57 Fun Facts About Baltimore

The city is named for Cecil Calvert, an English lord and founding proprietor of which colony?

Maryland was chartered to the Calverts in 1632. Cecil Calvert, 2nd Baron Baltimore, held a title seated in Ireland, so the city carries the family's barony rather than his own name.

The bombardment of which Baltimore stronghold in 1814 inspired 'The Star-Spangled Banner'?

Fort McHenry held; Francis Scott Key watched from a ship and wrote 'Defence of Fort M'Henry'; the flag now hangs in the Smithsonian.

What shape is the fort that guarded the harbor in 1814?

It is a pentagon: Frenchman Jean Foncin designed the five-bastioned fort in 1798, ringed by a dry moat, so every wall could be covered by flanking fire.

Key's poem was set to the tune of a song written for which London gentlemen's club?

The Anacreontic Society, a London amateur-musicians' club, used John Stafford Smith's 'To Anacreon in Heaven' as its song; the melody spans 19 semitones, which is why the anthem is so hard to sing.

In what year did 'The Star-Spangled Banner' officially become the U.S. national anthem?

In 1931 President Herbert Hoover signed the joint resolution making it the national anthem, 117 years after the battle it describes.

The Baltimore and Ohio holds what distinction among American railways?

Oldest in the United States: chartered in 1827, the Baltimore and Ohio was America's first common-carrier railroad and later lent its name to one of the four railroads on the Monopoly board.

Who laid the B&O Railroad's first stone on July 4, 1828?

Charles Carroll of Carrollton, then 90 and the last living signer of the Declaration of Independence, laid the first stone at the 4 July 1828 ceremony.

Roughly how many buildings were completely levelled in the Great Baltimore Fire of 1904?

About 1,500 buildings across roughly 140 acres of downtown burned in some 30 hours on 7–8 February 1904, the worst American city fire since Chicago in 1871.

What was the lasting national legacy of the 1904 fire?

Standardised hose couplings: engines from Philadelphia, Washington and New York arrived by rail but could not connect to Baltimore's hydrants, and a national thread standard was adopted in 1905.

Which writer died in Baltimore in 1849, aged 40, under mysterious circumstances?

Edgar Allan Poe died in Baltimore on 7 October 1849, aged 40, days after being found delirious in the street; the city's NFL team took its name from his poem 'The Raven'.

The Baltimore Ravens were established in 1996 after which team's owner announced a move to the city?

Art Modell announced in November 1995 that he was moving the Cleveland Browns; Cleveland kept the Browns name and history, and the relocated team became the Ravens in 1996.

Through the 2020 season, how many Super Bowls had the Ravens won?

Two: Super Bowl XXXV over the Giants in January 2001 and Super Bowl XLVII over the 49ers in February 2013, both without a defeat in the big game.

By what score did the Ravens beat the Giants in Super Bowl XXXV?

34–7: the Ravens' defence allowed no offensive touchdown, the Giants' only score coming on a kickoff return, and the 27-point win was the first title in franchise history.

On what date did the Colts leave Baltimore for Indianapolis?

March 29, 1984: Mayflower moving vans rolled out of the Colts' complex in the pre-dawn hours after the state Senate passed a bill letting Baltimore seize the team by eminent domain.

The Colts' 1958 title win over the Giants is remembered as what?

'The Greatest Game Ever Played': the 1958 NFL Championship, won 23–17, was the first NFL game decided in sudden-death overtime, with Johnny Unitas at quarterback.

The Orioles are named after what?

Maryland's state bird, the Baltimore oriole, itself takes its name from the orange-and-black colours of the Calvert family arms; the franchise arrived from St. Louis, where it had been the Browns, in 1954.

How many World Series did the Orioles win in the twentieth century after moving to Baltimore?

Three: 1966, 1970 and 1983, from six appearances in that span; the franchise was the last American League charter member to win one.

Cal Ripken Jr., the 'Iron Man', spent how many seasons with the Orioles?

21 seasons, his entire career, ending in 2001 with 3,184 hits, two MVP awards and a record 2,632 consecutive games played.

Oriole Park at Camden Yards, opened in 1992, is notable as what?

The first of the 'retro' ballparks: its brick, exposed steel and the old warehouse beyond right field set the template for two decades of stadium design after it replaced Memorial Stadium in 1992.

Johns Hopkins, opened in 1876, is considered the first American what?

