It’s 11:58 p.m. The snacks are out, the playlist is doing its best, and someone asks: “So, do we have a game?” Last year I answered with nothing but a shrug and a bag of pretzels. This year I did the homework for everyone.
Below are 200 New Year trivia questions with the answers right underneath each one, sorted into three tiers: 60 easy, 80 medium, 60 hard. They cover the celebrations we all recognize, the foods with lucky meanings, the calendar weirdness nobody teaches you, and the movies and songs that have lived rent-free in our New Year’s Eve playlists for decades.
I’m not a historian, but I’ve kept more midnight resolutions than I’d like to admit (and kept a surprising number of them all the way through the year), so I cared that every question actually connects to a real New Year tradition or date. No invented crowd counts, no survey percentages that expire next month. A few answers include an extra fact where it earned its place. Score one point per correct answer, see how far you get without peeking, and use the tiers as a party menu rather than an exam.
Easy New Year Trivia Questions and Answers
The first 60 questions are the warm-up round. They work for mixed groups, kids who are almost grown, and the one uncle who always says he’d win a trivia night. They feel easy because the facts are familiar, not because the wording gives the answer away. I left out every question that practically contains its own answer.
New Year Basics and Famous Celebrations
1. Which city hosts the famous Times Square Ball Drop on New Year’s Eve?
Answer: New York City.
2. What song is traditionally sung at midnight in many English-speaking countries?
Answer: “Auld Lang Syne.”
3. What is the Scottish name for New Year’s Eve?
Answer: Hogmanay.
4. Which California city hosts the Rose Parade on New Year’s Day?
Answer: Pasadena.
5. Which Australian city is famous for its New Year’s Eve fireworks around its harbour and Opera House?
Answer: Sydney.
6. On which building does the Times Square New Year’s Eve Ball descend?
Answer: One Times Square.
7. Which U.S. city is famous for its Mummers Parade on New Year’s Day?
Answer: Philadelphia.
8. What name is commonly given to a New Year tradition of taking an icy outdoor swim on January 1?
Answer: A polar bear plunge.
9. Which orchestra performs the internationally famous New Year’s Concert in Austria?
Answer: The Vienna Philharmonic.
10. Which Johann Strauss II waltz is closely associated with New Year celebrations in Austria?
Answer: “The Blue Danube.”
11. Which famous bell is heard around midnight during one of the best-known UK New Year countdowns?
Answer: Big Ben.
12. What falls over the crowd in Times Square at midnight, creating its famous paper shower?
Answer: Confetti.
13. Which sparkling wine is traditionally associated with New Year’s Eve toasts?
Answer: Champagne.
14. What do many couples traditionally do when the clock strikes midnight?
Answer: Kiss.
15. Which Brazilian city hosts a huge New Year’s Eve celebration on Copacabana Beach?
Answer: Rio de Janeiro.
New Year Food and Lucky Traditions
Food is my favorite corner of this whole game, because the dishes come with built-in meaning. These 15 cover luck, prosperity, and the hope of starting the year well.
16. How many grapes do people traditionally try to eat with the midnight chimes in Spain?
Answer: Twelve.
17. Which legume is traditionally eaten for luck in the American South on New Year’s Day?
Answer: Black-eyed peas.
18. Which food is commonly eaten in Italy at New Year because its shape is associated with coins and prosperity?
Answer: Lentils.
19. What Greek New Year cake traditionally contains a hidden coin?
Answer: Vasilopita.
20. What Dutch fried treat is traditionally eaten around New Year’s Eve?
Answer: Oliebollen. They’re commonly dusted with powdered sugar.
21. What do many people in Denmark do from a chair or sofa at midnight for good luck?
Answer: Jump into the new year.
22. What long noodle dish is traditionally eaten in Japan on New Year’s Eve?
Answer: Toshikoshi soba.
23. What shape are fruits traditionally chosen for New Year displays in the Philippines because they resemble coins?
Answer: Round.
24. Which profession is represented by a traditional good-luck figure often given in Austria around New Year?
Answer: A chimney sweep.
25. What Scottish custom involves being the first visitor to enter a home after midnight?
Answer: First-footing.
26. What tower-shaped marzipan cake is traditionally served around midnight in Denmark?
Answer: Kransekage.
