25 interesting facts about Tennessee

1. Tennessee is a state located in the Southeastern United States.
2. Tennessee's capital and second largest city is Nashville, which has a population of 626,144.
3. Total Area: 36th among states, 109,158 sq km (42,146 sq mi).
4. Tennessee has a population of 6,214,888, making it the nation's 17th-largest state by population.
5. On a clear day seven states are visible from Lookout Mountain near Chattanooga.
6. Memphis is the state's largest city, with a population of 670,902.
7. The National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis marks the site where Martin Luther King, Jr., was assassinated in 1968.
   
8. In the early 19th-century, Tennessee was home to some of American history's most colorful political figures, among them Davy Crockett, Andrew Jackson, and Sam Houston.
9. The largest earthquake in American history, the New Madrid Earthquake, occurred in the winter of 1811-12 in Tennessee. Reelfoot Lake and Lake Counties were created during this earthquake.
10. 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.
11. Bluegrass music originated in Bristol, in northeastern Tennessee.
12. Tennessee furnished more soldiers for the Confederate Army than any other state, and more soldiers for the Union Army than any other Southern state.
13. The Grand Ole Opry in Nashville is the longest continuously running live radio program in the world. It has broadcast every weekend since 1925.
14. Tennessee has seen some of the nation's worst racial strife, from the formation of the Ku Klux Klan in Pulaski in 1866 to the assassination of Martin Luther King in Memphis in 1968.
15. The first guide dog for the blind in the U.S. lived in Nashville with her owner Morris Frank. “Buddy” was trained in Switzerland by The Seeing Eye, the first organization to train guide dogs.
16. In the early 1940s, Oak Ridge, Tennessee was established to house the Manhattan Project's uranium enrichment facilities, helping to build the world's first atomic bomb.
17. More Civil War battles were fought in Tennessee than in any other state except Virginia.
18. Tennessee is the birthplace of country music, and has played a critical role in the development of rock and roll and early blues music.
19. On October 7, 1916 Georgia Tech beat Cumberland University in a football game by a score of 222 to 0.
20. Memphis was home to Sun Records, where musicians such as Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis, Roy Orbison, and Charlie Rich began their recording careers, and where rock and roll took shape in the 1950s.
21. Samuel Carter of Elizabethton was the only person in American history to be both an Admiral in the Navy and a General in the Army.
22. Tennessee's major industries include agriculture, manufacturing, and tourism.
23. The only monument in the United States honoring both the Union and Confederate armies is located in Greenville at the Green County Courthouse.
24. The Great Smoky Mountains National Park is the nation's most visited national park.
25. Other major tourist attractions include Elvis Presley's Graceland in Memphis and the Tennessee Aquarium in Chattanooga.