Maryland Trivia & Tidbits - Page 13

Looking for Maryland trivia? Try our list Maryland little know facts, tidbits and trivia.

Commodore Joshua Barney (1759-1818) is one of the state’s naval heroes. As captain of the 16-gun Hyder Ally, he captured a 20-gun British ship in a battle off Cape May during the Revolutionary war; and in the War of 1812, he was wounded while leading a contingent of Marines trying to prevent the burning of Washington, D.C.

first appeared: 7/21/2002

The first elevated electric railway in the country was built in 1893 in Baltimore.

first appeared: 7/14/2002

Once the site of the home of Civil War journalist George Alfred Townsend, Gathland State Park near Boonsboro today showcases a large stone monument dedicated to war correspondents.

first appeared: 7/7/2002

The first Colonial hospital for treating smallpox—a disease with a high mortality rate before it was eradicated in the 20th century—was opened in Baltimore in 1769 by Dr. Henry Stevenson.

first appeared: 6/30/2002

Point Lookout at the tip of the peninsula where the Potomac River joins Chesapeake Bay was used by Union soldiers to observe Confederate troop movements during the Civil War.

first appeared: 6/23/2002

The sleek, fast ships known as Baltimore Clippers, which reached their zenith from 1795 to 1815, were designed by Maryland shipbuilders to elude British warships in the time leading up to and during the War of 1812.

first appeared: 6/16/2002

Backbone Mountain (3,360 feet), Maryland’s highest point, is on the Eastern continental divide. Close to West Virginia’s border, the crest is approached by many hikers from that state.

first appeared: 6/9/2002

The first class at the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis in 1845 numbered 50 midshipmen. Today’s enrollment has grown to 4,000.

first appeared: 6/2/2002

Divided in loyalties during the Civil War, about 22,000 Maryland soldiers fought in the Confederate army while 62,000 joined the Union.

first appeared: 5/26/2002

In its reach to the west, Maryland squeezes between its neighbors, Pennsylvania and West Virginia, to a corridor barely four miles wide.

first appeared: 5/19/2002

The coldest temperature ever recorded in Maryland was minus 40 degrees on Jan. 13, 1912.

first appeared: 5/12/2002

Betsy Patterson, a Baltimore native, married Napoleon Bonaparte’s brother, Jerome, in 1803.

first appeared: 5/5/2002

According to legend, Barbara Fritchie, 95, waved a Union flag as Gen. Stonewall Jackson’s troops marched through Frederick in 1862. The reputed event inspired John Greenleaf Whittier’s poem, Barbara Fritchie.

first appeared: 4/28/2002

Baltimore, which takes pride in its uniqueness, has museums devoted to incandescent light bulbs (more than 60,000 bulbs in the collection), tattoos, carnival side-shows (The American Dime Museum), and the breaking of secret codes (National Cryptologic Museum).

first appeared: 4/21/2002

Maryland has been invaded three times, once as a colony by the British, again during the War of 1812, and by the Army of Northern Virginia in the Civil War.

first appeared: 4/14/2002

The town of Delmar (pop. 1,859) is divided in two not just by the Maryland-Delaware boundary, but by the Mason-Dixon Line as well.

first appeared: 4/7/2002

Baltimore Oriole Carl Ripken Jr. ended his streak of consecutive innings played at 8,243, so far the longest in major league history.

first appeared: 3/31/2002

The first umbrellas were manufactured in Baltimore beginning in 1828—giving rise to the slogan, “Born in Baltimore—raised everywhere.”

first appeared: 3/24/2002

A cheerful state, Maryland has towns with names such as Friendly, Loveville, Welcome, Fairplay, Friendsville, Sunshine, and West Friendship.

first appeared: 3/17/2002

The first African-American woman to publish a novel in America was Frances Ellen Watkins Harper of Baltimore, whose Iola Leroy or Shadows Uplifted was about disenfranchised former slaves.

first appeared: 3/10/2002

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