50 Fun Facts About Alabama

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

The bird is the northern flicker, a woodpecker with more than 100 folk names including yellowhammer.

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

Magnolia State belongs to neighbouring Mississippi.

Alabama joined the Union as which number state?

It was admitted on December 14, 1819, and Huntsville hosted the first constitutional convention.

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 US city holds the country's oldest official Carnival celebration, begun in 1703?

Frenchman Nicholas Langlois started it when the town was the capital of Louisiana.

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

It is now home to the University of Alabama and Bryant-Denny Stadium.

Montgomery was the first capital of what?

The Confederate capital moved to Richmond later in 1861; Jefferson Davis's First White House still stands a block from the Capitol.

Which state does NOT border Alabama?

Florida and the Gulf of Mexico form its southern edge.

What is the highest natural point in Alabama?

It rises to 2,413 feet, about 735 metres.

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

Some scholars trace the word to Choctaw roots meaning 'plants' and 'to cut', and it first appears in accounts of de Soto's 1540 expedition.

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

Three chroniclers spelled it three ways, including Alibamu and Limamu.

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

With over 850 amendments and nearly 87,000 words it ran roughly forty 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?

It ran from December 5, 1955, to December 20, 1956, when the Browder v. Gayle ruling took effect.

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

Several Black Montgomerians had been arrested for the same refusal before Parks.

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

State troopers charged about 600 unarmed marchers on March 7, 1965; the Voting Rights Act followed that year.

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

The state was also the scene of the 1961 Freedom Rides.

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

It sits near the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Helen Keller was born in West Tuscumbia. How old was she when illness left her deaf and blind?

Her home, Ivy Green, is now a museum, and she met teacher Anne Sullivan at age seven.

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

George Washington Carver later taught there, urging poor farmers to grow peanuts and sweet potatoes.

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

All Black US military pilots trained at fields around Tuskegee.

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

Wernher von Braun was its first director.

Alabama's most visited attraction, with about 850,000 visitors a year, is what?

It is home to Space Camp and a full-scale Saturn V.

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

About a quarter of the US peanut crop is grown nearby.

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

The boll weevil destroyed the cotton crop and forced farmers to diversify into peanuts, which made them richer.

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

Giuseppe Moretti made it as the city's entry for the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair.

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

It was founded in 1871 by merging three smaller communities.

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

Its first vehicle was an ML320; Hyundai later built in Montgomery and Honda in Lincoln.

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

It was called Alabama International Motor Speedway until 1989.

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

He retired in 1982 with a then-record 323 wins and a trademark houndstooth hat.

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

Both are charter members of the SEC and the game was long played at Legion Field in Birmingham.

Hank Aaron, who held the career home run record for 33 years, was born in which Alabama city?

His 755 home runs stood until Barry Bonds passed him in 2007.

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

He was the youngest of ten children of a sharecropper.

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

The book won the 1961 Pulitzer Prize and has never been out of print.

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

Capote had been her neighbour in Monroeville.

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

His 'Southern Man' and 'Alabama' irked the band, and he is name-checked in the lyrics.

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

Its four founders, session players known as the Swampers, get a shout-out in 'Sweet Home Alabama'.

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

His birthplace there is preserved as a museum.

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

His daughter Natalie later duetted with his recording of the song.

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

They took the state's name and made it their own for four decades of hits.

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.

Along with Oklahoma and Iowa, Alabama has the most confirmed tornadoes of which strength?

A super outbreak of 62 tornadoes in April 2011 killed 238 people in the state.

Which is Alabama's official state tree?

The tree is a cultural symbol of the whole South.

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

Representative John W. A. Sanford Jr. designed it.

Which Gulf Coast jurisdiction is Alabama's largest by land and water area?

It contains Gulf Shores, home of the Hangout Music Festival.

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

He faced a Confederate fleet under Franklin Buchanan and three forts guarding the bay.

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

A 1,000-foot meteorite struck about 80 million years ago; the site was confirmed as Earth's 157th recognized impact crater in 2002.

In 2020 Alabama produced roughly what share of America's farm-raised catfish?

The industry has shrunk from 250 farms in the early 2000s to 66 by 2020, hit by feed prices and the pandemic.

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

The $600 million factory at the Brookley Aeroplex was announced in 2012 and covers a million square feet.

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?

That's 22 million acres, and pine forest still forms the largest share; the state ranks fifth nationally for plant diversity.