Research university: modelled on the German universities, it opened in 1876 under Daniel Coit Gilman; the Quaker merchant's $7 million bequest was the largest philanthropic gift in American history at the time.

Old Bay Seasoning is a mix of how many herbs and spices?

18, by McCormick's own count, led by celery salt, paprika and red and black pepper; Gustav Brunn created the blend in Baltimore in 1939 and McCormick bought the brand in 1990.

Berger Cookies are best known for what?

A thick chocolate frosting on shortbread: the fudge is spread on the flat bottom, like an inverted black-and-white cookie, and DeBaufre Bakeries makes them by hand in Baltimore.

How is Baltimore pit beef cooked?

Quickly at high heat and served rare: top round is seared over charcoal, then sliced thin on a Kaiser roll with horseradish or tiger sauce and raw onion.

Which John Waters film starred Divine, Debbie Harry and Ricki Lake in her debut?

Hairspray (1988) earned a PG, the gentlest rating a Waters film had ever received, and its Tracy Turnblad was Ricki Lake's first screen role.

The Wire was created by David Simon, who spent twelve years doing what?

Reporting for The Baltimore Sun on the police beat; his book Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets became an NBC series, while writing partner Ed Burns was the ex-detective and teacher.

How many episodes of The Wire were made?

60 episodes over five seasons on HBO, from June 2002 to March 2008, each season taking on a different Baltimore institution.

Babe Ruth was born in 1895 in which Baltimore neighborhood?

Pigtown: the rowhouse at 216 Emory Street belonged to his grandfather and is preserved as his birthplace; Ruth first signed with the minor-league Orioles in 1914.

Baltimore's airport is named after which native son?

Thurgood Marshall, born in Baltimore in 1908, became the first African American Supreme Court justice and had won 29 of the 32 cases he argued before the court.

As an enslaved teenager, Frederick Douglass was hired out to work as what in Fell's Point?

A ship caulker: he learned the trade in Fell's Point shipyards and by 1838 was hiring out his own time, before escaping north that year and taking the name Douglass in New Bedford.

Michael Phelps was raised in Rodgers Forge, a neighborhood of which Baltimore suburb?

Towson: he grew up in its Rodgers Forge neighbourhood and trained with the North Baltimore Aquatic Club; born in Baltimore itself, he won 28 Olympic medals, 23 of them gold.

Billie Holiday's mother had been evicted from her parents' home in which Baltimore neighborhood?

Sandtown-Winchester: Sadie Fagan was turned out by her parents there after falling pregnant. Holiday was born in Philadelphia but grew up in Baltimore with her mother's half-sister; her statue stands on Pennsylvania Avenue.

The Preakness Stakes is which leg of the Triple Crown?

Second: the Preakness traditionally falls on the third Saturday in May, two weeks after the Kentucky Derby and three weeks before the Belmont Stakes.

Pimlico Race Course takes its name from what?

A London tavern: settlers in the 1660s named the area for Olde Ben Pimlico's Tavern, by way of the London district that took its name; the track itself is nicknamed 'Old Hilltop'.

Which ship struck the Francis Scott Key Bridge on March 26, 2024, collapsing its main span?

MV Dali, a Singapore-flagged container ship, lost power and struck a bridge pier at about 1:30 a.m.; six maintenance workers were killed and the Port of Baltimore's channel was blocked for weeks.

The column in Mount Vernon Place, designed by Robert Mills, holds what distinction?

First major memorial to George Washington: Mills's column was begun in 1815 and finished in 1829, decades before his obelisk on the National Mall, which was not started until 1848.

Who gave the Ouija board its name in Baltimore in 1890?

The medium Helen Peters Nosworthy asked the board what it wished to be called, and it spelled 'Ouija'; the patent office relented only after the board correctly spelled the chief patent officer's name.

The Emerson Tower downtown is better known by the name of which product?

Bromo-Seltzer: Isaac Emerson invented the headache remedy, and his 1911 tower, modelled on Florence's Palazzo Vecchio, was the city's tallest building until 1923.

Formstone, the fake-stone stucco on countless Baltimore rowhouses, was patented in what year?

1937: the cement-based facing was patented that year by a Baltimore contractor and spread across the city's rowhouses for decades; John Waters called it 'the polyester of brick'.

Baltimore was made an independent city, separate from Baltimore County, in which year?

