08 Jan 2019
Tags: #SweetHomeAlabama, Huntsville AL, Muscle Shoals AL, #muscleshoals
Alabama will be celebrating some key milestones in 2019 including the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11 - man on moon and the Bicentennial of the State.
50th Anniversary of launching of rockets that took man to the moon
The U.S. Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville is the world's largest space museum and home of Space Camp. The rockets that took man to the moon were engineered by scientists in Huntsville, NASA's Marshall Flight Center. Apollo 11 was the American spaceflight that landed the first two men on the moon. Launch date was July 16, 1969. Moon landing was July 20, 1969.
The U. S. Space & Rocket Center will supplement the existing artifacts and exhibits in 2019 with an all-new main exhibit entitled “Apollo: When We Went to the Moon.” The exhibit will highlight the Space Race, the period of time the United States and the Soviet Union competed for significant accomplishments in space exploration. The exhibit will open Feb. 16, 2019
On July 16, 2019, the U.S. Space & Rocket Center will attempt to break Guinness World Record by launching 5,000 model rockets simultaneously at 8:32 am (CST), the exact time of the launch of Apollo 11 on July 16, 1969.
50th Anniversary of first Muscle Shoals hit record
Written and recorded by R. B. Greaves, the American soul song “Take A Letter Maria” was released in September 1969 and sold 2.5 million copies. The song was recorded at Muscle Shoals Sound Studio on August 19, 1969 using the house studio musicians. This and other hit records to come out of the studios at FAME and Muscle Shoals is why the area was named “Hit Recording Capital of the World.”
The studio turned out hits with the Rolling Stones, Cher, Aretha Franklin, Wilson Pickett, Percy Sledge, Rod Stewart, the Oak Ridge Boys and dozens more music legends.
Visitors can tour both FAME and Muscle Shoals Sound Studio which are still active studios.
www.muscleshoalssoundstudio.org / www.visitflorenceal.com
Alabama Bicentennial Celebration
Alabama will commemorate the 200th anniversary of its statehood in 2019. Created from the Mississippi Territory in 1817, the Alabama Territory became the nation's 22nd state on December 14, 1819. ALABAMA 200, the state's official bicentennial commemoration will feature traveling exhibitions, community festivals, genealogy workshops, cemetery surveys, historical gardens, reunions and other special celebrations.
The Alabama Pastport project will let visitors mark off historic, cultural, natural history and entertainment sites they visit across the state. The “Alabama Pastport” is available in book form and as a smart phone app.
1st Anniversary of Civil Rights Trail
Travel South USA launched the U.S. Civil Rights Trail on Jan. 15, 2018, on Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s birthday.
The Trail primarily features the most famous landmarks from the Civil Rights Era in the 1950s and '60s. International visitors can worship in the Birmingham, Alabama church that Klansmen bombed one Sunday, killing four girls. They can walk across the Selma bridge in Alabama where state police attacked voting rights demonstrators on "Bloody Sunday." They can tour the birthplace of Martin Luther King Jr. in Atlanta, Georgia and pay their respects at the National Civil Rights Museum at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, where a lone gunman assassinated King 50 years ago.
