| Name the Speaker of the House of the Representatives of the state of North Carolina? | James B. Black |
| Where is teh NC Martime Museum located? | Beaufort, NC |
| Who is the only US President ever to live in Wilmington, NC? | Woodrow Wilson (father was the pastor of St James Presybertian Church in teh 1880's) |
| Name one of the two national seashores that are located in North Carolina? | Cape Hatteras or Cape Lookout |
| Who is the current poet laureate of North Carolina? | Fred Chappel |
| Because of the number of shipwrecks off the NC coast, what nickname is given to NC coast? | Graveyard of the Atlantic |
| The date April 12, 1776 appears on the Great Seal of NC, what event does it commerate? | Halifax Resolve |
| What was the name of the conflict that began when a colony was raised at New Bern that raged from 1711-1718? | Tuscarora War |
| Name the longest river in NC? | Cape Fear |
| What word was carved on a tree at the site of the lost colony and was discovered by a relief expedition in 1590? | Croatoan or (Croatan) |
| What city served as the capital of NC from 1766-1778? | New Bern |
| Name the 19th century reformer who protested the practice of confining the mentally ill in prison, and whose labors led to the expansion and improvement of mental hospitals? | Dorothea Dix |
| What famous poet from the midwest move to NC in 1945 to live a a farm named Connemara? | Carl Sandburg |
| What celebrated writer now living in North Carolina was born Marguerite Johnson? | Maya Angelou |
| Who is the Chief Justice of the NC Supreme Court? | I. Beverly Lake |
| Who is the NC Attorney General? | Roy Cooper |
| Who is the NC Treasurer? | Richard Moore |
| Who is the NC Lt. Governor? | Beverly Purdue |
| Who is the NC Secretary of State? | Elaine Marshall |
| Who is the NC Superintendent of Public Instruction? | June Atkinson |
| What is the significance of the date May 20th 1775 on teh NC Seal? | It was the date of the Mecklenburg Declaration in Mecklenburg County it was supposedly the first county to declare its independence from Great Britain? |
| Which area in North Carolina did Congress establish as the first national seashore, in 1937? The region off it shore is known as the "Graveyard of the Atlantic"? | Cape Hatteras |
| On March 8, 1705 which town became the first settlement incorporated by the North Carolina General Assembly? | Bath |
| Junius Scales of Chapel Hill was the only American ever to be spend time in prison for what offense? | Being a Communist (1954) |
| What was the site of the Civil War's largest sea-land battle? | Fort Fisher |
| What Edgecombe County town is the nation's oldest charted by African Americans? | Princeville, settled by former slaves |
| What president of the US was once a member of the Rowan County Bar Association? | Andrew Jackson |
| What modern day North Carolina city was previously known as New Liverpool, Newton, and New Town? | Wilmington, NC |
| What was the first corporated/chartered town in North Carolina? | Bath, NC |
| In 1830 Currituck County philanthropist Joseph Knapp Founded the More Game Birds in America Foundation. By what name is the organization known today? | Ducks Unlimited |
| In 1948, North Carolina suffered the nation's worst epidemic of what disease? | Polio (about 2500 cases adn 100 deaths) |
| What unexplained topographical phenomenon has been described from the air as resembling a series of gigantic thumbprints? | The Carolina Bays |
| What town has been described as "the Southern Part of Heaven" | Chapel Hill, NC |
| Which two governors of NC have both a county and two towns named after them? | Zebulon Baird Vance, and Samuel Ashe |
| Lord Cornwallis stayed there in 1781, Aaron Burr in 1796, and General Sherman in 1865. It is billed as the nation's oldest continuously operated inn. What's the name of this Hillsborough landmark? | The Colonial Inn build in 1759 |
| What US President reported seeing the legendary Maco Lights? | Grover Cleveland in 1889 (train) |
| What North Carolina County is two thirds wate? | Dare County 388 acres of land 858 acres of water |
| What is the largest county in North Carolina in area? | Sampson County |
| What is the smallest county in North Carolina in area? | Chowan County |
| What is the the largest metropolitan area in North Carolina? | Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill area pop. 1, 187, 941 |