27. Which color of underwear is traditionally worn by many people in Italy on New Year’s Eve for luck?
Answer: Red.
28. Which leafy green is traditionally eaten in parts of the American South because its color is associated with money?
Answer: Collard greens.
29. What meat is commonly paired with sauerkraut for a traditional Pennsylvania Dutch New Year’s meal?
Answer: Pork.
30. Which fruit is smashed at the doorstep in a Greek New Year custom associated with good luck and abundance?
Answer: A pomegranate.
New Year Trivia Around the World
The next 15 step outside the most famous American celebrations, into customs from Europe, Asia, and South America that are widely documented but still worth testing yourself on.
31. How many times are Buddhist temple bells traditionally rung for Joya no Kane in Japan?
Answer: 108 times.
32. What color do many people in Brazil wear on New Year’s Eve as a symbol of peace?
Answer: White.
33. What French phrase means “Happy New Year”?
Answer: Bonne année.
34. What name is commonly used for New Year’s Eve in Germany?
Answer: Silvester.
35. What Italian word is commonly used for New Year’s Day and the New Year celebration?
Answer: Capodanno.
36. What is New Year’s Eve called in Spanish?
Answer: Nochevieja.
37. Which saint is associated with New Year’s Day gifts in Greece?
Answer: Saint Basil.
38. What is the first shrine or temple visit of the year called in Japan?
Answer: Hatsumode.
39. What Japanese term refers to watching the first sunrise of the new year?
Answer: Hatsuhinode.
40. What is the name for the special Japanese New Year foods often packed into decorative boxes?
Answer: Osechi.
41. What mochi-based soup is commonly eaten in Japan during New Year celebrations?
Answer: Ozoni.
42. Which drink is traditionally carried as a good-luck gift by the first visitor to a Scottish home after midnight?
Answer: Whisky.
43. Which crumbly Scottish biscuit is another traditional gift carried by a first visitor after midnight?
Answer: Shortbread.
44. How many waves do many Brazilian revelers traditionally jump at the beach around New Year?
Answer: Seven.
45. Which animal is a common New Year good-luck symbol in Austria and Germany?
Answer: A pig.
New Year Music, Movies and Familiar Customs
The final easy round mixes songs, films, and customs that different generations will recognize in different ways. A good party round, because nobody gets all of it.
46. Which 1980 ABBA track has become a seasonal New Year playlist favorite?
Answer: “Happy New Year.”
47. Which Prince song invites listeners to party like it is a specific year?
Answer: “1999.”
48. Which romantic comedy ends with Harry declaring his love to Sally at a New Year’s Eve party?
Answer: When Harry Met Sally.
49. What long-running American television special was created by Dick Clark as a younger alternative for New Year’s Eve viewers?
Answer: New Year’s Rockin’ Eve.
50. Which short British comedy sketch became an unlikely New Year’s Eve television tradition in Germany?
Answer: Dinner for One.
51. What item do people in parts of Latin America carry or walk with at New Year when they hope to travel in the coming year?
Answer: A suitcase. If travel is on your own list for the next twelve months, a short, practical travel-planning session beats a vague wish.
52. Which Bahamian street festival is closely associated with the Christmas and New Year season?
Answer: Junkanoo.
53. Which Japanese decoration made with pine and bamboo is commonly placed outside entrances around New Year?
Answer: Kadomatsu.
54. What large onion is traditionally hung outside some Greek homes around New Year as a symbol of growth and renewal?
Answer: Kremmida.
55. What Romanian New Year’s Day custom uses a decorated twig while children recite wishes for health and prosperity?
Answer: Sorcova.
56. Which Romanian New Year’s Eve tradition features a ceremonial plow song wishing households prosperity?
Answer: Plugușorul.
57. Which Roman god gave January its name?
Answer: Janus.
58. Which calendar is now the world’s most widely used civil calendar?
Answer: The Gregorian calendar.
59. What do we call a calendar year that has 366 days instead of 365?
Answer: A leap year.
60. Which month receives the extra day in a 366-day year?
Answer: February.
Medium New Year Trivia Questions and Answers
The middle round is deliberately the largest. These questions need more specific recall, but I kept them from tipping into pub-quiz obscurity. This is the section I’d actually run at a family game night: long enough to be a real game, fair enough that nobody sulks.
