ZIP Code
A ZIP Code is a postal code used by the United States Postal Service in a system it introduced in 1963. The term ZIP is an acronym for Zone Improvement Plan; the basic format consists of five digits. An extended ZIP+4 code was introduced in 1983 which includes the five digits of the ZIP Code, followed by a hyphen and four additional digits that reference a more specific location; the term ZIP Code was registered as a servicemark by the U. S. Postal Service, but its registration has since expired; the early history and context of postal codes began with postal district/zone numbers. The United States Post Office Department implemented postal zones for numerous large cities in 1943. For example: The "16" was the number of the postal zone in the specific city. By the early 1960s, a more organized system was needed, non-mandatory five-digit ZIP Codes were introduced nationwide on July 1, 1963; the USPOD issued its Publication 59: Abbreviations for Use with ZIP Code on October 1, 1963, with the list of two-letter state abbreviations which are written with both letters capitalized.
An earlier list in June had proposed capitalized abbreviations ranging from two to five letters. According to Publication 59, the two-letter standard was "based on a maximum 23-position line, because this has been found to be the most universally acceptable line capacity basis for major addressing systems", which would be exceeded by a long city name combined with a multi-letter state abbreviation, such as "Sacramento, Calif." along with the ZIP Code. The abbreviations have remained unchanged, with the exception of Nebraska, changed from NB to NE in 1969 at the request of the Canadian postal administration, to avoid confusion with the Canadian province of New Brunswick. Robert Moon is considered the father of the ZIP Code; the post office only credits Moon with the first three digits of the ZIP Code, which describe the sectional center facility or "sec center." An SCF is a central mail processing facility with those three digits. The fourth and fifth digits, which give a more precise locale within the SCF, were proposed by Henry Bentley Hahn Sr.
The SCF sorts mail to all post offices with those first three digits in their ZIP Codes. The mail is sorted according to the final two digits of the ZIP Code and sent to the corresponding post offices in the early morning. Sectional centers do not deliver mail and are not open to the public, most of their employees work the night shift. Mail picked up at post offices is sent to their own SCF in the afternoon, where the mail is sorted overnight. In the case of large cities, the last two digits coincide with the older postal zone number thus: In 1967, these became mandatory for second- and third-class bulk mailers, the system was soon adopted generally; the United States Post Office used a cartoon character, which it called Mr. ZIP, to promote the use of the ZIP Code, he was depicted with a legend such as "USE ZIP CODE" in the selvage of panes of postage stamps or on the covers of booklet panes of stamps. In 1971 Elmira Star-Gazette reporter Dick Baumbach found out the White House was not using a ZIP Code on its envelopes.
Herb Klein, special assistant to President Nixon, responded by saying the next printing of envelopes would include the ZIP Code. In 1983, the U. S. Postal Service introduced an expanded ZIP Code system that it called ZIP+4 called "plus-four codes", "add-on codes", or "add-ons". A ZIP+4 Code uses the basic five-digit code plus four additional digits to identify a geographic segment within the five-digit delivery area, such as a city block, a group of apartments, an individual high-volume receiver of mail, a post office box, or any other unit that could use an extra identifier to aid in efficient mail sorting and delivery. However, initial attempts to promote universal use of the new format met with public resistance and today the plus-four code is not required. In general, mail is read by a multiline optical character reader that instantly determines the correct ZIP+4 Code from the address—along with the more specific delivery point—and sprays an Intelligent Mail barcode on the face of the mail piece that corresponds to 11 digits—nine for the ZIP+4 Code and two for the delivery point.
