Curated playlist
States of the United States
- AlaskaIn 1867, the United States bought Alaska from Russia for $7.2 million. Critics dismissed it as Seward's Folly.
- 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.
- MinnesotaMinnesota's nickname, Land of 10,000 Lakes, is an undercount. It has 11,842 lakes larger than ten acres.
- 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.
- New MexicoThe name New Mexico is older than the country of Mexico. Spanish explorers used it in 1581.
- 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.
- MaineMaine became a state in 1820 through a deal over slavery, the Missouri Compromise.
- 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.
- ArizonaArizona has had five female governors, more than any state. In 1998, women won all five top statewide offices.
- CaliforniaCalifornia probably got its name from a Spanish novel about a gold island. The book was published in 1510.
- DelawareDelaware is the second-smallest state, yet more than half of publicly traded American companies are incorporated there.
- IllinoisOne border change in 1818 gave Illinois nearly 50 miles of Lake Michigan shoreline. Nathaniel Pope lobbied for it.
- PennsylvaniaKing Charles II gave William Penn the land that became Pennsylvania to settle a debt. Penn was mortified by the name.
- 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.
- MissouriMissouri's name comes from a word meaning "one who has dugout canoes."
- 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.
- ColoradoColorado is a landlocked state in the Mountain West, and its southwest corner is a spot found nowhere else in the United States. The Four Corners Monument marks the shared boundary of Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona and Utah. It is the only…