New Year History and Calendar Trivia
The calendar itself has changed more than once, and that’s where some of the best history questions live. I’ve made resolutions myself and kept more than I admit, so the history of New Year promises belongs here too. If you’re already planning your own, start with one small, boring, doable habit — that’s how the ones that stick work.
61. Which Roman ruler introduced the calendar that remained in use across much of Europe for centuries before later reforms?
Answer: Julius Caesar.
62. Which pope introduced the major calendar reform adopted by Catholic countries in the 16th century?
Answer: Pope Gregory XIII.
63. In what year was that calendar reform introduced?
Answer: 1582.
64. Before 1752, on which date did the legal year begin in England and Wales?
Answer: March 25.
65. In what year did Scotland begin counting January 1 as the first day of the year?
Answer: 1600.
66. How many calendar dates were omitted in Britain when it changed calendars in 1752?
Answer: Eleven days.
67. Which month began the year in the earliest Roman calendar?
Answer: March.
68. Which ancient civilization is commonly credited with some of the earliest recorded New Year resolutions?
Answer: The ancient Babylonians.
69. Which Russian ruler ordered that the new year begin on January 1 starting in 1700?
Answer: Peter the Great.
70. On which date is the so-called Old New Year commonly observed under the modern civil calendar?
Answer: January 14.
71. What is the Persian New Year called?
Answer: Nowruz.
72. What is the Jewish New Year called?
Answer: Rosh Hashanah.
73. Which month begins the Islamic calendar year?
Answer: Muharram.
74. What is the Korean Lunar New Year called?
Answer: Seollal.
75. What is the Vietnamese Lunar New Year commonly called?
Answer: Tết.
76. What is Thailand’s traditional New Year festival called?
Answer: Songkran.
77. Which Balinese New Year observance is famous for a day of silence?
Answer: Nyepi.
78. What is the Ethiopian New Year called?
Answer: Enkutatash.
79. Under modern calendar rules, what must a century year be divisible by to receive an extra day?
Answer: 400.
80. What nickname was given to the computer date problem that caused worldwide concern as the year 2000 approached?
Answer: The Y2K bug.
Global New Year Customs and Traditions
This batch needs a little more cultural knowledge than the opening round. Food, fortune, family rituals, and local names from Europe, Asia, and Latin America — all widely documented, none of them trivia-database oddities.
81. Which building’s clock provides the famous midnight chimes at Madrid’s Puerta del Sol?
Answer: Casa de Correos.
82. What dried fruit do many people in Portugal eat at midnight while making wishes for the new year?
Answer: Raisins.
83. What are Japanese New Year greeting postcards called?
Answer: Nengajo.
84. What are the paper fortunes drawn at many Japanese shrines called?
Answer: Omikuji.
85. What New Year decoration consists of two stacked rice cakes, usually topped with a small citrus fruit?
Answer: Kagami mochi.
86. What is the Japanese year-end custom of thoroughly cleaning the home called?
Answer: Osoji.
87. What is the Filipino midnight feast held around major celebrations such as New Year called?
Answer: Media Noche.
88. What name is given to the old-year effigies traditionally burned in Ecuador around midnight?
Answer: Años viejos.
89. Which crisp, sweet fritter is a traditional holiday and New Year treat in Mexico?
Answer: Buñuelos.
90. What jam-filled fried pastry is commonly eaten around New Year in Germany?
Answer: Berliner.
91. What is Vienna’s central New Year’s Eve trail of stages, music and celebrations called?
Answer: Silvesterpfad.
92. Which Johann Strauss II operetta is a New Year season favorite on Vienna stages?
Answer: Die Fledermaus.
93. Which Scottish town is known for swinging blazing fireballs through the streets around New Year?
Answer: Stonehaven.
94. What rich Scottish fruitcake wrapped in pastry is traditionally associated with New Year?
Answer: Black bun.
95. What name is given to traditional Greek holiday carols sung door to door, including around New Year?
Answer: Kalanta.
96. Which clock is used for Denmark’s national midnight New Year countdown?
Answer: The Copenhagen City Hall clock.
