North Carolina Trivia
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North Carolina was first in flight, first to call for independence and first to lose an entire colony, and this quiz covers all of it in 100 free questions with answers: Roanoke and Virginia Dare, the Wright brothers at Kill Devil Hills, Blackbeard's last stand at Ocracoke, the Halifax Resolves and the two dates on the state flag. Then there is the geography and the culture people actually argue about: Mount Mitchell and Kuwohi, the Cape Hatteras lighthouse that was rolled inland, the Venus flytrap's tiny home range, the Biltmore Estate, Duke versus Carolina, Krispy Kreme, Pepsi and Cheerwine, Mayberry, the Reed gold nugget used as a doorstop, and why anyone is called a Tar Heel. Easy openers for visitors, harder ones for people who know their state dog from their state beverage. Every answer has been checked against a documented source and each question shows its citation and a short explanation after you answer.
30 of 100 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01North Carolina's planned capital, established in 1792, borrowed its street grid from the 1682 plan of which city?
Philadelphia
Philadelphia: legislators bought 1,000 acres of Joel Lane's plantation for a capital built from scratch, and surveyor William Christmas laid it out on the model of the 1682 plan.
Q 02In which North Carolina city did the 1960 Woolworth's lunch-counter sit-ins begin?
Greensboro
Greensboro: on 1 February 1960 four students from North Carolina A&T sat down at the whites-only Woolworth's lunch counter, sparking sit-ins across the South.
Q 03North Carolina initially declined to ratify the Constitution for lacking what?
A bill of rights
A bill of rights: the 1788 Hillsborough convention voted 184 to 84 to hold out, and North Carolina joined as the twelfth state in November 1789 only after Congress had proposed the amendments.
Q 04The nickname 'Tar Heel' recalls a colonial trade in tar and pitch, used mainly for what?
Waterproofing ships
Waterproofing ships: Britain paid a bounty for the tar and pitch that sealed its wooden hulls and rigging, and the nickname itself only caught on around the Civil War.
Q 05Carolina takes its name from Carolus, the Latin form of which English royal name?
Charles
Charles: Carolus is its Latin form, and Charles II kept the name in 1663 when he granted the land to eight Lords Proprietors who had helped restore him to the throne.
Q 06North Carolina's state motto, Esse quam videri, means what?
To be, rather than to seem
To be, rather than to seem: the phrase comes from Cicero's essay on friendship, and jurist Walter Clark chose it and drafted the 1893 bill that made it the state motto.
Q 07What delayed John White's return to Roanoke with supplies until 1590?
The Spanish Armada
The Spanish Armada: the 1588 invasion threat disrupted the relief voyages, and White did not get back until 1590, when he found the settlement deserted.
Q 08Virginia Dare, who arrived on Roanoke Island in August 1587, was the first what?
English person born in North America
Virginia Dare was the first English person born in North America; her grandfather, Governor John White, left for supplies days later and found the colony gone in 1590.
Q 09What single word was found carved into the palisade of the abandoned Roanoke colony in 1590?
CROATOAN
White read it as meaning the settlers had moved to Croatoan Island, but a storm stopped him from checking.
Q 10How long did Orville Wright's first powered flight last on 17 December 1903?
12 seconds
12 seconds was all Orville managed, covering 120 feet; Wilbur had won the coin toss for the first try three days earlier but stalled on take-off.
Q 11The Wright brothers' first flights took place at a spot now inside which town, four miles south of Kitty Hawk?
Kill Devil Hills
Kill Devil Hills: the Wrights picked the dunes for their steady winds, soft sand and privacy, but the town was only incorporated in 1953, so history remembers nearby Kitty Hawk.
Q 12Which North Carolina peak is the highest point in the United States east of the Mississippi?
Mount Mitchell
Mount Mitchell is named for Elisha Mitchell, the professor who measured it; he died in 1857 in a fall at a waterfall while trying to prove his figures against a rival's challenge.
Q 13The treacherous waters off the Outer Banks carry which nickname?
Graveyard of the Atlantic
Q 21When UNC opened in 1795, Hinton James spent two weeks as what?
Its only student
Its only student: the doors opened on 15 January 1795 with nobody enrolled, James arrived on 12 February, and it took two more weeks for classmates to join him.
Q 22Duke University took its name in 1924 from a family that made its fortune in which industry?
