50 Fun Facts About Virginia

Jamestown, founded in 1607, holds what distinction?

First permanent English settlement in the Americas: the Virginia Company of London landed on 14 May 1607, and barely 60 colonists survived the 'Starving Time' winter of 1609-10.

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

Tobacco: John Rolfe's sweeter Caribbean strain, first shipped to England in 1614, became the colony's cash crop and served as currency for much of the colonial period.

Virginia's colonial assembly, first elected in 1619, was known as what?

The House of Burgesses first met in Jamestown's church on 30 July 1619, the first elected legislative assembly in the Americas; it sat until 1776.

Virginia is named after which English monarch?

Elizabeth I, the 'Virgin Queen': Walter Raleigh's 1584 expedition named the land Virginia in her honour, more than twenty years before Jamestown was founded.

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 the Commonwealth's most populous city?

Virginia Beach, with about 460,000 residents; Guinness lists it as home to the world's longest pleasure beach, and its Neptune Festival draws about half a million visitors.

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

The spot in today's Virginia Beach is marked by First Landing State Park and the Cape Henry lighthouses.

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, hosted the Second Virginia Convention on 23 March 1775; Henry later became Virginia's first and sixth governor and opposed the Constitution for lacking a Bill of Rights.

Which British general surrendered at Yorktown on 19 October 1781?

Cornwallis: Washington and Rochambeau besieged Lord Cornwallis's army while de Grasse's French fleet blocked the sea; Yorktown was the war's last major land battle.

The state capital served as the seat of which government from 1861 to 1865?

The Confederate States: Richmond was the Confederate capital from May 1861; evacuating troops burned its tobacco warehouses in April 1865 and the fires destroyed a quarter of the city.

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

McLean had moved there to escape the war after the First Battle of Bull Run was fought near his previous farm at Manassas.

West Virginia broke away from Virginia and joined the Union in which year?

Lincoln admitted it on 20 June 1863 on condition that its constitution provided for the gradual abolition of slavery.

Loving v. Virginia (1967) struck down state laws banning what?

Richard and Mildred Loving of Caroline County had been convicted under the 1924 Racial Integrity Act; 12 June is now Loving Day.

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

Arlington County: ground was broken on 11 September 1941 and the building was finished in about 16 months; its 17.5 miles of corridors sit across the Potomac from Washington.

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

Robert E. Lee: the Arlington House estate belonged to his wife Mary Custis Lee; the Union seized it for unpaid taxes and began burials in 1864 to keep the Lees from returning.

Which two US presidents are buried in Arlington National Cemetery?

Taft and Kennedy: William Howard Taft was buried there in 1930 and John F. Kennedy in 1963, his grave marked by an eternal flame; no other president lies at Arlington.

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

Little mountain: monticello is Italian for 'little mountain', the 850-foot hill near Charlottesville on which Jefferson began building his house in 1769.

Which US coin shows Monticello on its reverse?

The nickel: Monticello's west front has been the reverse of the Jefferson nickel since 1938, apart from the 2004-05 Westward Journey designs.

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 organisation bought Washington's Potomac estate in 1858?

The Mount Vernon Ladies' Association has run the estate ever since; by 2020 more than 85 million people had visited it.

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

John D. Rockefeller Jr., persuaded by the Reverend W. A. R. Goodwin in 1926, funded the restoration; the 301-acre living-history museum forms the Historic Triangle with Jamestown and Yorktown.

Williamsburg was Virginia's capital from 1699 until which year?

1780: Governor Thomas Jefferson moved the seat of government to Richmond in April 1780 for safety from British attack by sea, ending Williamsburg's 81 years as capital.

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

Harvard, founded in 1636, is the only older US college; William & Mary's 1693 charter came from King William III and Queen Mary II, and Phi Beta Kappa was founded there in 1776.

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, adopted in 1950; it is the state bird of seven states, more than any other, and Virginia also made the American dogwood both its state flower and state tree.

Which breed is Virginia's official state dog?

American Foxhound, adopted in 1966; George Washington bred foxhounds at Mount Vernon, and the breed descends from English hounds brought to Virginia in the 1650s.

Which spirit did Virginia name its official state spirit in 2017?

