180-566: Tennessee ( / ˌ t ɛ n ɪ ˈ s iː / , locally / ˈ t ɛ n ɪ s i / ), officially the State of Tennessee , is a landlocked state in the Southeastern region of the United States . It borders Kentucky to the north, Virginia to the northeast, North Carolina to the east, Georgia , Alabama , and Mississippi to the south, Arkansas to the southwest, and Missouri to
360-618: A Cherokee town preceding the first European American settlement. Tennessee was initially part of North Carolina, and later the Southwest Territory , before its admission to the Union as the 16th state on June 1, 1796. It earned the nickname "The Volunteer State" due to a strong tradition of military service. A slave state until the American Civil War , Tennessee was politically divided, with most of its western and middle parts supporting
540-651: A series of sit-ins at segregated lunch counters in Nashville organized by the Nashville Student Movement resulted in the desegregation of facilities in the city. On April 4, 1968, James Earl Ray assassinated civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. in Memphis. King had traveled there to support striking African American sanitation workers . The 1962 U.S. Supreme Court case Baker v. Carr arose out of
720-603: A temperate deciduous forest biome commonly known as the Eastern Deciduous Forest. It has eight ecoregions : the Blue Ridge , Ridge and Valley , Central Appalachian, Southwestern Appalachian, Interior Low Plateaus , Southeastern Plains, Mississippi Valley Loess Plains, and Mississippi Alluvial Plain regions. Tennessee is the most biodiverse inland state, the Great Smoky Mountains National Park
900-403: A 25 MV particle accelerator , was opened at ORNL. At the time, Holifield had the widest range of ion species and was twice as powerful as other accelerators, attracting hundreds of guest researchers each year. The Department of Energy was concerned with the pollution surrounding ORNL, and it began clean-up efforts. Burial trenches and leaking pipes had contaminated the groundwater beneath
1080-570: A Cherokee faction loyal to the British led by Dragging Canoe , opposed the settling of the Washington District and Transylvania Colony, and in 1776 attacked Fort Watauga at Sycamore Shoals. The warnings of Dragging Canoe's cousin Nancy Ward spared many settlers' lives from the initial attacks. In 1779, James Robertson and John Donelson led two groups of settlers from the Washington District to
1260-773: A French expedition led by missionary Jacques Marquette and Louis Jolliet explored the Mississippi River and became the first Europeans to map the Mississippi Valley. In 1682, an expedition led by René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle constructed Fort Prudhomme on the Chickasaw Bluffs in West Tennessee. By the late 17th century, French traders began to explore the Cumberland River valley, and in 1714, under Charles Charleville's command, established French Lick,
1440-633: A border state that remained with the Union while being contested by the Confederacy and Confederate government of West Virginia . Following the Reconstruction era in the 1870s, many Southeast state legislatures passed Jim Crow laws . The American segregation era spanned from the late 19th century to the mid-1960s. In the mid-to-late 20th century, the Southeast saw many shifting changes take place population wise and economically. The Southeast started to see
1620-590: A challenge to the longstanding rural bias of apportionment of seats in the Tennessee legislature and established the principle of " one man, one vote ". The construction of Interstate 40 through Memphis became a national talking point on the issue of eminent domain and grassroots lobbying when the Tennessee Department of Transportation (TDOT) attempted to construct the highway through the city's Overton Park . A local activist group spent many years contesting
1800-665: A conventional and quantum scale . ORNL is home to a field site for the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON), which has a field office nearby. The Department of Energy works closely with the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency out of ORNL to monitor forest ecology for the surrounding Appalachians & Cumberland Plateau Domain of NEON. There are two neutron sources at ORNL; the High Flux Isotope Reactor (HFIR) and
1980-788: A cooler mountain temperate or humid continental climate . The Gulf of Mexico is the dominant factor in Tennessee's climate, with winds from the south responsible for most of the state's annual precipitation. Generally, the state has hot summers and mild to cool winters with generous precipitation throughout the year. The highest average monthly precipitation usually occurs between December and April. The driest months, on average, are August to October. The state receives an average of 50 inches (130 cm) of precipitation annually. Snowfall ranges from 5 inches (13 cm) in West Tennessee to over 80 inches (200 cm) in East Tennessee's highest mountains. Summers are generally hot and humid, with most of
SECTION 10
#17328408012932160-404: A diverse range of fuels, and to improve the efficiency of energy delivery both to power plants and end users. The Center for Molecular Biophysics conducts research into the behaviour of biological molecules in various conditions. The center hosts projects that examine cell walls for biofuel production, use neutron scattering to analyse protein folding , and simulate the effect of catalysis on
2340-672: A fur trading settlement at the present location of Nashville near the Cumberland River . In 1739, the French constructed Fort Assumption under Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville on the Mississippi River at the present location of Memphis, which they used as a base against the Chickasaw during the 1739 Campaign of the Chickasaw Wars . In the 1750s and 1760s, longhunters from Virginia explored much of East and Middle Tennessee. Settlers from
2520-744: A lithium-sulfide battery with a theoretical energy density three to five times greater than existing lithium ion batteries . ORNL provides resources to the United States Department of Homeland Security and other defense programs. The Global Security and Nonproliferation (GS&N) program develops and implements policies, both US based and international, to prevent the proliferation of nuclear material . The program has developed safeguards for nuclear arsenals, guidelines for dismantling arsenals, plans of action should nuclear material fall into unauthorised hands, detection methods for stolen or missing nuclear material, and trade of nuclear material between
2700-459: A major breakthrough in its capacity to automate Pu-238 production which helped push annual production from 50 grams to 400 grams, moving closer to NASA 's goal of 1.5 kilograms per year by 2025 in order to sustain its space exploration programs. ORNL conducts research and development activities that span a wide range of scientific disciplines. Many research areas have a significant overlap with each other; researchers often work in two or more of
2880-606: A mix of cultural features characteristic of Appalachia , the Upland South , and the Deep South . The Blue Ridge Mountains along the eastern border reach some of the highest elevations in eastern North America, and the Cumberland Plateau contains many scenic valleys and waterfalls . The central part of the state is marked by cavernous bedrock and irregular rolling hills, and level, fertile plains define West Tennessee. The state
3060-631: A more diversified economy. This was aided in part by massive federal investment in the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) and the city of Oak Ridge , which was established during World War II to house the Manhattan Project 's uranium enrichment facilities for the construction of the world's first atomic bombs . After the war, the Oak Ridge National Laboratory became a key center of scientific research. The state's economy
3240-437: A number of notable universities, public and private, whose research exert influence globally. Chief among public universities are: There are a number of well-known private institutions, as well. Notable among these are: The region is home to the greatest number of historically black colleges and universities in the nation. The three largest in the region are: There are nine National Football League (NFL) franchises across
3420-555: A population of 35,691 in the first United States census that year, including 3,417 slaves. As support for statehood grew among the settlers, Governor Blount called for elections, which were held in December 1793. The 13-member territorial House of Representatives first convened in Knoxville on February 24, 1794, to select ten members for the legislature's upper house, the council. The full legislature convened on August 25, 1794. In June 1795,
3600-483: A proof-of-concept for a proposed fleet of long-range bombers , but it was never used. Alvin M. Weinberg was named Director of Research, ORNL, and in 1955 Director of the Laboratory. In the early 1960s there was a large push at ORNL to develop nuclear-powered desalination plants, where deserts met the sea, to provide water. The project, called Water for Peace, was backed by John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson and
3780-416: A second referendum on secession by a 69–31% margin, becoming the last state to secede. In response, East Tennessee Unionists organized a convention in Knoxville with the goal of splitting the region to form a new state loyal to the Union. In the fall of 1861, Unionist guerrillas in East Tennessee burned bridges and attacked Confederate sympathizers, leading the Confederacy to invoke martial law in parts of
SECTION 20
#17328408012933960-497: A spur of new economic growth in the 1930s, which stemmed from New Deal policies such as the Tennessee Valley Authority and the Fair Labor Standards Act instituting a minimum wage for the entire nation. World War II further helped growth within the Southeast, as military bases and military production drew workers from farming or low-wage industries into a new economy. With farming mechanization picking up to speed in
