Q 01/05

Charleston, on the Ashley, Cooper and Wando rivers, is the largest city in which state?

A) North Carolina

B) Georgia

C) Virginia

D) South Carolina

Answer · why

D) South Carolina

South Carolina: Charleston passed Columbia to become the state's largest city in the 2010s. Locals joke that the Ashley and Cooper rivers meet at its ...

Q 02/05

Charleston was founded in 1670 under what name, honouring the reigning English king?

A) Carolina Town

B) Kingston

C) Charles Town

D) Port Charles

Answer · why

C) Charles Town

Charles Town, named for Charles II, was founded in 1670 at Albemarle Point and moved to the present peninsula in 1680. By 1690 it ranked among the fiv...

Q 03/05

The first battle of the American Civil War was fought at which harbour stronghold?

A) Fort Moultrie

B) Fort Sumter

C) Fort Johnson

D) Castle Pinckney

Answer · why

B) Fort Sumter

Fort Sumter: Confederate shore batteries under P. G. T. Beauregard opened fire on 12 April 1861, and Major Robert Anderson's garrison surrendered afte...

Q 04/05

Which Union officer at Fort Sumter, later tied to baseball's origin myth, fired the first return shot in 1861?

A) Ulysses Grant

B) Abner Doubleday

C) George Meade

D) Winfield Scott

Answer · why

B) 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 05/05

Which Confederate vessel became the first submarine to sink a warship, off Charleston in 1864?

A) H. L. Hunley

B) CSS Virginia

C) CSS David

D) CSS Alabama

Answer · why

A) H. L. Hunley

The H. L. Hunley sank the USS Housatonic on 17 February 1864, then went down with all eight crew. Raised in 2000, she is kept at a conservation center...