Alabama Facts

In 1955 a black woman named Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a Montgomery bus to a white passenger.  Martin Luther King, Jr. led a successful boycott of the city's public transportation and brought the technique of passive resistance to national prominence.
 

Beginning in the 1950s, the United States space flight program at Redstone Arsenal and George C. Marshall Space Flight Center made Huntsville a leading aerospace center.
 

There are no large natural lakes in Alabama, but the state has several large reservoirs, including Wheeler Lake on the Tennessee River and R. L. Harris Reservoir on the Tallapoosa River.
 

The United States Army Chemical Corps Museum in Fort McClellan contains over 4,000 chemical warfare artifacts.
 

Workers in Alabama built the first rocket to put humans on the moon.  
 

The first electric trolley streetcars in the United States began operating in 1866 in Montgomery.
 

Montgomery was the birthplace and capital of the Confederate States of America.
 

Located in the Hall of History, in Bessemer, is Hitler’s typewriter.
 

Alabama is the only state with all major natural resources needed to make iron and steel.
 

In 1902, Dr. Hill performed the first open heart surgery in the Western Hemisphere, by suturing a stab wound in a young boy’s heart.  The surgery occurred in Montgomery.