Which state has the most interesting history?

[Quixote1818]

I originally had Florida, Virginia, New York, Arizona and Pennsylvania on here too, but after I put down their history it just didn't compare to these states. I didn't include much about the early indigenous people because they were all over America in every state.


Some Important Historical Facts For Each State

Texas - 1529: Alonso Alvarez de Pineda, a Spanish explorer, became probably the first European to map the Texas coast. 1528–1535: the Narváez expedition, including Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca and Estevanico, spent six and a half years in Texas as slaves. 1685: René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de LaSalle established Fort St. Louis at Matagorda Bay, thus establishing the French claim to Texan territory. 1835: The Texas Revolution. 1836 Battle of the Alamo. Route 66. John Kennedy assassinated in Dallas. Some famous Texans: Davy Crockett, Jim Bowie, Stephen F. Austin.

New Mexico - Some 100 years before the pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock, Spanish explorers made their way into present-day New Mexico. In 1532, Alvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca led the first European expedition into the region. Other explorers quickly followed, inspired by rumors that he had discovered Seven Cities of Gold. Spanish explorer Francisco Vasquez de Coronado 1540–1542. Juan de Oñate founded the San Juan colony on the Rio Grande in 1598, the first permanent European settlement. (1680-1692) Pueblo Revolt. 1822 - Santa Fe Trail. Kit Carson moves to Taos. Apache wars, Geronimo surrendered in 1886. Billy the Kid and Lincoln County Wars. 1916 Poncho Villa raids Columbis NM. Route 66. Alleged UFO crash near Roswell. First Atomic bomb tested at trinity sight.

California - 458 - Chineses records speak of the explorer Hui Shan, who in 458 A.D. sailed the Pacific and may have reached the coast of California. Hui Shan noted tall trees with a red wood. 1540 - Antonio de Mendoza, Viceroy of New Spain, sends a second sea expedition under Hernando de Alarcon up the Gulf of California where they enter the mouth of the Colorado River and become the first Europeans to stand on California soil. See also the overland expeditions of Francisco Vásquez de Coronado. 1579 - Sir Francis Drake landed north of San Francisco Bay and claimed the territory for England. 1846 - Mexican-American War. 1848 - James Marshall discovered gold at Sutter's sawmill, starting the gold rush. Hollywood and a number of devastating earthquakes. Route 66.

Massachusetts - The Pilgrims from the Humber region of England originally landed at what is now Provincetown, Massachusetts. In 1620. Mayflower compact. 1621 they celebrated their first Thanksgiving. Boston was the center of revolutionary activity in the decade before 1775, with Samuel Adams, John Adams, and John Hancock as leaders who would become important in the eventual war. March 5th 1770 Boston Massacre. Boston Tea Party. April 18,1775 Paul Revere made his famous ride. Battle of Lexington and Concord, where the famous "shot heard round the world" was fired. Some of the most important writers and thinkers of this time came from Massachusetts. Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson.

[Aristus]

1. When I was attending junior high school in Houston, I noted that the

school's History Of Texas textbook was three times the size of the textbook for U.S. History. I now attribute that to the notion that Texas history is twenty pounds of bullshit in a ten pound bag (or book. :-) ) Much like Texas itself. I say that having been born and raised in San Antonio.

There's a reason I live in the Northwest these days...

[Quixote1818]

2. There is a lot of history there but it's mostly Texas changing hands

from Spain to France to Mexico to the US, etc. etc. etc.

One thing that always cracks me up about Texas is there National Parks. Big Bend and Guadalupe NP. Both suck and would hardly make a National Monument in any other Western State.

[Aristus]

3. Well, there you go... Texas is a lot of nothing bragged into something

by people too crazed to live somewhere else.

[sasquatch]

11. LOL!!

[XemaSab]

4. California's more interesting than that...

The history of the Chinese, Japanese, Spanish, and Native Americans alone would fill some LARGE books.

We've also got the bear flag revolt and the Gold Rush, not to mention more modern history like the great depression, WWII, the 1960's, and all the battles over land and water use. :hi:

[Quixote1818]

5. I got my info mostly from here

http://www.shgresources.com/ca/timeline/

It may not do a very good job with the history. I suppose I could have put in something about the Pony Express and John Muir too.

