50 Fun Facts About Alabama

Alabama's nickname, the Yellowhammer State, comes from what?

A Civil War regiment's uniform: Huntsville cavalrymen wearing yellow-trimmed uniforms were jeered as yellowhammers, and the nickname spread to all Alabama troops and then to the state.

Which of these is NOT one of Alabama's nicknames?

Magnolia State belongs to neighbouring Mississippi.

Alabama joined the Union as which number state?

Alabama became the 22nd state on December 14, 1819, after Huntsville hosted the constitutional convention that drafted its first constitution that summer.

Which Alabama city, the state's oldest, was founded in 1702 as capital of French Louisiana?

It also claims the oldest organised Mardi Gras in the United States, dating from 1703.

Which flower replaced goldenrod as Alabama's official state flower in 1959?

The Camellia was named Alabama's state flower in 1959, replacing goldenrod, which had held the title since 1927.

Which city served as Alabama's capital from 1826 to 1846?

Tuscaloosa was the state capital from 1826 until 1846, when the seat moved to Montgomery; it is now home to the University of Alabama.

Montgomery was the first capital of what?

The Confederate States of America was organised in Montgomery in February 1861 and kept its capital there until the government moved to Richmond, Virginia, that May.

Which state does NOT border Alabama?

Arkansas lies west of the Mississippi River and never touches Alabama, whose neighbours are Tennessee, Georgia, Mississippi and Florida.

What is the highest natural point in Alabama?

Mount Cheaha rises to 2,413 feet (735 metres) at the southern end of the Appalachians, the highest natural point in Alabama.

The name Alabama comes from a Muskogean-speaking tribe who lived near the meeting of which two rivers?

Coosa and Tallapoosa: the Alabama (Alibamu) people lived near where those rivers join to form the Alabama River, and their name passed to the river and the state.

Which explorer's 1540 expedition produced the first written versions of the name Alabama?

Hernando de Soto's chroniclers recorded the name in 1540 in three spellings, including Alibamu and Limamu, the earliest written forms of Alabama.

Alabama's 1901 constitution, replaced in 2022, was notable for what?

Being by some accounts the world's longest: with more than 900 amendments and over 300,000 words by 2022, it ran many times the length of the US Constitution.

Rosa Parks was arrested in Montgomery on December 1, 1955, sparking a bus boycott that lasted how long?

The boycott lasted 381 days, from December 5, 1955, to December 20, 1956, when the Browder v. Gayle ruling desegregating the buses took effect.

Which 15-year-old was arrested for keeping her Montgomery bus seat, before Rosa Parks?

Claudette Colvin, a 15-year-old student, was arrested on March 2, 1955, nine months before Parks, for refusing to give up her seat on a Montgomery bus.

The 'Bloody Sunday' attack on the first Selma to Montgomery march happened on which structure?

On the Edmund Pettus Bridge, state troopers and a mounted posse charged about 600 unarmed marchers on March 7, 1965; the Voting Rights Act followed that August.

Which Alabama governor famously resisted federal desegregation demands in the 1960s?

George Wallace, governor from 1963, made his 'Stand in the Schoolhouse Door' at the University of Alabama in June 1963 to block two Black students from enrolling.

Which artist, also known for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, designed Montgomery's Civil Rights Memorial?

Maya Lin designed the Civil Rights Memorial, dedicated in 1989 outside the Southern Poverty Law Center: a circular black granite table over which water flows.

Helen Keller, born in Tuscumbia, lost her sight and hearing from illness at what age?

19 months: an illness in early 1882 left Helen Keller deaf and blind; she met teacher Anne Sullivan in March 1887 at her Tuscumbia home, Ivy Green.

Booker T. Washington became the first leader of which Alabama institution in 1881?

Tuskegee Institute opened on July 4, 1881, with Booker T. Washington as its first principal; George Washington Carver later ran its agriculture department.

The Tuskegee Airmen of World War II formed which fighter group?

The 332nd Fighter Group, whose red-tailed fighters escorted bombers over Europe from Italian bases, was made up of Tuskegee-trained squadrons, including the 99th.

Which NASA centre, established in Huntsville in 1960, designed the Saturn V Moon rocket?

Marshall Space Flight Center opened in July 1960 with Wernher von Braun as its first director, and its engineers developed the Saturn V that carried Apollo crews to the Moon.

Which Birmingham landmark preserves blast furnaces that made pig iron from 1882 to 1971?

Sloss Furnaces produced pig iron in Birmingham from 1882 until 1971 and was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1981.

Which Alabama city is nicknamed 'The Peanut Capital of the World'?

Dothan, in the state's southeastern Wiregrass region, calls itself the Peanut Capital of the World and hosts the National Peanut Festival each autumn.

The town of Enterprise, Alabama, erected a 1919 monument in tribute to what?

An insect: the Boll Weevil Monument honours the pest that wrecked the cotton crop and pushed local farmers into peanuts, which proved more profitable.

Birmingham's giant Vulcan, its city symbol, holds which world record?

Largest cast iron statue in the world, the 56-foot Vulcan was sculpted by Giuseppe Moretti as Birmingham's entry for the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair.

Which two nicknames did Birmingham earn from its industrial boom between 1881 and 1920?

The Magic City and the Pittsburgh of the South: Birmingham, founded in 1871, grew so fast on nearby iron ore, coal and limestone that it seemed to appear by magic.

