Alabama’s slaves were freed by the 13th Amendment in 1865.

Alabama remained chiefly agricultural, with an economy tied to cotton. The state constitution of 1868 created Alabama’s first public school system and expanded women’s rights. Legislators funded public road and railroad projects, despite allegations of fraud and misappropriation.

Alabama ranks fifth in the nation for the diversity of its flora, with nearly 4,000 pteridophyte and spermatophyte plant species.

The name of the Alabama River and state is derived from the Alabama people, a Muskogean-speaking tribe whose members lived just below the confluence of the Coosa and Tallapoosa rivers on the upper reaches of the river.

Alabama’s population increased from under 10,000 people in 1810 to more than 300,000 people by 1830.

Alabama was a Spanish territory in the sixteenth century until the French acquired it in the early eighteenth century. The British won the territory in 1763, and Spain held Mobile as part of Spanish West Florida until 1813.

Baldwin and Mobile counties became part of Spanish West Florida in 1783, part of the independent Republic of West Florida in 1810, and finally part of the Mississippi Territory in 1812.

Reconstruction in Alabama ended in 1874 when Democrats regained control of the legislature and governor’s office through an election dominated by fraud and violence. They wrote another constitution in 1875, passed the Blaine Amendment prohibiting public money from financing ...Read more

In the 1960s, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in cases like Baker v. Carr and Reynolds v. Sims that legislative districts must be based on population rather than geographic counties. This principle led to the redistricting of Alabama’s legislative ...Read more

In the Alabama language, the word for a person of Alabama lineage is Albaamo (or variously Albaama or Albàamo in different dialects; the plural form is Albaamaha).