97. At what time is the Danish monarch’s traditional New Year’s Eve address broadcast?
Answer: 6 p.m.
98. What French-derived word do Brazilians commonly use for New Year’s Eve celebrations?
Answer: Réveillon.
99. Which sea deity is honored by many Brazilian revelers with offerings around New Year?
Answer: Iemanjá.
100. What sacred straw rope is used in Japanese New Year decorations to mark purified or sacred space?
Answer: Shimenawa.
More New Year Traditions Around the World
Korea and Japan get more than one entry here, because their New Year seasons include distinct foods, greetings, games, and rituals rather than a single custom.
101. What Japanese word refers specifically to December 31, the final day of the year?
Answer: Omisoka.
102. Which sliced rice-cake soup is traditionally eaten during Korean Lunar New Year?
Answer: Tteokguk.
103. What is the deep ceremonial bow younger Koreans make to elders at Lunar New Year called?
Answer: Sebae.
104. Which traditional Korean board game is commonly played during Lunar New Year gatherings?
Answer: Yunnori.
105. What is the New Year gift money often given to Korean children after they greet their elders called?
Answer: Sebaetdon.
106. On which day of the lunar calendar does Korea’s traditional Lunar New Year fall?
Answer: The first day of the first lunar month.
107. In what year did the first major New Year’s Eve celebration take place in the New York square that later became famous for its countdown?
Answer: 1904.
108. In what year did the first illuminated ball descend during that New York celebration?
Answer: 1907.
109. Which European capital holds a major New Year celebration around the Brandenburg Gate?
Answer: Berlin.
110. Which city holds a major New Year’s Eve countdown and fireworks celebration around Marina Bay?
Answer: Singapore.
111. Which record-breaking skyscraper is closely associated with Dubai’s New Year’s Eve fireworks?
Answer: The Burj Khalifa.
112. Which Scottish capital is internationally known for its large Hogmanay street celebrations?
Answer: Edinburgh.
113. Which observatory introduced the famous public time ball later associated with the idea of visually signaling an exact time?
Answer: The Royal Observatory, Greenwich.
114. In what year did that Greenwich Time Ball begin operating?
Answer: 1833.
115. What precision instruments aboard ships could sailors set by watching a time ball fall?
Answer: Marine chronometers.
116. Which social club organized the first Tournament of Roses?
Answer: The Valley Hunt Club.
117. In what year was the first Tournament of Roses held?
Answer: 1890.
118. In what year was the first East-West football game held as part of those Pasadena festivities?
Answer: 1902.
119. Which concert hall hosts Vienna’s world-famous January 1 orchestral concert?
Answer: The Musikverein.
120. What is the famous main auditorium used for that concert commonly called in English?
Answer: The Golden Hall.
Famous Celebrations, Time Zones and New Year Pop Culture
The last 20 of the medium round mix famous celebrations with time-zone trivia, music, movies, and television. The geography side is the part that surprises me every time I look it up.
121. Who conducted the first January 1 performance in the concert tradition now associated with Vienna?
Answer: Clemens Krauss.
122. Who composed the Radetzky March, traditionally heard near the end of Vienna’s January 1 concert?
Answer: Johann Strauss I.
123. Which inhabited island in Kiribati, in the UTC+14 time zone, is among the first places to enter a new year?
Answer: Kiritimati.
124. Which self-governing Pacific island country uses UTC-11 and is among the last inhabited places to welcome the new year?
Answer: Niue.
125. The International Date Line roughly follows which meridian?
Answer: The 180th meridian.
126. Which Pacific nation skipped December 30 in 2011 when it moved to the other side of the International Date Line?
Answer: Samoa.
127. Which New Zealand island group uses a time-zone offset with an unusual extra 45 minutes?
Answer: The Chatham Islands.
128. Which river forms the backdrop for London’s major New Year’s Eve fireworks?
Answer: The River Thames.
129. What is the official name of the clock tower at the Palace of Westminster?
Answer: Elizabeth Tower.
130. On which 1980 ABBA album can you find the group’s best-known New Year song?
Answer: Super Trouper.
131. Which song recorded by Ella Fitzgerald asks what someone is doing on December 31?
Answer: “What Are You Doing New Year’s Eve?”
132. Which Polish movement helped inspire U2’s song about January 1?
Answer: Solidarity.
