92 Fun Facts About Virginia Beach

After their first landing at Cape Henry in April 1607, where did the English colonists go on to settle?

Jamestown was founded about three weeks later: the colonists' orders were to find a site further inland, safer from the ships of rival European powers.

In 1963 Virginia Beach merged with which neighbouring jurisdiction to form the present-day city?

Princess Anne County and the small city of Virginia Beach merged on January 1, 1963, after voters in both approved; the far larger county took the beach town's better-known name.

In a 2016 referendum, Virginia Beach voters rejected extending which Norfolk light-rail line?

The Tide opened in Norfolk in 2011, and Virginia Beach voters backed an extension by more than 60 percent in a 2012 vote before turning it down four years later.

What did the English colonists raise at Cape Henry on landing in 1607?

A wooden cross, set up in thanks for a safe passage, gave the landing its memorial: a granite cross has stood near the spot since 1935.

First Landing State Park was known until 1997 by what name?

Seashore State Park, dedicated in 1936, was renamed First Landing in 1997 to mark the spot where the Virginia Company's colonists first came ashore.

The 1792 Cape Henry Lighthouse holds what distinction in US history?

First federal public works project: the young government ordered it to guard the mouth of Chesapeake Bay, and the old tower still stands beside its 1881 replacement.

The old Cape Henry Lighthouse was built of the same Virginia sandstone as which landmark?

The White House and the lighthouse both drew on Aquia Creek, the quarry behind much of early Washington; the tower served almost a century before an iron successor took over in 1881.

The 1781 Battle of the Chesapeake off Cape Henry, which doomed Cornwallis, pitted Britain against whom?

The French fleet under the Comte de Grasse drove off Admiral Graves's British ships, so no help could reach Cornwallis by sea.

The Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel links Virginia Beach to Virginia's Eastern Shore on which peninsula?

Delmarva's Virginia tip could be reached from the south only by ferry until the 17.6-mile crossing opened in 1964.

Which crossing overtook the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel as the world's longest bridge-tunnel complex in 2018?

Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau repeats the Virginia crossing's trick on a far bigger scale: partway across, the road dives into a tunnel between artificial islands so that ships can pass over it.

Which base, home to the Atlantic Fleet's strike fighter squadrons, lies inside Virginia Beach?

Naval Air Station Oceana, the Navy's East Coast master jet base, is closed to the public except for one weekend a year, when it stages its September air show.

The 1781 sea battle off Cape Henry cut off the British army that surrendered weeks later at which Virginia town?

Yorktown fell six weeks after the battle: with the bay closed to British ships, Cornwallis could be neither reinforced nor evacuated, and he surrendered to Washington.

How was Grace Sherwood, Virginia Beach's 'Witch of Pungo', tested for witchcraft?

Ducked in a river, she floated, which by the rule of the day meant guilt; Witch Duck Point is named for the trial, and Virginia's governor pardoned her 300 years later.

Virginia Beach's Neptune Festival hosts an international championship in what?

Sand sculpting is a fixture of the festival's Boardwalk Weekend; the festival also commissioned the bronze Neptune that has stood on the boardwalk since 2005.

Which Virginia Beach museum stands on the boardwalk at 24th Street, in a station built in 1903?

Surf & Rescue Museum is the current name of the old Seatack life-saving station, whose crews had gone to the aid of a wrecked Norwegian barque in 1891.

Mount Trashmore Park, opened in 1974, was built on top of what?

Mount Trashmore was made by layering compacted solid waste with clean soil over the city's old landfill, turning a dump into a public park with two man-made mountains and lakes when it opened in 1974.

Which Virginia Beach-born star launched the Something in the Water festival in 2019?

Pharrell Williams launched Something in the Water with the city in April 2019, timing it for College Beach Weekend, a gathering that had drawn years of bad press.

Where did Chad Hugo first meet the partner with whom he formed the hit production duo The Neptunes?

A summer band camp in Virginia Beach put the two seventh-graders together, one on drums, the other on tenor saxophone; they went on to produce for Jay-Z, Britney Spears and Nelly.

