Solution 1:

This works for me

$('ul.questions li a').click(function(event) {
    event.preventDefault();
    $('.tab').hide();
    window.location.hash = this.hash;
    $($(this).attr('href')).fadeIn('slow');
});

Check here http://jsbin.com/edicu for a demo with almost identical code

Solution 2:

You could try catching the onload event. And stopping the propagation dependent on some flag.

var changeHash = false;

$('ul.questions li a').click(function(event) {
    var $this = $(this)
    $('.tab').hide();  //you can improve the speed of this selector.
    $($this.attr('href')).fadeIn('slow');
    StopEvent(event);  //notice I've changed this
    changeHash = true;
    window.location.hash = $this.attr('href');
});

$(window).onload(function(event){
    if (changeHash){
        changeHash = false;
        StopEvent(event);
    }
}

function StopEvent(event){
    event.preventDefault();
    event.stopPropagation();
    if ($.browser.msie) {
        event.originalEvent.keyCode = 0;
        event.originalEvent.cancelBubble = true;
        event.originalEvent.returnValue = false;
    }
}

Not tested, so can't say if it would work

Solution 3:

The accepted answer didn't work for me as my page jumped slightly on click, messing up my scroll animation.

I decided to update the entire URL using window.history.replaceState rather than using the window.location.hash method. Thus circumventing the hashChange event fired by the browser.

// Only fire when URL has anchor
$('a[href*="#"]:not([href="#"])').on('click', function(event) {

    // Prevent default anchor handling (which causes the page-jumping)
    event.preventDefault();

    if ( location.pathname.replace(/^\//,'') == this.pathname.replace(/^\//,'') && location.hostname == this.hostname ) {
        var target = $(this.hash);
        target = target.length ? target : $('[name=' + this.hash.slice(1) +']');

        if ( target.length ) {    
            // Smooth scrolling to anchor
            $('html, body').animate({
                scrollTop: target.offset().top
            }, 1000);

            // Update URL
            window.history.replaceState("", document.title, window.location.href.replace(location.hash, "") + this.hash);
        }
    }
});