20 Fun and Impressive Halloween Facts to Test Your Knowledge This Year

When it comes to Americans' favorite candy, Reese’s come out on top according to a 2023 poll with 29 percent of Americans choosing it as their favorite. Snickers came in second followed by a three-way tie for third between candy corn, Kit Kats, and M&Ms.

According to History.com, the first Halloween celebrations can be traced back to the ancient Celts. They lived in the area now occupied by Ireland, the United Kingdom, and northern France, and celebrated a festival called Samhain on October 31st, just a day before Aztec, Toltec, and Mayan cultures were celebrating Dia de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead. It marked the day before their new year, the start of winter, and a time when the dead were believed to return to Earth.

During the Celtic festival of Samhain, it was customary for poor children to go door-to-door begging for food and money. Business Insider explains that in exchange for their generosity, children would offer to pray for the souls of their recently lost loved ones, hence how this activity got the name "souling."

Like Halloween, Día de los Muertos, or the Mexican Day of the Dead Festival, celebrations decorate with skulls, skeletons, and ghosts. Unlike Halloween, it originated by blending European Spanish traditions with indigenous traditions of the peoples of Mesoamerica to celebrate the fall harvest, presided over by the goddess of the dead.

Hailed by some as the most famous magician of the 20th century, Harry Houdini died of a ruptured appendix on Halloween night 1926. The Hungarian-born escape artist had his appendix removed by doctors but only after it had ruptured and poisoned him, but many rumors surround his death as well.

Looking at festivities around the world, Halloween's origins are in Ireland, and it is still widely celebrated there with trick-or-treating, parties, and more. Canadians celebrate the holiday similarly with costume and candy, and in recent years Japan has adopted the Western tradition of costumes for the holiday. Other countries celebrate holidays with similar themes and traditions on a nearby date, like Guy Fawkes Day in the United Kingdom and Día de los Muertos in Mexico, as noted above.

Bobbing for apples started with fortune-telling, specifically predicting whom a woman would marry. In one version of the game, girls would discretely mark apples before placing them in water, and when their male peers would try to catch the fruit, the apple they got would determine their future mate.

Due to a communication error, Tootsie Rolls were accidentally air-dropped to American troops in battle in the Korean War. The troops went on to praise the candies for keeping them nourished and even plugging bullet holes in vehicles and equipment, which would seal as the candies froze in the frigid temperatures.

Despite colonial New Englanders' awareness of Halloween, History.com explains that celebrations were very limited due to their strict Protestant beliefs. It wasn't until the second half of the 19th century, when a wave of Irish and other European immigrants arrived, that the holiday became widespread across America.

Irish Central details the myth of Stingy Jack, who was eternally doomed to roam the earth at night after making a deal with the devil. To guide his way, he lit a coal in a carved out turnip, inspiring Irish and Scottish people to do the same. When they later immigrated to America however, they realized the native pumpkins there had a more ideal surface for carving.

According to History.com, candy corns first appeared on the market around the 1880s, a time when about half of the American workforce was made up of farmers. Because of this, candies were often made into agricultural shapes, such as chicken feed, which we now think of as corn shaped. The change occurred after World War I, when corn became viewed as people food.

The reigning champion in jack-0-lantern displays is the City of Keene, which broke the Guinness World Record in 2013 by lighting 30,581 pumpkins. The city was the first to hold a record in this category and, committed to their winning status, has since broken their own record eight times.

While Valentine's Day is now widely accepted as the holiday for romance, there was once a time when Halloween was associated with courtship. The New York Times explains that in early 20th century, Halloween activities often played upon women's pursuit of love. One game involved cutting an apple skin off and tossing it over her shoulder, with the landed peel said to indicate the first initial of her future suitor.

According to History.com, trick or treating became popular in America in the 1930s, when it was acceptable to hand out everything from homemade cookies, to nuts, toys, and coins. Candy companies started marketing pre-packaged Halloween offerings in the 1950s, and 20 years later, it became the primary treat given out to children.

Halloween spending in the US reached its all-time high in 2022 with $10.6 billion planned to be spent on the holiday in total, up from $10.1 billion in 2021, according to the National Retail Federation. On average, Americans are spending an average of $100.45 on Halloween, with $29.51 on that on candy, making for $3.1 billion spent on candy nation-wide.

The iconic costume from this 1978 film is nothing short of terrifying, but its backstory is actually pretty amusing. The New York Times revealed that the film's production designer Tommy Lee Wallace found a mask of William Shatner as Captain Kirk in Star Trek, and was completely inspired. The crew spray-painted it white to achieve the look we're all familiar with today.

In most places trick or treaters simply have to arrive in costume in order to get their Halloween candy, but that's not the case in Des Moines. The Des Moines Register explains that, as part of their Beggars' Night ritual, kids also have to do a trick or tell a joke of some sort to earn their share of candy.

Pumpkin carving is a leisurely activity for most, but competitive carver Stephen Clarke set the Guinness World Record in 2013 by completing his masterpiece in under 17 seconds. In order to qualify, the pumpkin had to have a nose, eyes, mouth, and ears.