4140-746: Is US$ 2.4 billion. As of 2021 there is a staff of 5,700 working at ORNL, around 2,000 of whom are scientists and engineers, and an additional 3,200 guest researchers annually. There are five campuses on the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge reservation: the National Laboratory, the Y-12 National Security Complex , the East Tennessee Technology Park (formerly the Oak Ridge Gaseous Diffusion Plant ),
4320-462: Is a federally funded research and development center in Oak Ridge, Tennessee , United States. Founded in 1943, the laboratory is now sponsored by the United States Department of Energy and administered by UT–Battelle, LLC . Established in 1943, ORNL is the largest science and energy national laboratory in the Department of Energy system by size and third largest by annual budget. It is located in
4500-455: Is abundant across the southeastern United States in summer, as the rainfall often comes in quick, but intense downpours. The mid-South, especially Tennessee, and the northern halves of Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia, have maximum monthly rainfall amounts in winter and spring, owing to copious Gulf moisture and clashes between warm, moist air from the Gulf of Mexico and cold, dry air from Canada during
4680-742: Is also an NCAA Division I conference made up of Southeastern college teams, including the: Alabama Crimson Tide , Arkansas Razorbacks , Auburn Tigers , Florida Gators , Georgia Bulldogs , Kentucky Wildcats , LSU Tigers , Ole Miss Rebels , Mississippi State Bulldogs , South Carolina Gamecocks , Tennessee Volunteers , and Vanderbilt Commodores . The Sugar Bowl , Orange Bowl , Peach Bowl , Citrus Bowl , and Music City Bowl , are notable college football bowls held in Southeastern cities. 34°N 85°W / 34°N 85°W / 34; -85 Oak Ridge National Laboratory Oak Ridge National Laboratory ( ORNL )
4860-612: Is characterized by relatively level plains dotted by rolling hills, and the Western Highland Rim and western Nashville Basin are covered with uneven rounded knobs with steep ravines separated by meandering streams. The Nashville Basin has rich, fertile farmland, and porous limestone bedrock very close to the surface underlies both the Nashville Basin and Eastern Highland Rim. This results in karst that forms numerous caves, sinkholes, depressions, and underground streams. West of
5040-419: Is dominated by the health care , music , finance , automotive , chemical , electronics , and tourism sectors, and cattle , soybeans , poultry , corn , and cotton are its primary agricultural products. Tennessee has played a major role in the development of many forms of popular music , including country , blues , rock and roll , soul , and gospel . Tennessee derives its name most directly from
5220-510: Is easier to cast at a similar cost. In 2003 the partners received an R&D 100 award from R&D magazine and in 2009 received an award for "excellence in technology transfer" from the Federal Laboratory Consortium for the commercialisation of the steel. There is a high-temperature materials lab at ORNL that permits researchers from universities, private companies and other government initiatives to use their facilities. As
5400-485: Is far enough from the coast to avoid any direct impact from a hurricane, its location makes it susceptible to the remnants of tropical cyclones , which weaken over land and can cause significant rainfall. The state annually averages about 50 days of thunderstorms, which can be severe with large hail and damaging winds. Tornadoes are possible throughout the state, with West and Middle Tennessee the most vulnerable. The state averages 15 tornadoes annually. They can be severe, and
5580-740: Is in the Green River watershed. All three of these basins are tributaries of the Ohio River watershed. Most of West Tennessee is in the Lower Mississippi River watershed. The entirety of the state is in the Mississippi River watershed , except for a small sliver near the southeastern corner traversed by the Conasauga River , which is part of the Mobile Bay watershed. Tennessee is within
Tennessee - Misplaced Pages Continue
5760-625: Is known as the Trail of Tears , and an estimated 4,000 died along the way. As settlers pushed west of the Cumberland Plateau, a slavery-based agrarian economy took hold in these regions. Cotton planters used extensive slave labor on large plantation complexes in West Tennessee's fertile and flat terrain after the Jackson Purchase. Cotton also took hold in the Nashville Basin during this time. Entrepreneurs such as Montgomery Bell used slaves in
5940-451: Is no official U.S. government definition for the region, and it is defined variably among agencies and organizations. The history of the present-day Southeastern United States dates to the dawn of civilization in approximately 11,000 BC or 13,000 BC. The earliest artifacts from the region were from the Clovis culture . Prior to the arrival of European colonialists, Native Americans occupied
6120-557: Is relatively distinct, but the western escarpment is irregular, containing several long, crooked stream valleys separated by rocky cliffs with numerous waterfalls . The Cumberland Mountains , with peaks above 3,500 feet (1,100 m), comprise the northeastern part of the Appalachian Plateau in Tennessee, and the southeastern part of the Cumberland Plateau is divided by the Sequatchie Valley . The Cumberland Trail traverses
6300-589: Is the case for all designated user facilities, the resources of the High Temperature Materials Laboratory are available for free if the results are published; private research is permitted but requires payment. The Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences (CNMS) researches the behaviour and fabrication of nanomaterials . The center emphasises discovery of new materials and the understanding of underlying physical and chemical interactions that enable creation of nanomaterials. In 2012, CNMS produced
6480-568: Is the most biodiverse national park, and the Duck River is the most biologically diverse waterway in North America. The Nashville Basin is renowned for its diversity of flora and fauna. Tennessee is home to 340 species of birds, 325 freshwater fish species, 89 mammals, 77 amphibians, and 61 reptiles. Forests cover about 52% of Tennessee's land area, with oak–hickory the dominant type. Appalachian oak–pine and cove hardwood forests are found in
6660-601: Is twice bisected by the Tennessee River , and the Mississippi River forms its western border. The Great Smoky Mountains National Park , the nation's most visited national park, is in eastern Tennessee. Tennessee is rooted in the Watauga Association , a 1772 frontier pact generally regarded as the first constitutional government west of the Appalachian Mountains . Its name derives from Tanasi ( ᏔᎾᏏ ),
6840-400: Is water. It is the 16th smallest state in land area. The state is about 440 miles (710 km) long from east to west and 112 miles (180 km) wide from north to south. Tennessee is geographically, culturally, economically, and legally divided into three Grand Divisions : East Tennessee , Middle Tennessee , and West Tennessee . It borders eight other states: Kentucky and Virginia to
7020-511: The Manumission Intelligencier (later The Emancipator ), the nation's first exclusively anti-slavery newspaper. At the onset of the American Civil War , most Middle and West Tennesseans favored efforts to preserve their slavery-based economies, but many Middle Tennesseans were initially skeptical of secession. In East Tennessee, most people favored remaining in the Union. In 1860, slaves composed about 25% of Tennessee's population,
7200-610: The American Southeast or simply the Southeast , is a geographical region of the United States located in the eastern portion of the Southern United States and the southern portion of the Eastern United States . The region includes a core of states that reaches north to Maryland and West Virginia , bordering the Ohio River and Mason–Dixon line , and stretches west to Arkansas and Louisiana . There
7380-485: The Appalachian Mountains in an effort to mitigate conflicts with the Natives. But migration across the mountains continued, and the first permanent European settlers began arriving in northeastern Tennessee in the late 1760s. Most of them were English , but nearly 20% were Scotch-Irish . They formed the Watauga Association in 1772, a semi-autonomous representative government, and three years later reorganized themselves into
Tennessee - Misplaced Pages Continue
7560-620: The Battle of Kings Mountain in South Carolina, where they defeated the British. Three counties of the Washington District broke off from North Carolina in 1784 and formed the State of Franklin . Efforts to obtain admission to the Union failed, and the counties, now numbering eight, rejoined North Carolina by 1788. North Carolina ceded the area to the federal government in 1790, after which it
7740-885: The Blue Ridge Mountains , Ridge-and-Valley Appalachians , and Cumberland Plateau , part of the Appalachian Mountains ; the Highland Rim and Nashville Basin , part of the Interior Low Plateaus of the Interior Plains ; and the East Gulf Coastal Plain , part of the Atlantic Plains . Other regions include the southern tip of the Cumberland Mountains , the Western Tennessee Valley , and
7920-679: The Chattanooga campaign , Confederates attempted to besiege the Army of the Cumberland into surrendering, but reinforcements from the Army of the Tennessee under the command of Grant, William Tecumseh Sherman , and Joseph Hooker arrived. The Confederates were driven from the city at the battles of Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge in November 1863. Despite Unionist sentiment in East Tennessee, Confederates held
8100-731: The Cherokee town of Tanasi (or "Tanase", in syllabary : ᏔᎾᏏ) in present-day Monroe County, Tennessee , on the Tanasi River, now known as the Little Tennessee River . In 1567, Spanish explorer Captain Juan Pardo and his party encountered a Native American village named "Tanasqui" in the area while traveling inland from modern-day South Carolina ; however, it is unknown if this was the same settlement as Tanasi. The town appeared on British maps as early as 1725. Recent research suggests that
