20 Scary-Good Halloween Trivia, History and Fun Facts

These scholarly, surprising and just plain strange trivia tidbits are perfect for costume parties, trick-or-treating chats and any and all situations that could use a bit of scary-season spirit.

By: Lauren Oster

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Halloween Factoids: Take One (or Twenty)!

If you’re the sort of person who starts planning next year’s Halloween festivities on November 1st, it can be agonizing to wait for the season (which begins just after Labor Day, we’d argue) to come around again. However you mark the days, it’s now high time to revel in all things spine-tingling, sweet and everything in between — and we’ve pulled together Halloween trivia tidbits to distribute wherever and whenever you like.

See More Photos: Our 100+ Favorite DIY Halloween Decorating Ideas

From: Kim Stoegbauer

Feeling Retro? Carve a Turnip

Hallowe’en began 2,000 years ago as the Celtic festival of Samhain (“Summer’s End”). With celebrations beginning at sunset on October 31 and continuing until the day waned on November 1, Samhain marked the end of the harvest season and a time when the spirits of the dead were closest to those of the living. (Those pagan traditions began to merge with Christian rites in the eighth century, when Pope Gregory declared November 1 All Saints Day and the evening before it became known as All Hallows Eve.)

In Ireland, Scotland and parts of England, those wishing to deter malevolent forces would carve faces into turnips — a ‘neep lantern’ — and place a candle inside. That tradition became much less laborious for the carvers who came to the New World, where the softer pumpkins proved to be much readier vessels for their protective flames.

See More Photos: Free Scary-Cute Halloween Pumpkin-Carving Stencils

A Pope Gave Black Cats a Bad Rap

Speaking of papal pronouncements with wide-ranging repercussions for Halloween and its symbols, Pope Gregory IX’s “Vox in Rama” (published in 1233 to warn of the evils of witchcraft) claimed that witches consorted with a black cat that was the devil in disguise. Though many other traditions hold that black cats are good omens — they were worshiped as gods in ancient Egypt, are thought to guarantee safe passage for sailors and associated with luck, prosperity and good fortune in France, Japan and England — they have also faced superstitious persecutors throughout history, and they are often the least-adopted felines in animal shelters. Foolishness aside, black cats are demonstrably magical companions.

learn more: How to Prepare and What to Expect When Adopting a Cat

Witches Appeared on Broomsticks in 1451

The first known image of a witch on a broomstick appeared in the margins of Martin Le Franc’s Le Champion des Dames, a poem about virtuous women that depicted female Waldesians, members of a Christian movement that Catholics abhorred. A symbol of deviation from traditional female domesticity, the broom-as-vehicle became shorthand for paganism and wickedness among those who would persecute “witches.” The first person who confessed under torture to riding a broom was a man named Guillaume Edelin, a French priest; he later repented, but remained in prison for the rest of his life.

Now Everyone Wants to Be a Witch

…According to Google Frightgeist, which tracks terms and trends every year. (“Rabbit” and “dinosaur” rounded out the top three costume searches.) Whence the witch’s status as a pop culture icon? As Yoko Ono put it in an interview, “I think that all women are witches, in the sense that a witch is a magical being.”

From: Marian Parsons

44% of Americans Plan to Carve a Pumpkin

That’s right in line with last year, according to the National Retail Federation’s annual survey; just over two-thirds plan to hand out candy, and just over half plan to decorate. (It’s unclear on whether or not people who turn all their lights off and pretend they aren’t home were reached in the survey; that’s a question for the professional pollsters.)

Pumpkins Are Grown on Six Continents

In Antarctica, alas, you’d have to go without. (McMurdo Station does have pretty epic Halloween parties, though, if you happen to find yourself on the frozen continent on October 31st.) The top growers of the 25 million tons of pumpkins produced each year? China (9 million tons) and India (5 million tons). Mexico is the largest pumpkin exporter, and America is its biggest customer.

