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FUN FACTS ABOUT MARYLAND

The history of Maryland tells the story of George Calvert, who formed the colony and named the new colony after Queen Henrietta Maria of England, his wife. Unfortunately, he died before the settlement could really be ready. His son, Cecilius, who saw the importance of creating a haven for the Catholics who had made the journey across the seas, continued in George Calvert’s Stead to establish Maryland [1].

What he found, was a colony that would later be referred to as ‘America in Miniature,’ a product of the wide-ranging geographical elements, which includes everything from sandy dunes to the marshlands [2]. These marshlands can be located near the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland, which is the largest of the numerous estuaries in United States [3]. Captain John Smith is the first European to visit this Chesapeake Bay that splits the State of Maryland in two [4].
Centuries later, Maryland will be granted statehood despite being a slave state close to the Mason-Dixon line [4]. This closeness to the boundaries will expose the state residents to differences in opinions that will escalate to pit family members against each other during the Civil war. It became inevitable that the state would become a battleground, and in Sharpsburg, Maryland, on the 17th of September, 1862, the Battle of Antietam would go down as the most bloodthirsty event of the Civil war, with the fatal casualties numbering in their tens of thousands [5] [6].

Another line was formed in Maryland, this time one of military personnel led by Colonel William Smallwood against 10,000 British Soldiers. The 400 Soldiers led by the Colonel bravely held what would later be known as the ‘Maryland Line’ to grant George Washington safe passage from the battlefield in 1776. Since then, Maryland was known by another name, the ‘Old Line State’ [7]. So Marylanders can be forgiven for the lyrics of their state song that declares Abraham Lincoln as a tyrant and the rest of the Union Army as ‘Northern Scum’. Since it was adopted in 1939, there have been many attempts at getting the song changed, but Maryland school children still sing it today, so they obviously failed spectacularly [8].

Unaware that the State Anthem of Maryland would become what it is, Francis Key Scott, a Maryland lawyer, wrote the “Star-Spangled Banner” in 1814. It turned out well and became the national anthem of the United States of America in 1931. A good turn deserves another, and so he was honored by having a bridge named after him. And not just any bridge, the Francis Key Scott bridge is 1,200-foot long and crosses the Patapsco River of Baltimore. Making it the second longest continuous truss bridge in the United States of America [9] [10].

Maryland is the home to many famous people. Ben Carson, a neurosurgeon who led a medical team to carry out the separation of the first conjoined twins was born in Maryland. Also, Matthew Alexander Henson, an African American explorer born in Maryland, also led a team with Robert Peary to lay claim to being the first men to reach the North pole in an expedition to the north in 1909 [11]. ‘Mr. Civil Rights’, Thurgood Marshall, was born in Baltimore, Maryland and was nicknamed so, because of how strongly he fought for the rights of all citizens as the first African-American justice of the Supreme Court. Harriet Tubman took a different path, but also lead a terrific charge against slavery, despite being born into slavery in Maryland. Her history is an attraction for tourists who visit Maryland, and they witness it through her famous underground railroad which is at the Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad Visitor Center [4] [11].

If you have had some problem with the story of Maryland, it’s not the writer’s fault, since there is an actual town in Maryland called ‘Boring’. It was named so after the first postmaster of the town, David Boring and most tourist don’t respect that fact when they take pictures and selfies in front of the sign that reads ‘Boring’ at the post office [13].
References

[1] “How Maryland was named after the devout catholic wife of a doomed english king,” aleteia.org, [Online]. Available: https://aleteia.org/2019/10/03/how-maryland-was-named-after-the-devout-catholic-wife-of-a-doomed-english-king/. [Accessed 17 November 2019].
[2] “Maryland – America in minature,” United States Department of Agriculture, [Online]. Available: https://www.usda.gov/media/blog/2014/07/17/maryland-america-miniature.
[3] “The estuary system,” [Online]. Available: https://www.chesapeakebay.net/discover/ecosystem/the_estuary_system. [Accessed 18 November 2019].
[4] “Maryland,” theFACTfile, [Online]. Available: http://thefactfile.org/Maryland-facts/. [Accessed 16 November 2019].
[5] “Antietam National Battlefield (U.S. National Park Service),” National Park Service, [Online]. Available: https://www.nps.gov/anti/index.htm. [Accessed 17 November 2019].
[6] “Battle of Antietam,” History, [Online]. Available: https://www.history.com/topics/american-civil-war/battle-of-antietam. [Accessed 17 November 2019].
[7] Fox Hill Residences, [Online]. Available: https://foxhillresidences.com/maryland-called-old-line-state/. [Accessed 18 November 2019].
[8] “Maryland gets closer to retiring state song that calls northerners scum,” NPR, [Online]. Available: https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/03/16/594305719/maryland-gets-closer-to-retiring-state-song-that-calls-northerners-scum. [Accessed 17 November 2019].
[9] “Francis Scott Key,” Wikipedia, [Online]. Available: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Scott_Key. [Accessed 18 November 2019].
[10] “Francis Scott Key – The Reluctant Patriot,” [Online]. Available: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/francis-scott-key-the-reluctant-patriot-180937178/. [Accessed 18 November 2019].
[11] “Who was the first person to reach the north pole?,” [Online]. Available: https://geog.ucsb.edu/who-was-the-first-person-to-reach-the-north-pole/. [Accessed 18 November 2019].
[12] “Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad Visitor_,” Wikipedia, [Online]. Available: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harriet_Tubman_Underground_Railroad_Visitor_. [Accessed 17 November 2019].
[13] “Boring, Maryland: Town Named Boring,” Roadside America, [Online]. Available: https://www.roadsideamerica.com/tip/3824. [Accessed 20 November 2019].