The Norwegian Lady statue commemorates the 1891 wreck of which Norwegian barque?

The Dictator ran aground in a storm on March 27, 1891, as guests at a beachfront hotel looked on; her captain survived, but his pregnant wife and four-year-old son drowned.

An identical twin of Virginia Beach's Norwegian Lady stands in which Norwegian sister city?

Moss received an identical bronze by sculptor Ørnulf Bast, unveiled the same day in 1962; each Lady appears to gaze across the Atlantic towards her twin.

Which 'Sleeping Prophet' founded the Association for Research and Enlightenment in 1931?

Edgar Cayce moved to Virginia Beach in 1925 because, he said, a voice in one of his own trances told him to; the association he founded there is still based in the city.

The Virginia Aquarium opened in 1986 under a different name, as the 'Virginia' what?

Marine Science Museum was the name on the door in 1986, when the exhibits covered only Virginia's rivers, the bay and the nearby ocean; Komodo dragons arrived in 2009.

Which surf contest has been held in Virginia Beach every summer since 1963?

The East Coast Surfing Championships grew out of a 1962 teenagers' beach party on Long Island, moved south a year later, and is now the world's oldest continuously run surfing contest.

What was Adam Thoroughgood, later a leading landowner in what is now Virginia Beach, when he first came to Virginia?

An indentured servant at 17 or 18, Thoroughgood worked off his passage, went home to England and returned with a wife and new settlers; by 1629 he sat in the House of Burgesses.

Which state park adjoins Back Bay refuge to the south, reaching down to the North Carolina line?

False Cape State Park runs six miles along the Atlantic between Back Bay refuge and the North Carolina line; with no public road, visitors arrive on foot, by bike, by boat or on the refuge tram.

Which area code serves Virginia Beach and the rest of Hampton Roads?

757 was split from 804 in 1996; when its numbers ran short, a second code, 948, was laid over the same area in 2022 instead of dividing the region.

Which nickname does Virginia Beach go by?

The Resort City earns the name along its oceanfront, where hundreds of hotels, motels and restaurants line three miles of boardwalk.

Which cape, facing Cape Henry across the mouth of Chesapeake Bay, was named for Prince Henry's younger brother?

Cape Charles honours the prince who became Charles I; the two headlands are known together as the Virginia Capes, and the bridge-tunnel now runs between them.

Virginia Beach is Virginia's largest city by total area because about half of it is what?

Water covers about half of the city's 497 square miles; by land alone, Virginia Beach ranks only third in the state.

What climate classification does Virginia Beach have?

Humid subtropical, and it shows at First Landing State Park, the northernmost East Coast spot where subtropical and temperate plants grow together.

The Cape Henry Lighthouse and the site of the first landing sit inside which military base?

Fort Story surrounds both lighthouses, so sightseers must clear base security to climb the old tower, which Congress deeded to Preservation Virginia in 1930.

The US Life-Saving Service, whose surfmen once patrolled Virginia Beach's shore, merged in 1915 into which service?

The Coast Guard was itself new in 1915, created by joining the lifesavers with the Revenue Cutter Service.

Mount Trashmore's half-pipe made it an early landmark for which sport?

Skateboarding found a home here when public skate parks were rare, and pros including Tony Hawk have ridden at Mount Trashmore.

Black workers of which New Deal agency helped build First Landing State Park?

Civilian Conservation Corps crews here included an all-Black one, yet the finished park turned Black visitors away, and in 1955 Virginia closed it rather than integrate.

Which televangelist founded Regent University in Virginia Beach in 1977?

Pat Robertson first named the school after his own broadcasting network; it took the name Regent University in 1990.

Who commanded the three ships that made landfall at Cape Henry in April 1607?

Christopher Newport's ships had been at sea for more than four months; after a few days ashore he took the colonists on up a river to plant their settlement.

Which Algonquian-speaking people lived in the Virginia Beach area at the time of European contact?

