Month of the Year: September Trivia Quiz

Answer: September Song

Walter Huston sang "September Song" in the 1938 Broadway musical "Knickerbocker Holiday." The music was by Kurt Weill and the lyrics by Maxwell Anderson. The song was sung in the motion picture "September Affair" (1950) and was covered by Bing Crosby in 1943 and 1977 and by Frank Sinatra in 1946 and 1962.

There are also recordings by Ella Fitzgerald, Burl Ives, Stan Kenton, Sarah Vaughan, Jimmy Durante, and Willie Nelson. The song and its title were used in the BBC television series "May to December" (1989-1994).

The refrain says "For it's a long, long time, / From May to December, / And the winds grow cold, / When they reach September."

Answer: Woody Allen

While the connection to "Uncle Vanya" is patent, the gender of some of Chekhov's characters is changed in Allen's movie. He set out to film a play. He shot it once with Sam Shepard, Christopher Walken, Maureen O'Sullivan and Charles Durning. After attempting to edit the motion picture, he recast it with Sam Waterston, Elaine Stritch and Denholm Elliott. Like Chekhov's play, it is a somewhat depressing movie.

Answer: One Day in September

The Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature in 2000 was given to "One Day in September: The Full Story of the 1972 Munich Olympics Massacre and the Israeli Revenge Operation 'Wrath of God'" by Simon Reeve. Kevin Macdonald directed; Micheal Douglas narrated. Clips of ABC news anchor Jim McKay are woven into the fabric of the film.

Answer: Neil Diamond

Neil Diamond co-wrote "September Morn" with the French composer Gilbert Bécaud. The song is about a couple who met, loved, grew apart and found one another again. He recalls what the relationship has meant: "September morn / We danced until the night / Became a brand new day / Two lovers playing scenes / From some romantic play / September morning / Still can make me feel that way."

Answer: sapphire

September's birthstone is sapphire, a corundum crystal found in many colours, mostly blue, but never in red (because red corundum crystals are rubies). The ancient Persians believed that the Earth sat atop a gigantic sapphire, which is what made the sky appear blue. One of the best-known sapphires is a blue stone of 12 carats first worn by Princess Diana, and later given by her son to Kate Middleton, the Duchess of Cambridge.

Answer: Galician and Portuguese

The Portuguese and Galician words for September are "setembro." In addition to English, a truly remarkable number of languages use the word "september": Danish, Dutch, Estonian, German, Luxembourgish, Norwegian, Slovenian, Afrikaans, Chichewa, Igbo, Sesotho, Somali, Yoruba, Indonesian, Javanese, and Malay.

Others are quite similar: "septembre" in French, "szeptember" in Hungarian, "settembre" in Italian, "septembra" in Slovak, "septambra" in Malagasy, "septembrie" in Romanian, and "septiembre" in Spanish.

A few are very different such as "kepakemapa" in Hawaiian.

Answer: Carole King

Carole King and her songwriting partner Gerry Goffin wrote "It Might as Well Rain Until September" for Bobby Vee in 1962. They had written "Take Good Care of My Baby" for him and it became a major hit in 1961. When Vee's management declined to release "September" as a single, King released her demo version and it became a major hit.

It was translated into Swedish ("Jag önskar att det alltid vore sommar") where it was recorded and released by four different artists in 1969, 1982, 1991, and 2008.

Answer: Earth, Wind and Fire

The song begins "Do you remember / The 21st night of September? / Love was changin' the minds of pretenders / While chasin' the clouds away." Earth Wind and Fire's guitarist Al McKay, the band's vocalist Maurice White and songwriter Allee Willis contributed to the composition. Earth Wind and Fire released it as a single in 1978 and it went straight to number one on the US Billboard Hot R&B Songs chart. According to Marilyn White, wife of Maurice White (d. 4 Feb 2016), the date of 21 September was chosen because it was the expected delivery date of their son Kahbran. Public celebrations are held on 21 September in Manhattan and Los Angeles; private parties everywhere else.

Answer: 30

"Countdown" is a long story about the consequences of an event which instantly kills six billion people, leaving only teenagers to survive. Adults and small children are reduced to puddles of "black goo." Each of the twelve volumes tells of the aftermath in one month of 1999. Daniel Parker is the pen name of Daniel Ehrenhaft, who writes lots of children's and YA books.

Answer: none

The name of the ninth month of the year, September, comes from "septem" which is the Latin word for seven. In the ancient Roman calendar of Romulus (ca. 750 BC), there were only ten months and September was the seventh of them. September 1 is the beginning of meteorological autumn in the Northern Hemisphere. September is also the beginning of the liturgical year in Eastern Orthodoxy and the academic year in many educational institutions.