Alabama

The State Flag

Alabama

The State Seal

State Bird Yellowhammer	State Tree Longleaf Pine	State Flower Camellia
State Fruit Blackberry	State Butterfly Tiger Swallowtail	State Gem Blue Quartz

Alabama is the 22nd State (admitted to the United States of America on December 14, 1819).

The word Alabama is believed to have originated from the Choctaw language and was later adopted by the Alabama tribe as their name. The word comes from the Choctaw words alba (meaning "plants" or "weeds") and amo (meaning "to cut", "to trim", or "to gather"). It may refer to the clearing of land for the purpose of planting crops or to the collection of medicinal plants by medicine men.

Where is Alabama located? It is in the southern region of the United States.

What other States does Alabama touch? ANSWER: Mississippi (West), Georgia (East), Tennessee (North), and Florida (South).

Alabama is unofficially nicknamed the Yellowhammer State, which is also the name of the state bird. Alabama's official Mascot and State butterfly is the Eastern Tiger Swallowtail. Alabama is also known as the "Heart of Dixie". The State tree is the Longleaf Pine, the State flower is the Camellia. Alabama's State fruit is the blackberry.

The State song is, "Alabama." Alabama's State Motto is, "We Dare Maintain Our Rights."

A complete list of Alabama symbols and emblems can be found here.

The capital of Alabama is Montgomery, and the largest city by population is Birmingham. The largest city by total land area is Huntsville. The oldest European settler (French) founded city is Mobile (1702). The people who were already living in the area that became Alabama when European settlers arrived were the Alabama (Alibamu), Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek, Koasati, and Mobile.

Alabama's main industries today are aerospace, agriculture, education, health care, banking, automobile manufacturing, mineral extraction, steel production and fabrication. The U.S. Space & Rocket Center/U.S. Space Camp is located in Huntsville. Alabama's early industry was heavily based on agriculture (growing cotton, for example) and depended on slavery. All the slaves were freed by 1865. One hundred years later, the Selma to Montgomery marches were three marches in 1965 that marked the political and emotional peak of the American civil rights movement.

In 1861 Alabama declared its secession from the Union and joined the Confederate States of America. While few battles were fought in the state, Alabama contributed about 120,000 soldiers to the Civil War. Following Reconstruction, Alabama was restored to the Union in 1868.

Summers in Alabama are among the hottest in the United States and southern Alabama reports more thunderstorms than any part of the U.S. Winters are generally mild.

Famous people from Alabama include Hank Aaron, Tallulah Bankhead, Charles Barkley, Hugo L. Black, Paul W. (Bear) Bryant, Jimmy Buffett, Bo Bice, George Washington Carver, Nat King Cole, Courteney Cox Arquette, Zelda Fitzgerald, William C. Handy, Taylor Hicks, Bo Jackson, Kate Jackson, Helen Keller, Coretta Scott King, Harper Lee, Joe Louis, Willie Mays, Jim Nabors, Randy Owen, Jesse Owens, Satchel Paige, Rosa Parks, Wilson Pickett, Condoleezza Rice, Lionel Richie, Bart Starr, Ruben Studdard, George Wallace, Booker T. Washington, and Hank Williams.

If you are planning to visit Alabama, a good place to start looking for information would be Alabama's official tourism website. The Encyclopedia of Alabama is also a very large resource for information on the State.

Other fun things to do and interesting things to learn about Alabama can be found at these places:

EnchantedLearning.com has many resources and fun activities (including printables) on the State of Alabama. Fun for kids and a fantastic resource for parents and teachers.

Happy 4th of July! (MASSIVE LINKS HERE)

On this day in 1776, the Declaration of Independence was approved by the Continental Congress, starting the 13 colonies on the road to becoming their own country, independent from England. If you are an American citizen or you live in the United States, you are very lucky because we are a great country that loves freedom very much. In this country, you can dream any dream of what you want to be and you can work toward making that dream come true.

I have collected a lot of great stuff for you to look at, learn from, enjoy, play with and just have fun and it all has to do with the 4th of July and/or our great country. Pick a place that you would like to visit from the menu list below. That webpage should open up in a new window.

SECURITY NOTE FOR BOTH KIDS AND ADULTS: Almost ALL websites use some kind of advertising or they ask for donations. You will probably see that at many of the links I provide here. That's not necessarily something bad but I think it's fair to tell you it will be there. KIDS, you must NEVER give your email address or any other personal information about yourself to any website without telling your parents FIRST that's what you want to do. That's also true if a website says you can download something to your computer (yes, even if it's for free). NEVER DOWNLOAD ANYTHING TO YOUR COMPUTER without telling your parents first that's what you want to do.

U.S. Geography Game

How much do YOU know about U.S. geography and where individual States are located? Can you find them all on the map? As the little guy flies by in his plane, you click on the State named in his fly-by banner. Easy!

Did You Know...

Did you know the average life expectancy of your one-dollar bill is just 18 months or that you can fold a dollar bill 8,000 times before it will tear?

Did you know the dollar bill isn't actually paper? US bills are 75% cotton and 25% linen.

Did you know that 38 million bills are printed each day by the Bureaus of Engraving and Printing? That's all denominations of our paper money for a grand total of $541 million dollars.

Did you know it takes a stack of 490 bills to weigh just one pound? Did you know a dollar bill is .0043" thick?

Did you know the word "dollar," which appears on both sides of the bill, is a variation of the German word Taler, the name of a silver piece that was 1st coined in 1518?

Did you know the first paper currency issued by the U.S. Department of the Treasury were Demand Notes Series 1861?

Did you know if you had 10 billion $1 notes and spent one every second of every day, it would require 317 years for you to go broke?

Did you know Martha Washington is the only woman whose portrait has appeared on a U.S. currency note? It appeared on the face of the $1 Silver Certificate of 1886 and 1891, and the back of the $1 Silver Certificate of 1896.

Did you know the very first one-dollar bill had a picture of Salmon Chase on it? Chase was the sixth Chief Justice of the Supreme Court and Secretary of the Treasury under President Abraham Lincoln. The one-dollar bill featuring President George Washington was released in 1869.

Did you know nearly one-half of all bills printed in the United States are one-dollar bills?

Did you know that the eagle seal on the back of the dollar bill is actually taken from a centuries old seal of the 6-Nations of the Iroquois? (Except the 6-Nations seal didn't have the E Pluribus Unum banner, and it was holding 6 arrows in its talon instead of the current 13).

Did you know there are 293 ways to make change for a US dollar?

Ben's Guide to U.S. Government for Kids

From kindergarten through high school students, this portal (gateway) website puts you in touch with every govenment agency that's built a special website for young people. The webpages are categorized by specific age groups. Psst... this is a fun hangout for grown-ups, too, even if it was designed with kids in mind.

In the future, I will probably be featuring some of the government websites mentioned here in this big list of all lists.

FROM THE WEBSITE:

Ben's Guide to U.S. Government for Kids is brought to the World Wide Web as a
service of the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office (GPO). Ben's Guide serves as the educational component of GPO Access, GPO's service to provide the official online version of legislative and regulatory information.

This site provides learning tools for K-12 students, parents, and teachers. These resources will teach how our government works, the use of the primary source materials of GPO Access, and how one can use GPO Access to carry out their civic responsibilities. And, just as GPO Access provides locator services to U.S. Government sites, Ben's Guide provides a similar service to U.S. Government Web sites developed for kids.

VISIT THIS WEBSITE

ALSO SEE KIDS.GOV (seems to be another official portal to the United States government for kids).