It's Named after Who? Trivia Quiz

Answer: Brother of King Charles II

Albany is the longest continuously chartered city in the United States, having been incorporated in July 1686. Its history as a European settlement dates back to 1614, when the area was part of New Netherland, the Dutch colony in North America. Initially founded as Fort Nassau, it served as a fur-trading post, being rebuilt in 1624 as Fort Orange.

A settlement was built up around the fort which, in 1652, became the village of Beverwijck. In 1664, New Netherland was captured by the English, and Beverwijck was renamed in honour of James, Duke of Albany, the younger brother of the English king, Charles II.

Although recaptured by the Dutch in 1673, the 1674 Treaty of Westminster saw permanent possession of the area granted to England. Albany received its city charter in July 1686, while it officially became the permanent state capital of New York in 1797.

Answer: Daughter of 35th Governor of Georgia

The Creek people had occupied the area now containing the city of Atlanta for thousands of years up to the nineteenth century. From 1802 onwards, encroachment by white Americans forced the Creek to leave the region, with white settlers taking over from 1822.

In 1836, permission was granted to build the Western and Atlantic Railroad, to provide a route between the port of Savannah and the Midwest. The area around the terminus of this railroad developed into a settlement, initially called simply 'Terminus', before being renamed Thrasherville, after a local merchant.

In 1842, the little community was again renamed, this time as Marthasville, after the daughter of Governor William Lumpkin. Two years later, the name was changed again - the Chief Engineer of the Georgia Railroad suggested 'Atlantica-Pacifica', which was shortened to Atlanta. Governor Lumpkin approved this, as his daughter Martha's middle name was Atalanta. Marthasville was officially renamed as Atlanta in December 1845, and the city was officially incorporated two years later. Atlanta was named as the capital of Georgia in 1868.

Answer: Daughter of 5th US Secretary of War

The area of Augusta was first inhabited in 1628 by settlers from the Plymouth colony in Massachusetts. Initially founded as a trading post on the Kennebec River, the site was known by its original native name, Cushnoc. Initially profitable, the settlement's fortunes eventually declined, and in 1661 it was abandoned, to be occupied by the Kennebec, a branch of the Abenaki tribe.

Although the Kennebec were friendly with English settlers, other parts of the Abenaki were less so, leading to hostilities breaking out in the 1720s. Cushnoc was resettled with a new fort named Fort Western, intended as a supply depot for facilities further upriver, as well as to defend its own surrounding area, both from natives and the French.

Initially incorporated in 1771 as part of the town of Hallowell, Cushnoc was split in 1797 into a separate town called Harrington.

However, the residents of the new town disliked this name, and sent local Judge Daniel Cony to the Massachusetts Legislature to petition for it to be changed. Cony then chose the name Augusta - the most popular theory of why this name was chosen was that Cony was smitten with Augusta Dearborn, the daughter of Henry Dearborn, who had been a prominent general during the Revolutionary War, and was a member of the United States House of Representatives at the time. Augusta was designated as the capital of Maine in 1827, seven years after the state's admission to the Union.

Answer: 1st Chancellor of Germany

Native peoples had occupied the area now occupied by Bismarck for thousands of years before white settlers arrived. In 1872, settlers arrived at a location Missouri Crossing, so named because it was the point that the Lewis and Clark Expedition crossed the Missouri river during their exploration of the Louisiana Purchase in 1804-1806.

The settlement founded at the location was initially called Edwinton, after the engineer-in-chief of the Northern Pacific Railway. The following year, the railway company renamed the town after Otto von Bismarck, the first chancellor of the newly established German Empire, in an effort to attract German immigrant settlers and German investment to the region. Bismarck subsequently became a major freight shipping centre on the route out of the Dakota territory's Black Hills. Bismarck was named as the capital of the Dakota Territory in 1883, subsequently becoming the capital of the state of North Dakota upon its admission to the Union in 1889.

Answer: 5th Governor of Kansas Territory

In 1858, during what became known as the Pike's Peak Gold Rush, a group of gold prospectors who had set out from Lawrence in the east of Kansas Territory established a settlement they called Montana City on the banks of the South Platte River. Although this settlement was quickly abandoned by the prospectors in favour of a new settlement nearby called Auraria, a pair of land speculators called William Larimer and Jonathan Cox laid a claim to the bluffs overlooking the river with the intention of constructing a new settlement.

In an effort to have the new town named as the county seat, Larimer named it Denver City, after James Denver, the Governor of the Kansas Territory, unaware that by this time Denver had already resigned from his position. Nevertheless, the new town quickly grew in importance as a regional centre, becoming incorporated in November 1861, nine months after the creation of the Colorado Territory. Denver began acting as the territory's capital from 1867 and, in 1881, five years after Colorado was admitted to the Union as the thirty-eighth state, was chosen as the state capital.

