Rhode Island Trivia & Tidbits - Page 15

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

Rhode Island joins four other states (Texas, New Mexico, California, and Connecticut) as reporting the biggest sales of the hottest spice sauces, according to a food survey.

first appeared: 10/21/2001

In the eastern section of Providence, city officials have just this year started using TV cameras to look for holes in the sewer system. Crews lower cameras into manholes and snake them through sewer lines to identify leaks and illegal hookups.

first appeared: 10/14/2001

Rhode Island can claim a number of sports firsts. Among them: the first polo game to be played in America (1876); the first National Lawn Tennis Championship (1895); and the first Open Golf Tournament (1985).

first appeared: 10/7/2001

In one of the first hostile acts against the British Crown before the American Revolution, residents of Providence burned a British customs vessel that had run aground while pursuing a suspected smuggler in Narragansett Bay.

first appeared: 9/30/2001

Edgar Allen Poe often frequented the alcoves and library bookshelves of the Providence Athenaeum. He unsuccessfully courted poet Sarah Whitman there.

first appeared: 9/23/2001

The Narragansett Indian Monument is 23 feet high and was carved from a single Douglas fir by Peter Toth. The sculpture is one of a series throughout the country honoring the American Indian.

first appeared: 9/16/2001

Cumberlandite, Rhode Island’s state rock, is a heavy, black or dark brown volcanic rock with white markings. The rock has magnetic properties and is found south of Cumberland on both sides of Narragansett Bay—and has never been discovered anywhere else in the world. Scientists estimate its age to be 1.5 billion years.

first appeared: 9/9/2001

Ann Franklin was the first woman newspaper editor in America, editing The Newport Mercury in Newport (pop. 26,475) beginning in 1762.

first appeared: 9/2/2001

The Redwood Library and Athenaeum in Newport is one of the United States’ oldest library buildings. It was completed in 1750.

first appeared: 8/26/2001

The “Liberty Tree,” a sycamore growing in Newport during the colonial period and the American Revolutionary War, was where patriots known as the Sons of Liberty gathered to rally against the British Stamp Act of 1765.

first appeared: 8/19/2001

In Adamsville (pop. 400), a monument pays homage to the famous Rhode Island Red chicken. Built in 1925 by the Rhode Island Red Club, the structure is 6 feet high and made of granite and displays a bronze plaque with the history of the chicken in Rhode Island.

first appeared: 8/12/2001

Providence-born singer, dancer, producer, actor, playwright, and composer George M. Cohan (1878-1942) wrote Over There (1917), a patriotic tribute when the United States entered World War I. President Franklin D. Roosevelt awarded Cohan a Medal of Honor for the song in 1940.

first appeared: 8/5/2001

The founding of the American jewelry industry by Nehemiah and Seril Dodge helped make Providence one of the chief industrial cities of New England by 1824. The brothers developed gold plating on cheaper metals, providing a key to this burgeoning industry.

first appeared: 7/29/2001

The fish catch out of Rhode Island—much of it centered on Port Judith (pop. 900)—ranked 12th among the states in 1999, producing 56,000 metric tons of food worth $79 million.

first appeared: 7/22/2001

Established by Scottish immigrants on the Mettatuxet River in 1751, Saunderstown, today a district of Providence, is the site of the first snuff (a finely ground tobacco meant to be sniffed) mill in the original 13 colonies. The snuff grinder’s son, Gilbert Stuart (1755-1828), became a renowned portrait painter.

first appeared: 7/15/2001

The original American Indian name for Block Island was “Mannises” meaning “God’s Little Island.”

first appeared: 7/8/2001

After building a home in Westerly (pop. 16,477) in 1734, Dr. Joshua Babcock became the town’s first physician, first postmaster, and member of the General Assembly when Rhode Island declared its independence from Britain May 4, 1776—two months before the other colonies followed suit with the Declaration of Independence.

first appeared: 7/1/2001

Providence-born film actress Ruth Hussey was a star of the late 1930s and early ’40s, playing a number of leads and supporting roles. Her credits include the photographer in The Philadelphia Story (1940), a role that won her an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress.

first appeared: 6/24/2001

The first African-American regiment to fight for America made a gallant stand against the British in the Battle of Rhode Island (1778) during the Revolutionary War.

first appeared: 6/17/2001

The name “Rhode Island” was first used by Italian explorer Giovanni da Verrazzano in 1524, when he compared offshore Block Island to the island of Rhodes in the Mediterranean.

first appeared: 6/10/2001

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