8280-531: The Cherokee National Forest , the Great Smoky Mountains National Park , and several federal wilderness areas and state parks. The Appalachian Trail roughly follows the North Carolina state line before shifting westward into Tennessee. Stretching west from the Blue Ridge Mountains for about 55 miles (89 km) are the Ridge-and-Valley Appalachians , also known as the Tennessee Valley or Great Valley of East Tennessee. This area consists of linear parallel ridges separated by valleys that trend northeast to southwest,
8460-458: The Colony of South Carolina built Fort Loudoun on the Little Tennessee River in 1756, the first British settlement in what is now Tennessee and the westernmost British outpost to that date. Hostilities erupted between the British and the Cherokees into an armed conflict , and a siege of the fort ended with its surrender in 1760. After the French and Indian War , Britain issued the Royal Proclamation of 1763 , which forbade settlements west of
8640-405: The Confederacy , and most of the eastern region harboring pro - Union sentiment. As a result, Tennessee was the last state to officially secede from the Union and join the Confederacy , and the first former Confederate state readmitted to the Union after the war had ended during the Reconstruction era . During the 20th century, Tennessee transitioned from a predominantly agrarian society to
8820-428: The Emancipation Proclamation was announced, Tennessee was largely held by Union forces and thus not among the states enumerated, so it freed no slaves there. Andrew Johnson declared all slaves in Tennessee free on October 24, 1864. On February 22, 1865, the legislature approved an amendment to the state constitution prohibiting slavery, which was approved by voters the following month, and would go into effect later on in
9000-409: The Great Smoky Mountains , Bald Mountains , Unicoi Mountains , Unaka Mountains , and Iron Mountains . These mountains, which average 5,000 feet (1,500 m) above sea level in Tennessee, contain some of the highest elevations in eastern North America. The state's border with North Carolina roughly follows the highest peaks of this range, including Kuwohi. Most of the Blue Ridge area is protected by
9180-426: The Ku Klux Klan , which was founded in December 1865 in Pulaski as a vigilante group to advance former Confederates' interests. In 1870, Southern Democrats regained control of the state legislature, and over the next two decades, passed Jim Crow laws to enforce racial segregation . A total of 251 lynchings , predominately of Black people, took place in Tennessee. A number of epidemics swept through Tennessee in
SECTION 50
#17328408012939360-449: The Late Woodland period was excavated. The site is currently inundated by Melton Hill Lake . The city of Oak Ridge was established by the Army Corps of Engineers as part of the Clinton Engineer Works in 1942 on isolated farm land as part of the Manhattan Project . During World War II, advanced research for the government was managed at the site by the University of Chicago 's Metallurgical Laboratory . In 1943, construction of
9540-438: The Mississippi Alluvial Plain . The state's highest point, which is also the third-highest peak in eastern North America, is Kuwohi , at 6,643 feet (2,025 m) above sea level. Its lowest point, 178 feet (54 m), is on the Mississippi River at the Mississippi state line in Memphis. Tennessee has the most caves in the United States, with more than 10,000 documented. Geological formations in Tennessee largely correspond with
9720-421: The Muscogee Creek , Yuchi , and Shawnee . By the early 18th century, most Natives in Tennessee had disappeared, most likely wiped out by diseases introduced by the Spaniards. The Cherokee began migrating into what is now eastern Tennessee from what is now Virginia in the latter 17th century, possibly to escape expanding European settlement and diseases in the north. They forced the Creek, Yuchi, and Shawnee out of
9900-441: The Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education , and the developing Oak Ridge Science and Technology Park, although the four other facilities are unrelated to the National Laboratory. The total area of the reservation is 150 square kilometres (58 sq mi) of which the lab takes up 18 square kilometres (7 sq mi). In 1934 the Freel Farm Mound Site , an archaeological site and burial mound of
10080-412: The Roane County section of Oak Ridge. Its scientific programs focus on materials , nuclear science , neutron science, energy, high-performance computing , environmental science , systems biology and national security , sometimes in partnership with the state of Tennessee , universities and other industries. ORNL has several of the world's top supercomputers , including Frontier , ranked by
10260-420: The Royal Colonial Boundary of 1665 , but due to faulty surveys, begins north of this line in the east, and to the west, gradually veers north before shifting south onto the actual 36°30′ parallel at the Tennessee River in West Tennessee. Uncertainties in the latter 19th century over the location of the state's border with Virginia culminated in the U.S. Supreme Court settling the matter in 1893 , which resulted in
10440-473: The Spallation Neutron Source (SNS). HFIR provides neutrons in a stable beam resulting from a constant nuclear reaction whereas SNS, a particle accelerator, produces pulses of neutrons. HFIR went critical in 1965 and has been used for materials research and as a major source of medical radioisotopes since. As of 2013, HFIR provides the world's highest constant neutron flux as a result of various upgrades. Berkelium -249, used to synthesize tennessine for
10620-463: The TOP500 as the world's most powerful. The lab is a leading neutron and nuclear power research facility that includes the Spallation Neutron Source , the High Flux Isotope Reactor , and the Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences . Oak Ridge National Laboratory is managed by UT–Battelle , a limited liability partnership between the University of Tennessee and the Battelle Memorial Institute , formed in 2000 for that purpose. The annual budget
10800-430: The Tennessee Centennial and International Exposition in Nashville. A full-scale replica of the Parthenon in Athens was designed by architect William Crawford Smith and constructed for the celebration, owing to the city's reputation as the "Athens of the South". Due to increasing racial segregation and poor standards of living, many black Tennesseans fled to industrial cities in the Northeast and Midwest as part of
10980-443: The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) was created in 1933 to provide electricity, jobs, flood control, improved waterway navigation, agricultural development, and economic modernization to the Tennessee River Valley . The TVA built several hydroelectric dams in the state in the 1930s and 1940s, which inundated communities and thousands of farmland acreage, and forcibly displaced families via eminent domain . The agency quickly grew into
SECTION 60
#173284080129311160-495: The Thirteen Colonies who sent delegates to the Second Continental Congress in Philadelphia , which declared independence from the British Crown , which was established with the colonies' victory over the British in the American Revolutionary War . During the American Civil War , the Confederate States of America consisted of the southeastern states of Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, Tennessee, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, Louisiana, and Arkansas. Texas
11340-432: The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers operate many hydroelectric dams on the Tennessee and Cumberland rivers and their tributaries, which form large reservoirs throughout the state. About half the state's land area is in the Tennessee Valley drainage basin of the Tennessee River. The Cumberland River basin covers the northern half of Middle Tennessee and a small portion of East Tennessee. A small part of north-central Tennessee
11520-414: The U.S. Navy captured the Tennessee and Cumberland rivers in February 1862 at the battles of Fort Henry and Fort Donelson . Grant then proceeded south to Pittsburg Landing and held off a Confederate counterattack at Shiloh in April in what was at the time the bloodiest battle of the war. Memphis fell to the Union in June after a naval battle on the Mississippi River. Union strength in Middle Tennessee
11700-473: The US Navy . The US Army also contracted the design of portable nuclear reactors in 1953 for heat and electricity generation in remote military bases. The reactors were produced by the American Locomotive Company and used in Greenland , the Panama Canal Zone , and Antarctica . The US Air Force also contributed funding to three reactors, the lab's first computers, and its first particle accelerators. ORNL built its first molten salt reactor in 1954 as
11880-475: The United States Virgin Islands , and Virginia . There is no official United States Census Bureau definition of the Southeastern United States. They instead divide a larger region which includes Texas , Oklahoma , Maryland , Delaware , Washington, D.C., and West Virginia , designated as "the South," into three separate subregions, none of which are conventionally considered to define the Southeast. The nonprofit American Association of Geographers defines
12060-399: The Washington District to support the cause of the American Revolutionary War . The next year, after an unsuccessful petition to Virginia, North Carolina agreed to annex the Washington District to provide protection from Native American attacks. In 1775, Richard Henderson negotiated a series of treaties with the Cherokee to sell the lands of the Watauga settlements at Sycamore Shoals on
12240-405: The "Cotton Capital of the World" during the late 19th century, and Nashville, Knoxville, and several smaller cities saw modest industrialization. Northerners also began exploiting the coalfields and mineral resources in the Appalachian Mountains. To pay off debts and alleviate overcrowded prisons, the state turned to convict leasing , providing prisoners to mining companies as strikebreakers , which
