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The 2005 Sugar Bowl was a postseason American college football bowl game between the Virginia Tech Hokies and the Auburn Tigers at the Louisiana Superdome in New Orleans, Louisiana, on January 3, 2005. It was the 71st edition of the annual Sugar Bowl football contest. Virginia Tech represented the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) in the contest, while Auburn represented the Southeastern Conference (SEC). Virginia Tech was selected as a participant in the game after winning the ACC football championship during the team's first year in the conference. Tech finished the regular season 10–2. Auburn finished the regular season undefeated and 12–0. In a defensive struggle, Auburn earned a 16–13 victory despite a late-game rally by Virginia Tech.
In the first quarter, Auburn took a 3–0 lead. Following an interception by the Auburn defense, their lead was extended to 6–0. In the second quarter, another field goal resulted in three points for Auburn. At halftime, Auburn led 9–0. Auburn opened the second half with its first and only touchdown drive of the game, giving them a 16–0 lead, which it held into the fourth quarter. In final quarter, Tech scored its first touchdown of the game but did not convert the two-point try, making the score 16–6. Late in the quarter, Tech quarterback Bryan Randall cut Auburn's lead to 16–13 on an 80-yard pass that resulted in another touchdown. With almost no time remaining in the game, Virginia Tech was forced to attempt an onside kick to have another chance on offense. Auburn recovered the kick and was able to run out the clock and secure the win.
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The Birmingham campaign was a strategic movement organized by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) to bring attention to the unequal treatment black Americans endured in Birmingham, Alabama. The campaign ran during the spring of 1963, culminating in widely publicized confrontations between black youth and white civic authorities, that eventually pressured the municipal government to change the city's discrimination laws. Organizers, led by Martin Luther King, Jr., used nonviolent direct action tactics to defy laws they considered unfair. King summarized the philosophy of the Birmingham campaign when he said, "The purpose of ... direct action is to create a situation so crisis-packed that it will inevitably open the door to negotiation". Not all of the demonstrators were peaceful, despite the avowed intentions of the SCLC. In some cases, bystanders attacked the police, who responded with force. Scenes of the ensuing mayhem caused an international outcry, leading to federal intervention by the Kennedy administration.
The Birmingham campaign was a model of direct action protest, as it effectively shut down the city. By attracting media attention to the adverse treatment of black Americans, it brought national force to bear on the issue of segregation. Although desegregation occurred slowly in Birmingham, the campaign was a major factor in the national push towards the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibited racial discrimination in hiring practices and public services in the United States.
The 2008 Super Tuesday tornado outbreak was a deadly tornado outbreak which affected the Southern United States and the lower Ohio Valley on February 5 and 6, 2008. The event began on Super Tuesday, while 24 U.S. states were holding primary elections and caucuses to select the presidential candidates for the upcoming presidential election. Missouri, Illinois, Arkansas, Alabama, and Tennessee were among the affected regions in which primaries were being held. Some voting locations were forced to close early due to the approaching severe weather.
Eighty-seven tornadoes occurred over the course of the outbreak The storm system produced several destructive tornadoes in heavily populated areas, most notably in the Memphis metropolitan area, in Jackson, Tennessee, and the northeastern end of the Nashville metropolitan area. 57 people were killed across four states and 18 counties, with hundreds of others injured. The outbreak is the deadliest in the era of modern NEXRAD doppler radar, which was fully implemented in 1997. The last tornado outbreak to result in such a high death toll was on May 31, 1985, when 76 people were killed across Ohio and Pennsylvania (plus 12 more in Ontario, Canada for a total of 88). It was the second largest outbreak in February since 1950 in terms of fatalities behind the February 1971 Mississippi Valley tornado outbreak which killed 123. It was also the deadliest outbreak in both Tennessee and Kentucky since the 1974 Super Outbreak.Damage from tornadoes was estimated at over $500 million (2008 USD).
Hurricane Danny was the only hurricane to make landfall in the United States during the 1997 Atlantic hurricane season, and the second hurricane and fourth tropical storm of the season. The system became the earliest 5th tropical or subtropical storm of the Atlantic season when it reached tropical storm strength on July 17, and held that record until the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season when Tropical Storm Emily broke that record by several days. Like the previous four tropical or subtropical cyclones of the season, Danny had a non-tropical origin, after a trough spawned convection that entered the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico. Danny had an extended northeast track through the Gulf of Mexico, caused by two high-pressure systems, a rare occurrence in the middle of July. The storm moved across the southeastern United States, after making landfall in the Gulf Coast, and affected parts of Massachusetts with rain and wind. The storm dropped a record amount of rainfall for Alabama, at least 36.71 inches (932 mm) on Dauphin Island.
