Alabama

Capital: Montgomery

Population: 4,447,100

Entered the Union: December 14, 1819

As the: 22nd state

Motto: Audemus Jura Nostra Defendere (We Dare Defend Our Rights)

Origin of Name: May come from Choctaw word meaning "thicket-clearers" or "vegetation-gatherers"

Major Industries: Paper, Chemicals, and Rubber and Plastics

Historical Sites: Montgomery, founding site of the Confederate States of America in 1861, and later the site of the Montgomery bus boycotts in the 1950s and 1960s; Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in downtown Montgomery, where Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., served as minister; the Tuskegee Institute, founded by Booker T. Washington in 1881

Points of Interest: Ivy Green, the birthplace of Helen Keller in Tuscambia; the Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville; and the White House of the Confederacy in Montgomery