12420-438: The 1940s, promotion of different industries, and federal spending on defense and space programs, the Southeast saw further economic transformation in the ensuing years and decades of the 20th century. The Southeast benefitted from its business and warm climate in its population growth during the late 20th century, as it helped in attracting job seekers and retirees from other U.S. regions. Florida in particular went from being
12600-407: The 1950s. ORNL was the only Western source of californium-252 . ORNL scientists also performed the world's first successful bone marrow transplant in mice by suppressing their immune systems . In 1950 the Oak Ridge School of Reactor Technology was established with two courses in reactor operation and safety; almost 1,000 students graduated. Much of the research performed at ORNL in the 1950s
12780-454: The 1960s ORNL was equipped with an IBM 360/91 and an IBM 360/65. In 1995 ORNL bought an Intel Paragon based computer called the Intel Paragon XP/S 150 that performed at 154 gigaFLOPS and ranked third on the TOP500 list of supercomputers. In 2005 Jaguar was built, a Cray XT3 -based system that performed at 25 teraFLOPS and received incremental upgrades up to the XT5 platform that performed at 2.3 petaFLOPS in 2009. It
12960-550: The 27th most populated U.S. state in 1940 with 1.9 million residents, to being the 4th most populated U.S. state and having nearly 13 million residents in 2000 . Southeast states such as North Carolina and Georgia saw large population growth increases as well during the late 20th century. The United States Geological Survey defines Southeastern United States as including the states of Alabama , Arkansas , Florida , Georgia , Kentucky , Louisiana , Mississippi , North Carolina , South Carolina , Tennessee , Puerto Rico ,
13140-652: The 36th and final state necessary to ratify the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution , which gave women the right to vote . In 1925, John T. Scopes , a high school teacher in Dayton , was tried and convicted for teaching evolution in violation of the state's recently passed Butler Act . Scopes was prosecuted by former Secretary of State and presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan and defended by attorney Clarence Darrow . The case
13320-653: The 53 °F (12 °C) range. As one nears the Gulf of Mexico, coastal plain, and coastal areas of Georgia and the Carolinas, winters become warm, with daytime highs near or over 60 °F (16 °C). Once in Florida, daytime highs are above 70 °F (21 °C) from just south of St. Augustine on the Atlantic coast and Clearwater on the Gulf Of Mexico. Extreme southern Florida has the warmest winter temperatures (mid 70's F) in
13500-740: The Atlanta Summer Olympic Games were held on the Ocoee River in Polk County . In 2002, Tennessee amended its constitution to establish a lottery . In 2006, the state constitution was amended to outlaw same-sex marriage . This amendment was invalidated by the 2015 U.S. Supreme Court case Obergefell v. Hodges . On December 23, 2008, the largest industrial waste spill in United States history occurred at TVA's Kingston Fossil Plant when more than 1.1 billion gallons of coal ash slurry
13680-761: The Atlanta area; the two largest research parks in the country: Research Triangle Park in the Triangle area of North Carolina (the world's largest) and the Cummings Research Park in Huntsville, Alabama (the world's fourth largest); corporate headquarters of Bank of America , Truist Financial , and Wells Fargo in Charlotte, North Carolina , the corporate headquarters of Verso Paper and FedEx in Memphis, Tennessee as well as
13860-537: The Blue Ridge Mountains and Cumberland Plateau, and bottomland hardwood forests are common throughout the Gulf Coastal Plain. Pine forests are also found throughout the state. The Southern Appalachian spruce–fir forest in the highest elevations of the Blue Ridge Mountains is considered the second-most endangered ecosystem in the country. Some of the last remaining large American chestnut trees grow in
14040-557: The Blue Ridge Mountains and on the Cumberland Plateau. Tennessee has the third-highest number of amphibian species, with the Great Smoky Mountains home to the most salamander species in the world. The state ranks second in the nation for the diversity of its freshwater fish species. Most of Tennessee has a humid subtropical climate , with the exception of some of the higher elevations in the Appalachians, which are classified as
14220-494: The Charlotte area along with the sports operations headquarters and media outlets. Tracks in the region include Atlanta Motor Speedway , Bristol Motor Speedway , Charlotte Motor Speedway , Darlington Raceway , Daytona International Speedway , Homestead-Miami Speedway , Martinsville Speedway , Nashville Superspeedway , North Wilkesboro Speedway , Richmond Raceway , and Talladega Superspeedway . The southeast also hosts two of
14400-501: The Cherokees adapted the name from the Yuchi word Tana-tsee-dgee , meaning "brother-waters-place" or "where-the-waters-meet". The modern spelling, Tennessee , is attributed to Governor James Glen of South Carolina, who used this spelling in his official correspondence during the 1750s. In 1788, North Carolina created " Tennessee County ", and in 1796, a constitutional convention , organizing
14580-711: The Chickasaw to sell the land between the Mississippi and Tennessee Rivers to the United States, which included all of West Tennessee and became known as the " Jackson Purchase ". The Cherokee moved their capital from Georgia to the Red Clay Council Grounds in southeastern Tennessee in 1832, due to new laws forcing them from their previous capital at New Echota . In 1838 and 1839, U.S. troops forcibly removed thousands of Cherokees and their black slaves from their homes in southeastern Tennessee and forced them to march to Indian Territory in modern-day Oklahoma . This event
14760-695: The Clinton Laboratories, what would later be known as the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, was completed. The site was chosen for the X-10 Graphite Reactor , used to produce plutonium from natural uranium . Enrico Fermi and his colleagues developed the world's second self-sustaining nuclear reactor after Fermi's previous experiment, the Chicago Pile-1 . The X-10 was the first reactor designed for continuous operation. After
14940-560: The Fourteenth Amendment before its readmission to the Union, it was the only former secessionist state that did not have a military governor during Reconstruction . The Radical Republicans seized control of the state government toward the end of the war, and appointed William G. "Parson" Brownlow governor. Under Brownlow's administration from 1865 to 1869, the legislature allowed African American men to vote, disenfranchised former Confederates, and with martial law, took action against
15120-729: The French Lick. These settlers constructed Fort Nashborough , which they named for Francis Nash , a brigadier general of the Continental Army . The next year, the settlers signed the Cumberland Compact , which established a representative government for the colony called the Cumberland Association . This settlement later grew into the city of Nashville. That same year John Sevier led a group of Overmountain Men from Fort Watauga to
15300-732: The Highland Rim is the Western Tennessee Valley , which consists of about 10 miles (16 km) in width of hilly land along the banks of the Tennessee River. West of this is the Gulf Coastal Plain , a broad feature that begins at the Gulf of Mexico and extends northward into southern Illinois . The plain begins in the east with low rolling hills and wide stream valleys, known as the West Tennessee Highlands, and gradually levels out to
15480-500: The Nashville Basin and are being used to help breed blight -resistant trees. Middle Tennessee is home to many unusual and rare ecosystems known as cedar glades , which occur in areas with shallow limestone bedrock that is largely barren of overlying soil and contain many endemic plant species. Common mammals found throughout Tennessee include white-tailed deer , red and gray foxes , coyotes , raccoons , opossums , wild turkeys , rabbits , and squirrels . Black bears are found in
15660-716: The ORNL Frontier system broke the exascale barrier, achieving 1.102 exaflop/s using 8,730,112 cores. Since 1992 the Center for Computational Sciences has overseen high performance computing at ORNL. It manages the Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility that contains the machines. In 2012, Jaguar was upgraded to the XK7 platform, a fundamental change as GPUs are used for the majority of processing, and renamed Titan . Titan performed at 17.59 petaFLOPS and held
15840-590: The Oak Ridge National Lab wrote the first version of Parallel Virtual Machine (PVM), software that enables distributed computing on machines of differing specifications. PVM is free software and has become the de facto standard for distributed computing. Jack Dongarra of ORNL and the University of Tennessee wrote the LINPACK software library and LINPACK benchmarks , used to calculate linear algebra and
16020-564: The South to have some of the lowest unemployment rates in the United States. In Alabama, there is the large-scale manufacturing project owned by the German steel megacorporation ThyssenKrupp , which operates a massive, state-of-the-art facility in Mobile . Even with certain states and areas in the Southeast doing well economically, many Southeast states and areas still have a high poverty rate when compared to
16200-581: The Southeast, out of a total of ten such areas in the United States: Two others tie some areas on the margins of the Southeast to urban centers in other regions: These are the combined statistical areas of the Southeastern region which exceed 1 million in population according to the United States Census Bureau 's 2016 estimates. Note that the metropolitan areas of Tampa and Richmond are not included in any CSAs, so they are included in
16380-688: The Southeast: the Atlanta Braves , Baltimore Orioles , Miami Marlins , Tampa Bay Rays , and Washington Nationals . The Southeast has five National Hockey League (NHL) franchises: the Carolina Hurricanes , Florida Panthers , Nashville Predators , Tampa Bay Lightning , and Washington Capitals . Major League Soccer currently holds six clubs: Atlanta United FC , Charlotte FC , DC United , Inter Miami CF , Nashville SC and Orlando City SC . The majority of NASCAR teams are headquartered in
