But, as games like Trivial Pursuit (with its many variations) and shows like Jeopardy show, Americans love their trivia.
So it seems only right that we have a day to celebrate it. And that day is National Trivia Day, celebrated January 4 every year.
The trivia about how and when this day began seems to be lost to history (or at least we haven’t yet been able to uncover it). We did find one source that says the day was started by Robert L. Birch to raise awareness of how trivia contributes to the development of human curiosity.
Whether or not this story is true, Trivia Day is the perfect day to have a little fun and show off the bits of useless knowledge you’ve collected over the years.
Scroll down for some ideas on celebrating this unofficial, but not necessarily trivial, holiday.
Ideas For Celebrating National Trivia Day
Celebrate trivially, of course!
Write down bits of trivia and share them in an email with friends (be kind and limit this to those who actually like this kind of thing!).
Post social media updates throughout the day with a different bit of trivia in each update.
Host a Trivial Pursuit party.
Learn some new trivia! Grab an old encyclopedia and open to random pages to discover all kind of interesting things. Or search online for trivia … there’s lots to find! But be careful, many of these lists aren’t completely reliable.
Make a personalized online Jeopardy template at JeopardyLabs
Take the Mensa Workout quiz
Some Trivia to Get You Started On Your Celebrations
The world’s largest sock is 9.93 meters (32 ft 7 in.) tall and contains almost 600 feet of material. Bet that won’t get lost in the laundry!
A man named Edwin Booth saved Robert Todd Lincoln (Abraham Lincoln’s son) less than a year before his brother, John Wilkes Booth, shot Abraham Lincoln.
Fredric Baur, inventor of the Pringles can, was cremated and his ashes buried in one of those cans.
Several countries in the world have no rivers. Saudia Arabia is the largest of them.
The World’s Largest Trivia Contest happens every April in Wisconsin.
[…] National Trivia Day: Astound friends and coworkers with your knowledge of mostly useless facts today! For example, Fredric Baur’s ashes were buried in a Pringles can (do you know why?!). […]
[…] National Trivia Day: Drive everyone you know crazy with random bits of trivia all day. Then enjoy a game of Trivial Pursuit with your trivia-loving friends (hopefully you have some of those …). […]
[…] National Trivia Day: Learn and share little bits of mostly useless information all day long. Why? Because it’s fun! And anyway, what seems useless today could be quite useful one day. You just never know! […]