133. On which Taylor Swift album does the song “New Year’s Day” appear?
Answer: Reputation.
134. Which Canadian-born bandleader became so associated with New Year’s Eve broadcasts that he was nicknamed “Mr. New Year’s Eve”?
Answer: Guy Lombardo.
135. What was the name of the orchestra led by that famous year-end bandleader?
Answer: The Royal Canadians.
136. In what year did Dick Clark launch the youth-focused television special that became his signature New Year broadcast?
Answer: 1972.
137. Which British romantic comedy opens with its heroine thinking about resolutions on New Year’s Day?
Answer: Bridget Jones’s Diary.
138. Which 2011 ensemble romantic comedy follows several interconnected characters in New York on December 31?
Answer: New Year’s Eve.
139. Which animated science-fiction series begins with Fry accidentally being frozen on December 31, 1999?
Answer: Futurama.
140. Which two Friends characters perform “The Routine” at a televised New Year’s Eve event?
Answer: Ross and Monica Geller.
Hard New Year Trivia Questions and Answers
The final 60 are demanding, but I held one rule: hard should mean challenging and rewarding, not impossible. No crowd estimates, no arbitrary survey percentages, no endless technical specs. A few answers will look familiar the moment you see them — that’s exactly how a good hard round should feel.
Hard New Year History and Calendars
This section digs into old calendars, legal New Years, and traditional festivals. The answers refer to real dates, institutions, and celebrations, not events that merely happened to land on January 1.
141. What was the name of the papal bull that introduced the major calendar reform of the 16th century?
Answer: Inter gravissimas.
142. How many dates were removed when the first countries adopted that reform in October 1582?
Answer: Ten days.
143. Which Scottish king ordered January 1 to become the first day of the year in Scotland?
Answer: James VI.
144. What traditional name was given to England’s old legal New Year date?
Answer: Lady Day.
145. What paired terms are often used to distinguish dates recorded under the older and newer European calendar systems?
Answer: Old Style and New Style.
146. Which month opened the year in the French Republican calendar?
Answer: Vendémiaire.
147. What is the Tibetan New Year called?
Answer: Losar.
148. What is the Mongolian Lunar New Year called?
Answer: Tsagaan Sar.
149. What is the traditional Sinhala and Tamil New Year in Sri Lanka called?
Answer: Aluth Avurudda.
150. What is the Lao New Year festival called?
Answer: Pi Mai.
151. What is the traditional Cambodian New Year called?
Answer: Choul Chnam Thmey.
152. What is Myanmar’s traditional water festival and New Year celebration called?
Answer: Thingyan.
153. What is the traditional New Year cash gift given to children in Japan called?
Answer: Otoshidama.
154. What lucky arrow is often purchased at Japanese shrines during the first visit of the year?
Answer: Hamaya.
155. What is the traditional Japanese process of pounding steamed sticky rice to make mochi called?
Answer: Mochitsuki.
Challenging New Year Traditions Around the World
These go past grapes, champagne, and midnight kisses. The answers are less familiar, but each one belongs to an established tradition with a real cultural or historical connection to the new year.
156. What is the Japanese ritual burning of New Year decorations after the holiday period called?
Answer: Dondoyaki.
157. Which Scottish town is home to the Burning of the Clavie, an Old New Year fire festival?
Answer: Burghead.
158. What is the name of the cold-water New Year swim held at South Queensferry in Scotland?
Answer: The Loony Dook.
159. Which Dutch seaside resort hosts the Netherlands’ best-known New Year’s Day plunge?
Answer: Scheveningen.
160. What New Year’s Eve observance, also known as Freedom’s Eve, remembers the night African Americans waited for the Emancipation Proclamation to take effect?
Answer: Watch Night. The tradition began on December 31, 1862, and continues in many Black churches today.
161. What ancient Mesopotamian festival became closely associated with the Babylonian New Year?
Answer: Akitu.
162. In the Greek custom known as podariko, what determines the household’s luck for the coming year?
Answer: The identity of the first person to enter the home.
163. What French word refers to gifts or gratuities traditionally given around the New Year?
Answer: Étrennes.
164. What Spanish name is given to the rehearsal grapes and countdown held at Madrid’s main New Year square on December 30?
