New England Trivia
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8correct to beat the crowd
This New England trivia quiz has 70 free questions with answers and covers all six states and the things that make the region a place rather than a map label. There are questions on how it got its name, the Pilgrims and Puritans, Salem, the Tea Party, Lexington and Concord, Rhode Island's stubborn independence and Vermont's fourteen years as a republic, plus the states' capitals, mottos, nicknames and odd distinctions (the state that borders only one other; the shortest coastline; the smallest capital). Then the fun stuff: chowder styles, lobster rolls, Boston cream pie, coffee milk, Moxie, whoopie pies, Necco and Ben & Jerry's; the Celtics, Bruins, Patriots and the Boston Marathon; Frost, Thoreau, Dickinson, Melville and Stephen King; Mount Washington's wind, the Old Man of the Mountain, Acadia, Cape Cod, Nantucket and Newport's cottages. Good for a pub round, a road trip or settling arguments with someone from Connecticut. Every answer has been checked against an encyclopaedic or primary source and each question shows its citation once you have answered.
30 of 70 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01How many states make up New England?
Six
Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Vermont; New York is not one of them, whatever New Yorkers say.
Q 02Which English explorer coined the name 'New England' in 1616?
John Smith
Captain John Smith used the name in his 1616 book A Description of New England; the 1620 royal charter for the Council for New England made it official.
Q 03Greater Boston's combined statistical area holds roughly what share of New England's population?
More than half
More than half: the Boston combined statistical area, which reaches into southern New Hampshire and Rhode Island, held roughly 8.5 million of New England's 15 million residents at the 2020 census.
Q 04The Connecticut River, New England's longest, empties into which body of water?
Long Island Sound
Long Island Sound: the 406-mile river rises near the Quebec border in northern New Hampshire and meets the sound between Old Saybrook and Old Lyme, Connecticut.
Q 05Which is the largest body of fresh water in New England?
Champlain
Champlain: about 490 square miles of water straddling the New York line, it dwarfs Moosehead and Winnipesaukee, the next two largest.
Q 06Mount Washington in New Hampshire recorded a world-record wind speed in April of which year?
1934
1934: on the 12th of that month the summit observatory clocked a 231 mph gust, the fastest surface wind ever measured until a 1996 cyclone gust on Australia's Barrow Island.
Q 07Sylvester Marsh's Mount Washington line, opened in 1869, was the first mountain-climbing railway of which type?
Rack railway
Rack railway: Marsh's line reached the summit in 1869 on his own Marsh rack system, making it the world's first mountain-climbing cog railway.
Q 08The Old Man of the Mountain, New Hampshire's granite-profile emblem, collapsed in which year?
2003
2003: the profile fell from Cannon Mountain on May 3 that year; it had been the state emblem since 1945 and appears on New Hampshire's 2000 state quarter.
Q 09The Vermont Republic, founded in 1777, joined the Union in 1791 as which number state?
14th
14th: Vermont was admitted on March 4, 1791, the first state after the original thirteen, and its republic-era constitution and laws carried over into statehood.
Q 10Vermont's Montpelier holds what distinction among US state capitals?
Least populous
Least populous: Montpelier has roughly 8,000 residents, fewer than any other state capital, and its state's biggest city, Burlington, is likewise the smallest 'largest city' of any state.
Q 11Vermont produces roughly what share of the United States' maple syrup?
50%
50%: Vermont makes about half the US crop, far ahead of second-place New York, though Quebec alone makes about 72% of the world's supply.
Q 12Which state is the only one to border exactly one other US state?
Maine
Maine: its only neighbour is New Hampshire; the rest of its border is Canada (Quebec and New Brunswick) and the Atlantic.
Q 13Maine left Massachusetts in 1820 under the Missouri Compromise to become which number state?
23rd
23rd: the new state entered on March 15, 1820, balancing the admission of slave-holding Missouri as the 24th state the following year.