16560-486: The Southeastern United States as including Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Maryland, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia. The OSBO (Organization Supporting Business Owners) uses the same states, but includes Arkansas and Louisiana. The states of Delaware and Missouri , along with the U.S. capital of Washington, D.C., are also sometimes added in definitions of
16740-450: The U.S. Supreme Court ruled racial segregation in public schools unconstitutional in Brown v. Board of Education in 1954, Oak Ridge High School in 1955 became the first school in Tennessee to be integrated . The next year, nearby Clinton High School was integrated, and Tennessee National Guard troops were sent in after pro-segregationists threatened violence. Between February and May 1960,
16920-479: The U.S. nationally. In 2017, seven Southeast states were in the top ten nationwide when it came to having the highest poverty rate. Research Triangle Park in the Raleigh–Durham urban area of North Carolina, has emerged as a major hub of technology, governmental, and biotechnological research and development. The Cummings Research Park in the Huntsville, Alabama area, is the second-largest research complex in
17100-605: The US and reduce dependence on foreign oil supplies. There are three key areas of research: electricity, manufacturing and mobility. The electricity division focuses on reducing electricity consumption and finding alternative sources for production. Buildings, which account for 39% of US electricity consumption as of 2012, are a key area of research as the program aims to create affordable, carbon-neutral homes. Research also takes place into higher efficiency solar panels , geothermal electricity and heating , lower cost wind generators , and
17280-555: The US and Russia. The GS&N's work overlaps with that of the Homeland Security Programs Office, providing detection of nuclear material and nonproliferation guidelines. Other areas concerning the Department Homeland Security include nuclear and radiological forensics, chemical and biological agent detection using mass spectrometry , and simulations of potential national hazards. ORNL has been
17460-503: The US-ITER collaboration detailed in 2022. Biological research covers ecology , forestry , genomics , computational biology , structural biology and bioinformatics . The BioEnergy Program aims to improve the efficiency of all stages of the biofuel process to improve the energy security of the United States. The program aims to make genetic improvements to the potential biomass used, formulate methods for refineries that can accept
17640-458: The United States is dominated by the humid subtropical climate (Cfa/Cwa). As one nears the southern portion of Florida, the climate gradually becomes tropical, as the winter season and all months have a mean temperature above 64.4 °F (18.0 °C) (the defined coldest monthly mean temperature of tropical climates). Seasonally, summers are generally hot and humid throughout the entire region. The Bermuda High pumps hot and moist air mass from
17820-483: The United States. Winters tend to be very dry and sunny across Florida, with a gradual increase in winter rainfall with increasing latitude, especially west of the Appalachian Mountains. The Southeast economically has changed dramatically since the late 20th century. There has been a boom in its service economy , manufacturing base, high technology industries, and the financial sector. Examples of this include
18000-520: The Woodland period. Later generations of Woodland peoples constructed the first mounds. Rapid civilizational development occurred during the Mississippian period, when Indigenous peoples developed organized chiefdoms and constructed numerous ceremonial structures throughout the state. Spanish conquistadors who explored the region in the 16th century encountered some of the Mississippian peoples, including
18180-529: The X-10 reactor, producing more medical isotopes as well as allowing higher fidelity of materials research. Researchers in the biology division studied the effects of chemicals on mice, including petrol fumes , pesticides , and tobacco . In the late 1960s, cuts in funding led to the cancellation of plans for another particle accelerator, and the United States Atomic Energy Commission cut
18360-556: The area for most of the war. A few days after the fall of Chattanooga, Confederates led by James Longstreet unsuccessfully campaigned to take control of Knoxville by attacking Union General Ambrose Burnside 's Fort Sanders . The capture of Chattanooga allowed Sherman to launch the Atlanta campaign from the city in May 1864. The last major battles in the state came when Army of Tennessee regiments under John Bell Hood invaded Middle Tennessee in
18540-712: The banks of the Watauga River . An agreement to sell land for the Transylvania Colony , which included the territory in Tennessee north of the Cumberland River, was also signed. Later that year, Daniel Boone , under Henderson's employment, blazed a trail from Fort Chiswell in Virginia through the Cumberland Gap , which became part of the Wilderness Road , a major thoroughfare into Tennessee and Kentucky. The Chickamauga,
18720-423: The breeder reactor program by two-thirds, leading to a downsizing in staff from 5,000 to 3,800. In the 1970s, the prospect of fusion power was strongly considered, sparking research at ORNL. A tokamak called ORMAK, made operational in 1971, was the first tokamak to achieve a plasma temperature of 20 million Kelvin. After the success of the fusion experiments, it was enlarged and renamed ORMAK II in 1973; however,
18900-624: The cold season. In this area, December, March, or April are typically the wettest months; August to October, the driest months (for example, in Tupelo, MS , Huntsville, AL and Memphis, TN ). Winters are cool in the northern areas like Tennessee , Virginia , Maryland , and western North Carolina , with average high temperatures in the 45 °F (7 °C) range in January. Farther south, winters become milder across interior eastern North and South Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama, with average January highs in
19080-399: The construction of the reactor. It operated from 1966 until 1969 (with six months down time to move from U-235 to U-233 fuel) and proved the viability of molten salt reactors , while also producing fuel for other reactors as a byproduct of its own reaction. The High Flux Isotope Reactor built in 1965 had the highest neutron flux of any reactor at the time. It improved upon the work of
19260-826: The corporate headquarters of the Coca Cola Company , Delta Airlines , the Home Depot and United Parcel Service in Atlanta , Georgia. Dillards , along with Heifer International , is headquartered in Little Rock, Arkansas . Walmart is also headquartered in Arkansas . In 2020, Fortune 500 companies having headquarters in the Southeast region include: 22 in Virginia, 18 in Georgia, 18 in Florida, 13 in North Carolina, and 10 in Tennessee. This economic expansion has enabled parts of
19440-404: The country's largest electric utility and initiated a period of dramatic economic growth and transformation that brought many new industries and employment opportunities to the state. During World War II , East Tennessee was chosen for the production of weapons-grade fissile enriched uranium as part of the Manhattan Project , a research and development undertaking led by the U.S. to produce
19620-452: The cultural groups who inhabited the area before European contact are unknown, but archaeologists have named several distinct cultural phases, including the Archaic (8000–1000 BC), Woodland (1000 BC–1000 AD), and Mississippian (1000–1600 AD) periods. The Archaic peoples first domesticated dogs, and plants such as squash , corn , gourds , and sunflowers were first grown in Tennessee during
19800-535: The damage to the core of the Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station after the accident in 1979 . The 1980s brought more changes to ORNL: a focus on efficiency became paramount. An accelerated climate simulation chamber was built that applied varying weather conditions to insulation to test its efficacy and durability faster than real time. Materials research into heat resistant ceramics for use in truck and high-tech car engines
19980-405: The division between Middle and West Tennessee. Tennessee's eastern boundary roughly follows the highest crests of the Blue Ridge Mountains , and the Mississippi River forms its western boundary. Due to flooding of the Mississippi that has changed its path, the state's western boundary deviates from the river in some places. The northern border was originally defined as 36°30′ north latitude and
20160-453: The division of Bristol between the two states. An 1818 survey erroneously placed Tennessee's southern border 1 mile (1.6 km) south of the 35th parallel ; Georgia legislators continue to dispute this placement , as it prevents Georgia from accessing the Tennessee River. Marked by a diversity of landforms and topographies, Tennessee features six principal physiographic provinces , from east to west, which are part of three larger regions:
20340-511: The eastern escarpment of the Cumberland Plateau and Cumberland Mountains. West of the Cumberland Plateau is the Highland Rim , an elevated plain that surrounds the Nashville Basin , a geological dome . Both of these physiographic provinces are part of the Interior Low Plateaus of the larger Interior Plains . The Highland Rim is Tennessee's largest geographic region, and is often split into eastern and western halves. The Eastern Highland Rim
20520-468: The economic and environmental feasibility of potential hydro power plants . The Fusion Energy Division pursues short-term goals to develop components such as high-temperature superconductors , high-speed hydrogen pellet injectors, and suitable materials for future fusion research. Much research into the behaviour and maintenance of plasma takes place at the Fusion Energy Division to further
