Tampa Bay Area, Famous for... Trivia Quiz

Answer: Hulk Hogan

Hulk's real name is Terry Bollea, and he used to play in bar bands in Tampa before making his break into wrestling. (I think he played bass!) As any fan of the reality TV show "Hogan Knows Best" can tell you, Hulk has lived in the Clearwater area of the Tampa Bay Region.

Another famous Tampa wrestler is Dusty "The American Dream" Rhodes, who was famous in the 70s and is credited with helping to turn wrestling into the mainstream money machine it is today.

Answer: Daryll Strawberry

Other Major Leaguers who played Little League at Belmont Heights are Carl Everett and Vance Lovelace. Belmont Heights went to the Little League World Series four times in the 70s and 80s, but sadly, the field and overall program has fallen into disarray these days. Incidentally, Dwight Gooden is Gary Sheffield's uncle!

Answer: Wade Boggs

Wade attended Plant High School in Tampa, where the baseball field has been re-named in his honor. Another Hall-of-Famer who hails from Tampa is Al Lopez, a durable catcher who was inducted into the Hall as a manager, most notably for the White Sox in the 50s and 60s.

Answer: lightning

All of the other things happen quite frequently in the area, too, but Tampa did not name its National Hockey League team "The Lightning" for nothing. Originally touted as "The Lightning Capital of the World", some pesky scientists pointed out that parts of South America and western Africa actually receive more lightning strikes, so we have settled on being the Lightning Capital of North America, a designation that is safe from challenge scientifically. Over 2,000 people have been injured and more than 32 killed by lightning in Hillsborough County alone since 1959.

Answer: Hooters

Hooters is famous for its wings and beer - oh yeah, and maybe for its beautiful waitresses in bright orange short-shorts, too! The original Hooters restaurant opened on Gulf-to-Bay Blvd. in Clearwater in 1983.

Answer: Outback Steakhouse

The Outback Steakhouse empire began with a single Outback Steakhouse located on Henderson Blvd., in Tampa, which opened its doors in 1988. In addition to the many, many Outback Steakhouse restaurants located nationwide, the Outback company also owns and operates the Carrabba's Italian Grill, Roy's Restaurant, Bonefish Grill, Fleming's Prime Steakhouse, Lee Roy Selmon's BBQ, Cheeseburger in Paradise and Blue Coral Seafood chains. Talk about an empire!

Answer: Jose Gaspar

Popularly known as "Gasparilla," the actual existence of this man is in some doubt. Nevertheless, Tampans annually hold the Gasparilla Pirate Festival in his honor; a Mardi-Gras style event that features parades with garish floats, a mock pirate invasion of the city, beads and grog aplenty, and the occasional bit of female nudity on the city's streets. Gasparilla was also known as the "last of the buccaneers", hence the inspiration for the name of Tampa's National Football League franchise, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. "Arrr, Matey!" (By the way, William Bonney wasn't a pirate at all.

He was better known as the western gunslinger "Billy the Kid!")

Answer: First regularly scheduled airline flight

The world's first scheduled passenger airline flight took place on January 1, 1914, just 10 years after the Wright Brothers' inaugural Kitty Hawk flight. The flight was from St. Petersburg to Tampa, a mere 21 miles across Tampa Bay. The single passenger, and thus the world's first commercial airline passenger, was ex-Mayor of St. Petersburg A. C. Pheil, who paid $400 for the ticket in a special auction for the first flight.

The flight time for this first flight was 23 minutes. The pilot was Tony Jannus.

The Benoist company operated this air route for four months, with two flights daily, six days a week. The regular airfare for the trip was $5. Tampa Bay - birthplace of commercial aviation!

Answer: cigars

Known as "Cigar City" for decades, the Ybor City area of Tampa was world-renowned for its hand-rolled cigar industry. The Hav-A-Tampa brand is one of the few remaining brands still produced in Tampa. At its peak, the cigar industry in Tampa was represented by around 150 major factories in addition to hundreds of smaller-scale cigar-making shops, employing thousands of immigrant Cuban, Spanish and Italian workers and fueling a vibrant multi-ethnic culture in the Ybor City area. Ybor City surpassed even Havana in terms of production during this era. Today, many of the remaining classic red-brick cigar factory buildings have received protection as historic landmarks, and many have been renovated to house offices or retail businesses.

Many others still sit unoccupied, in a state of disrepair.

Answer: strip clubs

While any major city in the U.S. has problems with all these things, Tampa has earned the perhaps-dubious distinction of being considered one of the leading cities in the U.S. for the best strip clubs, the most (in)famous being the Mons Venus club on Dale Mabry Highway.

Whenever Tampa hosts a Super Bowl, these clubs are filled to overflowing, the parking lots jammed full of stretch limos.