2nd-+Alabama

//**Alabama**//

__**History**__
==The Spanish explorers arrived in Mobile Bay in 1519 and was visited in 1540 by explorer, Hernando de Soto. The first permanent European settlement in Alabama was established by the French in 1702. The British achieved power over the area in 1763 by the Treaty of Paris but had to give up just about all the Alabama region to the U.S. and Spain after the American Revolution. The Confederacy was established at Montgomery in February of 1861. For awhile the city was the Confederate capital.==


 * __ALABAMA__**
 * ==Alabama is the 22nd state in the U.S. and gained statehood on December 14, 1819.==
 * ==The capital is Montgomery and the state motto is "We Dare Defend Our Rights."==
 * ==The population is 4,447,100 (as of 2000).==
 * ==The major industries are agriculture, hydroelectric power, mining, and steel-making.==




 * Alabama is nicknamed as the "yellowhammer state" after the Alabama soldiers who were referrd to as the "Yellowhammers." It is also nicknamed as the Heart of Dixie.
 * Harper Lee was born in Monroeville, AL in 1926
 * Alabama means "tribal town" in the language of the local Creek Indians
 * The state mascot is the Eastern Tiger Swallowtail
 * The state dance is the square dance
 * The state dance is the square dance

Rosa Parks:
==Rosa Parks was a modest seamstress who was waiting patiently for the bus after work at a department store in Montgomery, Alabama. Shortly after she got on the bus, she was told to move to the back so there would be room for the white people. She refused to give up her seat and was tossed off the bus and quickly arrested. That single act, on December 1st 1955 is remembered as the start of the civil rights movement and she is respectfully remembered,and called the mother of the civil rights movement.==