For Post Office Boxes, the general rule is. The add-on code is one of the following: the last four digits of the box number, zero plus the last three digits of the box number, or, if the box number consists of fewer than four digits, enough zeros are attached to the front of the box number to produce a four-digit number. However, there is no uniform rule, so the ZIP+4 Code must be looked up individually for each box; the ZIP Code is translated into an Intelligent Mail barcode, printed on the mailpiece to make it easier for automated machines to sort. A barcode can be printed by the sender, it is better to let the post office put one on. In general, the post office uses OCR technology, though in some cases a human might have to read and enter the address. Customers who send bulk mail can get a discount on postage if they have printed the barcode themselves and have presorted the mai
Hanceville, Alabama
Hanceville is a city in Cullman County, United States. At the 2010 census the population was 3,096. Founded in Blount County, Hanceville was incorporated in May 1879. At the time of Cullman County's creation in 1877, half of Hanceville resided in each county. In 1885, county boundaries were redrawn and all of Hanceville was placed within Blount County. In 1901, county boundaries were redrawn again and this time all of the town was placed within Cullman County, for which it has remained. Hanceville is located in southeastern Cullman County at 34°3′48″N 86°45′39″W. U. S. Route 31 passes through the city, leading north 9 miles to Cullman, the county seat, south 14 miles to Smoke Rise. According to the U. S. Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 4.2 square miles, of which 0.02 square miles, or 0.34%, is water. As of the census of 2000, there were 2,951 people, 1,167 households, 710 families residing in the city; the population density was 718.6 people per square mile. There were 1,323 housing units at an average density of 322.2 per square mile.
The racial makeup of the city was 93.09% White, 4.61% Black or African American, 0.61% Native American, 0.07% Asian, 0.03% Pacific Islander, 0.75% from other races, 0.85% from two or more races. 2.30% of the population were Hispanic or Latino of any race. There were 1,167 households out of which 24.0% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 45.8% were married couples living together, 11.5% had a female householder with no husband present, 39.1% were non-families. 32.6% of all households were made up of individuals and 12.1% had someone living alone, 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.23 and the average family size was 2.84. In the city, the population was spread out with 17.8% under the age of 18, 17.7% from 18 to 24, 22.0% from 25 to 44, 21.2% from 45 to 64, 21.3% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 38 years. For every 100 females, there were 87.5 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 80.8 males. The median income for a household in the city was $26,351, the median income for a family was $35,370.
Males had a median income of $31,439 versus $18,112 for females. The per capita income for the city was $13,371. About 12.5% of families and 21.9% of the population were below the poverty line, including 28.9% of those under age 18 and 13.5% of those age 65 or over. As of the census of 2010, there were 2,982 people, 1,233 households, 691 families residing in the city; the population density was 733 people per square mile. There were 1,439 housing units at an average density of 340.2 per square mile. The racial makeup of the city was 92.4% White, 3.6% Black or African American, 0.2% Native American, 0.7% Asian, 0.0% Pacific Islander, 1.4% from other races, 1.6% from two or more races. 2.4% of the population were Hispanic or Latino of any race. There were 1,233 households out of which 23.3% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 38.1% were married couples living together, 13.6% had a female householder with no husband present, 44.0% were non-families. 37.1% of all households were made up of individuals and 17.0% had someone living alone, 65 years of age or older.
The average household size was 2.26 and the average family size was 2.98. In the city, the population was spread out with 21.6% under the age of 18, 10.9% from 18 to 24, 22.5% from 25 to 44, 22.1% from 45 to 64, 22.8% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 40.0 years. For every 100 females, there were 83.1 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 95.2 males. The median income for a household in the city was $30,903, the median income for a family was $45,560. Males had a median income of $34,338 versus $35,417 for females; the per capita income for the city was $16,078. About 14.5% of families and 24.2% of the population were below the poverty line, including 28.1% of those under age 18 and 9.8% of those age 65 or over. Hanceville is home to Our Lady of the Angels Monastery; the construction began in 1996 and was completed in 1999, under the direction of Mother Angelica of the Eternal Word Television Network. Hanceville is home to Alabama's oldest paintball and airsoft field, Mount Doom Paintball Field.