20700-407: The end of World War II, management of the lab was contracted by the US government to Monsanto ; however, they withdrew in 1947. The University of Chicago temporarily re-assumed responsibility, with the site receiving the prestigious "National" laboratory designation, until in December 1947, when Union Carbide and Carbon Co. , which already operated two other facilities at Oak Ridge, took control of
20880-541: The entirety of East Tennessee from northwestern Alabama to southwestern Virginia, and is considered one of the most active zones in the Southeastern United States, frequently producing low-magnitude earthquakes. The New Madrid seismic zone in the northwestern part of the state produced a series of devastating earthquakes between December 1811 and February 1812 that formed Reelfoot Lake near Tiptonville . The southwestern Blue Ridge Mountains lie within Tennessee's eastern edge, and are divided into several subranges, namely
21060-454: The experiments ultimately failed to lead to fusion power plants. The US Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) required improved safety standards in the early 1970s for nuclear reactors, so ORNL staff wrote almost 100 requirements covering many factors including fuel transport and earthquake resistance. In 1972 the AEC held a series of public hearings where emergency cooling requirements were highlighted and
21240-531: The fact that other states had not yet ratified it. Johnson became vice president when Lincoln was reelected , and president after Lincoln's assassination in May 1865. On July 24, 1866, Tennessee became the first Confederate state to have its elected members readmitted to Congress. The years after the Civil War were characterized by tension and unrest between blacks and former Confederates, the worst of which occurred in Memphis in 1866 . Because Tennessee had ratified
21420-525: The fall of 1864 in an effort to draw Sherman back. They were checked by John Schofield at Franklin in November and completely dispersed by George Thomas at Nashville in December. On April 27, 1865, the worst maritime disaster in American history occurred when the Sultana steamboat, which was transporting freed Union prisoners, exploded in the Mississippi River north of Memphis, killing 1,168 people. When
21600-420: The fastest-growing area of the United States economically. Multiculturalism has become more mainstream in the Southeastern states. African Americans remain a dominant demographic, at around 30% of the total population of the Southeast. Cities along this corridor from north to south include Raleigh-Durham area, Greensboro, Charlotte, Spartanburg, Greenville, Atlanta, and Montgomery. Most of the southeastern part of
21780-658: The fields listed here. The laboratory's major research areas are described briefly below. The laboratory has a long history of energy research; nuclear reactor experiments have been conducted since the end of World War II in 1945. Because of the availability of reactors and high-performance computing resources, an emphasis on improving the efficiency of nuclear reactors is present. The programs develop more efficient materials, more accurate simulations of aging reactor cores, sensors and controls as well as safety procedures for regulatory authorities. The Energy Efficiency and Electricity Technologies Program aims to improve air quality in
21960-511: The first time, was produced in the HFIR as part of an international effort. HFIR is likely to operate until approximately 2060 before the reactor pressure vessel is considered unsafe for continued use. The SNS has the highest intensity neutron pulses of any human-made neutron source. SNS was made operational in 2006 and has since been upgraded to 1 megawatt with plans to continue up to 3 MW. High-power neutron pulses permit clearer images of
22140-624: The first wave of the Great Migration between 1915 and 1930. Many residents of rural parts of Tennessee relocated to larger cities during this time for more lucrative employment opportunities. As part of the Temperance movement , Tennessee became the first state in the nation to effectively ban the sale, transportation, and production of alcohol in a series of laws passed between 1907 and 1917. During Prohibition , illicit production of moonshine became extremely common in East Tennessee, particularly in
22320-945: The former executive officer of the American Association for the Advancement of Science , Alvin Trivelpiece , became director of ORNL; he remained in the role until 2000. In 1992 whistleblower Charles Varnadore filed complaints against ORNL, alleging safety violations and retaliation by his superiors. While an administrative law judge ruled in Varnadore's favor, Secretary of Labor Robert Reich overturned that ruling. However, Varnadore's case saw prime contractor Martin Marietta cited for safety violations and ultimately led to additional whistleblower protection within DOE. In January 2019 ORNL announced
22500-487: The general direction of the entire Appalachian range. Most of these ridges are low, but some of the higher ones are commonly called mountains. Numerous tributaries join to form the Tennessee River in the Ridge and Valley region. The Cumberland Plateau rises to the west of the Tennessee Valley, with an average elevation of 2,000 feet (610 m). This landform is part of the larger Appalachian Plateau and consists mostly of flat-topped tablelands . The plateau's eastern edge
22680-418: The juncture of the Holston and French Broad rivers in Knoxville, flows southwest to Chattanooga, and exits into Alabama before reemerging in the western part of the state and flowing north into Kentucky. Its major tributaries include the Clinch , Little Tennessee , Hiwassee , Sequatchie , Elk , Beech , Buffalo , Duck , and Big Sandy rivers. The Cumberland River flows through the north-central part of
22860-408: The lab for 19 years, was replaced by Herman Postma , a fusion scientist. In 1977 construction began for 6 metre (20 foot) superconducting electromagnets , intended to control fusion reactions . The project was an international effort: three electromagnets were produced in the US, one in Japan, one in Switzerland and the final by remaining European states. ORNL was involved in analysing
23040-403: The lab, and radiation tanks were sitting idle, full of waste . Estimates of the total cost of clean-up were into the hundreds of millions of US dollars. The five older reactors were subjected to safety reviews in 1987, ordered to be deactivated until the reviews were complete. By 1989 when the High Flux Isotope Reactor was restarted, the US supply of certain medical isotopes was depleted. In 1989
23220-573: The laboratory and renamed the site Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). Post-war, the demand for military science had fallen dramatically, and the future of the lab was uncertain. The X-10 reactor and the laboratory's 1,000 employees were no longer involved in nuclear weapons. Instead, it was used for scientific research. In 1946 the first medical isotopes were produced in the X-10 reactor, and by 1950 almost 20,000 samples had been shipped to various hospitals. The quantity and variety of radionuclides produced by X-10 for medicine grew steadily in
23400-538: The largest cities in the Southeastern region of the United States by population, according to the United States Census Bureau in 2015: These are the metropolitan areas of the Southeastern region which exceed one million in population according to the United States Census Bureau 's 2023 estimates:as estimated by the United States Census Bureau Beyond Megalopolis by Virginia Tech 's Metropolitan Institute, an attempt to update Jean Gottmann 's work with current trends, defines two " megapolitan areas " contained within
23580-400: The legislature conducted a census of the territory, which recorded a population of 77,263, including 10,613 slaves, and a poll that showed 6,504 in favor of statehood and 2,562 opposed. Elections for a constitutional convention were held in December 1795, and the delegates convened in Knoxville on January 17, 1796, to begin drafting a state constitution. During this convention, the name Tennessee
23760-421: The lowest share among the states that joined the Confederacy . Tennessee provided more Union troops than any other Confederate state, and the second-highest number of Confederate troops, behind Virginia. Due to its central location, Tennessee was a crucial state during the war and saw more military engagements than any state except Virginia. After Abraham Lincoln was elected president in 1860 , secessionists in
23940-430: The most recent world's fair to be held in the U.S. In 1986, Tennessee held a yearlong celebration of the state's heritage and culture called "Homecoming '86". Tennessee celebrated its bicentennial in 1996 with a yearlong celebration called "Tennessee 200". A new state park that traces the state's history, Bicentennial Mall , was opened at the foot of Capitol Hill in Nashville. The same year, the whitewater slalom events at
24120-535: The mountains, and continued for many decades afterward. Sgt. Alvin C. York of Fentress County became one of the most famous and honored American soldiers of World War I . He received the Congressional Medal of Honor for single-handedly capturing an entire German machine gun regiment during the Meuse–Argonne offensive . On July 9, 1918, Tennessee suffered the worst rail accident in U.S. history when two passenger trains collided head on in Nashville, killing 101 and injuring 171. On August 18, 1920, Tennessee became
24300-437: The nation. Located in Huntsville is the Redstone Arsenal , United States Army Missile Command , the U.S. Space & Rocket Center , NASA 's Marshall Space Flight Center and other key government, military, and aerospace agencies. Tullahoma, TN contains the Arnold Air Force Base. The base is home to the Arnold Engineering Development Complex (AEDC), the most advanced and largest complex of flight simulation test facilities in