[Lautremont]

6. Udahio.

[MilesColtrane]

7. I voted Texas because it retains the right to break up into five separate states.

And God knows sometimes, I wish it would.


http://www.snopes.com/history/american/texas.asp

[ElizabethDC]

8. Florida has the oldest European-established city in the U.S.

of course, then there was a period of several hundred years when nothing happened there. Still, I gotta speak up for my home state.

For me, however, the winner would probably be either Massachusetts or Virginia (I can't believe you left that one out: Jamestown, Yorktown, Appamattox, Arlington, Mount Vernon, Williamsburg etc.)

[JCMach1]

12. Florida! So way cool and whacked stuff there....

Including a pirate republic...

The Amelia Island Affair was an episode in the history of colonial Florida.

The Embargo Act (1807) and the abolishment of the American slave trade (1805) made Amelia Island, on the coast of Spanish Florida, a resort for smugglers with sometimes as many as 300 square-rigged vessels in its harbor. To Amelia in June, 1817, came Gregor MacGregor, a Scottish adventurer styling himself the "brigadier general" of the United Provinces of the New Granada and Venezuela and general-in-chief of the armies of the two Floridas. A peripatetic military adventurer, McGregor raised funds and troops for a full-scale invasion of Florida throughout the United States, but he squandered the money on luxuries in the United States and as word of his conduct in South American wars reached the United States, much of his invasion force deserted. Nonetheless, he overran the island with a small force, but left for Nassau in September.

His followers were soon joined by Louis-Michel Aury, formerly associated with McGregor in South American adventures, and previously leader of a pirates' gang on Galveston Island, Texas. Aury assumed control of Amelia, got a legislature elected, set a committee to drawing a constitution, and invited all Florida to unite in throwing off the Spanish yoke. The United States, which had plans to annexe the peninsula, sent a naval force which captured Amelia Island on December 23, 1817, and put an end to the republic. The island was returned to the Spanish prior to 1821... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amelia_Island_Affair

[cobalt1999]

18. Florida has always been a place full of colorful and crazy people

What other state starts their historical records with someone seriously looking for the "Fountain of Youth" (especially ironic compared to the geriatric pop now here). Then add in the first European settlement, the pirates, and all the ne'er do wells, scoundrels, and con artists that have thrived here since the earliest times, and fact it was once Spanish, then British, then back to Spanish, then in the US, then part of the Confederacy, then back to the US.

I have to go with Florida.

[petronius]

9. Definitely California. Here it is in a nutshell:

Blah blah blah blah blah. Then petronius was born. The world rejoiced...

[Adsos Letter]

10. I chose "other" and voted for Brazil...

[Tyler Durden]

13. Confusion...or maybe Denial.

Either one can be fun to watch.

[Crabby Appleton]

14. Why isn't Delaware one of the poll choices?

[HERVEPA]

19. To piss off LynneSin

[Lyric]

15. West Virginia

Born during the Civil War by Presidential Proclamation, it is the only state whose Statehood is still considered legally dubious. The first black female state legislator in the nation served in West Virginia is 1928. The Greenbriar Resort in Greenbriar County, WV was the site of a secret government bunker to be used as a shelter for Congress in the event of a nuclear attack. The New River Gorge Bridge was, for a long time, the largest single-span bridge in the world. The woman who created Mother's Day was born in West Virginia, and the first Mother's Day was celebrated in Grafton, WV. Famous West Virginians include author Pearl Buck, pilot Chuck Yeager (who was the first to break the sound barrier in flight), Anna Marie Jarvis (the founder of Mother's Day), Mary Lou Retton (Olympic Gold-medal winning gymnast), Booker T. Washington (born in Virginia but grew up in West Virginia), actor Don Knotts, and player and coach Jerry West.

[radfringe]

16. State of Confusion... but it's a bit hard to follow

[Burma Jones]

17. Louisiana has a very interesting history

All that French Catholicism in the Protestant Bible Belt. State laws based on the Napoleonic Code. Creoles and Cajuns. The Birthplace of Jazz. Corruption on a massive scale. David Duke. Katrina. etc etc etc......

[QueenOfCalifornia]

20. I voted for CA

but not because I think it's history is more relevant than the other choices... but because of the fact, after years and years of evolution, my state, in its infinite wisdom decided to elect Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) as its governor.