It has been in operation since the 1980's. Hanceville High School serves 342 students in grades 9-12; the school colors are purple and gold, its mascot are the Bulldogs. It is a member of the Cullman County Board of Education. In 2001 the Lady Bulldogs basketball team won the Alabama High School Athletic Association Class 3A State Championship. Wallace State Community College is the only college in the city, it opened in 1966 and has 6,000 students. Mother Angelica, founder of the Eternal Word Television Network cloistered in the Shrine of the Most Blessed Sacrament Allen Green, former NFL player Craig Kimbrel, closer for the Boston Red Sox went to community college in Hanceville at Wallace State Community College. Country music artist Kip Moore attended Wallace State Community College in Hanceville. Candi Staton and gospel singer Bill Steltemeier, founding president of EWTN City of Hanceville official website The Hanceville News
Marriage
Marriage called matrimony or wedlock, is a or ritually recognised union between spouses that establishes rights and obligations between those spouses, as well as between them and any resulting biological or adopted children and affinity. The definition of marriage varies around the world not only between cultures and between religions, but throughout the history of any given culture and religion, evolving to both expand and constrict in who and what is encompassed, but it is principally an institution in which interpersonal relationships sexual, are acknowledged or sanctioned. In some cultures, marriage is recommended or considered to be compulsory before pursuing any sexual activity; when defined broadly, marriage is considered a cultural universal. A marriage ceremony is known as a wedding. Individuals may marry for several reasons, including legal, libidinal, financial and religious purposes. Whom they marry may be influenced by gender determined rules of incest, prescriptive marriage rules, parental choice and individual desire.
In some areas of the world, arranged marriage, child marriage and sometimes forced marriage, may be practiced as a cultural tradition. Conversely, such practices may be outlawed and penalized in parts of the world out of concerns of the infringement of women's rights, or the infringement of children's rights, because of international law. Around the world in developed democracies, there has been a general trend towards ensuring equal rights within marriage for women and recognizing the marriages of interfaith and same-sex couples; these trends coincide with the broader human rights movement. Marriage can be recognized by a state, an organization, a religious authority, a tribal group, a local community, or peers, it is viewed as a contract. When a marriage is performed and carried out by a government institution in accordance with the marriage laws of the jurisdiction, without religious content, it is a civil marriage. Civil marriage recognizes and creates the rights and obligations intrinsic to matrimony before the state.
When a marriage is performed with religious content under the auspices of a religious institution it is a religious marriage. Religious marriage recognizes and creates the rights and obligations intrinsic to matrimony before that religion. Religious marriage is known variously as sacramental marriage in Catholicism, nikah in Islam, nissuin in Judaism, various other names in other faith traditions, each with their own constraints as to what constitutes, who can enter into, a valid religious marriage; some countries do not recognize locally performed religious marriage on its own, require a separate civil marriage for official purposes. Conversely, civil marriage does not exist in some countries governed by a religious legal system, such as Saudi Arabia, where marriages contracted abroad might not be recognized if they were contracted contrary to Saudi interpretations of Islamic religious law. In countries governed by a mixed secular-religious legal system, such as in Lebanon and Israel, locally performed civil marriage does not exist within the country, preventing interfaith and various other marriages contradicting religious laws from being entered into in the country, civil marriages performed abroad are recognized by the state if they conflict with religious laws.
The act of marriage creates normative or legal obligations between the individuals involved, any offspring they may produce or adopt. In terms of legal recognition, most sovereign states and other jurisdictions limit marriage to opposite-sex couples and a diminishing number of these permit polygyny, child marriages, forced marriages. In modern times, a growing number of countries developed democracies, have lifted bans on and have established legal recognition for the marriages of interfaith and same-sex couples; some cultures allow the dissolution of marriage through annulment. In some areas, child marriages and polygamy may occur in spite of national laws against the practice. Since the late twentieth century, major social changes in Western countries have led to changes in the demographics of marriage, with the age of first marriage increasing, fewer people marrying, more couples choosing to cohabit rather than marry. For example, the number of marriages in Europe decreased by 30% from 1975 to 2005.
