99 Fun Facts About Virginia

Jamestown, founded in 1607, holds what distinction?

First permanent English settlement in the Americas. It nearly was not: after the 'Starving Time' winter of 1609-10 the survivors had already sailed away when an incoming relief fleet turned them back.

Which crop, pioneered by John Rolfe from 1612, made the Virginia colony profitable?

Tobacco. The local leaf was too bitter for English taste, so Rolfe planted a sweeter West Indian strain, and its sales in England turned the struggling colony into a paying venture.

Virginia's elected colonial legislature, which grew out of the 1619 Jamestown assembly, was known as what?

The House of Burgesses. In 1619 the elected burgesses sat in a single body with the governor and his council; they became a chamber of their own in the 1640s and met until 1776.

Virginia is named after which English monarch?

Elizabeth I. The name dates from Walter Raleigh's 1584 expedition and is generally taken to honour the 'Virgin Queen', though it may also echo the name of a local leader, Wingina.

How many US presidents were born in Virginia, more than any other state?

Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, William Henry Harrison, Tyler, Taylor and Wilson; Ohio is next with seven.

Which city is the capital of Virginia?

Richmond has been the capital since the government moved from Williamsburg during the Revolution; its State Capitol was designed by Thomas Jefferson on the model of the Maison Carrée at Nîmes.

Which is Virginia's most populous city?

Virginia Beach, with about 460,000 people at the 2020 census. It became the state's largest city only in the 1980s, two decades after the small resort town merged with the whole of Princess Anne County.

Where did the Jamestown settlers first make landfall in April 1607 before moving upriver?

Cape Henry. The colonists raised a wooden cross on the dunes and named the spot for the king's elder son before sailing on to choose the site of Jamestown.

Virginia ratified the US Constitution on 25 June 1788, becoming which state to join the Union?

Tenth: Virginia's convention ratified 89-79 on 25 June 1788, four days after New Hampshire had become the ninth state and put the Constitution into effect.

Where did Patrick Henry deliver his 'Give me liberty, or give me death!' speech in March 1775?

St. John's Church, Richmond. Henry spoke without notes and no transcript survives: the famous words were reconstructed some forty years later by his biographer, William Wirt.

Which British general surrendered at Yorktown on 19 October 1781?

Cornwallis. Trapped between Washington's army and a French fleet, he pleaded illness on the day and sent his deputy, Charles O'Hara, to hand over the sword.

Who set the fires that burned much of Richmond's business district when the Confederate capital fell in April 1865?

Retreating Confederate troops. Ordered to burn bridges and supply warehouses as they left, they started a blaze that swept the centre, and it was the arriving Union soldiers who put it out.

In whose parlour at Appomattox Court House did the Confederate commander surrender to Grant on 9 April 1865?

Wilmer McLean. His farm at Manassas was caught up in the war's first big battle; he moved south, and four years later the war all but ended in his new front parlour.

Why did Virginia's north-western counties break away to form West Virginia during the Civil War?

They opposed secession. When Virginia voted to leave the Union in 1861, the north-western counties set up a rival loyal government at Wheeling, and their new state was admitted in June 1863.

The Supreme Court's 1967 Loving decision struck down Virginia's law against what?

Interracial marriage. Richard and Mildred Loving were woken in their bedroom by the sheriff in 1958; a judge gave them prison or 25 years out of Virginia, and after years in exile they went back to court.

The Pentagon, headquarters of the US Department of Defense, is in which Virginia county?

Arlington. The building has five sides because its first planned site there was hemmed into that shape; Roosevelt moved the project down the road but kept the design.

Arlington National Cemetery was established in 1864 on land confiscated from which Confederate general's family?

Robert E. Lee. The estate was his wife's; the Union took it in a wartime tax sale after refusing the payment her agent offered, because she had not brought it in person, and burials began in 1864.

Which two US presidents are buried in Arlington National Cemetery?

Taft and Kennedy. Every president is entitled to a grave there as a former commander-in-chief, yet only these two have taken one, William Howard Taft in 1930 and John F. Kennedy in 1963.

Jefferson's home Monticello takes its name from Italian words meaning what?

Little mountain. The name already belonged to a favourite boyhood hilltop on land Jefferson inherited at 21, and in 1768 work began on a house at its summit.

Which US coin shows Monticello on its reverse?

The nickel. Felix Schlag won the 1938 design contest and its $1,000 prize, only for the Mint to make him redraw his angled view of Monticello as the head-on one still in use.