Bobbing for Apples Was Fortune-Telling

For the ancient Celts, Samhain was a point in the year at which the barrier between the worlds of the living and the dead was especially permeable — and attempts to gain information from beyond the mortal realm were considered more likely to be successful. The end of October, then, was prime time for fortune-telling. One early form of divination that began to develop when the Romans invaded Britain and blended their tradition with the Celts? Apple bobbing, a romance-related activity which was associated with everything from which young lady might find love next to which suitor she might marry. Those associations faded away in the 19th century, alas, and today’s apple bobbing simply reveals which partygoers are wearing waterproof makeup.

See More Photos: Apple Trivia

Tell Halloween Fortunes With ... Nuts

If you don’t fancy bobbing for apples on October 31st, consider another old-school Celtic divination diversion mentioned in Scottish poet Robert Burns’s 1785 “Halloween.” Recently-engaged couples could look for hints of their future lives together by placing a hazelnut or chestnut named for each betrothed person in the fire; if the flames consumed them evenly, their marriage would be a happy one. If the hazelnuts popped and hissed, however, woe was in the works.

Orange + Black = Life + Death

The ancient Celts didn’t have much use for the bunting and novelty candy with which we now commemorate Halloween; their Samhain rites focused on the contrast between the end of the abundance of the harvest season and the onset of the lightless months of winter. Orange and black together, then, first represented the night on which fall’s waning brilliance contrasts with the deathly darkness to follow. They also recall the glow of a bonfire against the night sky — more on that in a moment.

See More Photos: 40+ Enchanting Halloween Decorating Ideas That Aren't Black and Orange

Bonfires Welcome Spirits

Unlike neep lanterns, crackling Samhain bonfires were a celebratory Celtic rite accompanied by dancing and feasting — and they welcomed and gave comfort to benevolent spirits. Those fires were also thought to have cleansing properties, and cattle owners would walk between two bonfires with their animals to purify them (and, more practically, to rid them of fleas before the long winter).

get the how-to: How to Build a Fire Pit in an Afternoon

The Irish Eat Halloween Fruitcake

A traditional Irish Halloween celebration might feature barmbrack, a flat, sweetened loaf that shares characteristics with both Yuletide fruitcake and the king cakes revelers consume for Mardi Gras. Topped with butter, barmbrack is studded with sweet morsels that have been soaked in whiskey or tea. It also offers yet another opportunity for fortune-telling, as bakers would traditionally include symbolic additions to predict events for the year to come. Find a thimble in your barmbrack and you might face spinsterhood; a coin might promise wealth, and a religious medal could indicate your future as a nun or priest.

Haunted Houses Distracted Tricksters

In the mid- to late 1800s, Halloween in America was a night when pranksters, especially young men, performed acts of mischief and vandalism. Far from comparatively-tame antics like soaping windows and chucking toilet paper into trees, these “tricks” included arson, flipping over cars and even stealing corpses. By the Depression, when aimless youths ran rampant and the mayhem was becoming truly intolerable, Halloween-themed attractions began to gain popularity as a way to distract would-be jokesters. According to America Haunts (a “fear-based entertainment” company with 20 attractions nationwide), there are now more than 1,200 admission-based haunted attractions — and over 3,000 limited-run charity versions — in the United States.

See More Photos: Tour Halloween Haunted Houses Created by HGTV and Food Network Hosts

Canada First Recorded "Trick or Treat"

Historian Belinda Crowson of Lethbridge — a small city in southern Alberta, Canada that’s two hours from the U.S. border — has tracked the utterance’s first appearance in print to an issue of the Lethbridge Herald from November 4, 1927. It pops up in a piece called “’Trick or Treat’ Is Demand," dateline Blackie, Alberta, November 3:

Hallowe’en provided an opportunity for real strenuous fun. No real damage was done except to the temper of some who had to hunt for wagon wheels, gates, wagons, barrels, etc., much of which decorated the front street. The youthful tormentors were at back door and front demanding edible plunder by the word “trick or treat” to which the inmates gladly responded and sent the robbers away rejoicing.