In most cultures, married women had few rights of their own, being considered, along with the family's children, the property of the husband. In Europe, the United States, other places in the developed world, beginning in the late 19th century and lasting through the 21st century, marriage has undergone gradual legal changes, aimed at improving the rights of the wife; these changes included giving wives legal identities of their own, abolishing the right of husbands to physically discipline their wives, giving wives property rights, liberalizing divorce laws, providing wives with reproductive rights of their own, requiring a wife's consent when sexual relations occur. These changes have occurred in Western countries. In the 21st century, there continue to be controversies regarding the legal status of married women, legal acceptance of or leniency towards violence within marriage, traditional marriage customs such as dowry and bride price, for
Holly Pond, Alabama
Holly Pond is a town in Cullman County, United States. As of the 2010 census the town's population was 798; the town was incorporated in 1906. Holly Pond is located in eastern Cullman County at 34°10′29″N 86°37′1″W. According to the U. S. Census Bureau, the town has a total area of 4.4 square miles, of which 0.019 square miles, or 0.45%, is water. The elevation at the center of town is 870 feet above sea level. Holly Pond was selected as the location that all virtual Android devices default to when simulating the presence of a GPS detector Holly Pond has a number of businesses that operate out of the small town; the regional petroleum and gas corporation Jet-Pep was started and is now headquartered in Holly Pond. Jet-Pep has gas stations statewide. Holly Pond High School is the town's main high school for grades 9-12; as of 2018, enrollment is 338 students and the principal is Kim Butler. Holly Pond competes in AHSAA Class 3A athletics; the school's mascot is a Bronco. Holly Pond Middle School is the town's middle school for grades 6-8.
It was established in 2008 by the Cullman County Board of Education. The current principal is Cynthia Roden. Holly Pond Elementary School is the town's elementary school for grades K-5; the current principal is Karen Sparks. All schools are part of the Cullman County Board of Education and have a common campus in central Holly Pond; as of the census of 2000, there were 645 people, 250 households, 182 families residing in the town. The population density was 187.3 people per square mile. There were 280 housing units at an average density of 81.3 per square mile. The racial makeup of the town was 97.67% White, 0.47% Native American, 0.16% Asian, 1.40% from other races, 0.31% from two or more races. 3.41% of the population were Hispanic or Latino of any race. There were 250 households out of which 36.4% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 59.2% were married couples living together, 9.2% had a female householder with no husband present, 26.8% were non-families. 22.8% of all households were made up of individuals and 11.2% had someone living alone, 65 years of age or older.
The average household size was 2.58 and the average family size was 3.06. In the town, the population was spread out with 27.0% under the age of 18, 11.5% from 18 to 24, 31.5% from 25 to 44, 20.2% from 45 to 64, 9.9% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 31 years. For every 100 females, there were 104.8 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 102.1 males. The median income for a household in the town was $28,182, the median income for a family was $31,875. Males had a median income of $27,708 versus $19,432 for females; the per capita income for the town was $13,466. About 12.2% of families and 19.5% of the population were below the poverty line, including 26.9% of those under age 18 and 29.8% of those age 65 or over. Guy Hunt, former Governor of Alabama and Primitive Baptist pastor, was lived in Holly Pond. Holly Pond community website
City
A city is a large human settlement. Cities have extensive systems for housing, sanitation, land use, communication, their density facilitates interaction between people, government organizations and businesses, sometimes benefiting different parties in the process. City-dwellers have been a small proportion of humanity overall, but following two centuries of unprecedented and rapid urbanization half of the world population now lives in cities, which has had profound consequences for global sustainability. Present-day cities form the core of larger metropolitan areas and urban areas—creating numerous commuters traveling towards city centers for employment and edification. However, in a world of intensifying globalization, all cities are in different degree connected globally beyond these regions; the most populated city proper is Chongqing while the most populous metropolitan areas are the Greater Tokyo Area, the Shanghai area, Jabodetabek. The cities of Faiyum and Varanasi are among those laying claim to longest continual inhabitation.