George Washington's Potomac estate was named after whom?

A British admiral: Washington's half-brother Lawrence named the estate for Vice Admiral Edward Vernon, under whom he had served in the 1741 Cartagena expedition.

Which philanthropist bankrolled the restoration of Colonial Williamsburg from the late 1920s?

John D. Rockefeller Jr. Won over by a local rector, W. A. R. Goodwin, he at first bought up the old town's houses quietly, so that word of his plans would not push prices up.

Why did Virginia move its capital inland from Williamsburg to Richmond in 1780?

Fear of British attack. Richmond lay beyond the reach of British warships and nearer the settlers moving west, yet within a year Benedict Arnold's raiders had taken the town with barely a fight.

The College of William & Mary, chartered in 1693, is the second-oldest US college after which?

Harvard. Virginia had planned a college as early as 1618, but the scheme died with the 1622 attack on the colony, and Massachusetts opened its own first, in 1636.

Which founding father established the University of Virginia in 1819?

Thomas Jefferson founded the university in 1819 and designed its Academical Village and Rotunda, which share a UNESCO World Heritage listing with his home Monticello.

Which is Virginia's official state bird?

Northern cardinal. Seven states have chosen it, more than any other bird, and its name comes from the red robes worn by cardinals of the Catholic Church.

Which breed is Virginia's official state dog?

American Foxhound. George Washington helped create the breed, crossing his own pack with French hounds sent to him as a gift by the Marquis de Lafayette.

Which spirit is Virginia's official state spirit?

George Washington's Rye Whiskey. His farm manager talked him into distilling, and by 1799 the Mount Vernon stills were making 11,000 gallons a year; the distillery was rebuilt in 2007.

Virginia's tourism slogan, in use since 1969, says that the state 'is for' whom?

Lovers. The first drafts read 'Virginia is for history lovers', 'beach lovers' and 'mountain lovers'; the agency thought that too limiting and simply dropped the first word.

The world's largest naval base is in which Virginia city?

Norfolk. The Navy took over the old grounds of the 1907 Jamestown Exposition there in 1917, shortly after the United States entered the First World War.

In which Virginia city is Langley Research Center, the oldest of NASA's field centres?

Hampton. Langley has stood there since 1917, and it was there that mathematician Katherine Johnson worked out the trajectory for America's first human spaceflight in 1961.

Which intelligence agency moved its headquarters to Langley, Virginia, in 1961?

The CIA. At the request of its director, Allen Dulles, a Bible verse was carved into the lobby wall of the new building: 'And ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.'

Skyline Drive runs the length of which protected area along the Blue Ridge?

Shenandoah National Park. To create it in the 1930s Virginia bought or condemned the land of at least 500 mountain families, and their farms were left to return to forest.

Virginia holds about a quarter of which long-distance hiking trail, more miles than any other state?

The Appalachian Trail. Its founder, Benton MacKaye, walked away from the project in 1935 after clashing with Myron Avery, the man who saw the footpath finished two years later.

Which peak is the highest point in Virginia?

Mount Rogers. It was named in 1883 for William Barton Rogers, Virginia's first state geologist, who went north and founded the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Why does the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel dive through two tunnels instead of bridging the whole bay?

To keep shipping channels clear. The Navy feared a fallen bridge could cut its fleet off from the Atlantic, so the 17.6-mile crossing drops into mile-long tunnels beneath the two main channels.

The foals rounded up in the Chincoteague pony swim each July are auctioned to raise money for whom?

The volunteer fire company. Chincoteague's firefighters own the herd, and they began the carnival and auction in the 1920s to pay for equipment after fires had swept the island.

Which 1947 children's novel by Marguerite Henry made the Assateague Island ponies world-famous?

Misty of Chincoteague. Henry met the real Misty as a newborn foal on the Beebe family's ranch and wrote the Beebe children into the story, which was a Newbery runner-up.

Which 1676 uprising saw the followers of a Virginia planter burn Jamestown?

Bacon's Rebellion: Nathaniel Bacon led settlers against Governor Berkeley's Native American policy and burned Jamestown in September 1676; he died of dysentery a month later.

Which 1776 document drafted by George Mason influenced the first ten amendments?

The Virginia Declaration of Rights. Its author later refused to sign the US Constitution because it had no such list of rights, a gap the first ten amendments were written to fill.

Which is Virginia's most populous county?

