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Wednesday 17 August 2016

Nashville

Nashville was founded on Christmas Eve in 1779 on the banks of a river after two teams of pioneers left the Carolinas with that purpose in mind. It was named for Francis Nash, the American Revolutionary War hero.

In 1843, Nashville was named the permanent capital of the state of Tennessee.

The State Capitol in Nashville

Two of America's presidents hailed from the region. Andrew Jackson and James K Polk. Andrew Jackson's nickname was "Old Hickory" and Polk ended up with the nickname "Young Hickory" because he supported Jackson and was also from Tennessee.

James K Polk was buried in Nashville. He was the only president buried on the grounds of a state capitol.

In February 1862, Nashville became the first state capital to fall to Union troops.

Nashville riverfront shortly after the Civil War

WSM, the first major radio station in Nashville, began its Barn Dance in November 1925. The future Grand Ole Opry, it was debuted one month after WSM went on air.

Commercial FM broadcasting began in the U.S. when station W47NV in Nashville, TN started operations on this day in 1941.

African American college students staged the first of the Nashville sit-ins at three lunch counters in Nashville on February 13, 1960. The Nashville sit-ins, which lasted  until May 10, 1960, were part of a nonviolent direct action campaign to end racial segregation at lunch counters in downtown Nashville. The sit-in campaign, coordinated by the Nashville Student Movement and Nashville Christian Leadership Council, was notable for its early success and emphasis on disciplined nonviolence.

Sit-in participants at Walgreens drugstore in Nashville. Wilipedia Commons,

In July 2009 Taylor Swift moved out of her family home into a  $1.9 million condo in Nashville. Her song "Never Grow Up" is partly about the singer feeling alone as she spends her first night in her new apartment.

Nashville is known as a center of the country music industry, earning it the nickname "Music City U.S.A."

Sign welcoming motorists into Nashville 

In Nashville,  there is a five-story, fully automated vending machine that dispenses real cars.

The world's only exact replica of the Parthenon resides in Nashville's Centennial Park and contains the western hemisphere's largest indoor statue.

Nashville is referred to as the "Athens of the South," not because of its full size replica of the Parthenon, but because it was the first American southern city to establish a public school system in the 1850s.

Nashville has the largest Kurdish community in North America. More than 13,000 Kurds fleeing Iraq were drawn to the city’s low cost of living and high availability of jobs in the late 1980s and early ‘90s,s..

One of the most visible buildings in downtown Nashville, the AT&T Building, is called "Batman" because the two towers look like the caped crusader’s ears.

Nashville was the first Southern city to desegregate public establishments.

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