A city is distinguished from other human settlements by its great size, but by its functions and its special symbolic status, which may be conferred by a central authority. The term can refer either to the physical streets and buildings of the city or to the collection of people who dwell there, can be used in a general sense to mean urban rather than rural territory. A variety of definitions, invoking population, population density, number of dwellings, economic function, infrastructure, are used in national censuses to classify populations as urban. Common population definitions for a city range between 1,500 and 50,000 people, with most U. S. states using a minimum between 5,000 inhabitants. However, some jurisdictions set no such minimums. In the United Kingdom, city status is awarded by the government and remains permanently, resulting in some small cities, such as Wells and St Davids. According to the "functional definition" a city is not distinguished by size alone, but by the role it plays within a larger political context.
Cities serve as administrative, commercial and cultural hubs for their larger surrounding areas. Examples of settlements called city which may not meet any of the traditional criteria to be named such include Broad Top City and City Dulas, Anglesey, a hamlet; the presence of a literate elite is sometimes included in the definition. A typical city has professional administrators and some form of taxation to support the government workers; the governments may be based on heredity, military power, work projects such as canal building, food distribution, land ownership, commerce, finance, or a combination of these. Societies that live in cities are called civilizations; the word city and the related civilization come, via Old French, from the Latin root civitas meaning citizenship or community member and coming to correspond with urbs, meaning city in a more physical sense. The Roman civitas was linked with the Greek "polis"—another common root appearing in English words such as metropolis. Urban geography deals both with their internal structure.
Town siting has varied through history according to natural, technological and military contexts. Access to water has long been a major factor in city placement and growth, despite exceptions enabled by the advent of rail transport in the nineteenth century, through the present most of the world's urban population lives near the coast or on a river. Urban areas as a rule cannot produce their own food and therefore must develop some relationship with a hinterland which sustains them. Only in special cases such as mining towns which play a vital role in long-distance trade, are cities disconnected from the countryside which feeds them. Thus, centrality within a productive region influences siting, as economic forces would in theory favor the creation of market places in optimal mutually reachable locations; the vast majority of cities have a central area containing buildings with special economic and religious significance. Archaeologists refer to this area by the Greek term temenos; these spaces reflect and amplify the city's centrality and importance to its wider sphere of influence.
Today cities have downtown, sometimes coincident with a central business district. Cities have public spaces where anyone can go; these include owned spaces open to the public as well as forms of public land such as public domain and the commons. Western philosophy since the time of the Greek agora has considered physical public space as the substrate of the symbolic public sphere. Public art adorns public spaces. Parks and other natural sites within cities provide residents with relief from the hardness and regularity of typical built environments. Urban structure follows one or more basic patterns: geomorphic, concentric and curvilinear. Physical environment constrains the form in which a city is built. If located on a mountainside, urban structure may rely on winding roads, it may be adapted to its means of subsistence. And it may be set up for optimal defense given the surrounding landscape. Beyond these "geomorphi
Cullman, Alabama
Cullman is a city in and the county seat of Cullman County, United States. It is located along Interstate 65, about 50 miles north of Birmingham and about 55 miles south of Huntsville; as of the 2010 census it had a population of 14,775, with an estimated population of 15,385 in 2017. In the time before European settlement, the area that today includes Cullman was in the territory of the Cherokee Nation; the region was traversed by a trail known as the Black Warrior's Path, which led from the Tennessee River near the present location of Florence, Alabama, to a point on the Black Warrior River south of Cullman. This trail figured in Cherokee history, it featured prominently in the American Indian Wars prior to the establishment of the state of Alabama and the relocation of several American Indian tribes, including the Creek people westward along the Trail of Tears. During the Creek War in 1813, General Andrew Jackson of the U. S. Army dispatched a contingent of troops down the trail, one of which included the frontiersman Davy Crockett.