Fairfax, with about 1.15 million people at the 2020 census. It was farm country until the federal government's growth during and after the Second World War turned it into a suburb of Washington.

Which Richmond-born sports champion's statue is the only one left on Monument Avenue after its Confederate memorials came down?

Arthur Ashe. Shut out of his segregated home city's youth competitions and indoor courts, he went on to win Wimbledon in 1975; his statue has stood on the avenue since 1996.

Which two later presidents, along with Jefferson, attended the College of William & Mary?

Monroe and Tyler. The college calls itself the 'Alma Mater of the Nation'; George Washington took only his surveyor's licence there, though he later served as its chancellor.

The Pentagon Memorial honours each of the 184 people killed there on 9/11 with one of what?

A lit bench. Each of the 184 stands over its own pool of light, and they are set out in order of the victims' ages, from a child of three to a man of 71.

Naval Air Station Oceana in Virginia Beach is the US Navy's East Coast master base for what?

Strike-fighter jets. Every East Coast squadron of them is based at Oceana, which began in 1940 as a small outlying airstrip on flood-prone farmland.

What do geographers call the boundary, running through Richmond, where Virginia's Tidewater plain meets the Piedmont?

The Fall Line. Rapids there stopped ships from sailing any farther upriver, which is why Richmond and other cities grew up along it.

Besides its 95 counties, how many independent cities does Virginia have as county-equivalents?

38: Virginia's independent cities, from Virginia Beach down to tiny Norton, sit outside any county; only three others exist in the US: Baltimore, St. Louis and Carson City.

Which Virginia county is home to 'Data Center Alley'?

Loudoun. Long a farming county, it now holds dozens of vast data centres; the often-repeated claim that 70% of the world's internet traffic passes through them is disputed.

James Bonsack's 1880 Virginia invention, soon adopted by James B. Duke, mass-produced what?

Cigarettes. A skilled hand-roller made about four a minute and Bonsack's machine about 200; the Virginia firm that had offered $75,000 for such a machine turned it down, and Duke put it to work on an industrial scale.

In Parson Weems's tale, which kind of tree did young George Washington hack at Virginia's Ferry Farm?

Cherry is the tree in the story, which first appeared in an 1806 biography, seven years after Washington died. Civil War soldiers camped at the farm carved rings from a tree they took for it.

Which food mascot, first drawn by a schoolboy for a 1916 contest, has Suffolk, Virginia, as its birthplace?

Mr. Peanut won the boy's family five dollars, and the company's founder later paid his way through college and medical school.

Which ancient monument was copied full-size in styrofoam for a roadside attraction in Virginia in 2004?

Stonehenge took around 1,500 years to build, while the foam copy went up in about six weeks and opened on April Fools' Day.

Which entertainment giant scrapped plans in 1994 for an American history theme park at Haymarket, Virginia?

Disney dropped the park less than a year after announcing it, after historians protested that the site lay about five miles from the Manassas battlefield.

Which chestnut colt, foaled in Caroline County, Virginia, won the 1973 Belmont Stakes by 31 lengths?

Secretariat, a bright-red foal with three white socks, was born just after midnight at The Meadow, the farm that now hosts the State Fair of Virginia.

Which Virginia-born hitmaker behind the song Happy launched the Something in the Water festival?

Pharrell Williams met his future Neptunes partner Chad Hugo at a seventh-grade summer band camp, where he played drums and Hugo the tenor saxophone.

Which 1987 film used the Mountain Lake Hotel near Pembroke, Virginia, as its Catskills resort, Kellerman's?

Dirty Dancing was shot in Virginia and North Carolina because so many real Catskills resorts had already shut down, and careful editing made the two sites look like one.

Which Confederate general's amputated left arm has its own grave at Ellwood Manor, Virginia?

Stonewall Jackson was shot by mistake by his own side's pickets at Chancellorsville and died of pneumonia the following week, so the rest of him lies in Lexington.

Which lip balm brand was invented in the 1880s by Lynchburg, Virginia, physician Charles Browne Fleet?

ChapStick had so little success at first that Fleet sold the rights in 1912 for five dollars; the buyer's family melted the pink mixture in their kitchen and cut it into sticks.

Which 2016 film follows three Black women mathematicians at NASA's Langley Research Center in Virginia?

Hidden Figures centres on Katherine Johnson, whom John Glenn asked for personally: he refused to fly his orbit until she had checked the electronic computer's numbers.

