1. The Virginia Zoo in Norfolk buries its dead animals on a tree farm in Chesapeake. The farm is off limits to the public to prevent grave robbers from searching for valuable animal parts like elephant tusks.
2. The Chesapeake Bay’s average depth is about 21 feet. Portions of the bay are so shallow that a relatively tall person could wade through over 700,000 acres of water.
3. Chesapeake is a huge powerhouse when it comes to big time pro athlete production. New York Mets' third baseman David Wright, former NBA star Alonzo Mourning and Washington Redskins' Pro Bowl cornerback DeAngelo Hall all hail from the city.
4. The Chesapeake Bay area is currently experiencing the highest rate of sea level rise of any place on the East Coast.
5. A 2010 episode of Jeopardy! featured Chesapeake’s Arboretum as $800 clue.
6. Saturday Night Live performer and impressionist extraordinaire Jay Pharoah is from Chesapeake. He sharpened his chops at Indian River High School, and one of his characters, Principal Daniel Frye, is based on his principal at Indian River.
7. In 2007, Bay area baseball stars including David Wright, Michael Cuddyer, Ryan Zimmerman, Mark Reynolds, BJ Upton and Justin Upton participated in a home run derby to raise money for Grassfield High School’s baseball program. Cuddyer ended up being the winner.
8. Chesapeake's Great Dismal Swamp was central to the Underground Railroad. The area was used at a stopping point for escaping slaves, some of whom stayed there and lived off the land.
9. Defensive tackle Andrew Brown of Oscar Smith High School was named the Gatorade National Football Player of Year for the 2013-14 season. Past winners of the award include Peyton Manning, Emmitt Smith and former Major League Baseball MVP Joe Mauer.
10. QVC, of always-trying-to-sell-you-stuff-on-the-TV fame, is the city’s sixth largest employer.
11. A meteotsunami is a rare tsunami created by fast-moving thunderstorms. Scientists believe the most recent American meteotsunami hit the Chesapeake Bay in June of 2012, although the damage was minimal: the resulting waves were reportedly 40 centimeters high.
12. Virginia and Chesapeake Bay area governments have tried a number of methods to keep down the cownose ray population in the area. Methods have included cownose ray bowfishing tournaments and even an ill-fated attempt to get the ray to take off as a menu item.
13. The Chesapeake Bay produces about 500 million pounds of seafood every year. Cownose rays included, we imagine.
14. In Chesapeake, as in all of Virginia, it’s illegal to point a laser beam into the eyes of a police officer.
15. It’s also illegal to release more than 50 balloons in an hour, so please, show some restraint.
16. In 1983, a massive 53-mile-wide crater was discovered beneath the Chesapeake Bay. Scientists believe the crater originated when an asteroid or comet hit the earth roughly 35 million years ago, long after the dinosaurs were wiped out. They also think the heat from the impact killed every living plant and animal within hundreds of miles, and may have lead to a worldwide mass extinction.
17. The decision to name the city Chesapeake was made in a community vote following its official creation in 1963.
18. Lake Drummond, located in the Great Dismal Swamp, is one of only two natural lakes in all of Virginia.
19. While at the time the area was known as Norfolk County, E Street Band saxophonist and all-around cool cat Clarence Clemons was born in what is now Chesapeake. RIP Big Man.
20. Chesapeake's “sister city” is Joinville, Brazil, known for being one of the wealthiest cities in South America.
21. Chesapeake's daily paper, the Virginian-Pilot, is one of the largest family-owned papers in the country. It was founded in 1865, shortly after the end of the Civil War.
22. The Virginian-Pilot has won two Pulitzer Prizes: Editor Louis Jaffe received the paper’s first Pulitzer for his editorial condemning lynching, and Lenoir Chambers received its second Pulitzer for editorials on school desegregation in 1960.
23. John Kerry and Barack Obama both held Town Hall-style meetings at Oscar F Smith High School in Chesapeake as part of their campaigns in 2004 and 2008, respectively. Ah, the advantages of being a battleground state.
24. Chesapeake's Great Dismal Swamp National Wildlife Refuge is home to 213 species of birds.
25. Deep Creek High School’s football squad was one of the most dominant teams in the country during the 1990s. The team went undefeated in 1994, 1995, 1998, 1999 and 2000.
26. Outside the Chesapeake Public Library in Great Bridge there’s a 12 pound cannonball, labeled as having been fired at the Battle of Great Bridge. However, written histories of the battle claim that there were only British canons firing four pound cannonballs at the battle.
27. In Chesapeake, and the rest of Virginia, being polite over the phone is highly recommended: Use of “profane, threatening, or indecent language over public airwaves or by other methods” over the phone is illegal. The law isn’t a weird relic either. It was enforced as recently as 2012.
28. Two-thirds of the United States population lives within 750 miles of Chesapeake.
29. If you’re driving "Eastbound" on I-64 into Chesapeake, you are actually headed Westward. Don’t think too hard about this one. Your brain might explode.
30. In Chesapeake, as in all of Virginia, it’s illegal to clone a human being. So don’t do it, okay?
31. It’s also illegal to give snake venom to a racehorse.
32. American Idol season six contestant Chris Richardson is a native of Chesapeake.
33. The Dismal Swamp Canal is the country’s oldest continuously used canal.
What’s your favorite Chesapeake fun fact? Tell us in the comments below!
