1. In 2019, Governor John Bel Edwards announced a major expansion of the Pelican State Portfolio, which will include the relocation and expansion of several major flight training companies to Louisiana. This move is expected to generate hundreds of new jobs in the state’s aviation industry.

2. On February 26, 1815, Louisiana became the 18th state to be admitted to the union. This historic event followed the famous Battle of New Orleans, in which Louisiana’s Andrew Jackson led a group of American soldiers to victory against the British in the final battle of the War of 1812.

3. In 1935, the Louisiana political boss Huey P. Long proposed a series of sweeping economic reforms known as the Louisiana Plan. Among other things, the plan called for a higher minimum wage, a shorter work week, and increased government spending on infrastructure projects. Long’s plan was criticized by many at the time, but it eventually became the basis for many of the social and economic programs of the New Deal.

4. On February 26, 1960, the first civil rights sit-in took place in Louisiana, when a group of African-American college students sat at a whites-only lunch counter in a department store in Baton Rouge. This peaceful protest was one of many that helped to spark the Civil Rights Movement across the United States.

5. In 1993, Louisiana native and former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke was sentenced to 15 months in prison for tax evasion. Duke, who had unsuccessfully run for political office on several occasions, was a controversial figure in Louisiana politics and remained active in far-right circles for many years after his release from prison.