Which Virginia-born singer, the First Lady of Song, made her debut at Harlem's Apollo Theater at age 17?

Ella Fitzgerald won a week's booking at that amateur night, but the theatre never gave her that part of the prize, seemingly because of her dishevelled appearance.

Which Winchester, Virginia, singer was the first solo female artist in the Country Music Hall of Fame?

Patsy Cline was inducted in 1973, a decade after she died in a plane crash at 30, and her childhood home in the town is now a museum.

Which Portsmouth, Virginia, native was the first female rapper in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame?

Missy Elliott went in during 2023, her first year of eligibility, four years after becoming the first female rapper in the Songwriters Hall of Fame.

Which Powhatan woman, baptised under the name Rebecca, died at Gravesend in England in 1617?

Pocahontas was a nickname for a girl born Amonute; she fell gravely ill aboard the ship that was meant to carry her home to Virginia.

Which president, born in a Presbyterian manse in Staunton, Virginia, led America through World War I?

Woodrow Wilson barely knew his birthplace: his father was the church's pastor, and the family moved to Augusta, Georgia, before the boy was two.

Which president, the so-called Father of the Constitution, retired to Montpelier in Virginia?

James Madison met his wife Dolley through Aaron Burr, who introduced the pair at Madison's own request in 1794.

Which assassin was cornered in a burning barn near Port Royal, Virginia, in April 1865?

John Wilkes Booth had been on the run for twelve days when soldiers set the barn alight, and Sergeant Boston Corbett shot him in the neck as he moved about inside.

Which horror writer's University of Virginia dorm room, 13 West Range, is preserved in his memory?

Edgar Allan Poe lasted only a year on campus in 1826, leaving short of money and with gambling debts that estranged him from his foster father.

Which nickname replaced the Fighting Gobblers for the teams of Virginia Tech in Blacksburg?

Hokies comes from a made-up word in a spirit yell that a student wrote for an 1896 contest, winning five dollars; the turkey mascot survived the change.

Which nickname do University of Virginia teams share with the royalist side in the English Civil War?

Cavaliers is the official name, but fans just as often say Wahoos, or Hoos for short, after the university's old rallying cry.

Which spring-blooming tree is officially both the state flower and the state tree of Virginia?

Dogwood was made Virginia's state flower in 1918 and its state tree in 1956. Mississippi does the same double with its magnolia.

Which nickname is King Charles II said to have given Virginia for its loyalty during England's civil war?

The Old Dominion outlived royal rule in Virginia: after independence the Commonwealth kept the royal compliment as its nickname.

Which Virginia town gives its name to a country ham that state law says must be cured within its limits?

Smithfield hams were being sold as far away as the Caribbean by 1779, and the name has been protected by a Virginia statute since 1926.

Which internet giant, based in Dulles, Virginia, blanketed 1990s America with free trial discs?

AOL mailed out so many free trials that, by its own marketing chief's count, half of all the CDs produced worldwide at one point carried its logo.

Which Virginia base, nicknamed the Crossroads of the Marine Corps, is also home to the FBI Academy?

Quantico gives virtually every Marine officer his or her basic training, while the FBI uses the same base to train its new agents.

Which two Virginia-born army officers led an expedition from St. Louis to the Pacific coast in 1804?

Lewis and Clark were both Virginians by birth: Meriwether Lewis was born at Locust Hill in Albemarle County, and William Clark in Caroline County.

Which family-owned maker of M&M's and Snickers moved its headquarters to northern Virginia in 1984?

Mars is still owned entirely by the family of that name, which makes it one of the largest privately held companies in America.

Which rock group formed in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 1991 around a bartender at Miller's Bar?

Dave Matthews Band began when a lawyer friend talked the barman into recording a demo of the few songs he had written, then into approaching players on the local music scene.

Which 1970s TV drama drew on creator Earl Hamner Jr.'s Depression-era boyhood in Schuyler, Virginia?

The Waltons grew out of Hamner's 1961 novel Spencer's Mountain, and the author himself voiced the narrator, a grown-up John-Boy.

Which NASA orbiter, the most-flown space shuttle, went on display at Virginia's Udvar-Hazy Center in 2012?

Discovery launched and landed 39 times and carried the Hubble Space Telescope into orbit. It arrived in 2012 on the back of a Boeing 747, replacing the test shuttle Enterprise.

On Virginia's state flag, which royal symbol lies on the ground beside the fallen figure of Tyranny?

