58 Fun Facts About Baltimore

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

Calvert was the 2nd Baron Baltimore, a title seated in Ireland; the city carries the family's barony rather than the man's 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?

Frenchman Jean Foncin designed the bastioned pentagon in 1798, ringed by a dry moat.

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

John Stafford Smith's 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?

President Herbert Hoover signed the joint resolution 117 years after the battle.

The Baltimore and Ohio holds what distinction among American railways?

It ran the Tom Thumb, the first American steam locomotive, and later became one of the four railroads on the Monopoly board.

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

He was the last living signer of the Declaration of Independence.

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

Out-of-town fire engines could not help because their hose couplings did not fit Baltimore's hydrants, which spurred national standardisation.

What was the lasting national legacy of the 1904 fire?

Engines from Philadelphia, Washington and New York arrived by rail and stood useless at the hydrants.

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

The city's NFL team took its name from his most famous poem.

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

Art Modell moved the franchise; Cleveland kept the Browns name and history.

How many Super Bowls have the Ravens won?

XXXV over the Giants and XLVII over the 49ers; they and Tampa Bay are the only teams undefeated across multiple Super Bowl appearances.

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

It was the first title in franchise history and tied for the seventh-largest Super Bowl margin.

On what date did the Colts leave Baltimore for Indianapolis?

The moving vans rolled out in the middle of the night under threat of an eminent-domain seizure by the city.

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

It was the first NFL game decided in sudden-death overtime, with Johnny Unitas at quarterback.

The Colts franchise was named for what aspect of Baltimore's history?

The Maryland Jockey Club, formed in Baltimore in 1743, was the first professional sports organisation in the U.S.

The Orioles are named after what?

The franchise arrived from St. Louis, where it had been the Browns, in 1954.

How many World Series have the Orioles won since moving to Baltimore?

1966, 1970 and 1983, from six appearances in that span; they were the last AL charter member to win one.

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

His entire career, 1981 to 2001, with 3,184 hits and two MVP awards.

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

It replaced Memorial Stadium and set the template for two decades of stadium design.

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

The Quaker merchant's $7 million bequest was the largest philanthropic gift in U.S. history at the time.

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

Celery salt, red and black pepper and paprika lead the list; McCormick, also of Baltimore, now owns it.

Berger Cookies are best known for what?

The frosting goes on the flat bottom, like an inverted black-and-white cookie; DeBaufre Bakeries makes them by hand.

How is Baltimore pit beef cooked?

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?

Its PG was the gentlest rating a Waters film had ever received; most of his earlier work was rated X.

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

His book Homicide became an NBC series; his writing partner Ed Burns was the ex-detective and teacher.

How many episodes of The Wire were made?

Five seasons on HBO from June 2002 to March 2008.

Babe Ruth was born in 1895 in which Baltimore neighborhood?

The house at 216 Emory Street belonged to his grandfather and is now a museum; Ruth first signed with the minor-league Orioles in 1914.

Baltimore's airport is named after which native son?

The first African American Supreme Court justice won 29 of the 32 civil rights cases he argued before the court.

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

He escaped north in 1838 and took the name Douglass there.

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

He was born in Baltimore itself and won 28 Olympic medals, 23 of them gold.

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

Holiday was born in Philadelphia but grew up in Baltimore with her mother's half-sister; a statue of her stands on Pennsylvania Avenue.

The Preakness Stakes is which leg of the Triple Crown?

It runs at Pimlico three weeks and a day after the Kentucky Derby, two weeks before the Belmont.

Pimlico Race Course takes its name from what?

Settlers in the 1660s named the area after Olde Ben Pimlico's Tavern; the track is nicknamed 'Old Hilltop'.

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

Six maintenance workers were killed and the Port of Baltimore was blocked for weeks.

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

Baltimore's Washington Monument was begun in 1815, decades before Mills's obelisk on the National Mall.

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

The patent office only relented when the board correctly spelled out the chief patent officer's name.

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

Isaac Emerson invented the headache remedy; his tower was the city's tallest building from 1911 to 1923.

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

John Waters called it 'the polyester of brick'.

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

It is the most populous independent city in the country, and had been the county seat since 1768.

Which nickname did 19th-century riots earn Baltimore?

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?

It is Maryland's largest tourist attraction, with 1.5 million visitors a year, and helped revive a harbor of abandoned warehouses.

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

The sloop-of-war was built at Gosport between 1853 and 1855 and is the last Civil War-era vessel afloat.

Lexington Market was established in what year?

It is among the oldest continuously operating public markets in the world, and now sits in a market shed completed in 2022.

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

A former Maryland special-teams captain, he started out selling shirts from his grandmother's basement.

The Peabody Institute in Mount Vernon holds what distinction?

George Peabody founded it in 1857; it joined Johns Hopkins in 1977.

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

The balls are smaller than ten-pin but a touch bigger and heavier than candlepin.

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

The Cone sisters' collection anchors it; the museum was founded in 1914.

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

The 'Sage of Baltimore' was also a scholar of American English.

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

That flow of labour turned the city into a major manufacturing centre.

What is a Baltimore 'chicken box'?

It sits alongside blue crabs, crab cakes, Old Bay and pit beef in the city's food canon.

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

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?

The Port of Baltimore 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 Iroquoian-speaking people used the Baltimore area as hunting grounds in the early 1600s?

They 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?

Latrobe, who also worked on the US Capitol, built it between 1806 and 1821.

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

It now serves as the Municipal Museum of Baltimore.

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

Fort McHenry sits at the tip of the same peninsula, guarding the harbour entrance.

Who patented Formstone, the fake-stone facing found on Baltimore rowhouses, in 1937?

Developers began building whole rowhouse neighbourhoods in the mid-1790s, and the form dominated the city by the early 1800s.