The Chesepian (or Chesapeake) people lived around the Lynnhaven and Elizabeth rivers; Powhatan is said to have wiped them out around 1607, shortly before or after the English landed.

Which road first opened Virginia Beach's oceanfront to motorists driving out from Norfolk in the early 1920s?

Virginia Beach Boulevard was the first hard-surfaced road out from Norfolk, and locals still call it 'the Boulevard'; a toll expressway built alongside in 1967 is now Interstate 264.

Who, by local legend, founded Wash Woods, the vanished village on Virginia Beach's remote southern shore?

Shipwreck survivors are said to have settled where they came ashore, and the village church was built of cypress that washed in from a wreck.

Which Olympic gymnastics champion grew up in Virginia Beach?

Gabby Douglas left Virginia Beach at 14 to train in Iowa, living with a host family; two years later she won Olympic all-around gold in London.

Which broadcaster, maker of The 700 Club, is headquartered in Virginia Beach beside Regent University?

The Christian Broadcasting Network started in neighbouring Portsmouth in 1960 and moved its headquarters to Virginia Beach two decades later.

From which reservoir on the Virginia–North Carolina border does Virginia Beach pipe in much of its drinking supply?

Lake Gaston's supply reaches the coast through a long pipeline that opponents fought in court for years, all the way to the Supreme Court, before it could open.

Despite its name, the three-mile Virginia Beach Boardwalk is made of which material?

Concrete replaced the original planks, which ran for only five blocks when work began in 1888. A separate bike path now runs beside the walkway.

Which behaviour did notorious signs on Virginia Beach's oceanfront ban from the 1990s until 2019?

Swearing in public was a crime under a Virginia law of 1792. Years after the signs came down, about 30 of them were donated to a police charity to be auctioned.

Which unit, sent to kill Osama bin Laden in 2011, is based at Dam Neck in Virginia Beach?

SEAL Team Six got its number as a bluff: its founder chose it so that Soviet intelligence would overcount the Navy's teams. Its official name is the Naval Special Warfare Development Group.

Which Avengers star graduated from First Colonial High School in Virginia Beach in 1986?

Mark Ruffalo spent his teenage years in the city, where his father worked, and acted with the school's Patriot Playhouse.

Which astronaut, the first American in space, was living in Virginia Beach when he flew in 1961?

Alan Shepard was honoured at home straight away: the city renamed its domed convention center after him. A decade later he hit two golf balls on the Moon.

The 34-foot King Neptune statue on the Virginia Beach Boardwalk rests his left hand on which animal?

A sea turtle, a loggerhead 11 feet across, sits under his hand. The bronze was made in China in three pieces and welded back together after it arrived.

Virginia Beach won a space on a 2015 edition of which board game after an online public vote?

Monopoly gave the city its own property after it finished fourth in Hasbro's vote. The top Boardwalk space went to Pierre, South Dakota.

Which rapper opened his 2023 album For All the Dogs with a track titled Virginia Beach?

Drake built the song on a sample of an unreleased Frank Ocean track. Before release, fans took the title for a jab at his rival Pusha T, who grew up in the city, but the song is about a past relationship.

Which pirate does legend say hid in the Narrows of Virginia Beach's First Landing State Park?

Blackbeard is tied to the park only by legend, but its swamps really were a place where pirates and merchant crews refilled their casks.

Which shellfish once made Virginia Beach's Lynnhaven River famous up and down the East Coast?

Oysters from the Lynnhaven declined through pollution and runoff, and a local restoration project is now working to bring them back.

Which Missy Elliott and Justin Timberlake producer went to Salem High School in Virginia Beach?

Timbaland was born in neighbouring Norfolk and broke through with Aaliyah's 1996 album One in a Million.

Which German chainsaw maker has its United States headquarters in Virginia Beach?

Stihl, founded in 1926, was the first European firm to export chainsaws to America, and it started building its Virginia Beach plant in 1974.

What did the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel replace when it opened to Virginia Beach traffic in 1964?

