Alabama Trivia
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7correct to beat the crowd
This Alabama trivia quiz has 100 free questions with answers and covers the Yellowhammer State from Mobile's 1703 Mardi Gras to Huntsville's rockets: the state symbols and nicknames, the capitals it has had, why a town built a monument to a beetle, and the people who came from here, from Helen Keller, Rosa Parks and Hank Aaron to Harper Lee, Nat King Cole and W. C. Handy. It takes in the civil rights landmarks of Montgomery, Selma and Birmingham, Muscle Shoals and 'Sweet Home Alabama', the Iron Bowl, Talladega and Bear Bryant. Easy questions open it (what is the capital?) and the later ones will test people who grew up here (which town was the capital before Montgomery?), so it works for a classroom, a family reunion, a road trip or a bar quiz anywhere in the state. Every answer has been checked against a reference encyclopaedia entry on the place, person or event, and each question shows its source once you have answered.
30 of 100 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Alabama's nickname, the Yellowhammer State, comes from what?
A Civil War regiment's uniform
A Civil War regiment's uniform: Huntsville cavalrymen wearing yellow-trimmed uniforms were jeered as yellowhammers, and the nickname spread to all Alabama troops and then to the state.
Q 02Which of these is NOT one of Alabama's nicknames?
Magnolia State
Magnolia State belongs to neighbouring Mississippi.
Q 03Alabama joined the Union as which number state?
22nd
Alabama became the 22nd state on December 14, 1819, after Huntsville hosted the constitutional convention that drafted its first constitution that summer.
Q 04Which Alabama city, the state's oldest, was founded in 1702 as capital of French Louisiana?
Mobile
It also claims the oldest organised Mardi Gras in the United States, dating from 1703.
Q 05Which flower replaced goldenrod as Alabama's official state flower in 1959?
Camellia
The Camellia was named Alabama's state flower in 1959, replacing goldenrod, which had held the title since 1927.
Q 06Which city served as Alabama's capital from 1826 to 1846?
Tuscaloosa
Tuscaloosa was the state capital from 1826 until 1846, when the seat moved to Montgomery; it is now home to the University of Alabama.
Q 07Montgomery was the first capital of what?
The Confederate States of America
The Confederate States of America was organised in Montgomery in February 1861 and kept its capital there until the government moved to Richmond, Virginia, that May.
Q 08Which state does NOT border Alabama?
Arkansas
Arkansas lies west of the Mississippi River and never touches Alabama, whose neighbours are Tennessee, Georgia, Mississippi and Florida.
Q 09What is the highest natural point in Alabama?
Mount Cheaha
Mount Cheaha rises to 2,413 feet (735 metres) at the southern end of the Appalachians, the highest natural point in Alabama.
Q 10The name Alabama comes from a Muskogean-speaking tribe who lived near the meeting of which two rivers?
Coosa and Tallapoosa
Coosa and Tallapoosa: the Alabama (Alibamu) people lived near where those rivers join to form the Alabama River, and their name passed to the river and the state.
Q 11Which explorer's 1540 expedition produced the first written versions of the name Alabama?
Hernando de Soto
Hernando de Soto's chroniclers recorded the name in 1540 in three spellings, including Alibamu and Limamu, the earliest written forms of Alabama.
Q 12Alabama's 1901 constitution, replaced in 2022, was notable for what?
Being by some accounts the world's longest
Being by some accounts the world's longest: with more than 900 amendments and over 300,000 words by 2022, it ran many times the length of the US Constitution.
Q 13Rosa Parks was arrested in Montgomery on December 1, 1955, sparking a bus boycott that lasted how long?
Q 21Which NASA centre, established in Huntsville in 1960, designed the Saturn V Moon rocket?
Marshall Space Flight Center
Marshall Space Flight Center opened in July 1960 with Wernher von Braun as its first director, and its engineers developed the Saturn V that carried Apollo crews to the Moon.
Q 22Which Birmingham landmark preserves blast furnaces that made pig iron from 1882 to 1971?
