1. In 1938, a devastating tornado struck the town of Griffin in southeastern Alabama, killing 34 people and injuring over 300. This tornado, which was later rated an F4 on the Fujita scale, destroyed much of the town, leaving many homeless and causing millions of dollars in damage.

2. On March 22, 1968, civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. led a march of thousands of people in support of striking sanitation workers in Memphis, Tennessee. This march, which was King's last before his assassination a few weeks later, drew national attention to the plight of African American workers and helped to galvanize the civil rights movement.

3. In 1945, the USS Alabama battleship was officially commissioned into the US Navy at a ceremony in Portsmouth, Virginia. This historic ship, which saw action in both World War II and the Korean War, is now a museum in Mobile, Alabama, and is open to the public for tours.

4. On March 22, 2005, the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute opened an exhibit honoring the "Four Little Girls" who were killed in the 1963 bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama. This exhibit, which features artifacts and memorabilia from the lives of the girls, has become a powerful reminder of the ongoing struggle for civil rights in the United States.

5. In 1933, the state of Alabama passed a law designating the peach as the official state fruit. This legislation was part of a campaign by the Alabama State Horticultural Society to promote the state's thriving peach industry, which remains an important part of Alabama's agricultural economy to this day.