Nickname: No Official Nickname! Date Ratified: December 14, 1819 (22nd) Capital: Montgomery [caption id="attachment_1899" align="aligncenter" width="210" caption="Map of Alabama"] [/caption]

• Alabama workers built the first rocket that sent humans to the moon, and Huntsville is known as the rocket capital of the world.
• The world's first electric trolley went into service in Montgomery in 1886.
• Alabama is the only state with all of the natural resources to create iron and steel. As such, it is the largest producer of cast-iron and steel pipe products.
• The Alabama Department of Archives is the oldest state-funded archival agency in the nation.
• Alabama is actually the state that introduced Mardi Gras to the U.S, with the holiday Shrove Tuesday.
• In 1902 Dr. Luther Leonidas Hill performed the first open heart surgery in the Western Hemisphere by suturing a stab wound in a young boy's heart.
• The state flag of Alabama depicts the Cross of St. Andrew and was adopted in 1895. It was not designed to commemorate the Confederate battle flag.

[caption id="attachment_1900" align="aligncenter" width="210" caption="Flag of Alabama"] [/caption] Be sure to subscribe to the RSS feed, or follow EiH on Twitter or you could miss out on your chance to win Names on the Land: A Historical Account of Place-Naming in the United States by George R. Stewart