Alabama

Regions Park, formerly known as Hoover Metropolitan Stadium or The Hoover Met, is a minor league baseball park located in the Birmingham, Alabama,... USA, suburb of Hoover. It has been the home of the Birmingham Barons of the Southern League since 1988, replacing historic Rickwood Field in Birmingham. The stadium also serves as the home for the SEC Baseball Tournament as well as Hoover High School football. Regions Park is located in the Birmingham-Hoover Metropolitan Area near Interstate 459 at Exit 10 just off Alabama State Route 150. The stadium is located three miles from the Riverchase Galleria, one of the south's largest shopping centers. The seating capacity is 10,800 for baseball and can accommodate up to 16,000 when the patio, banquet, and grassy side areas are used. The stadium also houses 12 suites and state-of-the-art dressing and training rooms. The stadium also features a meeting/banquet room named for Michael Jordan, who played for the Barons during his brief foray into professional baseball, during which time the stadium experienced its largest crowds. Regions Park was renamed in March 2007 when Regions Financial Corporation purchased the naming rights.
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Fort Harker, located near Stevenson, Alabama, was a military fortification built by the Union Army during the American Civil War. Constructed in the... summer of 1862 by soldiers and freed slaves of the Army of the Cumberland, the fort helped secure strategic railroad lines to ensure the free movement of Union troops and supplies in southeastern Tennessee and northeastern Alabama. Union General William Rosecrans established his headquarters at Fort Harker in July, 1863, from where he directed a successful campaign against the position of Confederate General Braxton Bragg in Chattanooga, Tennessee. The fort would be abandoned after the war and fall into disrepair. After restoration, the site became a city park in 1985. Fort Harker was built to defend a strategic position captured by Union troops in northeastern Alabama. Situated atop a hill east of the town of Stevenson, it was constructed in the summer of 1862 by soldiers and freed slaves of the Army of the Cumberland, commanded by Union General William Rosecrans. Stevenson was located at the junction for the Memphis and Charleston Railroad and the Nashville and Chattanooga Railroad.
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The Mount Vernon Arsenal-Searcy Hospital Complex is a historic district listed on the National Register of Historic Places in Mount Vernon, Alabama,... in Mobile County. It is currently home to Searcy Hospital, a state-owned and operated psychiatric hospital, and was formerly home to the Mount Vernon Arsenal, a United States Army munitions depot. The Mount Vernon Arsenal was a United States Army munitions depot, located on the Mobile River three miles west of Fort Stoddert, approximately 30 miles inland from the Gulf of Mexico near Mount Vernon, Alabama. Along with the Kennebec Arsenal in Augusta, Maine, it is one of the most complete antebellum arsenals surviving to the present day. It was established by the United States Army in 1828 as an ordnance manufacturing base, the Mount Vernon Arsenal served as one of the US Army's main ammunition plants from its inception until the Civil War. On January 4, 1861, troops of the Alabama state militia took possession of the arsenal on the orders of Alabama governor Andrew B. Moore. The takeover from the small US Army force, commanded by Captain Jesse L. Reno, was peaceful and bloodless.
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Fort Toulouse is a historic fort near the city of Wetumpka, Alabama, United States, that is now maintained by the Alabama Historical Commission. The... French founded the fort in 1717, naming it for Louis-Alexandre de Bourbon, comte de Toulouse. In order to counter the growing influence of the British colonies of Georgia and Carolina, the government of French Louisiana erected a fort on the eastern border of the Louisiana Colony in what is now the state of Alabama. The fort was also referred to as the Post of the Alabama, named after the Alabama Tribe of Upper Creek Indians, who resided just below the confluence of the Coosa and Tallapoosa rivers on the upper reaches of the Alabama River. The number of troops in garrison varied between 20 to 50 French Colonial Marines. Living and working at the fort, the Marines traded extensively with the local Creek Native Americans and cultivated friendly relations with them.
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Hank Williams , born Hiram King Williams, was an American singer-songwriter and musician regarded as one of the most important country music artists of all time. Williams recorded 35 singles that would place in the Top 10 of the Billboard Country & Western Best Sellers chart, including 11 that... ranked number one. Born in Mount Olive, Alabama, Williams moved to Georgiana, where he met Rufus Payne, a black street performer who gave him guitar lessons in exchange for meals. Payne had a major influence on Williams's later musical style. During this time, Williams informally changed his name to Hank, believing it to be a better name for country music. After moving to Montgomery, Williams began his career in 1937 when WSFA radio station producers hired him to perform and host a 15-minute program. He formed as backup the Drifting Cowboys band, which was managed by his mother, and dropped out of school to devote all of his time to his career.