Answer: 3rd President of the United States

Frontiersmen first began occupying the area that later became Jefferson City in the late 17th century, eventually laying the foundations of a town in the area in the early 19th century. The initial layout of the town was undertaken by Daniel Morgan Boone, the son of Daniel Boone.

The Missouri Territory was founded in 1812, with its first capital at St Louis. However, in 1821, when Missouri was admitted to the Union as a state, it was decided to move the state capital to a new location, and the small town laid out by Boone, which bore the name Lohman's Landing, was chosen.

Although geographically well placed between the major cities of St Louis and Kansas City, the town required major development to raise it to the required infrastructure level for its new status. So, while work was undertaken to build the new state capital, the city of St Charles served in this role in the interim. Lohman's Landing was also renamed, with the first suggestion being 'Missouriopolis', before settling on the name Jefferson, to honour President Thomas Jefferson.

In 1825, Jefferson City was incorporated, with the Missouri State Legislature first meeting there in 1826.

Answer: Canadian gold prospector

Located on the Gastineau Channel, the area around Juneau was occupied by the Auke and Taku tribes for thousands of years before it was seen by Europeans. The first settlement came in 1880, when gold prospectors migrated north from California. During one expedition, George Pilz sent two of his fellow prospectors, Joe Juneau and Richard Harris from what came to be called Gold Creek, back towards the Gastineau Channel where, on camping at Snow Slide Gulch, they found gold nuggets "as large as peas and beans." The two men proceeded to lay out a village at the site, to which many more prospectors came.

Initially called Rockwell after the US Navy officer sent to keep order in the area, it was renamed Harrisburg after Richard Harris, before, at a miner's meeting in November 1881, the locals voted to name the settlement permanently after Joe Juneau. Juneau was incorporated in 1900 and, in 1906, replaced Sitka to become the new capital of the District of Alaska.

Answer: 4th President of the United States

The area in and around Madison has been populated for several thousand years, being known as 'Taychopera', or 'Land of the Four Lakes'. In 1829, James Duane Doty purchased 1000 acres of land in the area between Lake Mendota and Lake Monona with the plan to construct a new town. Upon the creation of the Wisconsin Territory in 1836, the new territorial legislature undertook to find a capital, which saw Doty lobby heavily for his new town to be given the role.

The town, which was named Madison in honour of President James Madison, who died in June 1836, was named as the capital of the Wisconsin Territory in November 1836, despite the fact that it had yet to be built, as it was located at a midway point between the city of Milwaukee in the east and the strategic outpost of Prairie du Chien in the west, and between the territory's southwestern lead mining region and the city of Green Bay in the northeast. Madison remained as the capital after Wisconsin was admitted to the Union in 1848, and was eventually incorporated as a city in 1856.

Answer: 2nd ranked Brigadier-General in the Continental Army

The area of modern-day Montgomery was inhabited largely by two distinct tribes of Native Americans, the Alibamu, who resided on the east bank of the Alabama River, and the Coushatta, who lived on the west bank. The Alibamu constructed two individual towns in the area, Ikanatchati and Towassa, both of which were visited by Hernando de Soto, who led the first European expedition to the region in 1540.

Although Europeans continued to visit the region, with some settling among the native tribes, the first permanent European settlement was not founded until 1785, when Abraham Mordecai established a trading post, by which time the Alibamu and Coushatta had left, with the Creek people migrating to the area.

The Creek were forced to cede much of their land to the United States following defeat in the 1813-14 Creek War, which led to the first group of white settlers coming to the area, who founded a settlement they named Alabama Town.

After the state of Alabama was admitted to the Union in 1819, a new settlement named 'New Philadelphia' was founded near Alabama Town by lawyer Andrew Dexter, who envisaged that his settlement would be the state's capital.

He then planned another settlement named East Alabama Town adjacent to New Philadelphia, which were then merged with the original Alabama Town and incorporated to form a single city in December 1819. The new city was then named for Brigadier-General Richard Montgomery, who led the Continental Army's invasion of Canada and was killed at the Battle of Quebec in 1775. Montgomery was eventually named as Alabama's state capital in 1846.

Answer: 25th Speaker of the Pennsylvania Provincial Assembly

The first white settlement in the area now occupied by the city of Trenton came in 1679, when a group of English Quakers came to the region in an effort to escape religious persecution. The settlement grew into a small town that adopted the name Trent-towne after William Trent, one of the community's leading landholders. Eventually, the name was shortened to Trenton.

The town was the site of the Continental Army's first major victory over the British during the Revolutionary War in December 1776, and was briefly used by the Confederation Congress in 1784. Trenton was the preferred choice of several of the northern states during the debate to decide the location of the new national capital, before the site was chosen straddling the border between Maryland and Virginia that became Washington DC. Trenton was named as New Jersey's capital in 1790, and was incorporated as a city in 1792.