Sunday, September 5, 2010

This One's For Eric

As you wish (4th comment on this post).  You'll have to trust me that I did this correctly without references.

Learning the order that each state joined the union reminded me why trivia excites me.  50 dates don't matter, but seeing how the slavery dispute required one new Southern state for each Northern one from 1803 to 1837 is a powerful illustration.  Or how the Mexican War required bringing in Florida and Texas in 1845, with the Whigs then admitting only Midwestern or West Coast states until the Civil War.  I didn't understand the cluster of 6 states in 1889-90, so I found out that Benjamin Harrison added them to bring in Republican voters and Congressmen.  That's the kind of information that makes trivia special.  To me, at least.

1787 Delaware Dover
1787 Pennsylvania Harrisburg
1787 New Jersey Trenton
1788 Georgia Atlanta
1788 Connecticut Hartford
1788 Massachusetts Boston
1788 Maryland Annapolis
1788 South Carolina Columbia
1788 New Hampshire Concord
1788 Virginia Richmond
1788 New York Albany
1789 North Carolina Raleigh
1790 Rhode Island Providence
1791 Vermont Montpelier
1792 Kentucky Frankfort
1796 Tennessee Nashville
1803 Ohio Columbus
1812 Louisiana Baton Rouge
1816 Indiana Indianapolis
1817 Mississippi Jackson
1818 Illinois Springfield
1819 Alabama Montgomery
1820 Maine Augusta
1821 Missouri Jefferson City
1836 Arkansas Little Rock
1837 Michigan Lansing
1845 Florida Tallahassee
1845 Texas Austin
1846 Iowa Des Moines
1848 Wisconsin Madison
1850 California Sacramento
1858 Minnesota St. Paul
1859 Oregon Salem
1861 Kansas Topeka
1863 West Virginia Charleston
1864 Nevada Carson City
1867 Nebraska Lincoln
1876 Colorado Denver
1889 North Dakota Bismarck
1889 South Dakota Pierre
1889 Montana Helena
1889 Washington Olympia
1890 Idaho Boise
1890 Wyoming Cheyenne
1896 Utah Salt Lake City
1907 Oklahoma Oklahoma City
1912 New Mexico Santa Fe
1912 Arizona Phoenix
1959 Alaska Juneau
1959 Hawaii Honolulu

Sorry about the formatting - best I can do in Blogger.

1 comment:

  1. So, um, yeah, glad you got that history lesson I was totally intending to teach you. :) Seriously though, as another person who enjoys trivia, I think the patterns you discovered and the reasons for them are indeed really interesting.

    So, Charles, I now am officially truly and deeply impressed. And if you can do that from memory at the next Ross Reunion, you will become my Trivia Overlord - with all the attendant rights and responsibilities we agree to make up on the spot.

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