24480-448: The new state out of the Southwest Territory , adopted "Tennessee" as the state's name. The first inhabitants of Tennessee were Paleo-Indians who arrived about 12,000 years ago at the end of the Last Glacial Period . Archaeological excavations indicate that the lower Tennessee Valley was heavily populated by Ice Age hunter-gatherers , and Middle Tennessee is believed to have been rich with game animals such as mastodons . The names of
24660-478: The nickname "The Volunteer State" during the War of 1812 , when 3,500 Tennesseans answered a recruitment call by the General Assembly for the war effort. These soldiers, under Andrew Jackson 's command, played a major role in the American victory at the Battle of New Orleans in 1815, the last major battle of the war. Several Tennesseans took part in the Texas Revolution of 1835–36, including Governor Sam Houston and Congressman and frontiersman Davy Crockett , who
24840-453: The north, North Carolina to the east, Georgia , Alabama , and Mississippi on the south, and Arkansas and Missouri on the west. It is tied with Missouri as the state bordering the most other states. Tennessee is trisected by the Tennessee River , and its geographical center is in Murfreesboro . Nearly three–fourths of the state is in the Central Time Zone , with most of East Tennessee on Eastern Time . The Tennessee River forms most of
25020-500: The northwest. Tennessee is the 36th-largest by area and the 15th-most populous of the 50 states. Tennessee's population as of the 2020 United States census is approximately 6.9 million. Tennessee is geographically, culturally, and legally divided into three Grand Divisions of East , Middle , and West Tennessee . Nashville is the state's capital and largest city, and anchors its largest metropolitan area. Tennessee has diverse terrain and landforms, and from east to west, contains
25200-556: The number 1 spot on the TOP500 list for November 2012. Other computers include a 77 node cluster to visualise data that the larger machines output in the Exploratory Visualization Environment for Research in Science and Technology (EVEREST), a visualisation room with a 10 by 3 metre (30 by 10 ft) wall that displays 35 megapixel projections. Smoky is an 80 node Linux cluster used for application development. Research projects are refined and tested on Smoky before running on larger machines such as Titan. In 1989 programmers at
25380-455: The production arm of the Manhattan Project in Oak Ridge, which enriched uranium at three major facilities for use in atomic bombs. The first of the bombs was detonated in Alamogordo, New Mexico , in a test code-named Trinity , and the second, nicknamed " Little Boy ", was dropped on Imperial Japan at the end of World War II. After the war, the Oak Ridge National Laboratory became an institution for scientific and technological research. After
25560-465: The production of iron in the Western Highland Rim, and slaves also cultivated such crops as tobacco and corn throughout the Highland Rim. East Tennessee's geography did not allow for large plantations as in the middle and western parts of the state, and as a result, slavery became increasingly rare in the region. A strong abolition movement developed in East Tennessee, beginning as early as 1797, and in 1819, Elihu Embree of Jonesborough began publishing
25740-402: The project, and in 1971, the U.S. Supreme Court sided with the group and established the framework for judicial review of government agencies in the landmark case of Citizens to Preserve Overton Park v. Volpe . TVA's construction of the Tellico Dam in Loudon County became the subject of national controversy in the 1970s when the endangered snail darter fish was reported to be affected by
25920-417: The project. After lawsuits by environmental groups, the debate was decided by the U.S. Supreme Court case Tennessee Valley Authority v. Hill in 1978, leading to amendments of the Endangered Species Act . The 1982 World's Fair was held in Knoxville. Also known as the Knoxville International Energy Exposition, the fair's theme was "Energy Turns the World". The exposition was one of the most successful, and
26100-517: The region for several hundred years during the Woodland period . The first Europeans to arrive in the region were conquistadors associated with the Spanish Empire . In 1541, Hernando de Soto journeyed through the southeast and crossed the Mississippi River . The region hosted the first permanent European settlement in North America , with the Kingdom of England establishing Jamestown, Virginia in 1607. Four southeast states, Georgia , North Carolina , South Carolina , and Virginia , were among
26280-438: The region. Because of this, many southern unionists were sent fleeing to nearby Union states, particularly the border state of Kentucky . Other southern unionists, who stayed in Tennessee after the state's secession, either resisted the Confederate cause or eventually joined it. In March 1862, Lincoln appointed native Tennessean and War Democrat Andrew Johnson as military governor of the state. General Ulysses S. Grant and
26460-491: The region: the Atlanta Falcons , Baltimore Ravens , Carolina Panthers , Jacksonville Jaguars , Miami Dolphins , New Orleans Saints , Tampa Bay Buccaneers , Tennessee Titans , and Washington Commanders . The Southeast has seven National Basketball Association (NBA) franchises: the Atlanta Hawks , Charlotte Hornets , Memphis Grizzlies , Miami Heat , New Orleans Pelicans , Orlando Magic , and Washington Wizards . Major League Baseball (MLB) maintains five teams in
26640-426: The rivers in East Tennessee in the early 18th century. The first recorded European expeditions into what is now Tennessee were led by Spanish explorers Hernando de Soto in 1540–1541, Tristan de Luna in 1559, and Juan Pardo in 1566–1567. In 1673, English fur trader Abraham Wood sent an expedition from the Colony of Virginia into Overhill Cherokee territory in modern-day northeastern Tennessee. That same year,
26820-538: The safety requirements became more stringent. Also in 1972, Peter Mazur , a biologist at ORNL, froze with liquid nitrogen , thawed and implanted mouse embryos in a surrogate mother . The mouse pups were born healthy. The technique is popular in the livestock industry, as it allows the embryos of valuable cattle to be transported easily and a prize cow can have multiple eggs extracted and thus, through in vitro fertilisation , have many more offspring than would naturally be possible. In 1974 Alvin Weinberg, director of
27000-451: The site of various supercomputers , home to the fastest on several occasions. In 1953, ORNL partnered with the Argonne National Laboratory to build ORACLE (Oak Ridge Automatic Computer and Logical Engine), a computer to research nuclear physics, chemistry, biology, and engineering. ORACLE had 2048 words (80 Kibit ) of memory and took approximately 590 microseconds to perform addition or multiplication of integers. In
27180-463: The state averaging a high of around 90 °F (32 °C). Winters tend to be mild to cool, decreasing in temperature at higher elevations. For areas outside the highest mountains, the average overnight lows are generally near freezing. The highest recorded temperature was 113 °F (45 °C) at Perryville on August 9, 1930, while the lowest recorded temperature was −32 °F (−36 °C) at Mountain City on December 30, 1917. While Tennessee
27360-481: The state government led by Governor Isham Harris sought voter approval to sever ties with the United States, which was rejected in a referendum by a 54–46% margin in February 1861. After the Confederate attack on Fort Sumter in April and Lincoln's call for troops in response, the legislature ratified an agreement to enter a military league with the Confederacy on May 7, 1861. On June 8, with Middle Tennesseans having significantly changed their position, voters approved
27540-413: The state in the early 18th century. The Chickasaw remained confined to West Tennessee, and the middle part of the state contained few Native Americans, although both the Cherokee and the Shawnee claimed the region as their hunting ground. Cherokee peoples in Tennessee were known by European settlers as the Overhill Cherokee because they lived west of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Overhill settlements grew along
27720-601: The state leads the nation in the percentage of total tornadoes that have fatalities. Winter storms such as in 1993 and 2021 occur occasionally, and ice storms are fairly common. Fog is a persistent problem in some areas, especially in East Tennessee. Tennessee is divided into 95 counties , each of which has a county seat . The state has 340 municipalities in total. The Office of Management and Budget designates ten metropolitan areas in Tennessee, four of which extend into neighboring states. Southeastern United States The Southeastern United States , also known as
27900-523: The state's topographic features, and, in general, decrease in age from east to west. The state's oldest rocks are igneous strata more than 1 billion years old found in the Blue Ridge Mountains, and the youngest deposits in Tennessee are sands and silts in the Mississippi Alluvial Plain and river valleys that drain into the Mississippi River. Tennessee is considered seismically active and contains two major seismic zones, although destructive earthquakes rarely occur there. The Eastern Tennessee seismic zone spans
28080-466: The state, emerging in the northeastern Highland Rim, passing through Nashville, turning northwest to Clarksville, and entering Kentucky east of the Tennessee River. Its principal branches in Tennessee are the Obey , Caney Fork , Stones , Harpeth , and Red rivers. The Mississippi River drains nearly all of West Tennessee. Its tributaries are the Obion , Forked Deer , Hatchie , Loosahatchie , and Wolf rivers. The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) and
28260-530: The surge in tourism in Florida and along the Gulf Coast ; the numerous new automobile production plants such as Mercedes-Benz in Tuscaloosa ; Hyundai in Montgomery ; Toyota Motors in Blue Springs, Mississippi ; Kia in West Point, Georgia ; BMW production plant in Greer, South Carolina ; Volkswagen in Chattanooga ; GM manufacturing plant in Spring Hill, Tennessee ; with the Nissan North American headquarters in Franklin, Tennessee ; Mercedes-Benz USA ; and Porsche North American headquarters in