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Wilson Pickett was an American R&B/Soul singer and songwriter. A major figure in the development of American soul music, Pickett recorded over 50 songs which made the US R&B charts, and frequently crossed over to the US Billboard Hot 100. Among his best known hits are "In the Midnight... Hour" , "Land of 1,000 Dances", "Mustang Sally", and "Funky Broadway". The impact of Pickett's songwriting and recording led to his 1991 induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Pickett was born March 18, 1941 in Prattville, Alabama, and grew up singing in Baptist church choirs. He was the fourth of 11 children and called his mother "the baddest woman in my book," telling historian Gerri Hirshey: "I get scared of her now. She used to hit me with anything, skillets, stove wood — cried for a week. Stayed in the woods, me and my little dog." Pickett eventually left to live with his father in Detroit in 1955.
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Dinah Washington, born Ruth Lee Jones , was an American blues, R&B and jazz singer. She has been cited as "the most popular black female recording artist of the '50s", and called "The Queen of the Blues". She is a 1986 inductee of the Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame, and was inducted into the Rock... and Roll Hall of Fame in 1993. Ruth Jones was born in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, United States, and moved to Chicago as a child. Dinah became deeply involved in gospel and played piano for the choir in St. Luke's Baptist Church while she was still in elementary school. She sang gospel music in church and played piano, directing her church choir in her teens and being a member of the Sallie Martin Gospel Singers. She sang lead with the first female gospel singers formed by Ms Martin, who was co-founder of the Gospel Singers Convention. Jones' involvement with the gospel choir occurred after she won an amateur contest at Chicago's Regal Theater where she sang "I Can't Face the Music". After winning a talent contest at the age of 15, she began performing in clubs.
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Addison Mitchell "Mitch" McConnell, Jr. , a Republican, is the senior United States Senator from Kentucky and the Minority Leader. McConnell was born in Tuscumbia, Alabama to Julia and Addison Mitchell McConnell. McConnell was raised in southern Louisville, Kentucky, where he attended the duPont... Manual High School, and in 1964 he graduated with honors from the University of Louisville with a B.A. in political science. He was student body president and a member of the Phi Kappa Tau fraternity. McConnell has maintained strong ties to his alma mater, and "remains a rabid fan of its sports teams." He graduated in 1967 from the University of Kentucky College of Law, where he was elected president of the Student Bar Association. McConnell became a member of the 100th Division , U.S. Army Reserve, in Louisville, Kentucky, during his final semester of law school; and he reported for his six months of active service, primarily for training, in July 1967. After induction at Fort Knox, Kentucky, McConnell was released early from his active-duty military service in August 1967.
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Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of... Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. Florida is the 22nd most extensive, the 4th most populous, and the 8th most densely populated of the 50 United States. The state capital is Tallahassee, its largest city is Jacksonville, and the South Florida metropolitan area is the largest metropolitan area in the southeastern U.S. Much of Florida is situated on a peninsula between the Gulf of Mexico, the Atlantic Ocean, and the Straits of Florida. Its geography is marked by a coastline, by the omnipresence of water and the threat of hurricanes. Florida has the longest coastline in the contiguous United States, encompassing approximately 1,350 miles , and is the only state to border both the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean. Much of the state is at or near sea level and its terrain is characterized by sedimentary soils. The climate varies from subtropical in the north to tropical in the south.
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Georgia is a state located in the southeastern United States. It was established in 1732, the last of the original Thirteen Colonies. Named after... King George II of Great Britain, Georgia was the fourth state to ratify the United States Constitution, on January 2, 1788. It declared its secession from the Union on January 21, 1861, and was one of the original seven Confederate states. It was the last state to be restored to the Union, on July 15, 1870. Georgia is the 24th most extensive and the 9th most populous of the 50 United States. From 2007 to 2008, 14 of Georgia's counties ranked among the nation's 100 fastest-growing, second only to Texas. Georgia is known as the Peach State and the Empire State of the South. Atlanta is the state's capital and its most populous city. Georgia is bordered on the south by Florida; on the east by the Atlantic Ocean and South Carolina; on the west by Alabama; and on the north by Tennessee and North Carolina. The northern part of the state is in the Blue Ridge Mountains, a mountain range in the vast Appalachian Mountains system.
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Tennessee is a U.S. state located in the Southeastern United States. Tennessee is the 36th most extensive and the 17th most populous of the 50... United States. Tennessee is bordered by Kentucky and Virginia to the north, North Carolina to the east, Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi to the south, and Arkansas and Missouri to the west. The Appalachian Mountains dominate the eastern part of the state, and the Mississippi River forms the state's western border. Tennessee's capital and second largest city is Nashville, which has a population of 626,144. Memphis is the state's largest city, with a population of 670,902. The state of Tennessee is rooted in the Watauga Association, a 1772 frontier pact generally regarded as the first constitutional government west of the Appalachians. What is now Tennessee was initially part of North Carolina, and later part of the Southwest Territory. Tennessee was admitted to the Union as the 16th state on June 1, 1796. Tennessee was the last state to leave the Union and join the Confederacy at the outbreak of the U.S. Civil War in 1861, and the first state to be readmitted to the Union at the end of the war.
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