| Which of these labels was applied to early North Carolina: The Turpentne State, The Old North State, The Rip Van Winkle State, or the Ireland of America? | All of them |
| In addition to SC, Tenn, Va, what other state shares a border with NC? | Georgia |
| What building in NC was used to train astronauts? | Moorehead Planetarium |
| The cities of Raleigh and Fayetteville, derived their name from which two famous people? | Sir Walter Raleigh, and Marquis de Lafayette |
| In 1792, Joel Lane sold a thousand acres of his Wake County plantation for what purpose? | To provide a permant site for a state capital |
| How many lighthouses are on the North Carolina Coast? | 7 (Oak Island, Bald Head Island, Cape Lookout, Ocracoke Island, Cape Hatteras, Bodie Island, Currituck Beach) There are three additional ones that are not on the coast, they are Diamond Shoals, Frying Pan Shoals, and Prices Creek. |
| What is the chief mountain range in NC? | Appalachian Mts. |
| What name was given to the route taken by Scots-Irish settlers from Pennsylvania and Maryland as they began populating the Carolina backcountry in the 1740's? | The Great Wagon Road |
| The official flag of what NC city features a snarling bear? | New Bern (named for Bern which swiss for bear) |
| Who were the only North Carolinans ever to serve on the US Supreme Court? | James Iredell (Edenton) Alfred Moore (New Hanover County) |
| Who is the only North Carolina Governor ever to be removed from office by impeachment process? | William Woods Holden |
| What was the site of the bloodiest battle ever fought on NC Soil? | Bentonville, (1865 2600 Confederate and 1600 Union casualties) |
| What terse quotation marks the tombstone of William Lawrence Saunders, who was NC Secretary of State at the time of his death in 1891? | "I decline to answer" response to a congressional hearing investigating the Ku Klux Klan. Saunders was considered the Klan's chief strategist in the state. |
| What was the site of the Civil War's largest sea-land battle? | Fort Fisher |
| What influencial civil rights organization was founded at Shaw University in Raleigh? | SNCC (SNICK) Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee |
| When four African American freshmen from North Carolina A&T University asked to be served at the whites-only Woolworth lunch counter in downtown Greensboro in 1960, they not only set off an historic challenge to segregation across the South, but also popularized a word describing their protest. What is this word? | Sit-in |
| Fred Chappell, a professor at UNC-Greensboro, and Sam Ragan, a newspaperman from Southern Pines who died in 1996, are the only two writers ever to hold this position, what is it? | Poet Laureate of NC |
| What is the oldest educational institution for women in the United States? | Salem Academy and College in Winston-Salem, NC |
| Who was the first royal governor of NC, commissioned in 1730? | George Burrington |
| What is the NC state Motto located on the state seal and what does it mean? | Esse Quam Videri means "to be rather than to seem" Comes from Ciero essays on friendship (Ciero de Amicitia Chapter 26) |
| What famous book of poetry describes, "the sounds and inlets of NC's coast, the shad fishery and herring fishery, the large sweep seines, the windlasses on shore work'd by horses, the clearing, the curing, and packing -houses" | Walt Whitman "Leaves of Grass" (original located in rare book room at Duke Univesity) |
| What is the significance of the date May 20th 1775 on the NC State Seal? | It was the date of the Meclenburg Declaration in which Mecklenburg county was the first county to declare its independence of Great Britian |
| Junius Scales of Chapel Hill was the only American ever to spend time in prison for what offense? | Being a Communist; At a 1954 trial in Greensboro, Scales head of the Communist Party in Carolinas was convicted of organizing a plot to overthrow the government. |
| Former Governor Charles Brantley Aycock, whose administration pushed North Carolina schools decades ahead, dropped dead of a heart attack during a speech in Birmingham Alabama, in 1912. What was his last word? | "Education" |
| Although associated with NC, This phrase was first used as a title to a book written by Erakine Caldwell in which his scandalous novel features the character Jeeter Lester who lived in Augusta Georgia. What is the phrase or title of this book? | Tobacco Road |
