Carve out ten minutes for this Halloween quiz, packed with spooky history, strange traditions and a little creepy science. Discover where the festival began, what jack-o'-lanterns were first carved from, how other countries celebrate and why your skin crawls when you're scared. It's a treat for trivia fans of all ages, no costume required.
Many Halloween customs crossed the Atlantic with immigrants, but trick-or-treating as Americans know it is fairly recent. The earliest known printed use of the phrase trick or treat comes from Ontario, Canada, in 1917, and it turned up in the United States about a decade later. The custom spread across the northern and western states in the 1930s.
Then came World War II. Sugar rationing in the United States ran from 1942 to 1947, which made candy scarce and put the brakes on door-to-door treats. Once rationing ended, the custom came roaring back. Children's magazines, radio shows and comic strips featured it in the late 1940s and early 1950s, and in 1953 UNICEF launched its first national trick-or-treat fundraising campaign.
Halloween makes a great quiz topic because it mixes folklore, food, language and science. Its customs vary from place to place, so some questions reward history fans as much as horror buffs. If you get stuck, think about where an old custom started and how it might have changed on its way to the U.S.