Q 01/05

Jamestown, founded in 1607, holds what distinction?

A) First permanent English settlement in the Americas

B) First Spanish mission in North America

C) First state capital in the US

D) First city to elect a mayor

Answer · why

A) First permanent English settlement in the Americas

First permanent English settlement in the Americas: the Virginia Company of London landed on 14 May 1607, and barely 60 colonists survived the 'Starvi...

Q 02/05

Which crop, pioneered by John Rolfe from 1612, made the Virginia colony profitable?

A) Cotton

B) Tobacco

C) Rice

D) Indigo

Answer · why

B) Tobacco

Tobacco: John Rolfe's sweeter Caribbean strain, first shipped to England in 1614, became the colony's cash crop and served as currency for much of the...

Q 03/05

Virginia's colonial assembly, first elected in 1619, was known as what?

A) The Colonial Senate

B) The General Court

C) The House of Burgesses

D) The Assembly of Freemen

Answer · why

C) The House of Burgesses

The House of Burgesses first met in Jamestown's church on 30 July 1619, the first elected legislative assembly in the Americas; it sat until 1776.

Q 04/05

Virginia is named after which English monarch?

A) Queen Victoria

B) Queen Mary I

C) Queen Anne

D) Elizabeth I

Answer · why

D) Elizabeth I

Elizabeth I, the 'Virgin Queen': Walter Raleigh's 1584 expedition named the land Virginia in her honour, more than twenty years before Jamestown was f...

Q 05/05

How many US presidents were born in Virginia, more than any other state?

A) Eight

B) Five

C) Six

D) Ten

Answer · why

A) Eight

Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, William Henry Harrison, Tyler, Taylor and Wilson; Ohio is next with seven.