Maryland Trivia & Tidbits - Page 7

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

Tilghman Island (pop. 854) is home base to the only commercial sailing fleet in North America, the Chesapeake Bay skipjacks. Once numbering nearly 1,000 vessels, only nine remain today.

first appeared: 12/19/2004

Oxford (pop. 771), established in the mid-1600s, is home to what is believed to be the nation’s oldest privately operated ferry, established in 1683 and still operating today.

first appeared: 12/5/2004

Pimlico Racetrack in Baltimore, the site of the Preakness Stakes, has an estimated capacity of 98,983 viewers, including 60,000 in the infield.

first appeared: 11/21/2004

Gaithersburg (pop. 52,613) adopted the peony as its official flower in honor of Edward P. Schwartz, who in 1913 established an extensive garden of the perennials at his home, which now serves as City Hall.

first appeared: 11/7/2004

Gathland State Park, west of Frederick (pop. 52,767), was the site of the Sept. 14, 1862, Battle of South Mountain, which halted Gen. Robert E. Lee’s invasion of the North.

first appeared: 10/24/2004

Howard Kelley, who built Liriodendron Mansion in Bel Air (pop. 10,080), joined the staff of Johns Hopkins Medical Center in 1889. He is said to have held a prayer meeting before every operation he performed.

first appeared: 10/10/2004

Muppets creator Jim Henson and television journalist Connie Chung both graduated from the University of Maryland at College Park (pop. 24,657).

first appeared: 10/3/2004

The glee club at Baltimore’s Johns Hopkins University performed its debut concert in 1884, with future President Woodrow Wilson singing his first tenor.

first appeared: 9/19/2004

In 1891, Pyon Su became the first Korean to graduate from an American college—the Maryland Agricultural College, now the University of Maryland College Park.

first appeared: 9/12/2004

Gaithersburg (pop. 52,613) Latitude Observatory opened in 1899 as part of an international effort to measure the Earth’s wobble on its polar axis. It operated until 1982, when computerization made manual measurements obsolete.

first appeared: 9/5/2004

Bowie State University, founded in 1865 in Bowie, is the state’s oldest historically black college. It was established by the Baltimore Association for the Moral and Educational Improvement of Colored People.

first appeared: 8/29/2004

Baltimore’s Johns Hopkins Medical School opened in 1893 with money raised by a women’s committee. Funds were raised on the condition that the new medical school admit both female and male students.

first appeared: 8/22/2004

The state’s motto—Fatti maschii parole femine—loosely translates to “manly deeds, womanly words.”

first appeared: 8/15/2004

The city of Gaithersburg took its name from Benjamin Gaither, who built his home in 1802 on land where the area’s legendary Forest Oak stood. The tree was toppled in a 1997 storm, just short of its 300th birthday.

first appeared: 8/8/2004

Mount Nebo Wildlife Management Area, a 2,000-acre tract in western Maryland, protects a unique wetland—a red spruce bog. More commonly found further north, the bog is more than 18,000 years old.

first appeared: 8/1/2004

The multicolored calico cat became the state’s official feline in 2001.

first appeared: 7/25/2004

The Chesapeake Turtle Derby, held in Baltimore in July, features a series of heats, each named for a prominent resident.

first appeared: 7/18/2004

American naval hero John Paul Jones died and was buried in France in 1792. At the request of the U.S., his remains were brought home in 1913 and placed in a crypt beneath the U.S. Naval Academy chapel in Annapolis (pop. 35,838).

first appeared: 7/11/2004

Founded in Baltimore in 1876, Johns Hopkins University was the first university in America based on the European model, which integrated research and education.

first appeared: 6/27/2004

Baltimore’s Bromo Seltzer Tower originally was topped by a 51-foot illuminated replica of the product’s trademark blue bottle. Because of structural concerns, the bottle was removed in 1936.

first appeared: 6/20/2004

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