The “Alabama Fever” land rush occurred when settlers and land speculators poured into Alabama to take advantage of fertile land suitable for cotton cultivation after the state was admitted to the Union.

The first European settlement in Alabama was founded by the French at Old Mobile in 1702. The city was moved to the current site of Mobile in 1711.

On January 30, 1846, the Alabama legislature announced it had voted to move the capital city from Tuscaloosa to Montgomery. The first legislative session in the new capital met in December 1847.

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

Alabama adopted new voting systems, such as cumulative voting and limited voting, in several jurisdictions. These changes resulted in more proportional representation and increased the number of African Americans and women elected to local offices.

Hurricane Ivan, a category 3 storm upon landfall, struck Alabama in 2004, causing over $18 billion in damage. It was one of the most destructive storms in the state’s modern history.

The first capitol building in Montgomery burned down in 1849, but it was rebuilt on the same site in 1851. The second capitol building, designed by Barachias Holt of Exeter, Maine, remains to the present day.

The 1901 Constitution of Alabama included provisions for voter registration that effectively disenfranchised large portions of the population, including nearly all African Americans, Native Americans, and tens of thousands of poor European Americans. It also required racial segregation of ...Read more

Alabama is home to roughly 307 native freshwater fish species.

Alabama is bordered by Tennessee to the north, Georgia to the east, Florida to the south, and Mississippi to the west.