In the 1820s and the 1830s, two toll roads were built linking the Tennessee Valley to present-day Birmingham. In 1822, Abraham Stout was given a charter by the Alabama Legislature to open and turnpike a road beginning from Gandy's Cove in Morgan County to the ghost town of Baltimore on the Mulberry Fork near Colony; the road passed near present-day Vinemont through Cullman, Good Hope, down the current Interstate 65 corridor to the Mulberry Fork. The road was extended to Elyton in 1827, it became known as Stout's Road. Mace Thomas Payne Brindley was given a charter in 1833 to turnpike two roads, one running between Blount Springs to Somerville by way of his homestead in present-day Simcoe, the second road passing west of Hanceville and east of Downtown Cullman to join Stout's Road north of the city. What became the Brindley Turnpike became an extension of Stout's Road to Decatur. Cullman became located between the juncture of the two roads, they predated the corridor of U. S. Route 31. During the Civil War, the future location of Cullman was the site of the minor Battle of Day's Gap.
On April 30, 1863, Union forces under the command of Colonel Abel Streight won a victory over forces under Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest. This battle was part of a chase known collectively as Streight's Raid. Although Streight got the upper hand in this battle, Forrest would have the last laugh. In one of the more humorous moments of the war, Streight sought a truce and negotiations with Forrest in present-day Cherokee County near present-day Gaylesville. Although Streight's force was larger than Forrest's, while the two were negotiating, Forrest had his troops march in a circuitous route past the site of the talks. Thinking himself to be badly outnumbered, Streight surrendered to Forrest on the spot. Cullman itself was founded in 1873 by a German immigrant. Cullmann had been an advocate of democratic reforms in his native Bavaria, having fought and acquired his honorific title "Colonel" during the Revolutions of 1848–49. After the failure of the revolution, Cullmann found himself in financial ruin.
In the years to follow, he would try to re-establish himself in business, but after several setbacks, including a great financial loss in the First Schleswig War, he would remain unsuccessful. As time went on and Prussia, under King Wilhelm I and his Minister President Otto von Bismarck, began to exert more influence in the German region, Cullmann began to believe that his political ideals were fundamentally incompatible with those of the German Government; as a result, he decided to emigrate from his homeland. Settling first in London due to fears that he would be forced to join in the ongoing American Civil War, Cullman came to America in 1865, he moved to Alabama in 1871 and, in 1873, negotiated an agreement to act as agent for a tract of land 349,000 acres in size, owned by the Louisville and Nashville Railroad Company, on which he established a colony for German immigrants. Five German families moved to the area in March 1873. Over the next twenty years, Cullmann encouraged around 100,000 Germans to immigrate to the United States, with many settling in the Cullman area.
Cullmann drew on his military engineering training in planning the town. During this period, Cullman underwent considerable growth. German continued to be spoken, Cullmann himself was the publisher of a German-language newspaper; when Cullmann died in 1895, at the age of 72, his funeral was marked by the attendance of Governor William C. Oates; the site Cullmann selected for his headquarters is now his gravesite. German immigrants founded St Bernard's Monastery, on the grounds of, the Ave Maria Grotto, containing 125 miniature reproductions of some of the most famous religious structures of the world. It's Cullman's principal tourist attraction. During the 1890s, Cullman was reported to be a sundown town, where African Americans were not allowed to live; the Ku Klux Klan would maintain a presence in the county throughout the civil rights movement. Erecting signs that deterred African Americans from being within the county at night; this subsequently led to a rise in population of Colony, Alabama, a safe haven for the discriminated.
For many years Cullman was a college town, with Saint Bernard College serving as the home of several hundred students. In the mid-1970s, St. Bernard merged with Sacred Heart College, to become Southern Benedictine C
Alabama
Alabama is a state in the southeastern region of the United States. It is bordered by Tennessee to the north, Georgia to the east and the Gulf of Mexico to the south, Mississippi to the west. Alabama is the 30th largest by area and the 24th-most populous of the U. S. states. With a total of 1,500 miles of inland waterways, Alabama has among the most of any state. Alabama is nicknamed the Yellowhammer State, after the state bird. Alabama is known as the "Heart of Dixie" and the "Cotton State"; the state tree is the longleaf pine, the state flower is the camellia. Alabama's capital is Montgomery; the largest city by population is Birmingham. The oldest city is Mobile, founded by French colonists in 1702 as the capital of French Louisiana. From the American Civil War until World War II, like many states in the southern U. S. suffered economic hardship, in part because of its continued dependence on agriculture. Similar to other former slave states, Alabamian legislators employed Jim Crow laws to disenfranchise and otherwise discriminate against African Americans from the end of the Reconstruction Era up until at least the 1970s.