Sloss Furnaces
Sloss Furnaces produced pig iron in Birmingham from 1882 until 1971 and was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1981.
Q 23Which Alabama city is nicknamed 'The Peanut Capital of the World'?
Dothan
381 days
The boycott lasted 381 days, from December 5, 1955, to December 20, 1956, when the Browder v. Gayle ruling desegregating the buses took effect.
Q 14Which 15-year-old was arrested for keeping her Montgomery bus seat, before Rosa Parks?
Claudette Colvin
Claudette Colvin, a 15-year-old student, was arrested on March 2, 1955, nine months before Parks, for refusing to give up her seat on a Montgomery bus.
Q 15The 'Bloody Sunday' attack on the first Selma to Montgomery march happened on which structure?
Edmund Pettus Bridge
On the Edmund Pettus Bridge, state troopers and a mounted posse charged about 600 unarmed marchers on March 7, 1965; the Voting Rights Act followed that August.
Q 16Which Alabama governor famously resisted federal desegregation demands in the 1960s?
George Wallace
George Wallace, governor from 1963, made his 'Stand in the Schoolhouse Door' at the University of Alabama in June 1963 to block two Black students from enrolling.
Q 17Which artist, also known for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, designed Montgomery's Civil Rights Memorial?
Maya Lin
Maya Lin designed the Civil Rights Memorial, dedicated in 1989 outside the Southern Poverty Law Center: a circular black granite table over which water flows.
Q 18Helen Keller, born in Tuscumbia, lost her sight and hearing from illness at what age?
19 months
19 months: an illness in early 1882 left Helen Keller deaf and blind; she met teacher Anne Sullivan in March 1887 at her Tuscumbia home, Ivy Green.
Q 19Booker T. Washington became the first leader of which Alabama institution in 1881?
Tuskegee Institute
Tuskegee Institute opened on July 4, 1881, with Booker T. Washington as its first principal; George Washington Carver later ran its agriculture department.
Q 20The Tuskegee Airmen of World War II formed which fighter group?
332nd
The 332nd Fighter Group, whose red-tailed fighters escorted bombers over Europe from Italian bases, was made up of Tuskegee-trained squadrons, including the 99th.
Dothan, in the state's southeastern Wiregrass region, calls itself the Peanut Capital of the World and hosts the National Peanut Festival each autumn.
Q 24The town of Enterprise, Alabama, erected a 1919 monument in tribute to what?
An insect
An insect: the Boll Weevil Monument honours the pest that wrecked the cotton crop and pushed local farmers into peanuts, which proved more profitable.
Q 25Birmingham's giant Vulcan, its city symbol, holds which world record?
Largest cast iron statue
Largest cast iron statue in the world, the 56-foot Vulcan was sculpted by Giuseppe Moretti as Birmingham's entry for the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair.
Q 26Which two nicknames did Birmingham earn from its industrial boom between 1881 and 1920?
The Magic City and the Pittsburgh of the South
The Magic City and the Pittsburgh of the South: Birmingham, founded in 1871, grew so fast on nearby iron ore, coal and limestone that it seemed to appear by magic.
Q 27Which carmaker opened Alabama's first auto plant near Vance in 1997?
Mercedes
Mercedes opened its Vance plant in 1997, building the ML320 SUV; Honda followed in Lincoln in 2001 and Hyundai in Montgomery in 2005.
Q 28Talladega Superspeedway, opened in 1969, holds what distinction on the NASCAR calendar?
Longest oval
Longest oval: at 2.66 miles Talladega is the longest oval on the NASCAR circuit; it opened in 1969 as Alabama International Motor Speedway and was renamed in 1989.
Q 29Bear Bryant won how many national championships in 25 years coaching Alabama?
Six
Six national titles (1961, 1964, 1965, 1973, 1978 and 1979) came in Bryant's 25 seasons; he retired in 1982 with a then-record 323 wins.
Q 30The Alabama-Auburn football rivalry is better known by what name?
The Iron Bowl
The Iron Bowl takes its name from Birmingham's iron industry; the game was played at the city's Legion Field every year from 1948 to 1988.