Tennessee is our next stop on our trip around the country. It is also the second state in a row (following Kentucky last week) that I have not been to, yet. Tennessee was nearly admitted to the Union in the days following the American Revolution as the State of Franklin, but the admission was turned down by the Continental Congress. Tennessee is the first state to be admitted to the Union that was territory that was under the direct control of the US Government.
In the Civil War, Tennessee was the last state to join the Confederacy and the first to rejoin the Union after the conflict. Tennessee gave more soldiers to the Confederate Army and more soldiers to the Union Army than any Southern state. In 1920, Tennessee became the final state necessary to ratify the 19th Amendment, which gave women the right to vote.
Tennessee has a significant impact on the industrialization on the United States, with the Tennessee Valley Authority created in 1933 and Oak Ridge National Laboratory, which helped to build the nation's first atomic bomb in the 1940s. The Grand Ole Opry in Nashville cements Tennessee's hold on the home country music in the United States.
Tennessee is credited as the home states of the two Andrew Presidents, Johnson, and Jackson and Manifest Destiny President James K. Polk. Andrew Jackson also served as the state's first Congressman following its admission to the Union. President Gore is also from Tennessee . . . oh wait. Never mind.
Currently, the Governor of Tennessee is Bill Haslam, a Republican. Both of the Senators from Tennessee are Republicans, Senior Senator Lamar Alexander and the Junior Senator, Bob Corker. There are nine members in the Tennessee House Delegation, 7 Republicans and 2 Democrats.
- 1st District - Phil Roe (R)
- 2nd District - John J. Duncan, Jr. (R)
- 3rd District - Chuck Fleischmann (R)
- 4th District - Scott DesJarlais (R)
- 5th District - Jim Cooper (D)
- 6th District - Diane Black (R)
- 7th District - Marsha Blackburn (R)
- 8th District - Stephen Fincher (R)
- 9th District - Steve Cohen (D)
- State Capital - Nashville
- Largest City - Memphis
- Date of Admission - June 1, 1796
- Area - 42,143 sq mi (36th)
- State Motto - "Agriculture and Commerce"
- State Nickname - the Volunteer State
- State bird - mockingbird
- State flower -iris
- State tree -tulip poplar
- State University - the University of Tennessee
- State Archives - Tennessee State Library and Archives
- Population (2011 est.) - 6,403,353 (17th)
- tn. gov - the Official Website of the State of Tennessee
- The Tennessee Tourism site - tnvacation.com
- The Encyclopedia Britannic entry for Tennessee
- Wikpedia
- 50states.com entry for Tennessee
- InfoPlease entry for Tennessee
- Tennessee Encyclopedia of History and Culture
- The Tennessee Blue Book (government handbook)
- Fact Sheet on Tennessee from the USDA
Prominent Tennesseans (here's a few lists to peruse, one, two, and three)
- James Agee - writer
- Singing sisters and brothers, the Aldridge Sisters and the Allman Brothers and the Cash family (John, June, and Roseann)
- Eddy Arnold - according to the fan website (see link), Arnold is the only singer to have songs on the Billboard Charts for seven decades, from the 1940s to the 2000s.
- Chet Atkins - guitarist
- Julian Bond - the Civil Rights icon was most recently was Chair of the NAACP
- Hattie Caraway - the first woman elected to the United States Senate
- Jack Garnet Carter - the inventor of miniature golf
- Davy Crockett
- David G. Farragut - first American Admiral in the US Civil War, said to have uttered the phrase, "Damn the Torpedoes, Full Speed Ahead!"
- Lester Flatt - bluegrass musician
- Tennessee Ernie Ford - well sure.
- Supreme Court Justice Abe Fortas
- Aretha Franklin
- Isaac Hayes
- Benjamin L. Hooks - Civil Rights activist
- Secretary of State Cordell Hull and Nobel Peace Prize winner
- Senator and two-time Presidential Candidate Estes Kefauver
- Dolly Parton
- Minnie Pearl
- Journalist Carl Rowan
- Olympic medalist and runner Wilma Rudolph
- Sequoyah - the Cherokee Indian scholar and educator
- Someone's in the Kitchen with Dinah Shore
- Tina Turner
- World War I hero Sergeant Alvin York
2 comments:
The Governor of Kentucky is Steve Beshear. Belive you have a typo in hear - You mean the Governor of Tennessee.
So noted and fixed. Copying and pasting sometimes gets me in trouble.
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