Times Square ball drop history
1907 first drop, the current ball (12,000 lbs of Waterford crystal), TV broadcast history.
Q1.In what year did the very first ball drop take place in Times Square?Tap to reveal
Answer: 1907
It welcomed 1908, and it replaced the rooftop fireworks displays the city had just banned as a fire hazard.
Q2.Which newspaper publisher created the Times Square New Year's Eve celebration to promote his paper's new headquarters?Tap to reveal
Answer: Adolph Ochs
He had bought The New York Times in 1896 when it was nearly bankrupt and used spectacle relentlessly to build its name.
Q3.What was Times Square called before it took the newspaper's name in 1904?Tap to reveal
Answer: Longacre Square
The area was then a horse-and-carriage trade district, which is why the name echoed London's Long Acre.
Q4.Which Irish crystal maker has produced the ball's triangular panels since the celebration welcoming the year 2000?Tap to reveal
Answer: Waterford Crystal
Each year's panels carry a new engraved design theme, so the ball is quietly redecorated rather than rebuilt.
Q5.How long does the ball take to complete its descent?Tap to reveal
Answer: 60 seconds
It slides 141 feet down a specially built flagpole, beginning its trip at 11:59:00 p.m.
Q6.In which two consecutive years was the ball drop suspended?Tap to reveal
Answer: 1942 and 1943
Wartime dimout rules darkened the square, so the crowd marked midnight with chimes and a moment of silence instead.
Q7.What is the name of the building the ball descends?Tap to reveal
Answer: One Times Square
It was built as the Times Tower, and the paper actually moved out in 1913 while the tradition stayed behind.
Q8.The original 1907 ball was built from wood and which metal?Tap to reveal
Answer: Iron
It weighed about 700 pounds, measured five feet across, and was lit by one hundred 25-watt bulbs.
Q9.How many crystal triangles cover the modern Times Square ball?Tap to reveal
Answer: 2,688
The current 12-foot version stays lit on the roof all year rather than being packed away each January.
Q10.Dropping balls as a public time signal was invented for the benefit of which profession?Tap to reveal
Answer: Sailors
Royal Navy captain Robert Wauchope put the first one up at Portsmouth in 1829, four years before the far better-known Greenwich ball began its daily one o'clock fall.
Global NYE traditions
Spain (12 grapes), Brazil (white clothes), China (lunar new year), Japan (108 bells). Diverse celebrations.
Q1.In Spain, how many grapes are eaten at midnight, one on each chime of the clock?Tap to reveal
Answer: Twelve
The custom is anchored to the clock at Madrid's Puerta del Sol, and the chimes come fast enough that most people are still chewing into January.
Q2.What is the Scottish name for New Year's Eve?Tap to reveal
Answer: Hogmanay
For centuries it mattered more in Scotland than Christmas, which the Reformation-era church had discouraged.
Q3.What color do Brazilians traditionally wear on New Year's Eve, especially on the beaches of Rio?Tap to reveal
Answer: White
The beach celebrations blend with offerings of flowers to Yemanja, the sea goddess of Afro-Brazilian religion.
Q4.Japanese Buddhist temples ring their bells how many times as the year turns?Tap to reveal
Answer: 108
The number matches the worldly desires that Buddhist teaching says trouble human beings, one struck away per ring.
Q5.In Denmark, what do people traditionally throw at the front doors of friends and neighbors?Tap to reveal
Answer: Plates
A big pile of shards on your step in the morning is a compliment, since it counts the people who care about you.
Q6.In Colombia and much of Latin America, what do people carry around the block at midnight to guarantee travel in the coming year?Tap to reveal
Answer: An empty suitcase
It belongs to a family of agüeros, small luck rituals that also include yellow underwear for prosperity.
Q7.Which small legume do Italians eat at midnight because its shape suggests coins?Tap to reveal
Answer: Lentils
They are traditionally served with cotechino, a fatty pork sausage that stands for abundance.
Q8.In the Scottish custom of first-footing, what hair color is the ideal first visitor said to have?Tap to reveal
Answer: Dark
One folk explanation is that a fair-haired stranger at the door once meant a Viking raider, so blond guests brought bad memories.
Q9.What is the name of the Greek new year cake baked with a coin hidden inside?Tap to reveal
Answer: Vasilopita
It is cut in order of seniority, with the first slices set aside for Christ, the house, and Saint Basil.
Q10.Germans gather every December 31 to watch a black-and-white British comedy sketch about a butler and an elderly woman. What is it called?Tap to reveal
Answer: Dinner for One
The 1963 recording is in English and has never been dubbed, yet its catchphrase about the same procedure as every year is understood nationwide.
Fireworks and midnight traditions
Why fireworks? Why kissing at midnight? Why champagne? Origins of the rituals.
Q1.Fireworks were invented in which country?Tap to reveal
Answer: China
They grew out of gunpowder experiments by alchemists who were, ironically, hunting for an elixir of immortality.