A ferry service had crossed the bay mouth since the 1930s. Its boats were sold north to start the Cape May–Lewes route across Delaware Bay.

Which fruit was celebrated at the Memorial Day weekend festival in Virginia Beach's rural Pungo?

Strawberries drew crowds to Pungo from 1983 for a parade, a pie-eating contest and pig races, until the festival stopped in the early 2020s.

Which lizards came to Virginia Beach's Virginia Aquarium with its 2009 Restless Planet wing?

Komodo dragons live in a recreated Indonesian volcanic island, part of a $25 million expansion that doubled the number of species on show.

Plaxico Burress of Virginia Beach's Green Run High caught a Super Bowl-winning pass for which team?

New York Giants fans owe him the catch that made it 17–14 and ended the Patriots' unbeaten 18–0 run in Super Bowl XLII.

Which Virginia governor restored the good name of Grace Sherwood in 2006, 300 years after her trial?

Tim Kaine issued an informal pardon on the 300th anniversary of her conviction, recognising that she had been wrongfully convicted.

What reached the coast in 1883 and turned a quiet stretch of dunes into the town of Virginia Beach?

A railroad from Norfolk brought the first holidaymakers, and the company that ran it opened the Virginia Beach Hotel at the end of the line.

During which annual event may visitors drive their cars along the Virginia Beach Boardwalk?

Holiday Lights at the Beach lets guests stay in their cars and roll past illuminated displays set up along the seafront walkway.

Virginia Beach's old Camp Pendleton shared its name with a Marine base in which state?

California's base honours a Marine general, while the Virginia post was named by the wartime Army after Robert E. Lee's chief of artillery.

Which baseball star nicknamed Mr. National graduated from Kellam High School in Virginia Beach?

Ryan Zimmerman was the first player the franchise drafted after it moved to Washington, and he stayed with the club until 2021.

Which brewery founder died in 1929 after a fall from a window of Virginia Beach's Cavalier Hotel?

Adolph Coors fell from the sixth floor of the hotel. His Colorado brewery had ridden out Prohibition by switching to malted milk.

Virginia Beach's Cape Henry Lighthouse was darkened to hinder a British blockade during which war?

The War of 1812 brought Royal Navy ships to the mouth of the Chesapeake, so in 1813 the light was put out to stop them steering by it.

Which sport holds its North American sand championships on the beach at Virginia Beach each year?

Soccer on the sand began here in 1994 with 26 teams. By 2015 the event had more than 975 teams, and FC Barcelona's beach side won its U.S. Open.

In the TV series The Man in the High Castle, which power invades America through Virginia Beach?

Nazi Germany lands at Virginia Beach in a D-Day-style assault in the show's backstory, which leaves the United States defeated and occupied.

Which hotel tower in Virginia Beach Town Center became the tallest building in Virginia?

The Westin rises 38 storeys, with condominiums stacked above the hotel floors, and took the state title from the James Monroe Building in Richmond.

Pusha T and his brother Malice, raised in Virginia Beach, record together under which name?

Clipse formed in 1994. The Thornton family had moved down from the Bronx in 1979, when the two future rappers were still children.

Back Bay refuge in Virginia Beach is an Atlantic Flyway stop for which migrating birds?

Snow geese rest on impoundments the refuge manages for wintering wildfowl. Most of its marshland lies on islands out in the bay itself.

Olongapo, a Virginia Beach sister city and old naval station on Subic Bay, is in which country?

The Philippines pairing dates from 2015; Filipino residents were already the city's largest Asian group, about 4% in the 2010 census.

Which retired Navy master chief from Virginia Beach came third on the first Survivor, aged 72?

Rudy Boesch had served 45 years in the Navy before the show, and he shared his $85,000 prize money with his three daughters.

Which Queen of Hearts singer graduated from First Colonial High School in Virginia Beach?

Juice Newton's clip for Angel of the Morning was the first country-music video shown on MTV, in 1981.

Which Virginia Beach high school star ran back a kickoff for a touchdown in Super Bowl XLVIII?