After stalling near the mouth of Mobile Bay on July 19, Hurricane Danny turned to the east, and made its final landfall near Mullet Point, Alabama later that day. The storm rapidly weakened as it continued northward, and degenerated into a tropical depression by July 20. The weak depression moved through Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina, maintaining a well-defined cloud signature. Debris remained in the inland waters of Alabama up until at least August 12, 1997.
Agudath Israel Etz Ahayem ("Congregation of Israel Tree of Life") is a Conservative Jewish congregation located at 3525 Cloverdale Road in Montgomery, Alabama. Agudath Israel was established as an Orthodox synagogue in 1902 by Yiddish speaking Ashkenazi Jews, recent European immigrants who rejected the Reform practices of Montgomery's established Congregation Khal Montgomery/Temple Beth Or. After renting quarters for a number of years, the congregation purchased its first permanent building on Monroe Street in 1914, and constructed a new building at McDonough and High Street in 1928.
Agudath Israel came to national attention in 1955 because of the Civil rights movement activism of then-rabbi Seymour Atlas, who eventually left the synagogue as a result of it. Cynthia "Cyndie" Culpeper became Agudath Israel's rabbi in 1995, the first Conservative woman rabbi in Alabama, but left in 1997 to seek treatment for AIDS, the result of an accidental needle prick while working as a nurse. Etz Ahayem, was established in 1912 by Ladino speaking Sephardi Jews, particularly from Rhodes. The congregation grew slowly, and completed construction of its first building in 1927. In 1962 the congregation moved to a new building, but by the 1990s it had dwindled, as children of congregants moved away from Montgomery, and had difficulty finding rabbis to lead it. In 2001, the congregations merged, and adopted the current name. From 2002 to 2006 Stephen Listfield was rabbi, and in 2007 Scott Kramer took on the role. As of 2008[update], Kramer was Agudath Israel Etz Ahayem's rabbi and Neil Sass was the president.
The April 6-8, 2006 Tornado Outbreak was a major tornado outbreak in the Central and parts of the Southern United States that began on April 6, 2006 in the Great Plains and continued until April 8 in South Carolina, with most of the activity on April 7. The hardest-hit area was Middle Tennessee where several strong tornadoes devastated entire neighborhoods and left nine people dead. The worst damage took place in Gallatin, Tennessee. Other communities north of Nashville were also hard hit. The outbreak took place as a result of a powerful low pressure system over the Midwest that produced a strong cold front which tracked eastward across the South. The dry, cold air behind the cold front combined with warm, humid air from the Gulf of Mexico to allow severe thunderstorms to form.
There were 73 tornadoes confirmed across 13 states, with the bulk of them coming on the afternoon and evening of April 7 across the South, particularly in Tennessee. In total, 13 deaths were reported as a result of the severe weather (12 of them in Tennessee, 1 in Alabama) and over $1.5 billion in damage was reported, It was the third major outbreak of 2006, hot on the heels of a major outbreak on April 2. It was also the worst disaster event in Middle Tennessee since the Nashville tornado outbreak on April 16, 1998. The United States National Guard was called in after the tornado hit to help with security and the removal of debris.
Auburn High School is a public high school in Auburn, Alabama, United States, enrolling 1,254 students in grades 10–12. It is the only high school in the Auburn City School District. Auburn High offers technical, academic, and International Baccalaureate programs, as well as joint enrollment with Southern Union State Community College and Auburn University. Auburn High School is accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools.
Founded in 1837, Auburn High School is the oldest public secondary school in Alabama, and is the third-oldest extant public high school in the United States south of Philadelphia. From 1843 through 1888, the school was known as the Auburn Female College, offering secondary and, prior to 1870, collegiate degrees. From 1892 through 1908, the school was named the Auburn Female Institute, and offered collegiate programs equivalent to an associates degree. Auburn High became Lee County's flagship high school in 1914 as Lee County High School, and gained its present name, Auburn High School, in 1956. The school moved to its current 36 acre (0.14 km²) campus in 1965.
Auburn High School was ranked the 77th best public high school overall and 28th best non-magnet public high school in the United States by Newsweek in May 2006, and the second best educational value in the Southeastern United States by SchoolMatch, as reported in the Wall Street Journal. Auburn High School averages seven National Merit Finalists a year, and has scored among the top five percent of Alabama high schools on state-wide standardized tests each year since testing began in 1995.
To Kill a Mockingbird is a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Harper Lee (pictured) published in 1960. It was instantly successful and has become a classic of modern American fiction. The novel is loosely based on the author's observations of her family and neighbors, as well as on an event that occurred near her hometown of Monroeville, Alabama in 1936, when she was 10 years old.