Answer: Preuvas.
165. What is the Japanese name for the first dream of the new year?
Answer: Hatsuyume.
166. What is the first calligraphy writing of the new year called in Japan?
Answer: Kakizome.
167. What are the lacquered, tiered boxes used to serve Japanese New Year foods called?
Answer: Jubako.
168. Which Korean ancestral memorial rite is commonly performed by families during Lunar New Year?
Answer: Charye.
169. Which English poet wrote “Ring Out, Wild Bells,” traditionally read during the New Year celebration at Stockholm’s Skansen?
Answer: Alfred, Lord Tennyson.
170. Which Charles Dickens novella carries the subtitle “A Goblin Story of Some Bells That Rang an Old Year out and a New Year In”?
Answer: The Chimes.
New Year Firsts, Festivals and Unusual Celebrations
Famous firsts, plus a few unusual regional celebrations. I kept the quirky object drops to a small number — enough to make the round fun, not a catalogue of giant vegetables and glowing mascots.
171. During which two New Year’s Eves did the famous New York ball fail to descend because of wartime dimout restrictions?
Answer: 1942 and 1943.
172. What Welsh New Year custom involves children offering good wishes while collecting small gifts?
Answer: Calennig.
173. Which U.S. city welcomes the new year by lowering a giant illuminated potato?
Answer: Boise, Idaho.
174. What Cape Town celebration held after January 1 is also known as “Second New Year”?
Answer: Tweede Nuwe Jaar.
175. Which Welsh valley community near Fishguard still marks Hen Galan, or Old New Year, in January?
Answer: Cwm Gwaun.
176. Which equestrian contest helped inspire the name Tournament of Roses?
Answer: The tourney of rings.
177. Which Maine city lowers a giant sardine during its New Year’s Eve celebrations?
Answer: Eastport, Maine.
178. Which university won the first East-West football game connected with Pasadena’s flower festival?
Answer: The University of Michigan.
179. In which Swiss canton do costumed New Year figures visit farms ringing large bells and yodeling?
Answer: Appenzell Ausserrhoden.
180. In what year did the BBC first broadcast the Westminster clock chimes live on December 31?
Answer: 1923.
181. Which New Mexico city celebrates with a giant chile drop on New Year’s Eve?
Answer: Las Cruces, New Mexico.
182. On what date was the concert regarded as the precursor to Vienna’s famous January 1 musical tradition first performed?
Answer: December 31, 1939.
183. Which musical family dominates the traditional repertoire of Vienna’s January 1 concert?
Answer: The Strauss family.
184. Which metal gave the German-speaking fortune-telling custom Bleigießen its name?
Answer: Lead.
185. Who built the first illuminated New Year’s Eve Ball used in Times Square?
Answer: Jacob Starr.
Hard New Year Culture, Literature, Movies and Television
The final 15 mix movies, television, music, and time-zone knowledge. Difficult, yes — but the recognizable titles and traditions keep reaching Question 200 feeling like a game rather than an exam.
186. Which Billy Wilder film ends around a New Year’s Eve office party and stars Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine?
Answer: The Apartment.
187. Which 1972 disaster film begins with a New Year’s Eve celebration aboard an ocean liner?
Answer: The Poseidon Adventure.
188. Which supernatural comedy sequel includes a New Year’s Eve climax with the Statue of Liberty moving through Manhattan?
Answer: Ghostbusters II.
189. In The Godfather Part II, whom does Michael Corleone embrace and kiss during the New Year’s Eve celebration in Havana after realizing he was betrayed?
Answer: Fredo Corleone.
190. Which How I Met Your Mother episode follows Ted and his friends trying to attend several New Year’s Eve parties in one night?
Answer: “The Limo.”
191. What is the name of the musical composition designed to play continuously for 1,000 years beginning on January 1, 2000?
Answer: Longplayer. The project was conceived by Jem Finer.
192. Which British musician has hosted the long-running Annual Hootenanny television special associated with New Year’s Eve?
Answer: Jools Holland.
193. Which classic anthology television series is known for recurring New Year marathons on U.S. television?
Answer: The Twilight Zone.
194. Which 1995 anthology film follows four separate stories taking place at a Los Angeles hotel on New Year’s Eve?
Answer: Four Rooms.