Percy Harvin, a state champion at Landstown High, took the second half's opening kickoff 87 yards for Seattle, his only touchdown of that season.

The MAREA data cable, owned by Microsoft and Facebook, runs from Virginia Beach to which country?

Spain's landing point is Sopelana, near Bilbao. The project took shape after Hurricane Sandy exposed how much eastern US internet traffic ran through a single hub.

Virginia Beach's civic centre known as the Dome, razed in 1994, had a geodesic shell of which metal?

Aluminum maker Kaiser designed the shell and billed the hall as the first stressed-skin dome auditorium of its kind in the United States.

The Little Creek naval base in Virginia Beach is the Atlantic Fleet's main home for which forces?

Amphibious units dominate Little Creek so completely that it is described as the largest base of its kind in the world.

Which hotel-free Virginia Beach community is nicknamed the Outer Banks of Virginia?

Sandbridge sits on a narrow strip between the Atlantic and Back Bay, reached by one two-lane road. Wild Banker horses once wandered up into it.

Virginia MOCA in Virginia Beach traces its origins to a 1952 art sale held for what purpose?

To help a sick artist was the sale's whole aim. Its organisers then formed an art association whose first boardwalk show followed in 1956.

Virginia Beach's Military Aviation Museum rebuilt a wartime control tower from which country?

England's RAF Goxhill, a wartime US Eighth Air Force base, supplied the brick tower, which was taken apart, catalogued and reassembled by 2018.

The taller New Cape Henry Lighthouse of 1881 in Virginia Beach was built mainly of which material?

Cast iron and wrought iron went into the new 157-foot tower after inspectors found cracks spreading across most faces of the old one.

Which trees give their name to the swamps of First Landing State Park in Virginia Beach?

Bald cypress swamps sit beside lagoons and maritime forest in the park, part of which is protected as a National Natural Landmark.

Which royal governor routed the militia at Kemp's Landing, now part of Virginia Beach, in 1775?

Lord Dunmore followed the win by reading out his proclamation of martial law, which promised freedom to slaves of Patriot owners who joined the British.

Which British warship sailed from Lynnhaven Bay in 1807 to attack the frigate USS Chesapeake?

HMS Leopard chased, fired on and boarded the American ship, then took off four crewmen as deserters; one of them was later hanged.

Marty Schottenheimer's Virginia Destroyers won a 2011 title in Virginia Beach in which league?

UFL champions in their first season in Virginia, the Destroyers drew a record 14,172 fans to the final at the Sportsplex. The league collapsed a year later.

Which new jack swing pioneer and Michael Jackson producer ran a recording studio in Virginia Beach?

Teddy Riley's studio stood near a local high school, and at a 1991 talent contest he discovered the teenage duo who became the Neptunes.

Which North Carolina marsh community can be reached by road only by driving through Virginia Beach?

Knotts Island is cut off from the rest of its own county by open sound, so its only overland link runs north. Many families from vanished Wash Woods resettled there.

Which Japanese sister city gave its name to the garden in Virginia Beach's Red Wing Park?

Miyazaki has been twinned with the city since 1992, and the garden in Red Wing Park grew out of that friendship.

What name is given to the boundary dividing Virginia Beach's urban north from its rural south?

The Green Line keeps most of the city's farms to the south of it, and open land for new building on the northern side has nearly run out.

Settler Adam Thoroughgood named Virginia Beach's Lynnhaven River after which English home town?

King's Lynn lies in the county of Norfolk, which is why Thoroughgood is also credited with suggesting the name of New Norfolk County in 1637.

Which Dodgers utility man, co-MVP of the 2017 NLCS, went to Cox High School in Virginia Beach?

Chris Taylor won a city wrestling title in middle school, then gave the sport up at Cox to concentrate on baseball.

Which daily newspaper, founded in 1865, covers Virginia Beach and the rest of South Hampton Roads?

The Virginian-Pilot has won three Pulitzer Prizes, the first in 1929 for an editorial that condemned lynching.