Friday, October 10, 2008

ALABAMA HISTORY 101

Alabamians will be receiving new car tags soon. They are kind of boring and just blue and white (no red). I enjoyed the "Stars Fell On Alabama" tag. But some prople might say, "What in the world is that all about? It's stupid." Most know it is an old song (1934), but it is also a book (1934 and again in 2000). The book, by Carl Carmer, "recounts the time he spent traveling through Alabama in the late 1920 as a professor at the University of Alabama.

The titles of both works refer to a spectacular occurrence of the Leonid meteor shower that was observed in Alabama on November 12-13, 1833. As reported by the Florence Gazette: "[There were] thousands of luminous bodies shooting across the firmament in every direction. There was little wind and not a trace of clouds, and the meteors succeeded each other in quick succession."

Sounds pretty spectacular to me.

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