Despite the growth of major industries and urban centers, white rural interests dominated the state legislature from 1901 to the 1960s. During this time, urban interests and African Americans were markedly under-represented. Following World War II, Alabama grew as the state's economy changed from one based on agriculture to one with diversified interests; the state's economy in the 21st century is based on management, finance, aerospace, mineral extraction, education and technology. The European-American naming of the Alabama River and state was derived from the Alabama people, a Muskogean-speaking tribe whose members lived just below the confluence of the Coosa and Tallapoosa rivers on the upper reaches of the river. In the Alabama language, the word for a person of Alabama lineage is Albaamo; the suggestion that "Alabama" was borrowed from the Choctaw language is unlikely. The word's spelling varies among historical sources; the first usage appears in three accounts of the Hernando de Soto expedition of 1540: Garcilaso de la Vega used Alibamo, while the Knight of Elvas and Rodrigo Ranjel wrote Alibamu and Limamu in transliterations of the term.
As early as 1702, the French called the tribe the Alibamon, with French maps identifying the river as Rivière des Alibamons. Other spellings of the name have included Alibamu, Albama, Alibama, Alabamu, Allibamou. Sources disagree on the word's meaning; some scholars suggest the word comes from amo. The meaning may have been "clearers of the thicket" or "herb gatherers", referring to clearing land for cultivation or collecting medicinal plants; the state has numerous place names of Native American origin. However, there are no correspondingly similar words in the Alabama language. An 1842 article in the Jacksonville Republican proposed it meant "Here We Rest." This notion was popularized in the 1850s through the writings of Alexander Beaufort Meek. Experts in the Muskogean languages have not found any evidence to support such a translation. Indigenous peoples of varying cultures lived in the area for thousands of years before the advent of European colonization. Trade with the northeastern tribes by the Ohio River began during the Burial Mound Period and continued until European contact.
The agrarian Mississippian culture covered most of the state from 1000 to 1600 AD, with one of its major centers built at what is now the Moundville Archaeological Site in Moundville, Alabama. This is the second-largest complex of the classic Middle Mississippian era, after Cahokia in present-day Illinois, the center of the culture. Analysis of artifacts from archaeological excavations at Moundville were the basis of scholars' formulating the characteristics of the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex. Contrary to popular belief, the SECC appears to have no direct links to Mesoamerican culture, but developed independently; the Ceremonial Complex represents a major component of the religion of the Mississippian peoples. Among the historical tribes of Native American people living in present-day Alabama at the time of European contact were the Cherokee, an Iroquoian language people. While part of the same large language family, the Muskogee tribes developed distinct cultures and languages. With exploration in the 16th century, the Spanish were the first Europeans to reach Alabama.
The expedition of Hernando de Soto passed through Mabila and other parts of the state in 1540. More than 160 years the French founded the region's first European settlement at Old Mobile in 1702; the city was moved to the current site of Mobile in 1711. This area was claimed by the French from 1702 to 1763 as part of La Louisiane. After the French lost to the British in the Seven Years' War, it became part of British West Florida from 1763 to 1783. After the United States victory in the American Revolutionary War, the territory was divided between the United States and Spain; the latter retained control of this western territory from 1783 until the surrender of the Spanish garrison at Mobile to U. S. forces on April 13, 1813. Thomas Bassett, a loyalist to the British monarchy during the Revolutionary era, was one of the earliest white settlers in the state