Q 21In 2020, Rhode Island voters dropped which words from the state's official name?
and Providence Plantations
The full name had been the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations since colonial times.
Q 22What has been Rhode Island's official state drink since 1993?
Coffee milk
Coffee milk: milk mixed with sweet coffee syrup, a drink that spread through the state's Italian immigrant neighbourhoods in the early 1900s and became the official state drink in 1993.
Q 23Connecticut's nickname, the Constitution State, refers to which 1639 document?
The Fundamental Orders
Q 14Maine's capital was moved from Portland to which more central city in 1832?
Augusta
Augusta: chosen in 1827 for its central spot on the Kennebec River, it became the working capital when the Bulfinch-designed State House opened in 1832; Portland is the state's largest city.
Q 15New Hampshire's state motto is what?
Live Free or Die
Live Free or Die: the words come from an 1809 toast by Revolutionary general John Stark and were adopted as the state motto in 1945.
Q 16New Hampshire has the shortest what of any coastal US state?
Ocean coastline
Ocean coastline: New Hampshire has only about eighteen miles of it (thirteen by some reckonings), centred on Portsmouth and Hampton Beach, the shortest of any coastal state.
Q 17Since 1952, New Hampshire has held the earliest what of every US presidential election year?
Primary
Primary: New Hampshire law requires its presidential primary to fall at least a week before any similar contest, giving the state outsized influence in national politics.
Q 18New Hampshire was which number state to ratify the US Constitution, in June 1788?
Ninth
Ninth: Article VII required nine ratifications, so New Hampshire's vote on June 21, 1788 put the Constitution into effect.
Q 19What did Roger Williams found in 1638, the earliest of its kind in the colonies?
A Baptist church
A Baptist church: the congregation Williams gathered in 1638, known as the First Baptist Church in America, followed his banishment by the Massachusetts Puritans; his colony became a refuge for 'liberty of conscience'.
Q 20Rhode Island was the first colony to renounce allegiance to the British Crown, on which date?
May 4, 1776
May 4, 1776: Rhode Island's General Assembly renounced George III two months before the Declaration of Independence; the state was also the last of the original thirteen to ratify the Constitution, in May 1790.
The Fundamental Orders: adopted in January 1639 by the three river towns of the Connecticut Colony, they are often called the first written constitution in Western history, hence the nickname.
Q 24Which Connecticut city is the historic centre of the American insurance industry?
Hartford
Aetna, The Hartford and Travelers all grew up there; it is also the state capital.
Q 25Which Connecticut town is home to Electric Boat, builder of the US Navy's submarines?
Groton
The Navy also chose Groton for its East Coast submarine base in 1916.
Q 26Which two Olympic sports were invented in the western Massachusetts cities of Springfield and Holyoke?
Basketball and volleyball
Basketball and volleyball: James Naismith devised basketball in Springfield in 1891 and William Morgan volleyball in Holyoke in 1895; each sport's Hall of Fame sits in its birthplace.
Q 27Harvard, the first college in what became the United States, was founded in which year?
1636
1636: the Massachusetts General Court voted that year to found the college at Cambridge, chiefly to train ministers; it took John Harvard's name after his 1638 bequest.
Q 28How many of the eight Ivy League universities are in New England?
Four
Four: Harvard, Yale, Brown and Dartmouth; the other four (Columbia, Cornell, Penn and Princeton) lie in New York, Pennsylvania and New Jersey.
Q 29How many people were hanged in the Salem witch trials of 1692-93?
Nineteen
Nineteen: fourteen women and five men were hanged at Proctor's Ledge between June and September 1692, and Giles Corey was pressed to death for refusing to enter a plea.
Q 30Roughly how many chests of tea did the Sons of Liberty throw into Boston Harbor on 16 December 1773?
342
342: the chests, holding about 92,000 pounds of East India Company tea, came off three ships, the Dartmouth, Eleanor and Beaver, boarded by men loosely disguised as Mohawks.