Baton Rouge is the capital city of the U.S. state of Louisiana. Located on the eastern bank of the Mississippi River, it had a population of 227,470 as of 2020; it is the seat of Louisiana's most populous parish (county-equivalent), East Baton Rouge Parish, and the center of Louisiana's second-largest metropolitan area, Greater Baton Rouge.
St. Landry Parish is a parish located in the U.S. state of Louisiana. As of the 2020 Census, the population was 82,540. The parish seat is Opelousas. The parish was established in 1807.
Russel L. Honoré is a retired lieutenant general who served as the 33rd commanding general of the U.S. First Army at Fort Gillem, Georgia. He is best known for serving as commander of Joint Task Force Katrina responsible for coordinating military relief efforts for Hurricane Katrina–affected areas across the Gulf Coast and as the 2nd Infantry Division's commander while stationed in South Korea. He served until his retirement from the Army on January 11, 2008. Honoré is sometimes known as "The Ragin' Cajun".
The Louisiana State Capitol is the seat of government for the U.S. state of Louisiana and is located in downtown Baton Rouge. The capitol houses the chambers for the Louisiana State Legislature, made up of the House of Representatives and the Senate, as well as the office of the Governor of Louisiana. At 450 feet (137 m) tall and with 34 stories, it is the tallest skyscraper in Baton Rouge, the seventh tallest building in Louisiana, and tallest capitol in the United States. It is located on a 27-acre (110,000 m2) tract, which includes the capitol gardens. The Louisiana State Capitol is often thought of as "Huey Long's monument" due to the influence of the former Governor and U.S. Senator in getting the capitol built. The building's construction was completed in 1931. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1978 and was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1982.
Thomas Overton Moore was an attorney and politician who was the 16th Governor of Louisiana from 1860 until 1864 during the American Civil War. Anticipating that Louisiana's Ordinance of Secession would be passed in January 1861, he ordered the state militia to seize all U.S. military posts.
The Louisiana State Police is the state police agency of Louisiana, which has jurisdiction anywhere in the state, headquartered in Baton Rouge. It falls under the authority of the Louisiana Department of Public Safety & Corrections. It is officially known in that organization as the Office of State Police.
The Battle of Baton Rouge was a ground and naval battle in the American Civil War fought in East Baton Rouge Parish, Louisiana, on August 5, 1862. The Union victory halted Confederate attempts to recapture the capital city of Louisiana.
Louisiana was a dominant population center in the southwest of the Confederate States of America, controlling the wealthy trade center of New Orleans, and contributing the French Creole and Cajun populations to the demographic composition of a predominantly Anglo-American country. In the antebellum period, Louisiana was a slave state, where enslaved African Americans had comprised the majority of the population during the eighteenth-century French and Spanish dominations. By the time the United States acquired the territory (1803) and Louisiana became a state (1812), the institution of slavery was entrenched. By 1860, 47% of the state's population were enslaved, though the state also had one of the largest free black populations in the United States. Much of the white population, particularly in the cities, supported slavery, while pockets of support for the U.S. and its government existed in the more rural areas.
The Pentagon Barracks, also known as the Old United States Barracks, is a complex of buildings located at the corner of State Capitol Drive and River Road in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, in the grounds of the state capitol. The site was used by the Spanish, French, British, Confederate States Army, and United States Army and was part of the short-lived Republic of West Florida. During its use as a military post the site has been visited by such notable figures as Zachary Taylor, Lafayette, Robert E. Lee, George Custer, Jefferson Davis, and Abraham Lincoln.
The foundation of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, dates to 1721, at the site of a bâton rouge or "red stick" Muscogee boundary marker. It became the state capital of Louisiana in 1849.
The Red River State Fair Classic was an American college football game played annually in Shreveport, Louisiana, at Independence Stadium—formerly called State Fair Stadium—during the State Fair of Louisiana. It traced its historical lineage from a series of 167 games played over the 106 football seasons between 1911 and 2016. By having first paired historically black colleges and universities in 1915, the contest held the distinction of being the oldest documented annual black college football classic, edging out the Turkey Day Classic by nine years and the similar Texas State Fair Classic by ten years.
Rodney Gregory Masterson, Jr., known as Rod Masterson, was an American film and television actor from Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
Miles' Legion was a unit of the Confederate Army during the American Civil War. It was commanded by Colonel William R. Miles. The unit was officially named the 32nd Louisiana Infantry Regiment but it was never referred to by that name. The legion fought at the Battle of Plains Store and the Siege of Port Hudson. Captured at Port Hudson, the men were paroled, and the legion was declared exchanged in fall 1863. Many of the exchanged men never returned to duty. Those who did return joined Gober's Mounted Infantry Regiment or the 15th Louisiana Sharpshooter Battalion.
The following is a timeline of the history of the city of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, USA.
Charles-Philippe Aubry or Aubri was a French soldier and colonial administrator, who served as governor of Louisiana twice in the 18th century.
Philip H. Morgan was an attorney, jurist, and diplomat from Louisiana who remained loyal to the Union during the American Civil War. A Republican, among the offices in which he served were Associate Justice of the Louisiana Supreme Court (1873-1877), Judge of the International Tribunal in Alexandria, Egypt (1878-1880), and Minister to Mexico (1880-1885).
Johnnie Anderson Jones Sr. was an American politician, soldier, and civil rights attorney associated with the 1953 Baton Rouge bus boycott, the first anti-segregation bus boycott, in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. This was a precursor to the 1955 Montgomery bus boycott led by Martin Luther King Jr. in Montgomery, Alabama.
CSS Tuscarora was a sidewheel steamer that briefly served as a gunboat in the Confederate States Navy at the beginning of the American Civil War. She was about 100 feet (30 m) long, displaced 400 short tons, and was manned by a 25-man crew. The vessel was purchased in 1861 from the Southern Steamship Company by Confederate authorities in New Orleans, Louisiana. Armed with two cannons, Tuscarora was engaged in the Battle of the Head of Passes on October 12, 1861. Ordered up the Mississippi River to Columbus, Kentucky, in November, she was destroyed on November 23, 1861, when a fire of unknown origin started in her boilers and spread to the ship's munitions.