195. Which 1999 ensemble comedy follows a group of young New Yorkers through New Year’s Eve 1981?
Answer: 200 Cigarettes.
196. Which two uninhabited U.S. islands in UTC-12 are among the final land areas to reach a new calendar year?
Answer: Baker Island and Howland Island.
197. What is the largest possible difference between standard civil time zones, from UTC+14 to UTC-12?
Answer: 26 hours.
198. What does UTC stand for, the time standard used to compare when places around the world enter a new year?
Answer: Coordinated Universal Time.
199. Which 1983 comedy includes a chaotic New Year’s Eve train scene involving disguises and a gorilla costume?
Answer: Trading Places.
200. Which long-running Japanese December 31 television music contest divides performers into two competing teams?
Answer: NHK Kōhaku Uta Gassen.
How Did You Do?
Count your correct answers and see where you landed. The medium round is long by design, and the final 60 are a real step up, so a perfect score should be rare.
0–50 correct: New Year Warm-Up. You knew the familiar celebrations and picked up plenty of new facts for the next game.
51–90: New Year Regular. Your knowledge goes well beyond champagne and countdowns.
91–130: Strong New Year Knowledge. You handled a good part of the international customs, history, and entertainment too.
131–160: New Year Trivia Expert. The medium round didn’t slow you down much.
161–185: Seriously Impressive. A score this high takes broad knowledge across countries, history, music, and movies.
186–199: New Year Trivia Master. Very little in this 200-question quiz caught you completely by surprise.
200: Perfect Score. You should be writing the questions at the next trivia night.
How to Run This at a Party or Game Night
You don’t need all 200 questions in one sitting. For a quick game, choose 10–15 questions from different sections. A regular party round works well with around 20–25. A longer game can mix easy, medium, and hard so one type of knowledge doesn’t decide everything.
For a mixed group, start with several easy questions before moving up. Early wins get everyone involved. For teams, mix ages and interests — the person who can’t tell a leap century from a regular one might know every movie on this list. Keep scoring simple: one point per correct answer, or one point for Easy, two for Medium, three for Hard if you want difficulty to count. For a tie, use a separate numerical question and have every team write down a guess; the closest answer wins. I like keeping numerical estimates outside the main 200, so nobody loses a regular point over an impossible-to-know number.
And if your gathering has a quiet moment before or after the game, a short year-end ritual makes a lovely counterpoint to the countdown, the food, and the noise.
The Glow Ritual
Before the countdown starts this year, pick exactly one resolution, write it on a card, and put it on your dresser mirror. Not a list. One. I’ve kept more single-sentence resolutions than multi-item ones — the short ones survive February.
A Few Questions You Might Have
How hard do the hard questions really get?
Challenging, not impossible. I deliberately left out crowd estimates and survey percentages, so the hardest answers are facts you can actually learn, not numbers that change.
Can kids play?
Yes, starting with the easy tier. The food and music sections are the most approachable for younger players, and the answers are right there under each question if you’d rather make it a read-aloud game.
Do I need to memorize anything before a party?
No. Print it or keep it on a tablet, and let the questions do the work. The point is the game, not the prep.
How These 200 Questions Were Selected and Fact-Checked
I wanted more than a long list assembled from the same New Year facts repeated in slightly different forms. Every question had to have a genuine connection with New Year’s Eve, New Year’s Day, a recognized celebration, calendar history, or a cultural tradition tied to the start of a year.
Historical and cultural claims were checked against authoritative sources wherever possible — official event histories, museums, cultural institutions, and the organizations behind major celebrations. I deliberately avoided unstable crowd estimates, temporary records, current officeholders, and survey percentages that would date an evergreen quiz quickly. The full set was also checked against itself: the same fact isn’t asked twice in different wording, and when a major celebration appears more than once, each question tests a separate fact.
Last fact-checked: September 2026.
a note from Johnson
New Year looks completely different depending on where you celebrate it, yet so many of these traditions circle the same hopes: luck, health, family, and the feeling that the next twelve months might bring something good. I still make midnight wishes even when I’m not entirely sure I believe in them. Some have come true. I’ll probably keep making them anyway.
Glow is a habit, not a product.