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

Huntsville served as Alabama’s temporary capital from 1819 to 1820.

The Wetumpka crater is a 5-mile (8 km)-wide meteorite impact crater located in Elmore County, just north of Montgomery. It is considered Alabama’s greatest natural disaster, created by a meteorite impact about 80 million years ago.

The name “Alabama” first appears in written accounts from the Hernando de Soto expedition of 1540, with Garcilaso de la Vega using Alibamo, the Knight of Elvas using Alibamu, and Rodrigo Ranjel using Limamu.

Temperatures tend to be warmer in the southern part of Alabama due to its proximity to the Gulf of Mexico, while the northern parts, especially in the Appalachian Mountains in the northeast, tend to be slightly cooler.

St. Stephens, now abandoned, served as the territorial capital from 1817 to 1819.

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.

An 1842 article in the Jacksonville Republican proposed that “Alabama” meant ‘Here We Rest’, a notion popularized in the 1850s through the writings of Alexander Beaufort Meek.

The elevation in Alabama ranges from sea level at Mobile Bay to 2,413 feet (735 m) at Mount Cheaha in the northeast.

Notable civil rights events in Alabama included the Montgomery bus boycott (1955–1956), Freedom Rides in 1961, and the 1965 Selma to Montgomery marches. These events contributed to the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting ...Read more