| What was the first state/public university to ever admit students? The first class began in 1795 | University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill |
| What recent book written by Raleigh's Charles Frazier begins, "At the first gesture of morning, flies began stirring"? | Cold Mountain |
| What civil war battle of campaign is described in Charles Fraziers book? | Battle of Petersburg, Trench Warfare |
| What celebrated writer now living in NC was born Marguerite Johnson? | Maya Angelou (professor at Wake Forest Univesity) |
| What two controversial literary figures are buried a few feet from each other in Shelby, NC? | Thomas Dixon author of "The Clansman" which became the first film ever made called "Birth of a Nation", and W. J. Cash who wrote "The Mind of the South" |
| What NC Native American group believe they are descended from the lost colonists of the lost colony of Roanoke? | Lumbee |
| Before the civil war, which city in NC had a United States Mint? | Charlotte |
| Ray Hicks of Beech Mountain is one of the nations most honored folk artist. What is his speciality? | Storytelling (especially the appalachian versions of the Jack Tales) |
| Name the 1999 hurricane that killed 7 and caused a 6 billion dollars in damages? | Floyd |
| What two promient literary figures are buried in Riverside Cemetery in Asheville? | Thomas Wolfe, O'Henry or William Sydney Porter |
| Governor Terry Sanford envisioned a conservatory to rival the best in the Northeast; legislative critics envisioned a "toe dancing' school" what is it called today? | North Carolina School of the Arts (built in Winston-Salem in 1964) |
| In what NC city, does Nicholas Sparks 1996 book entitled "The Notebook" take place? | New Bern during the 1940's |
| Hiddenite in Alexander County in NC is North America's top source of what gemstone? | Emeralds |
| From 1720-1870 NC led the world in the production of "naval stores" what are they? | Tar, Pitch, and Turpentine |
| The New York Racket, on Main Street in Monroe, NC was the first store opened by what future retail magnate? | William Henry Belk in 1888. |
| After World War II three industries accounted for 70% of all factory jobs in the state. By the 1990's their share had fallen to less than 40%. What were these Big Three? | Textiles, Funiture, and Tobacco |
| What are terpenes and what do they have to do with the Blue Ridge Mountains? | They're chemicals given off by coniferious trees, and they're responsible for the characteristic haze that gives the Blue Ridge its name. |
| One of the oldest and most popular exhibits at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences is nicknamed "Trouble" What is it? | The skeleton of a fifty-five foot long spem whale that washed onto Wrightsville Beach in 1928. |
| What famous battle occurred on May 16th 1771 in Hillsborough NC? | The Battle of Alamance |
| Who was the leader of the English Colony founded on Roanoke Island in 1587? | John White |
| What is the famous nickname of Roanoke Colony founded in 1587? | Lost Colony |
| Name the NC Governor who created the Community College System, Governor School Program, and NC School of the Arts? | Terry Sanford |
| Who was the first English colonist born in America? | Virginia Dare |
| Who is Carolina named for? | King Charles II of England |
| What was the first county to be establashed in NC? | Albemarle |
| What was the name of the hockey team the Carolina Hurricanes became before they moved to NC? | Hartford, Whalers |
| What was NC's first constitution called? | Concessions and Agreement |
| What was the name given to the property tax paid by the settlers of the North Carolina Colony? | Quitrent (levied by acre without regard to the location or value of land) |
| What was the name of the Rebellion that occurred in 1677 that led to the arrest an removal of Thomas Miller acting governor of NC? | Culpeper's Rebellion |
| Name the brick 208 ft lighthouse originally painted black and white candy striped that was first activiated on September 17, 1870? | Cape Hatteras Lighthouse |
| What was Blackbeard the pirate's real name? | Edward Teach |
| Who eventually killed BlackBeard? | Lt. Robert Maynard |
| Who was the first elected governor of the state of NC elected in 1712? | Edward Hyde |
| What Native American was christened and given the title Lord Roanoke and of Dasemunkepeuc? | Manteo |