Alabama was the first state to declare Christmas a legal holiday, in 1836.

Contrary to popular belief, “Sweet Home Alabama” by Lynyrd Skynyrd is not Alabama’s official song. It is actually a poem titled “Alabama” by Julie Tutwiler that was later set to music by Edna Gockel Gussen. The song was officially adopted in 1931.

In 1919, the city of Enterprise erected a monument to the boll weevil in recognition of the destructive insect’s role in saving Coffee County’s economy by encouraging farmers to grow more lucrative crops such as peanuts instead of traditional cotton.

Huntsville (a.k.a. The Rocket City) is home to Alabama’s #1 tourist attraction – The U.S. Space & Rocket Center, the largest aerospace museum in the Country, which is also the home of Space Camp. In 2019, the Rocket Center had over 1,000,000,000 visitors – a first for “any paid attraction in Alabama!” (Judy Ryals, President/CEO of the Huntsville/Madison County Convention & Visitors Bureau)

The Tuskegee Airmen, the first African-American flying unit in the U.S. military, were trained in Alabama. Their accomplished combat record, including the accumulation of more than 850 medals, was an important factor in President Truman’s decision to desegregate the Armed Forces in 1948.

Located in Tuskegee, Alabama, 40 miles east of the Alabama State Capitol in Montgomery, Tuskegee University enrolls over 3,000 students and has produced more African-American general officers in the military than any other institution, including the service academies.

Visit Ivy Green, the birthplace of Helen Keller, and touch the pump where the activist, who was born deaf and blind, first learned the word “water.”

Famous Alabamans include country singer Hank Williams, educator Booker T. Washington, inventor George Washington Carver, jazz singer Nat “King” Cole, and author Harper Lee.

Rosa Parks refused to surrender her seat to a white passenger on a segregated bus in Montgomery, Alabama. Her defiance sparked the Montgomery Bus Boycott.