See More Photos: 35 DIY Outdoor Halloween Decorations

From: Brian Patrick Flynn

Halloween Spread With Colonists

Since Halloween originated with the Celts’ observance of Samhain, Halloween celebrations now are most common among their contemporary descendants (in countries like Ireland, Scotland and England) and countries with large populations of people hailing from those places (like the United States and Australia). Onetime British island colonies such as Hong Kong (pictured here) and Singapore host Halloween festivities today, and they pop up as foreign curiosities among expat communities in other countries. Halloween is unlikely to gain widespread popularity in countries and regions where its symbolism has other strong associations, like India (where ghosts and spirits are considered bad omens) and Africa (where witches and witchcraft have different and complicated histories).

Trick-or-Treaters Prefer Reese's Cups

According to a detailed report from CandyStore.com, the top Halloween treat — which was also named the “best” by more than 17,000 survey respondents — is Reese’s Cups. (Skittles and M&Ms rounded out the top three.) Candy corn, on the other hand, is tearing the country apart; it was the 10th most popular candy in the U.S. and voted the #1 worst candy of all time.

October's Original Candy Day? Candy Day.

Confronted with a candy-selling slump in the months before Christmas, the candy marketers at the National Confectioners Association decided to declare the second Saturday in October “Candy Day,” according to candy historian Samira Kawash. The first Candy Day boosted sales on October 14, 1916; in 1921, marketers in Cleveland rechristened it “Sweetest Day” and promoted the idea of associating all that candy purchasing and gifting with lofty ideals like gratitude and generosity. They even organized candy giveaways to old ladies and orphans.

Most Sweetest Day festivities petered out by the ‘60s, but if you know anyone who works in marketing, perhaps you should demand candy from them in mid-October, for research.

Ben Cooper Made Costumes Pop

Hollywood and Halloween came together with a bang via Ben Cooper, an entrepreneur who initially made costumes for the Ziegfeld Follies and was among the first would-be costume kingpins to recognize how lucrative licensing deals could be. Though companies like Collegeville Flag and Manufacturing Company and H. Halpern Company began making character costumes in the 1920s, Cooper was the first to take the plastic masks and really run with them: one of his first purchases, in 1937, was the rights to Disney’s Snow White. Cooper scooped up TV and movie character licenses as they became household names, and by the late 1960s he controlled up to 80% of the American costume market. His plastic-mask-and-poncho-style costumes disappeared in the ‘80s, but retro nostalgia has resuscitated them — and a crinkly character can be yours for about $25 this Halloween.

NYC Dogs Go All Out for Halloween

Held in Manhattan’s East Village for the past three decades (and counting), the Tompkins Square Halloween Dog Festival is the largest costumed dog parade in the world. With trophies awarded for the best food costume, the best New York outfit, pop culture sendups, current events references and more, the procession of pooches might also be the most delightful parade in the world, full stop. It’s also typically held the week before humans hit the town for Halloween, so event pictures can be a fantastic source of inspiration for you and your pups.

See More Photos: 37 DIY Pet Costumes for Halloween

The Loudest Scream Was 129 Decibels

That record-setting bloodcurdler was unleashed in 2000 by classroom assistant and mother of two Jill Drake of Tenterden, Kent. She took the title at a competition in London, according to Guinness World Records; her 129-decibel entry matched the volume of a pneumatic drill and was just 10 decibels below a jet engine.

The All-Time Scariest Movie Is ...

... Host (2020), the story of a séance conducted by Zoom that goes horribly wrong. (And you thought your remote meetings were spine-tingling.) Researchers awarded the frightfest top honors after monitoring more than 250 viewers’ heart rates as they feasted their eyes on 40 films. Host unseated Sinister (2012), another paranormal movie for which we had absolutely no desire to create a screengrab.