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

The Virginia Company of London landed on 14 May 1607; only 60 of 214 settlers survived the 'Starving Time' winter of 1609-10.

Q 02/05

Which crop, first cultivated successfully by John Rolfe after 1614, made the Virginia colony profitable?

A) Cotton

B) Tobacco

C) Rice

D) Indigo

Answer · why

B) Tobacco

1619 then brought America's first representative assembly, its first recorded labour strike and the first documented Africans in English North America...

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

It is regarded as the first elected legislative body in the Americas.

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

The 'Virgin Queen' gave her nickname to the colony; the state motto, Sic semper tyrannis, means 'thus always to tyrants'.

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.