George Washington's Rye Whiskey, made at the reconstructed Mount Vernon distillery to Washington's 1790s recipe, was named the state spirit by the General Assembly in 2017.

Virginia's tourism slogan 'Virginia is for Lovers' dates from which year?

1969: the Richmond agency Martin & Woltz coined it that year, having considered 'Virginia is for History Lovers'; the slogan joined the Madison Avenue Advertising Walk of Fame in 2009.

The Sewells Point installation in Norfolk is notable as what?

The world's largest naval base: Naval Station Norfolk, founded on 4 July 1917 at Sewells Point, berths some 75 ships along 14 piers and hosts about 134 aircraft.

In which Virginia city is NASA's oldest field centre, where the Mercury astronauts trained?

Hampton: NASA's Langley Research Center there was founded in 1917 as the nation's first civilian aeronautical laboratory, and the Mercury Seven trained at it from 1959.

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

The CIA moved into its Langley headquarters in the McLean area of Fairfax County in 1961; the George Bush Center for Intelligence name was added in 1999.

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

Shenandoah National Park: the 105-mile Skyline Drive along its crest was built largely by the Civilian Conservation Corps, and FDR dedicated the park in July 1936.

How many miles of the Appalachian Trail run through Virginia's Blue Ridge national park?

101: Shenandoah National Park carries 101 miles of the Appalachian Trail, roughly parallel to Skyline Drive, with almost 40% of the park designated wilderness.

Which peak, at 5,728 feet, is the highest point in Virginia?

Mount Rogers, in Grayson and Smyth counties near the North Carolina line, is named for geologist William Barton Rogers; neighbouring Whitetop Mountain is the state's second-highest peak.

The Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel, opened in 1964, is roughly how long?

17.6 miles shore to shore: it links Virginia Beach with the Eastern Shore by two mile-long tunnels and four artificial islands, and was financed by revenue bonds rather than federal money.

The famous annual Chincoteague pony swim takes place on which day?

The last Wednesday in July: the Chincoteague Volunteer Fire Company has run the swim since the 1920s, and the foals are auctioned the next day to fund the company and limit the herd.

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

Misty of Chincoteague, Marguerite Henry's 1947 Newbery Honor novel about a real pony bought at the Chincoteague auction; legend says the herd descends from a wrecked Spanish galleon.

Which 1676 uprising saw several hundred 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, adopted 12 June 1776, asserted freedom of the press and religion; fellow Virginian James Madison drew on it when drafting the Bill of Rights in 1789.

Which is Virginia's most populous jurisdiction?

Fairfax County, with about 1.15 million residents, is home to roughly one in eight Virginians; the state's population is about 8.8 million.

Which street in the state capital lost its Confederate statues in 2020-22, leaving only Arthur Ashe's memorial?

Monument Avenue: Stuart, Jackson, Maury and Davis came down in 2020 and Robert E. Lee's statue in September 2021, leaving Arthur Ashe's 1996 memorial as the avenue's only statue.

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

Monroe and Tyler: James Monroe enrolled in 1774 and John Tyler graduated in 1807; with Jefferson, class of 1762, they give the college its 'Alma Mater of a Nation' tag.

Roughly how many people died at the Pentagon on 9/11, including those on Flight 77?

184: 125 people in the building and 59 passengers and crew on Flight 77 were killed; the Pentagon Memorial, opened in 2008, has one bench for each of the 184 victims.

Which large-scale employer is the biggest in Virginia Beach?

Naval Air Station Oceana, the Navy's East Coast master jet base, employs more than 10,000 military and civilian personnel, making it the city's largest employer.

Which region gives Virginia its 'Tidewater' nickname?

The Chesapeake Bay coastal plain: 'Tidewater' is the low, flat region east of the fall line, where the James, York and Rappahannock rivers are tidal as they reach the bay.

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 has branded itself 'Data Center Alley'?

Loudoun County: its Ashburn area, which the county markets as 'Data Center Alley', holds the world's largest concentration of data centres, and their taxes fund much of the county budget.

Which Virginian invented the tobacco cigarette rolling machine in 1880?

James Albert Bonsack of Roanoke County patented the machine in 1881; Richmond's Allen & Ginter had offered $75,000 for one but passed, and James B. Duke in Durham adopted it.