The novel is renowned for its warmth and humor, despite dealing with serious issues of rape and racial inequality. The narrator's father, Atticus Finch, has served as a moral hero for many readers and as a model of integrity for lawyers. One critic explained the novel's impact by writing, "In the twentieth century, To Kill a Mockingbird is probably the most widely read book dealing with race in America, and its protagonist, Atticus Finch, the most enduring fictional image of racial heroism." As a Southern Gothic novel and a Bildungsroman, the primary themes of To Kill a Mockingbird involve racial injustice and the destruction of innocence. Scholars have noted that Lee also addresses issues of class, courage and compassion, and gender roles in the American Deep South. The book is widely taught in schools in English-speaking countries with lessons that emphasize tolerance and decry prejudice. Despite its themes, To Kill a Mockingbird has been subject to campaigns for removal from public classrooms. Often the book is challenged for its use of racial epithets, and writers have noticed that regardless of its popularity since its publication, some readers are displeased by the novel's treatment of black characters.
The Tennessee Coal, Iron and Railroad Company (1852–1952), also known as TCI and the Tennessee Company, was a major American steel manufacturer with interests in coal and iron ore mining and railroad operations. Originally based entirely within the state of Tennessee, it relocated its headquarters to Birmingham, Alabama in 1895, from then onwards operating almost exclusively around the Birmingham region. With a sizable real estate portfolio, it owned the Birmingham satellite towns of Ensley and Fairfield, where it located two large steel mills, the latter employing a peak of upwards of 4500 workers during World War II.
At one time the second largest steel producer in the USA in terms of assets and output, TCI was listed on the first Dow Jones Industrial Average index in 1896. This brought it into direct competition with its principal rival, the United States Steel Corporation, with which it merged in 1907 after banker J.P. Morgan exploited turbulence on the financial markets by procuring a majority stake in Tennessee Company shares from a troubled New York brokerage firm. Subsequently, Tennessee Coal, Iron and Railroad operated as a subsidiary of U.S. Steel for 45 years, until it became a division of its parent company in 1952. The Tennessee Coal & Iron Division of U.S. Steel continues to operate the Fairfield steel plant to this day as the largest such steel works in Alabama, with a total output of 2.4 million tonnes of raw steel per annum.
Acer rubrum (Red Maple, also known as Swamp or Soft Maple), is one of the most common and widespread deciduous trees of eastern North America. It ranges from the Lake of the Woods on the border between Ontario and Minnesota, east to Newfoundland, south to near Miami, Florida, and southwest to east Texas. Many of its features, especially its leaves, are quite variable in form. At maturity it often attains a height of around 15.24 meters (50 ft). It is aptly named as its flowers, petioles, twigs and seeds are all red to varying degrees.
Though A. rubrum is usually easy to identify, it is highly changeable in morphological characteristics. It is a medium to large sized tree, reaching heights of 18 to 27 meters (60 to 90 feet) and exceptionally over 35 meters (115 ft). The leaves are usually 3 and 1/2 in. to 4 and 3/8 in. long on a full grown tree. The trunk diameter can range from 46 to 76 cm (18 to 30 inches). Over most of its range, red maple is adaptable to a very wide range of site conditions, perhaps more so than any other tree in eastern North America. It can be found growing in swamps, on poor dry soils, and most anywhere in between. Elevation is also not a limiting factor in its range, as it grows well from sea level to about 900 m (3,000 ft). Due to its attractive fall foliage and pleasing form, it is often used as a shade tree for landscapes. It is used commercially on a small scale for maple syrup production as well as for its medium to high quality lumber. It is also the State Tree of Rhode Island.
Mobile /moʊˈbiːl/ is the third most populous city in the Southern U.S. state of Alabama and is the county seat of Mobile County. It is located on the central Gulf Coast of the United States. The population within the city limits was 198,915 during the 2000 census. Mobile is the principal municipality of the Mobile Metropolitan Statistical Area, a region of 399,843 residents which is composed solely of Mobile County and is the second largest MSA in the state. Mobile is included in the Mobile-Daphne-Fairhope Combined Statistical Area with a total population of 540,258, the second largest combined statistical area in the state.
Located at the junction of the Mobile River and Mobile Bay on the northern Gulf of Mexico, the city is the only seaport in Alabama. The Port of Mobile has always played a key role in the economic health of the city beginning with the city as a key trading center between the French and Native Americans down to its current role as the 10th largest port in the United States. Mobile is one of the Gulf Coast's cultural centers, housing several art museums, a symphony orchestra, a professional opera, a professional ballet company, and a large concentration of historic architecture. Mobile is known for having the oldest organized Carnival celebrations in the United States, dating to its early colonial period. It was also host to the first formally organized Carnival mystic society or krewe in the United States, dating to 1830.
Grapico is a caffeine free, artificially flavored carbonated soft drink with a purple color and a grape taste that is sold in the Southeastern United States. When introduced in 1917, the product quickly became a success, which in part was due to implying that Grapico contained real grape juice even though it did not. In the spring of 1926, J. Grossman's Sons sold the Grapico business to New Orleans business Pan American Manufacturing Co. Pan American continued J. Grossman's Sons' improper practice of implying that Grapico contained real grape juice and lost the right to use the word "Grapico" to designate their artificial grape drink in 1929.
