1. Charleston, once "Charles Town," was named after King Charles II, was the fourth largest city in colonial America, and the wealthiest!
2. Charleston City Market, built in the 1790s, wasn't always an artsy hub; it started as a meat and produce market. Fun fact: "Charleston eagles" (buzzards) kept it so clean that they were legally protected!
3. Pineapples rule in Charleston! Legend has it ship captains hung them on doors to announce their return, inviting friends and neighbors to visit.
4. Charleston's a city of "firsts" in the U.S., boasting the first public library, golf game and club, public college, museum (Charleston Museum), and playhouse (Dock Street Theater).
5. Blackbeard blockaded Charleston in 1718, not for treasure, but for medicine – demanding mercury, the syphilis cure of the time.
6. Charleston's "single houses" are unique, with narrow facades facing streets and long piazzas catching coastal breezes. A clever design to limit property taxes!
7. Buildings in Charleston must be no taller than the tallest church steeple (St Matthew’s Lutheran Church). The “Holy City” gets its nickname from its skyline full of church steeples and for its tolerance for religious freedom, which wasn’t the norm back then.
8. "Catfish Row", the setting of Porgy and Bess, is inspired by Cabbage Row in Charleston. George Gershwin penned this groundbreaking American opera during his 1934 Folly Island vacation.
9. Charleston's first baseball team, the Sea Gulls (1886), is now the RiverDogs, owned in part by actor and local Bill Murray, the team's "Director of Fun."
10. The first shots of the Civil War were in Charleston, where Citadel cadets fired at a Union ship entering the harbor to supply Fort Sumter.
