You know the names of all 50 states…but do you know where any of them come from? Here’s the best information we could find on the origin of each.
- ALABAMA: Possibly from the Creek Indian word alibamo, meaning "we stay here."
- ALASKA: From the Aleutian word alakshak, which means "great lands," or "land that is not an island."
- ARIZONA: Taken either from the pima Indian words ali shonak, meaning "little spring," or from the Aztec word arizuma, meaning "silver-bearing."
- ARKANSAS: The French somehow coined it from the name of the Siouan Quapaw tribe.
- CALIFORNIA: According to one theory, Spanish settlers names it after a utopian society described in a popular 16th-century novel called Serged de Esplandian.
- COLORADO: Means "red" in Spanish. The name was originally applied to the Colorado River, whose waters are reddish with canyon clay.
- CONNECTICUT: Taken from the Mohican word kuenihtekot, which means "long river place."
- DELAWARE: Named after Lord De La Warr, a governor of Virginia. Originally used only to name the Delaware River.
- FLORIDA: Explorer Ponce de Leon named the state Pascua Florida - "flowery Easter"—on Easter Sunday in 1513.
- GEORGIA: Named after King George II of England, who charted the colony in 1732.
- HAWAII: An English adaptation of the native word owhyhee, which means "homeland."
IDAHO: Possibly taken from the Kiowa Apache word for the Comanche Indians. - ILLINOIS: The French bastardization of the Algonquin word illini, which means "men."
- INDIANA: Named by English-speaking settlers because the territory was full of Indians.
- IOWA: The Sioux word for "beautiful land," or "one who puts to sleep."
- KANSAS: Taken from the Sioux word for "south wind people," their name for anyone who lived south of Sioux territory.
- KENTUCKY: Possibly derived from the Indian word kan-tuk-kee, meaning "dark and bloody ground." Or kan-tuc-kec, "land of green reeds", or ken-take, meaning "meadowland."
- LOUISIANA: Named after French King Louis XIV.
MAINE: The Old French word for "province." - MARYLAND: Named after Queen Henrietta Maria, wife of English King George I.
- MASSACHUSETTS: Named after the Massachusetts Indian tribe. Means "large hill place."
- MICHIGAN: Most likely from the Chippewa word for "great water." micigama.
- MINNESOTA: From the Sioux word for "sky tinted" or "muddy water."
- MISSISSIPPI: Most likely taken from the Chippewa words mici ("great") and zibi ("river").
- MISSOURI: From the Algonquin word for "muddy water."
- MONTANA: Taken from the Latin word for "mountainous."
- NEBRASKA: From the Otos Indian word for "broad water."
- NEVADA: Means "snow-clad" in Spanish.
- NEW HAMPSHIRE: Capt. John Mason, one of the original colonists, named it after his English home county of Hampshire.
- NEW JERSEY: Named after the English Isle of Jersey.
- NEW MEXICO: The Spanish name for the territory north of the Rio Grande.
- NEW YORK: Named after the Duke of York and Albany.
- NORTH AND SOUTH CAROLINA: From the Latin name Carolus; named in honor of King Charles I of England.
- NORTH AND SOUTH DAKOTA: Taken from the Sioux word for "friend," or "ally."
- OHIO: Means "great," "fine," or "good river" in Iriquois.
- OKLAHOMA. The Choctaw word for "red man."
- OREGON: Possibly derived from Ouaricon-sint, the French name for the Wisconsin River.
- PENNSYLVANIA: Named after William Penn, Sr., the father of the colony’s founder, William Penn. Means "Penn’s woods."
- RHODE ISLAND: Named "Roode Eylandt" (Red Island) because of its red clay.
- TENNESSEE: Named after the Cherokee tanasi villages along the banks of the Little Tennessee River.
- TEXAS: Derived from the Caddo Indian word for "friend," or "ally."
- UTAH: Means "upper," or "higher," and was originally the name that Navajos called the Shoshone tribe.
- VERMONT: A combination of the French words vert ("green") and mont ("mountain").
- VIRGINIA AND WEST VIRGINIA: Named after Queen Elizabeth I of England, the "virgin" queen, by Sir Walter Raleigh in 1584.
- WASHINGTON: Named after George Washington.
- WISCONSIN: Taken from the Chippewa word for "grassy place."
- WYOMING: Derived from the Algonquin word for "large prairie place."
- In 1783 an Icelandic eruption threw up enough dust to temporarily block out the sun over Europe.
- About 20 to 30 volcanoes erupt each year, mostly under the sea.
- A huge underground river runs underneath the Nile, with six times more water than the river above.
- Lake Bosumtwi in Ghana formed in a hollow made by a meteorite.
- Beaver Lake, in Yellowstone Park , USA, was artificially created by beaver damming.
- Off the coast of Florida there is an underwater hotel. Guests have to dive to the entrance.
- Venice in Italy is built on 118 sea islets joined by 400 bridges. It is gradually sinking into the water.
- The Ancient Egyptians worshipped a sky goddess called Nut.
- The world's windiest place is Commonwealth Bay, Antartica.
- In 1934, a gust of wind reached 371 km/h on Mount Washington in New Hampshire, USA.
- American Roy Sullivan has been struck by lighting a record seven times.
- The desert baobab tree can store up to 1000 litres of water in its trunk.
- The oldest living tree is a California bristlecone pine name 'Methuselah' . It is about 4600 years old. The largest tree in the world is a giant sequoia growing in California. It is 84 meters tall and measures 29 meters round the trunk. The fastest growing tree is the eucalyptus. It can grow 10 meters a year.
- The Antartic notothenia fish has a protein in its blood that acts like antifreeze and stops the fish freezing in icy sea.
- The USA uses 29% of the world's petrol and 33% of the world's electricity.
- The industrial complex of Cubatao in Brazil is known as the Valley of Death because its pollution has destroyed the trees and rivers nearby.
- Tibet is the highest country in the world. Its average height above sea level is 4500 meters.
- Some of the oldest mountains in the world are the Highlands in Scotland. They are estimated to be about 400 million years old.
- Fresh water from the River Amazon can be found up to 180 km out to sea.
- The White Sea, in Russia, has the lowest temperature, only -2 degrees centigrade. The Persian Gulf is the warmest sea. In the summer its temperature reaches 35.6 degrees centigrade.
- There is no land at all at the North Pole, only ice on top of sea. The Arctic Ocean has about 12 million sq km of floating ice and has the coldest winter temperature of -34 degrees centigrade.
- The Antarctic ice sheet is 3-4 km thick, covers 13 million sq km and has temperatures as low as -70 degrees centigrade.
- Over 4 million cars in Brazil are now running on gasohol instead of petrol. Gasohol is a fuel made from sugar cane.
This bridge is half under the water, for ships to pass and then again, it comes out on the other side.








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