Although the J. Grossman's Sons line of the brand had ended, the Grapico brand continued on through Alabama businessman R. R. Rochell and his Birmingham, Alabama based Grapico Bottling Works. R. R. Rochell had first become a wholesale syrup customer of J. Grossman's Sons in the Summer of 1917 to serve the Alabama soft drink market. By the time Pan American had lost their artificial grape drink name in 1929, Rochell was selling bottled Grapico in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, and Louisiana. Rochell received the federal trademark on Grapico in 1940, giving his Grapico Company of America the right to use the name "Grapico" everywhere in the United States. Grapico is presently produced at a bottling facility in Columbus, Georgia ownder and operated by Buffalo Rock, an independent Pepsi bottler based in Birmingham, Alabama.
Tropical Storm Bill was a tropical storm that affected the Gulf Coast of the United States in the summer of 2003. The second storm of the 2003 Atlantic hurricane season, Bill developed from a tropical wave on June 29 to the north of the Yucatán Peninsula. It slowly organized as it moved northward, and reached a peak of 60 mph (95 km/h) shortly before making landfall in south-central Louisiana. Bill quickly weakened over land, and as it accelerated to the northeast, moisture from the storm, combined with cold air from an approaching cold front, produced an outbreak of 34 tornadoes.
As Tropical Storm Bill made landfall on Louisiana, its effects were felt in the Alabama coast as well, as heavy surf and tidal flooding pounded the coastline of the state. The storm spawned an F1 tornado in Crenshaw County. The tornado expanded to reach a width of 1,800 feet (548 m) as it moved northwestward. The tornado destroyed the roofs of two houses, one of which experienced damage to its walls. The tornado dissipated eight minutes after its 3 mile (5 km) path began, resulting in $200,000 in damage (2003 USD, $225,000 in 2007 USD) and only slight injuries. A second tornado, rated F0 in the Fujita scale, occurred in southwestern Montgomery County. A small tornado with a width of only 180 feet (55 m), it moved to the northwest and tore down a few trees that fell onto a mobile home, a house, and two cars. The tornado dissipated six minutes after its 5 mile (8 km) path began. Throughout Alabama, Tropical Storm Bill caused around $300,000 in damage (2003 USD, $335,000 in 2007 USD).
The Birmingham Americans were a professional American football team located in Birmingham, Alabama. They were members of the four-team Central Division of the World Football League (WFL). The Americans, founded in late December 1973, played in the upstart league's inaugural season in 1974. The team was owned by William "Bill" Putnam doing business as Alabama Football, Inc.
The club played all of its home games at Legion Field. The most successful of the World Football League franchises, the Americans led the new league in attendance and won all 13 of their home games. Winning their first 10 games in a row, the team developed a reputation for come-from-behind victories and winning by narrow margins. The Americans finished the 1974 regular season at 15–5 and won the 1974 World Bowl by just one point.
Financially unstable due to investor reluctance and lavish signing bonuses paid to lure NFL players to the new league, the team was folded after only one season. Most of the team's assets were seized to pay back taxes; failed lawsuits to recover the signing bonus money kept the team in the headlines long after the WFL was itself defunct. The Americans were replaced as the Birmingham WFL franchise for the 1975 season by a new team called the Birmingham Vulcans.
Shenandoah is an American country music group founded in Muscle Shoals, Alabama in 1984 by Marty Raybon (lead vocals, acoustic guitar), Ralph Ezell (bass guitar, backing vocals), Stan Thorn (keyboards), Jim Seales (lead guitar, backing vocals), and Mike McGuire (drums, background vocals). Ezell was replaced by Rocky Thacker in 1996, shortly before the band broke up and Raybon pursued a solo career as a country-gospel artist. Seals, Thacker and McGuire re-established the band in 2000 with keyboardist Stan Munsey and vocalists Curtis Wright and Brent Lamb. Ezell later rejoined on bass, with Mike Folsom taking over after Ezell's 2007 death, and following Lamb's and Wright's departures, Jimmy Yeary became the fourth lead vocalist.
Shenandoah has released nine studio albums, of which two have been certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America. The band has also charted twenty-six singles on the Billboard Hot Country Songs charts, including the Number One hits "The Church on Cumberland Road," "Sunday in the South" and "Two Dozen Roses" from 1989, "Next to You, Next to Me" from 1990, and "If Bubba Can Dance (I Can Too)" from 1994. The late 1994-early 1995 single "Somewhere in the Vicinity of the Heart," which featured guest vocals from Alison Krauss, won both artists a Grammy Award for Best Country Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal.