1851: the state constitution adopted that year separated the city from Baltimore County, whose seat it had been since 1768, leaving it governed by no county at all.

Which nickname did 19th-century riots earn Baltimore?

Mobtown: riots in 1812, 1835 and 1856 earned the name, and the Pratt Street riot of April 19, 1861 produced some of the first casualties of the Civil War.

The National Aquarium in the Inner Harbor opened in what year?

1981: it opened on the Inner Harbor on 8 August that year as a centrepiece of the harbour's revival from abandoned warehouses and piers, Harborplace having opened the summer before.

The USS Constellation, moored in the Inner Harbor, was the U.S. Navy's last what?

Sail-only warship: the sloop-of-war, built at Gosport between 1853 and 1855, was the last warship the U.S. Navy designed without steam power, and is the last Civil War-era naval vessel afloat.

Lexington Market was established in what year?

1782: it opened that year on land given by Revolutionary War officer John Eager Howard, making it one of the oldest continuously operating public markets in the world; a new market shed opened in 2022.

Under Armour, headquartered in Baltimore, was founded in 1996 by whom?

Kevin Plank, a former special-teams captain on the Terrapins football team, started out selling moisture-wicking shirts from his grandmother's basement in Georgetown.

The Peabody Institute in Mount Vernon holds what distinction?

Oldest conservatory of music in the U.S.: George Peabody founded it in 1857, though the Civil War delayed its opening until 1866; it joined Johns Hopkins University in 1977.

Which regional bowling variant, with small holeless balls, is a Baltimore tradition?

Duckpin: the balls are smaller than ten-pin but a touch bigger and heavier than candlepin, and the short, squat pins give players three rolls per frame.

The Baltimore Museum of Art holds more than 1,000 works by which artist?

Henri Matisse: the Cone sisters, Claribel and Etta, befriended the artist and Etta bequeathed their collection to the museum in 1949; the museum itself was founded in 1914.

Which Baltimore journalist dubbed the Scopes Trial the 'Monkey Trial'?

H. L. Mencken, the 'Sage of Baltimore', covered the 1925 trial for his hometown paper and wrote the multi-volume study The American Language.

Baltimore's Inner Harbor was the runner-up U.S. port of entry for immigrants behind which place?

Ellis Island: New York's station dwarfed every rival, while Baltimore's piers, where B&O trains waited to carry arrivals west, ranked among the busiest; that flow of labour turned the city into a major manufacturing centre.

What is a Baltimore 'chicken box'?

Wings with french fries: the corner carry-out staple pairs fried wings with thick-cut 'western fries', often washed down with a 'half and half' of iced tea and lemonade.

Which Fells Point bar is billed as the country's oldest continuously running tavern?

The Horse You Came In On Saloon claims a 1775 founding on Thames Street; Fells Point, once a sailors' haunt, also turned up in Sleepless in Seattle.

In which year was the Town of Baltimore founded on the north side of the Patapsco River?

1729: the colonial assembly authorised the town that year on the river's north side; the port had been created for the tobacco trade in 1706, and the town merged with Jonestown and Fells Point as a city in 1796–97.

Which people used the Baltimore area as hunting grounds in the early 1600s?

The Susquehannock, an Iroquoian-speaking people based up the Susquehanna River, kept the Algonquian-speaking Piscataway well to the south along the Potomac until smallpox thinned their numbers.

Which neoclassical architect designed the Baltimore Basilica, one of America's oldest Catholic cathedrals?

Benjamin Latrobe, who also worked on the U.S. Capitol, built the basilica between 1806 and 1821; it was the first Roman Catholic cathedral built in the United States.

The building erected for painter Rembrandt Peale was the first substantial US structure designed expressly as what?

A museum: Robert Cary Long Sr. designed it for Peale in 1814; the building later served as Baltimore's City Hall from 1830 to 1875 and housed the Municipal Museum of Baltimore until 1997.

The Port of Baltimore was created in 1706 at old Whetstone, an area now known as what?

Locust Point: the 1706 port at Whetstone Point grew into the peninsula's immigration piers and B&O rail yards, and the Domino Sugars sign has lit its shore since 1951.

Which Baltimore inventor patented the crown cork bottle cap in 1892?

William Painter patented the crown cork in 1892 and founded Crown Cork & Seal in Baltimore; King Gillette worked for him as a salesman before inventing the safety razor.