28440-406: The table without constituent areas. The predominant culture of the Southeast U.S. has its origins with the settlement of the region by European colonists and African slaves during the 17th to 19th centuries, as large groups of English , Scottish , Scotch-Irish , Germans , Spanish , French , and Acadians migrated to the region. Since the late 20th century, the " New South " has emerged as
28620-430: The targets, meaning smaller samples can be analysed and accurate results require fewer pulses. Between 2002 and 2008 ORNL partnered with Caterpillar Inc. to form a new material for their diesel engines that can withstand large temperature fluctuations. The new steel, named CF8C Plus, is based on conventional CF8C stainless steel with added manganese and nitrogen ; the result has better high–temperature properties and
28800-425: The term. The most populous states in the region as of the 2020 United States census are: Florida (21,538,187), followed by Georgia (10,711,908), and North Carolina (10,439,388). Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands are located southeast of Florida, and are considered to be in the South / Southeastern U.S. by the FAA , Agricultural Research Service , and the U.S. National Park Service . These are
28980-666: The three legs of the American Triple Crown : the Kentucky Derby in Louisville , and the Preakness Stakes in Baltimore . The Derby is considered the western leg of the crown and the Preakness is traditionally considered the southern leg. The Atlantic Coast Conference is an NCAA Division I conference with many Southeastern college teams, including the: Clemson Tigers , Duke Blue Devils , Florida State Seminoles , Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets , Louisville Cardinals , Miami Hurricanes , North Carolina Tar Heels , NC State Wolfpack , Virginia Cavaliers , Virginia Tech Hokies , and Wake Forest Demon Deacons . The Southeastern Conference
29160-439: The tropical Atlantic Ocean and eastern Gulf of Mexico westward toward the southeast United States, creating the typical sultry tropical summers. Daytime highs are often in the upper 80s to lower 90s F. Rainfall is summer concentrated along the Gulf Coast and the South Atlantic coast from Norfolk, Virginia southward, reaching a sharp summer monsoon -like pattern over peninsular Florida, with dry winters and wet summers. Sunshine
29340-432: The understanding of plasma physics , a crucial area for developing a fusion power plant. The US ITER office is at ORNL with partners at Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory and Savannah River National Laboratory . The US contribution to the ITER project is 9.1% which is expected to be in excess of US$ 1.6 billion throughout the contract. ORNL researchers participated in developing of an extensive research plan for
29520-474: The west. It ends at steep loess bluffs overlooking the Mississippi embayment , the westernmost physiographic division of Tennessee, which is part of the larger Mississippi Alluvial Plain . This flat 10 to 14 miles (16 to 23 km) wide strip is commonly known as the Mississippi Bottoms, and contains lowlands, floodplains , and swamps . Tennessee is drained by three major rivers , the Tennessee , Cumberland , and Mississippi . The Tennessee River begins at
29700-415: The world's first atomic bombs . The planned community of Oak Ridge was built to provide accommodations for the facilities and workers; the site was chosen due to the abundance of TVA electric power, its low population density, and its inland geography and topography, which allowed for the natural separation of the facilities and a low vulnerability to attack. The Clinton Engineer Works was established as
29880-430: The world. The National High Magnetic Field Laboratory in Tallahassee, Florida , is the largest laboratory in the world devoted to the study of magnetism. The University of South Carolina is currently constructing a research campus in downtown Columbia , and the university is the nation's only National Science Foundation -funded Industry/University Cooperative Research Center for Fuel Cells . The region includes
30060-401: The year. This made Tennessee the only Southern state to abolish slavery at the time. Tennessee ratified the Thirteenth Amendment , which outlawed slavery in every state, on April 7, 1865, and the Fourteenth Amendment , which granted citizenship and equal protection under the law to former slaves, on July 18, 1866. Both amendments went into effect after Tennessee's readmission to the union due to
30240-401: The years after the Civil War, including cholera in 1873, which devastated the Nashville area, and yellow fever in 1878, which killed more than one-tenth of Memphis's residents. Reformers worked to modernize Tennessee into a " New South " economy during this time. With the help of Northern investors, Chattanooga became one of the first industrialized cities in the South. Memphis became known as
30420-411: Was a Confederate State that isn't defined as part of the southeast region. Missouri and Kentucky had dual competing Unionist and Confederate state governments in the Confederate government of Missouri and Confederate government of Kentucky , while Maryland and Delaware were neutral southern border states that remained with the Union . West Virginia split from Virginia during 1863, and also served as
30600-411: Was accidentally released into the Emory and Clinch Rivers . The cleanup cost more than $ 1 billion and lasted until 2015. Tennessee is in the Southeastern United States . Culturally, most of the state is considered part of the Upland South , and the eastern third is part of Appalachia . Tennessee covers roughly 42,143 square miles (109,150 km), of which 926 square miles (2,400 km), or 2.2%,
30780-435: Was chosen for the new state. The constitution was completed on February 6, which authorized elections for the state's new legislature, the Tennessee General Assembly . The legislature convened on March 28, 1796, and the next day, John Sevier was announced as the state's first governor. Tennessee was admitted to the Union on June 1, 1796, as the 16th state and the first created from federal territory. Tennessee reportedly earned
30960-450: Was intentionally publicized, and highlighted the creationism-evolution controversy among religious groups. In 1926, Congress authorized the establishment of a national park in the Great Smoky Mountains , which was officially established in 1934 and dedicated in 1940. When the Great Depression struck in 1929, much of Tennessee was severely impoverished even by national standards. As part of President Franklin D. Roosevelt 's New Deal ,
31140-488: Was killed at the Battle of the Alamo . The state's nickname was solidified during the Mexican–American War when President James K. Polk of Tennessee issued a call for 2,800 soldiers from the state, and more than 30,000 volunteered. Between the 1790s and 1820s, additional land cessions were negotiated with the Cherokee, who had established a national government modeled on the U.S. Constitution . In 1818, Jackson and Kentucky governor Isaac Shelby reached an agreement with
31320-507: Was organized into the Southwest Territory on May 26 of that year. The act allowed the territory to petition for statehood once the population reached 60,000. Administration of the territory was divided between the Washington District and the Mero District, the latter of which consisted of the Cumberland Association and was named for Spanish territorial governor Esteban Rodríguez Miró . President George Washington appointed William Blount as territorial governor. The Southwest Territory recorded
31500-440: Was performed, building upon the materials research that began in the nuclear reactors of the 1950s. In 1987 the High Temperature Materials Laboratory was established, where ORNL and industry researchers cooperated on ceramic and alloy projects. The materials research budget at ORNL doubled after initial uncertainty regarding Reagan's economic policy of less government expenditure. In 1981, the Holifield Heavy Ion Research Facility,
31680-424: Was presented at a 1964 United Nations conference, but increases in the cost of construction and falling public confidence in nuclear power caused the plan to be shuttered. The Health Physics Research Reactor built in 1962 was used for radiation exposure experiments leading to more accurate dosage limits and dosimeters , and improved radiation shielding . In 1964 the Molten-Salt Reactor Experiment began with
31860-514: Was protested by miners forced to compete with the system. An armed uprising in the Cumberland Mountains known as the Coal Creek War in 1891 and 1892 resulted in the state ending convict leasing. Despite New South promoters' efforts, agriculture continued to dominate Tennessee's economy. The majority of freed slaves were forced into sharecropping during the latter 19th century, and many others worked as agricultural wage laborers. In 1897, Tennessee celebrated its statehood centennial one year late with
32040-425: Was recognised as the world's fastest from November 2009 until November 2010. Summit was built for Oak Ridge National Laboratory during 2018, which benchmarked at 122.3 petaFLOPS. As of June 2020, Summit was the world's second fastest [clocked] supercomputer with 202,752 CPU cores, 27,648 Nvidia Tesla GPUs , and 250 Petabytes of storage, having lost the top position to the Japanese Fugaku supercomputer. In May 2022,
32220-405: Was related to nuclear reactors as a form of energy production, both for propulsion and electricity. More reactors were built in the 1950s than in the rest of the ORNL's history combined. One of their most influential projects was the light-water reactor , a precursor to many modern nuclear power stations. The US Military funded much of its development, for nuclear-powered submarines and ships of
32400-436: Was tested in a series of Confederate offensives beginning in the summer of 1862, which culminated in General William Rosecrans 's Army of the Cumberland routing General Braxton Bragg 's Army of Tennessee at Stones River , another one of the war's costliest engagements. The next summer, Rosecrans's Tullahoma campaign forced Bragg's remaining troops in Middle Tennessee to retreat to Chattanooga with little fighting. During
#292707