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Curated playlist

Southern United States

  • Southern United StatesPer capita income in the South jumped 140% from 1940 to 1945, against 100% elsewhere.
  • Indian TerritoryIndian Territory began as a land deal: in 1803 the U.S. paid $15 million for France's claim.
  • AlabamaAlabama's largest city is Huntsville, not its capital, Montgomery. NASA arrived in 1960.
  • KentuckyKentucky holds more than 5.7 million aging bourbon barrels but has only about 4.6 million people.
  • MississippiMississippi was the fifth-wealthiest state before the Civil War. Today its per-capita income is the lowest.
  • West VirginiaWest Virginia broke away from Virginia during the Civil War. It became a state on the 20th of June 1863.
  • ArkansasIn 1881, Arkansas lawmakers had to pass a resolution on how to say the state's name.
  • TexasTexas took its name from a Caddo word meaning 'friend.' The Spanish first applied it to the Caddo people.
  • TennesseeTennessee was the last state to secede, yet the first former Confederate state readmitted.
  • Washington, D.C.Washington, D.C., belongs to Congress, not to any state. Its residents pay federal taxes but have no vote there.
  • LouisianaNapoleon sold all of Louisiana to the United States for less than three cents an acre.
  • North CarolinaNorth Carolina was the first colony to formally instruct its delegates to vote for independence.
  • OklahomaOklahoma's name was first meant for a state only for Native peoples. Choctaw Chief Allen Wright proposed it in 1865.
  • South CarolinaAbout a third of all combat in the war for independence took place in South Carolina.
  • DelawareDelaware is the second-smallest state, yet more than half of publicly traded American companies are incorporated there.
  • Georgia (U.S. state)Joe Biden carried Georgia in 2020 by only 11,779 votes. Georgia had voted Republican six times running.
  • MarylandMaryland touches the capital, the Atlantic, the Appalachians and a huge bay, earning the name America in Miniature.
  • FloridaFlorida's position between two bodies of water shaped its whole history.
  • VirginiaVirginia's elected assembly first met in July 1619, before the Pilgrims landed.

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