A crown knocked from the tyrant's head marks the break with British rule; Maryland and New York also show a crown on a flag or seal.

Which Virginia cave system houses the Great Stalacpipe Organ, which makes music by tapping stalactites?

Luray Caverns spreads the organ's stalactites over 3.5 acres of cave, enough for Guinness World Records to rate it the world's largest instrument.

Which 215-foot limestone arch, sacred to the Monacan people, did Cedar Creek carve in western Virginia?

Natural Bridge is the last surviving piece of the roof of a cave the creek once ran through; the Monacan remembered it as the site of a great victory over pursuing enemies.

Which Virginia city is called the Star City of the South after the giant neon star on Mill Mountain?

Roanoke merchants put up the 88.5-foot star in 1949 to drum up Christmas shopping, and it proved such a hit that it stayed lit all year round.

Which Virginia city's shipyard is the sole builder of aircraft carriers for the United States Navy?

Newport News has built ships since 1886, and its yard is also one of only two that supply the Navy's submarines.

Which five-star general is entombed in the former city hall of Norfolk, Virginia, his mother's hometown?

Douglas MacArthur never lived in the city, but he had fond boyhood memories of visiting his mother's family there and left it all his papers and medals.

Which bugle call, now heard at military funerals, was first sounded at Harrison's Landing, Virginia, in 1862?

Taps was arranged by Union general Daniel Butterfield, whose bugler Oliver Norton was the first to sound it; the tune is still sometimes called Butterfield's Lullaby.

Which New England state joins Virginia among the four states officially styled commonwealths?

Massachusetts shares the title with Pennsylvania and with one state that was still part of Virginia in colonial times. The label is purely stylistic and carries no legal weight.

Which ancient Roman temple was the model for the Rotunda at the heart of the University of Virginia?

The Pantheon was copied at half its width, and the Rotunda housed a library where other universities of the day would have put a church.

Which Virginia city, with a state line down its main street, is the official Birthplace of Country Music?

Bristol shares State Street with a twin city in Tennessee, and Congress's 1998 resolution honoured recording sessions held on that street in 1927, often called country's Big Bang.

Which island on Virginia's Eastern Shore has seen more than 16,000 rocket launches since 1945?

Wallops Island flies sounding rockets and research balloons from its range, and in 1998 Virginia built a commercial spaceport there on land leased from NASA.

Which Virginia island in the Chesapeake Bay has a distinctive dialect once traced to Cornish settlers?

Tangier Island's speech is more likely a blend of East Coast dialects, linguists now argue, and rising seas are expected to claim much of the land that remains.

Which golfer, born near Hot Springs, Virginia, was credited with 82 PGA Tour wins, including seven majors?

Sam Snead started out caddying at age seven at The Homestead resort and, at 71, shot a round of 60 on one of its courses.

Which Danville, Virginia, driver became the first African American to win at NASCAR's top level, in 1963?

Wendell Scott won on a half-mile dirt track in Jacksonville, Florida, in a second-hand Chevrolet Bel Air he had bought from fellow racer Ned Jarrett.

Which Virginian became, in 1903, the first African American woman to charter a bank in the United States?

Maggie L. Walker also served as the bank's president, another first, and in later life she kept leading her businesses as a wheelchair user.

Which architect of the Gateway Arch designed the swooping main terminal of Virginia's Dulles Airport?

Eero Saarinen designed the terminal in 1958 around mobile lounges that carried passengers out to their planes, and Taiwan's main airport later modelled its own terminal on it.

Which park in Vienna, Virginia, became America's first national park for the performing arts in 1966?

Wolf Trap was the farm of Catherine Filene Shouse, who gave the land to the federal government so that it would be preserved as parkland.

Which No. 16 seed stunned top-ranked Virginia in 2018, a first for the men's NCAA basketball tournament?

UMBC, the Retrievers from Baltimore County, were level at 21–21 at half-time and then pulled away to win by 20 points.

Which Virginia-born inventor gave an early demonstration of his mechanical reaper at Steeles Tavern in 1831?

Cyrus McCormick built on more than two decades of work by his father, aided by Jo Anderson, an enslaved man on the family farm, and later made his fortune in Chicago.

Which Petersburg, Virginia, centre jumped straight from high school to the pros with the Utah Stars?

Moses Malone went on to be named the NBA's Most Valuable Player three times and led the Philadelphia 76ers to the 1983 championship.