This Albany trivia quiz has 50 free questions with answers and covers the capital of New York from its Mohican and Dutch beginnings to today's Capital District. Expect the founding story (Henry Hudson, Fort Nassau and Fort Orange, Beverwijck, the Duke of Albany), the colonial and revolutionary years (the Albany Congress, Philip Schuyler, Philip Livingston), and the boom era of steamboats, the Erie Canal and the first railroads. It then moves through the State Capitol and its missing dome, Nelson Rockefeller's Empire State Plaza and the Corning Tower, the O'Connell machine and Erastus Corning's 41-year mayoralty, plus the things locals love: the Tulip Festival in Washington Park, Nipper on the roof, the Pine Bush and its butterfly, William Kennedy's Ironweed, the Great Danes and Albany's list of American firsts. About a third of the questions are easy for anyone who has lived in the 518; the rest reward real Albany history buffs. Every answer has been checked against Wikipedia's articles on Albany and its landmarks, and each question links to the page that confirms it.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Albany sits on the Hudson about ten miles south of its confluence with which other river?
The Mohawk
That junction is near the northern limit of navigation, which made Albany a natural trading post.
Q 02Which Algonquian-speaking people originally inhabited the Albany area, calling it their nation's 'fireplace'?
The Mohicans
The Iroquoian Mohawk to the west called the site skahnéhtati, 'through the pine woods', a name that survives in Schenectady.
Q 03Which explorer reached the Albany area in 1609 aboard the Half Moon and claimed it for the Netherlands?
Henry Hudson
He was an Englishman sailing for the Dutch East India Company, and the river now carries his name.
Q 04The Dutch fort built in 1624 to replace flood-wrecked Fort Nassau was named for which royal house?
Orange
Both forts honoured the House of Orange-Nassau, leaders of the Dutch Revolt; the settlement around Fort Orange became the village of Beverwijck in 1652.
Q 05Before the English renamed it in 1664, the Dutch village at Albany was called what?
Beverwijck
The name means Beaver District, a nod to the fur trade that founded the town.
Q 06Albany was named in honour of the Duke of Albany, a Scottish title held by which future king?
James II
He was then Duke of York and Albany; the name ultimately comes from Alba, the Gaelic word for Scotland.
Q 07When the Dutch briefly retook Albany in 1673, what did they rename it?
Willemstadt
The English regained it for good the next year under the Treaty of Westminster.
Q 08Which provincial governor granted Albany its city charter on July 22, 1686?
Thomas Dongan
The charter created a strip one mile wide and sixteen miles long, and Albany claims to be the longest continuously chartered city in the US.
Q 09Who presented the Albany Plan of Union, the first formal proposal to unite the colonies, in 1754?
Benjamin Franklin
Delegates from seven colonies met in the Stadt Huys, Albany's city hall; Parliament never adopted the plan, but it foreshadowed the Constitution.
Q 10Which Albany native signed the Declaration of Independence in 1776?
Philip Livingston
During the war the Stadt Huys held Tories and prisoners of war alongside common criminals.
Q 11Which Albany-born general and senator was Alexander Hamilton's father-in-law?
Philip Schuyler
He fought in the French and Indian War before commanding in the Revolution; his mansion still stands in the city.
Q 12Albany became New York's permanent state capital in which year?
1797
Before that the legislature had shuffled between Albany, Kingston, Poughkeepsie and New York City.
Q 13Albany is the second-oldest US city to serve as a state capital. Which is the oldest?
Santa Fe
Albany is also the tenth-oldest state capital when measured by how long it has held the job.
Q 21Erastus Corning 2nd was mayor of Albany from 1942 until his death in which year?
1983
One historian summed up his 41 years as 'long on years, short on accomplishments'.
Q 22Who became the first woman elected mayor of Albany, in November 2013?
Kathy Sheehan
The city had been run by a Democratic machine, founded in 1922, that lasted into the 1980s.
Q 23Which Albany native won the 1984 Pulitzer for Ironweed, part of his cycle of novels set there?
William Kennedy
The 1987 film version, starring Jack Nicholson and Meryl Streep, premiered at Albany's Palace Theatre.
Q 14In 1807 Robert Fulton launched the first successful commercial steamboat service between Albany and where?
New York City
The run up the Hudson made Albany a transport hub decades before the railroads arrived.
Q 15The original Erie Canal ended at Albany; where does today's Barge Canal end instead?
Waterford
The old canal emptied into a 32-acre man-made lagoon, the Albany Basin, which served as the city's port.
Q 16Albany's 1830s rail line became part of which company that Erastus Corning consolidated in 1853?
New York Central
It was headquartered in Albany until Cornelius Vanderbilt moved it to New York City in 1867.
Q 17The New York State Capitol opened in 1899 after how many years of construction?
32
At $25 million it was the most expensive government building of its day, and its planned dome was never built.
Q 18Why were the State Capitol's planned dome and tower never completed?
The building's weight was causing stress fractures
Engineers found the structure was shifting downhill toward State Street under its own mass.
Q 19Which governor drove the construction of the Empire State Plaza between 1965 and 1978?
Nelson Rockefeller
Mayor Corning opposed the project but ended up negotiating the payment plan that made it possible.
Q 20The Corning Tower on the Empire State Plaza holds what distinction?
Tallest building in New York outside NYC
It has 44 storeys and an observation deck on the 42nd floor.
Q 24Which two famous authors lived in Albany with their families as children, before their careers?
Herman Melville and Henry James
Kurt Vonnegut also spent time in nearby Schenectady, but that is another city.
Q 25Albany's Tulip Festival, held each May, celebrates the legacy of which colonial settlers?
The Dutch
It grew out of Pinkster, an African-Dutch celebration, and drew about 80,000 people in 2010.
Q 26The Tulip Festival is held in which Albany green space?
Washington Park
The park is often wrongly credited to Frederick Law Olmsted because it follows so many of his ideas.
Q 27A four-ton statue of which advertising dog stands on a former RCA building roof in Albany?
Nipper
The RCA Victor terrier still gazes over the north end of downtown from what is now a moving-company warehouse.
Q 28The Albany Pine Bush is the only sizeable inland example in the US of what kind of ecosystem?
Sand-dune barrens
It shelters the endangered Karner Blue butterfly and was protected by the state legislature in 1988.
Q 29Which endangered butterfly is the emblem of the Albany Pine Bush?
Karner Blue
It depends on wild blue lupine, which thrives in the preserve's fire-maintained sand barrens.
Q 30The University at Albany began in 1844 as what kind of institution?
A teacher-training normal school
Its teams are the Great Danes, and it competes at NCAA Division I level in every sport.