Tobacco
Tobacco: James B. Duke's American Tobacco Company dominated the trade until the Supreme Court broke it up in 1911, and his 1924 endowment renamed Trinity College for his father.
Q 23Mike Krzyzewski passed which mentor for most Division I men's wins?
Bob Knight
Bob Knight coached Krzyzewski at Army and later hired him as an assistant at Indiana; Coach K's 903rd win in 2011 broke his old mentor's Division I men's record.
Graveyard of the Atlantic: off Cape Hatteras the warm Gulf Stream collides with cold northern currents over the shifting Diamond Shoals, a trap for ships for centuries.
Q 14Cape Hatteras Lighthouse, America's tallest brick lighthouse, is painted with which black-and-white pattern?
Spiral stripes
Spiral stripes: each Outer Banks lighthouse wears its own pattern so sailors can tell the towers apart by day, with bands at Bodie Island and a checkerboard at Cape Lookout.
Q 15In 1999 the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse was moved how far inland to save it from the sea?
2,900 feet
2,900 feet: it was rolled inland over 23 days in summer 1999, leaving it about as far from the surf as when it was built in 1870.
Q 16Blackbeard's Queen Anne's Revenge ran aground in June 1718 near which North Carolina town?
Beaufort
Beaufort: Blackbeard ran his flagship onto a sandbar in the inlet, perhaps on purpose, as a way to break up a crew of several hundred; divers found the wreck in 1996.
Q 17Blackbeard was killed at Ocracoke in 1718 by Royal Navy sailors sent from which neighbouring province?
Virginia
Virginia: Governor Alexander Spotswood sent Lieutenant Robert Maynard south after the pirate, whom North Carolina's own governor had pardoned.
Q 18The 1776 Halifax Resolves made North Carolina the first colony to do what?
Empower its delegates to vote for independence
Empower its delegates to vote for independence: all 83 delegates at Halifax backed the Resolves, and copies went to North Carolina's men at the Continental Congress, urging every colony's delegates to do the same.
Q 19Which document does the 20 May 1775 date on the North Carolina flag commemorate?
The Mecklenburg Declaration
The Mecklenburg Declaration, supposedly adopted in Charlotte on 20 May 1775, is widely doubted by historians, yet its date has appeared on the state flag since 1861.
Q 20Which university joins Duke and UNC Chapel Hill as a corner of the Research Triangle?
NC State
NC State completes the triangle; the research park set between the three campuses in 1959 was meant to keep their graduates in a state that then lived on textiles and furniture.
Q 24The student section at Duke's home basketball games is known as what?
The Cameron Crazies
The Cameron Crazies fill the student section of Cameron Indoor Stadium, opened in 1940, and are known for camping out in 'Krzyzewskiville' before the North Carolina game.
Q 25Krispy Kreme was founded in 1937 in which North Carolina city?
Winston-Salem
Winston-Salem: Vernon Rudolph set out in 1937 to supply grocers, but demand for hot doughnuts grew until he cut a hole in the wall and sold them straight to passers-by.
Q 26Pepsi was invented in 1893 by pharmacist Caleb Bradham in which North Carolina town?
New Bern
New Bern: Caleb Bradham first sold it as 'Brad's Drink', then lost the company after stockpiling sugar just before prices collapsed following the First World War.
Q 27Which is the oldest incorporated town in North Carolina?
Bath
Bath, incorporated in 1705, soon gained its most notorious resident: Blackbeard took a royal pardon from the governor who lived there and settled down, briefly, in 1718.
Q 28Cheerwine, the cherry-flavoured soft drink created in 1917, comes from which North Carolina city?
Salisbury
Salisbury: L.D. Peeler created Cheerwine there in 1917 during a wartime sugar shortage; the name nods to its wine-dark colour, though it contains no alcohol.
Q 29Which family built Asheville's Biltmore Estate, the largest privately owned house in the United States?
Vanderbilt
Vanderbilt: George Vanderbilt opened the house on Christmas Eve 1895, and his descendants, who still own it, first let paying visitors in during 1930.
Q 30Who designed the grounds of the Biltmore Estate?
Frederick Law Olmsted
Frederick Law Olmsted found the land too worn out for a park and urged his client to manage it as a forest instead, a choice that made Biltmore the cradle of American forestry.