50 free Charleston trivia questions with answers. Charleston, South Carolina has been a pirate target, the richest city in the colonies, the place the Civil War started and, more recently, a food and travel obsession. This quiz covers all of it: Charles Town in 1670, Blackbeard's blockade, the palmetto-log fort, the 1780 siege, Fort Sumter and the Hunley, the 1886 earthquake and Hurricane Hugo, plus Rainbow Row, single houses and piazzas, joggling boards, the Angel Oak, Gullah culture, she-crab soup, Spoleto, the Citadel and the College of Charleston. Because 'Charleston trivia' means different things to different people, there are also questions on the Charleston dance craze of the 1920s and on Charleston, West Virginia, the state capital on the Kanawha. Questions run from easy ones for first-time visitors to hard ones for people who can pronounce 'Chalston' properly. Every answer has been checked against the Wikipedia articles on the city and its landmarks, and each question shows its source. Good for a Lowcountry-themed quiz night, a classroom unit on South Carolina, or a rainy afternoon on the piazza.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Charleston, on the Ashley, Cooper and Wando rivers, is the largest city in which state?
South Carolina
It sits on a harbour formed by the Ashley, Cooper and Wando rivers; locals like to say the two big rivers meet there to form the Atlantic.
Q 02Charleston was founded in 1670 under what name, honouring the reigning English king?
Charles Town
The first site at Albemarle Point was abandoned in 1680 for the present peninsula, and by the 1690s it was the fifth-largest city in North America.
Q 03The first battle of the American Civil War was fought at which harbour stronghold?
Fort Sumter
Shore batteries under P. G. T. Beauregard opened fire on 12 April 1861; the garrison surrendered after 34 hours.
Q 04Which Union officer at Fort Sumter, later tied to baseball's origin myth, fired the first return shot in 1861?
Abner Doubleday
He missed; the fort's shells had no fuses, so only solid iron balls could be fired back at the Confederate batteries.
Q 05Which Confederate vessel became the first submarine to sink a warship, off Charleston in 1864?
H. L. Hunley
She sank the USS Housatonic and then went down with all eight crew; raised in 2000, she is displayed in North Charleston.
Q 06How many crewmen died in total across the three sinkings of the Confederate submarine Hunley?
21
She sank in a test run in August 1863, again in October with Horace Lawson Hunley aboard, and finally after her attack.
Q 07Rainbow Row on East Bay Street is a series of how many colourful historic houses?
13
The pastel colours came with restoration in the 1930s and 40s, after the block had decayed into a near-slum; it once fronted directly onto the Cooper River.
Q 08Charleston's 'Holy City' nickname is traditionally linked to what feature of its skyline?
Its many church spires
Historians think the term was actually coined in the 20th century, possibly as a jab at Charlestonians' self-satisfaction.
Q 09What creole language and culture developed among enslaved Africans' descendants on the Sea Islands?
Gullah
Rice planters paid premiums for captives from Africa's 'Rice Coast' who knew the crop; Gullah foodways gave the city Carolina Gold rice, okra and benne seeds.
Q 10Which Lowcountry speciality, finished with dry sherry, is named for a roe-carrying female crustacean?
She-crab soup
A splash of dry sherry is added as it is plated; the city's other signatures include shrimp and grits and red rice.
Q 11Which Pulitzer-winning composer founded Charleston's late-spring arts festival in 1977 as a US twin of an Italian one?
Gian Carlo Menotti
He wanted an American counterpart to his Festival of Two Worlds in Spoleto, Italy, and picked Charleston for its wealth of churches and theatres.
Q 12Charleston's senior military academy was established in what year?
1842
It grew out of an arsenal built after Denmark Vesey's thwarted 1822 uprising, and moved from Marion Square to the Ashley River in 1922.
Q 13Who was the first woman admitted to the Corps of Cadets at Charleston's military academy in 1995?
Shannon Faulkner
Q 21Denmark Vesey, who planned an 1822 uprising in Charleston, had bought his freedom with what?
Lottery winnings
He planned the revolt for Bastille Day and an escape to Haiti; the plot leaked and he was hanged on 2 July 1822.
Q 22Which pirate blockaded Charleston in May 1718, leaving only when given a chest of medicine?
Blackbeard
Governor Robert Johnson paid up in medicine, not gold; the weak, corrupt government made the port a pirate favourite for decades.
Q 23Roughly what share of Africans enslaved in North America landed at Sullivan's Island off Charleston?
40%
Gadsden's Wharf, built in 1767, later handled the trade directly on the Cooper River and could take six ships at a time.
She withdrew within days after death threats; Nancy Mace, later a congresswoman, became the first female graduate in 1999.
Q 14Which local school, founded 1770, is the oldest municipal institution of higher learning in the US?
College of Charleston
It is also the 13th-oldest institution of higher learning in the country and the oldest in South Carolina.
Q 15The Arthur Ravenel Jr. Bridge, opened in 2005 over the Cooper River, links Charleston with which town?
Mount Pleasant
At opening it was the longest cable-stayed bridge in the Americas, replacing two of the country's most dangerous bridges.
Q 16Which category 4 hurricane came ashore at Charleston Harbor in September 1989?
Hugo
Three-quarters of homes in the historic district were damaged; the storm caused over $2.8 billion in damage.
Q 17In a Charleston single house, where is the real front door?
Halfway along the long side, off the piazza
The street-facing 'door' usually just opens onto the porch; the story that the houses were built narrow to dodge a frontage tax is a myth.
Q 18What are the side porches on Charleston houses called locally?
Piazzas
They are always on the door side, facing south or west, to catch breezes and block the harshest sun.
Q 19The Angel Oak on Johns Island is estimated to be how old?
400 to 500 years
Its longest branch stretches 187 feet and its shade covers 17,200 square feet; it is named after landowners Justus and Martha Angel, not celestial beings.
Q 20Mother Emanuel, the Charleston congregation attacked in 2015, holds what distinction?
Oldest AME church in the South
Founded in 1817, it was razed after the Vesey plot, banned in 1834, and rebuilt; nine worshippers were murdered there in June 2015.
Q 24Which tree's soft logs absorbed British cannonballs at Fort Sullivan in 1776, giving the state its emblem?
Palmetto
The fort was renamed for its commander, William Moultrie, and the victory is still celebrated as Carolina Day.
Q 25Which Seminole leader died as a prisoner at Fort Moultrie in 1838 and is buried at its gate?
Osceola
The army held Native American prisoners at the fort for fifty years.
Q 26Charleston's surrender to the British on 12 May 1780 is described as what?
The greatest American defeat of the Revolutionary War
Sir Henry Clinton besieged the city with about 14,000 troops and 90 ships; the British then held it for over a year after Yorktown.
Q 27What magnitude was the great Charleston earthquake of 31 August 1886?
About 7.0
It was felt from Boston to Cuba, damaged 2,000 buildings and left the iron 'earthquake bolts' still visible on many houses.
Q 28A Charleston institution founded in 1773 in the Wraggborough neighbourhood claims what national first?
Oldest museum in the United States
It did not open to the public until 1824; the Old Charleston Museum building burned down.
Q 29The original Dock Street playhouse, opened in 1736, was what?
America's first purpose-built theatre
It opened with Farquhar's The Recruiting Officer and hosted Flora, the first opera performed in America; the current theatre was built inside the old Planter's Hotel in the 1930s.
Q 30Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim, founded in Charleston in 1749, is important in the history of which movement?
Reform Judaism
It is the fourth-oldest Jewish congregation in the continental US; as late as 1830 Charleston's Jewish community was North America's most prominent.