Q2.Which harbor landmark is the centerpiece of Sydney's famous midnight fireworks?Tap to reveal
Answer: The Sydney Harbour Bridge
Sydney's early time zone means its display is broadcast worldwide while most of Europe is still waiting for dinner.
Q3.Which song, whose title is Scots for times long past, is sung at midnight across the English-speaking world?Tap to reveal
Answer: Auld Lang Syne
Most singers know only the first verse, which is why the linked-arms tradition tends to arrive before anybody runs out of words.
Q4.Which Scottish poet set down the lyrics that became the standard midnight song in 1788?Tap to reveal
Answer: Robert Burns
He described himself as taking the words from an old man's singing rather than inventing them, and the melody is an older folk tune.
Q5.What single gesture at the stroke of midnight is said to set the tone of your relationships for the year ahead?Tap to reveal
Answer: A kiss
The belief sits close to Scottish first-footing: whoever you meet first in the new year is thought to shape how it goes.
Q6.Which element gives fireworks their deep red color?Tap to reveal
Answer: Strontium
Color in a shell is pure chemistry: barium burns green, copper burns blue, and sodium gives the yellow that washes out everything near it.
Q7.London's midnight is announced by Big Ben. What is Big Ben, strictly speaking?Tap to reveal
Answer: The bell
The tower that holds it was simply the Clock Tower until it was renamed Elizabeth Tower in 2012.
Q8.Which Pacific island nation reaches midnight before anywhere else on Earth?Tap to reveal
Answer: Kiribati
Its easternmost islands sit at UTC+14, a zone the country created in 1995 so the whole nation would share one date.
Q9.Which two uninhabited US islands are the last places on Earth to enter the new year?Tap to reveal
Answer: Baker and Howland Islands
They sit at UTC-12, a full 26 hours behind Kiribati's earliest islands.
Q10.In the Scottish town of Stonehaven, what do paraders swing around their heads on wires at midnight?Tap to reveal
Answer: Fireballs
The blazing baskets are marched down the high street and hurled into the harbor, a fire ritual older than any organized fireworks show.
Famous NYE moments and resolutions
Iconic NYE concerts, viral moments, resolution stats (80% fail by February).
Q1.January is named after which two-faced Roman god?Tap to reveal
Answer: Janus
His two faces look backward and forward at once, which is why the Romans made him the guardian of doorways and beginnings.
Q2.Which American television special, launched by Dick Clark in the early 1970s, became the country's default New Year's Eve broadcast?Tap to reveal
Answer: Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve
Clark pitched it as a younger rival to the big-band broadcasts that had owned the night for decades.
Q3.What computer problem had the world holding its breath as 1999 turned into 2000?Tap to reveal
Answer: Y2K, the millennium bug
The quiet rollover was partly the result of years of expensive remediation work, not proof that the risk was imaginary.
Q4.Which ancient civilization is credited with the earliest recorded new year promises, pledging to repay debts and return borrowed goods?Tap to reveal
Answer: The Babylonians
Their new year festival, Akitu, fell in spring around the barley planting rather than in midwinter.
Q5.Which Roman leader fixed the start of the year on January 1 with his calendar reform in 46 BC?Tap to reveal
Answer: Julius Caesar
To realign the seasons he first stretched that single year to 445 days, remembered as the year of confusion.
Q6.Which bandleader, broadcasting live from New York hotels for decades, was nicknamed Mr. New Year's Eve?Tap to reveal
Answer: Guy Lombardo
His orchestra, the Royal Canadians, made the midnight rendition of Auld Lang Syne a fixed American ritual on radio and then television.
Q7.Which Pacific nation deleted December 30, 2011 from its calendar entirely, jumping the international date line?Tap to reveal
Answer: Samoa
The move put it on the same business day as Australia and New Zealand, its main trading partners, at the cost of one day that never happened.
Q8.In which year did Britain and its colonies adopt the Gregorian calendar and settle the legal start of the year on January 1?Tap to reveal
Answer: 1752
Eleven days were dropped that September, and the old start date of March 25 is why the British tax year still ends in early April.
Q9.Which singer's malfunction-plagued Times Square performance on the broadcast welcoming 2017 became one of the most replayed New Year's Eve moments ever?Tap to reveal
Answer: Mariah Carey
She returned to the same stage a year later in far better conditions, and the redo drew nearly as much attention as the disaster.
Hosting NYE trivia
NYE trivia works in the lull between dinner and midnight. Run a 30-question quiz across 4 categories.
Trivio.NET has NYE packs in the Holidays & Events category.
Frequently Asked Questions
What time should NYE trivia start?
10-11 PM. Energy peaks, but everyone's still alert before midnight.
Are NYE trivia questions kid-friendly?
Most are. Skip the champagne / drinking-related ones for younger crowds.
Where can I find NYE trivia packs?
Trivio.NET's Holidays & Events category has NYE packs.
What's the most-asked NYE trivia?
When did Times Square ball drop start? (1907.) Why kiss at midnight? (Romantic tradition, no clear origin.)