Which carmaker opened Alabama's first auto plant near Vance in 1997?

Mercedes opened its Vance plant in 1997, building the ML320 SUV; Honda followed in Lincoln in 2001 and Hyundai in Montgomery in 2005.

Talladega Superspeedway, opened in 1969, holds what distinction on the NASCAR calendar?

Longest oval: at 2.66 miles Talladega is the longest oval on the NASCAR circuit; it opened in 1969 as Alabama International Motor Speedway and was renamed in 1989.

Bear Bryant won how many national championships in 25 years coaching Alabama?

Six national titles (1961, 1964, 1965, 1973, 1978 and 1979) came in Bryant's 25 seasons; he retired in 1982 with a then-record 323 wins.

The Alabama-Auburn football rivalry is better known by what name?

The Iron Bowl takes its name from Birmingham's iron industry; the game was played at the city's Legion Field every year from 1948 to 1988.

Alabama native Hank Aaron hit his record-breaking 715th home run in which year?

1974: on April 8, 1974, in Atlanta, Aaron hit his 715th home run off Al Downing of the Dodgers to pass Babe Ruth's career record.

Olympic legend Jesse Owens was born in 1913 in which Alabama community?

Oakville, a Lawrence County farming community, was Owens's birthplace on September 12, 1913; the youngest of ten children of a sharecropper, he moved to Cleveland at nine.

What is the fictional town in To Kill a Mockingbird called?

Maycomb, modelled on Lee's home town of Monroeville, is the setting of To Kill a Mockingbird, which won the 1961 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

Harper Lee helped which childhood friend research his book In Cold Blood?

Truman Capote had been Lee's next-door neighbour in Monroeville as a child; she travelled with him to Kansas in 1959 to research the Clutter murders.

'Sweet Home Alabama' by Lynyrd Skynyrd was written in response to songs by which musician?

Neil Young's 'Southern Man' and 'Alabama' provoked the Lynyrd Skynyrd song, whose lyrics name him directly: 'I hope Neil Young will remember'.

Muscle Shoals Sound Studio was founded in 1969 in which Alabama town?

Sheffield's studio at 3614 Jackson Highway was opened in 1969 by four session players, the Swampers, who had left Rick Hall's FAME Studios in nearby Muscle Shoals.

W. C. Handy, the self-styled 'Father of the Blues', was born in 1873 in which Alabama town?

Florence was Handy's birthplace on November 16, 1873; the log cabin where he was born is preserved as the W. C. Handy Birthplace, Museum and Library.

Which singer, born in Montgomery in 1919, became famous for 'Unforgettable'?

Nat King Cole recorded 'Unforgettable' in 1951; his daughter Natalie's 1991 duet with that recording won Record of the Year at the 1992 Grammys.

The country band Alabama formed in 1969 in which town in the state's northeast?

Fort Payne cousins Randy Owen, Teddy Gentry and Jeff Cook formed the group as Wildcountry in 1969 and renamed it Alabama in 1977.

Which of these films was NOT shot in Alabama?

Forrest Gump is set in Alabama but was filmed largely elsewhere; the state's shot list also includes Close Encounters and 42.

Which river forms the southern half of Alabama's border with Georgia?

The Chattahoochee forms the lower half of Alabama's eastern border with Georgia before joining the Flint to become the Apalachicola at the Florida line.

Which is Alabama's official state tree?

Longleaf pine, once the dominant tree of the Gulf coastal plain, was named Alabama's state tree in 1949, and the law was amended in 1997 to specify the longleaf species.

Alabama's state flag, adopted in 1895, shows what design?

A crimson cross of St. Andrew on white was prescribed by the act of February 16, 1895, introduced by Representative John W. A. Sanford Jr., with a minimum width set for the bars.

Which county is Alabama's largest by total area?

Baldwin County, at roughly 2,000 square miles including its bay and Gulf waters, is Alabama's largest county, home to Gulf Shores, Orange Beach and Fairhope.

Admiral Farragut's possibly apocryphal 'Damn the torpedoes!' was uttered during which 1864 engagement?

Mobile Bay, August 5, 1864: Farragut's fleet ran past Fort Morgan and Fort Gaines, and Franklin Buchanan's ironclad CSS Tennessee surrendered after a close fight.

A 5-mile-wide meteorite crater, 'Alabama's greatest natural disaster', lies just north of Montgomery near which town?

Wetumpka sits beside a crater left when a meteorite about 1,000 feet across struck roughly 83 million years ago; drill cores containing shocked quartz confirmed its impact origin, recognised in 2002.

Auburn University's home city lies in which Alabama county?

Lee County, named for Robert E. Lee, has its seat at Opelika and contains the city of Auburn and its university.

Which European planemaker opened its first US assembly plant, for A320-family jets, in Mobile in 2015?

Airbus announced the $600 million plant in 2012 and delivered its first US-built A321 to JetBlue in 2016; the factory sits at Brookley Aeroplex, a former air force base.

Which spot in Fairhope is the highest coastline point between Maine and Mexico?

Alabama's other natural wonders include DeSoto Caverns, the first officially recorded cave in the US, and Noccalula Falls.

Roughly what proportion of Alabama's land area is forest?

Two-thirds is about right: roughly 23 million of Alabama's 33 million acres are forested, the great majority of it privately owned.