Fall Foods
This fall staple is technically a fruit and shares a botanical family with cucumbers and melons.
What is pumpkin?
This October tradition involves visiting a farm to navigate winding paths cut through tall stalks.
What is a corn maze?
This green pigment breaks down in leaves during fall, revealing reds, oranges, and yellows.
What is chlorophyll?
This U.S. president declared Thanksgiving a national holiday in 1863 to foster unity during the Civil War.
Who is Abraham Lincoln?
This 1966 animated TV special features a boy who believes in a mythical pumpkin that rewards faith.
What is “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown”?
Lacking access to refined sugar, early colonists relied on this natural sweetener from local trees to tame cranberries’ tartness.
What is maple syrup?
These German-origin festivals, now celebrated worldwide in autumn, revolve around beer, food, and the grape or grain harvest.
What is Oktoberfest?
The fall equinox occurs when the sun crosses this imaginary line, resulting in nearly equal day and night.
What is the celestial equator?
The first Thanksgiving was celebrated in this century.
What is the 17th century?
This author’s haunted house stories are often adapted into TV and film, making him a staple of fall horror pop culture.
Who is Stephen King?
Made from fermented apples, this beverage was so common in colonial autumns that even children sometimes drank diluted versions of it.
What is hard cider?
Before Halloween became mainstream, this pre-Christian festival included bonfires, costumes, and honoring deceased ancestors in late October.
What is Samhain?
This term describes trees that lose their leaves each autumn as an adaptation to conserve water and survive colder or drier seasons.
What is deciduous?
This Native American interpreter and guide played a key role in the Pilgrims’ survival.
Who is Squanto?
This 2018 Netflix trilogy, adapted from R.L. Stine’s horror books, follows teenagers confronting a town cursed by a series of supernatural murders.
What is “Fear Street”?
Cultivated for centuries by Native American communities, this hard-starch, multicolored maize now shows up mostly in autumn displays.
What is flint corn (or Indian corn)?
This early American autumn pastime involved marking farm animals with colored ribbons or paints to celebrate the harvest and ensure herd fertility.
What is fall animal blessing?
This term describes the process by which trees form a protective layer at the base of each leaf stem, causing it to fall.
What is abscission?
The 1621 Thanksgiving feast took place in this present-day U.S. state.
What is Massachusetts?
In this video game series, the 2012 fall update added the “Headless Horseman” event, featuring pumpkin-headed enemies, loot, and a haunted forest map.
What is “World of Warcraft” (Hallow’s End)?
Before turkey took over, the first Thanksgiving may have featured this long-simmered meat-and-veg mash-up, a staple of 1600s Anglo-Native cooking.
What is pottage?
This 20th-century U.S. law, passed to standardize seasonal time changes, was influenced by energy conservation efforts and wartime productivity.
What is the Uniform Time Act of 1966?
This Japanese tradition, similar to cherry blossom viewing in spring, celebrates the beauty of autumn foliage.
What is momijigari?
This 19th-century editor and author spent 17 years lobbying for Thanksgiving to become a national holiday.
Who is Sarah Josepha Hale?
This 1962 novel, set in a small Midwestern town during October, features a traveling carnival and explores themes of aging, fear, and temptation.
What is “Something Wicked This Way Comes”?