Kentucky in the context of 2011 Super Outbreak

Illinois (/ˌɪlɪˈnɔɪ/ IL-ih-NOY) is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. It borders Lake Michigan to its northeast, the Mississippi River to its west, and the Wabash and Ohio rivers to its south. Of the fifty U.S. states, Illinois has the fifth-largest gross domestic product (GDP), the sixth-largest population, and the 25th-most land area. Its capital city is Springfield in the center of the state, and the state's largest city is Chicago in the northeast.

Present-day Illinois was inhabited by Indigenous cultures for thousands of years. The French were the first Europeans to arrive, settling near the Mississippi and Illinois rivers in the 17th century Illinois Country, as part of their sprawling colony of New France. A century later, the revolutionary war Illinois campaign prefigured American involvement in the region. Following U.S. independence in 1783, which made the Mississippi River the national boundary, American settlers began arriving from Kentucky via the Ohio River. Illinois was soon part of the United States' oldest territory, the Northwest Territory, and in 1818 it achieved statehood. The Erie Canal brought increased commercial activity in the Great Lakes, and the invention of the self-scouring steel plow by Illinoisan John Deere turned the state's rich prairie into some of the world's most productive and valuable farmland, attracting immigrant farmers from Germany, Sweden and elsewhere. In the mid-19th century, the Illinois and Michigan Canal and a sprawling railroad network facilitated trade, commerce, and settlement, making the state a transportation hub for the nation, especially in the city of Chicago, which became the world's fastest growing city by the late 19th century. By 1900, the growth of industrial jobs in the northern cities and coal mining in the central and southern areas attracted immigrants from Eastern and Southern Europe. Illinois became one of America's most industrialized states and remains a major manufacturing center. The Great Migration from the South established a large Black community, particularly in Chicago, which became a leading cultural, economic, and population center; its metropolitan area, informally referred to as Chicagoland, holds about 65% of the state's 12.8 million residents.

The Mississippi River is the primary river of the largest drainage basin in the United States. It is the second-longest river in the United States, behind only the Missouri. From its traditional source of Lake Itasca in northern Minnesota, it flows generally south for 2,340 mi (3,770 km) to the Mississippi River Delta in the Gulf of Mexico. With its many tributaries, the Mississippi's watershed drains all or parts of 32 U.S. states and two Canadian provinces between the Rocky and Appalachian mountains. The river either borders or passes through the states of Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois, Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Mississippi, and Louisiana. The main stem is entirely within the United States; the total drainage basin is 1,151,000 sq mi (2,980,000 km), of which only about one percent is in Canada. The Mississippi ranks as the world's tenth-largest river by discharge flow, and the largest in North America.

Native Americans have lived along the Mississippi River and its tributaries for thousands of years. Many were hunter-gatherers, but some, such as the Mound Builders, formed prolific agricultural and urban civilizations, and some practiced aquaculture. The arrival of Europeans in the 16th century changed the native way of life as first explorers, then settlers, ventured into the basin in increasing numbers. The river served sometimes as a barrier, forming borders for New Spain, New France, and the early United States, and throughout as a vital transportation artery and communications link. In the 19th century, during the height of the ideology of manifest destiny, the Mississippi and several tributaries, most notably its largest, the Ohio and Missouri, formed pathways for the western expansion of the United States. The river also became the subject of American literature, particularly in the writings of Mark Twain.

Missouri (see pronunciation) is a landlocked state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Ranking 21st in land area, it borders Iowa to the north, Illinois, Kentucky and Tennessee to the east, Arkansas to the south and Oklahoma, Kansas, and Nebraska to the west. In the south are the Ozarks, a forested highland, providing timber, minerals, and recreation. At 1.5 billion years old, the St. Francois Mountains are among the oldest in the world. The Missouri River, after which the state is named, flows through the center and into the Mississippi River, which forms the eastern border. With over six million residents, it is the 19th-most populous state of the country. The largest urban areas are St. Louis, Kansas City, Springfield, and Columbia. The capital is Jefferson City.

Humans have inhabited present-day Missouri for at least 12,000 years. The Mississippian culture, which emerged in the ninth century, built cities with pyramidal and other ceremonial mounds before declining in the 14th century. The Indigenous Osage and Missouria nations inhabited the area when European people arrived in the 17th century. The French incorporated the territory into Louisiana, founding Ste. Genevieve in 1735 and St. Louis in 1764. After a brief period of Spanish rule, the United States acquired Missouri as part of the Louisiana Purchase in 1803. Americans from the Upland South rushed into the new Missouri Territory, taking advantage of its productive agricultural plains; Missouri played a central role in the westward expansion of the United States. Missouri was admitted as a slave state as part of the Missouri Compromise of 1820. As a border state, Missouri's role in the American Civil War was complex, and it was subject to rival governments, raids, and guerilla warfare. After the war, both Greater St. Louis and the Kansas City metropolitan area became large centers of industrialization and business.

Abraham Lincoln (February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865) was the 16th president of the United States, serving from 1861 until his assassination in 1865. He led the United States through the American Civil War, defeating the Confederate States and playing a major role in the abolition of slavery.

Lincoln was born into poverty in Kentucky and raised on the frontier. He was self-educated and became a lawyer, Illinois state legislator, and U.S. representative. Angered by the Kansas–Nebraska Act of 1854, which opened the territories to slavery, he became a leader of the new Republican Party. He reached a national audience in the 1858 Senate campaign debates against Stephen A. Douglas. Lincoln won the 1860 presidential election, prompting a majority of slave states to begin to secede and form the Confederate States. A month after Lincoln assumed the presidency, Confederate forces attacked Fort Sumter, starting the Civil War.

A United States presidential election was held on November 6, 1860. The Republican Party ticket of Abraham Lincoln and Hannibal Hamlin emerged victorious.

In 1860, the United States was divided over the issue of slavery. Four major political parties nominated candidates in the 1860 presidential election. Incumbent president James Buchanan, a Democrat, did not seek re-election. The anti-slavery Republican Party nominated Abraham Lincoln, a former one-term Whig Representative from Illinois, for president. Its platform promised not to interfere with slavery in the South, but opposed extension of slavery into the territories. A group of former Whigs and Know Nothings formed the Constitutional Union Party, which sought to avoid disunion by resolving divisions over slavery with some new compromise. The 1860 Constitutional Union Convention put forward former Tennessee Senator John Bell for president. After the 1860 Democratic National Convention adjourned without agreeing on a nominee, a second convention nominated Illinois Senator Stephen A. Douglas as the Democratic presidential candidate. Douglas's support for the concept of popular sovereignty, which called for each territory's settlers to decide locally on the status of slavery, alienated many radical pro-slavery Southern Democrats. With President Buchanan's support, Southern Democrats held their own convention, nominating Vice President John C. Breckinridge of Kentucky for president.

The Thirteenth Amendment (Amendment XIII) to the United States Constitution abolished slavery and involuntary servitude, except as punishment for a crime. The amendment was passed by the Senate on April 8, 1864, by the House of Representatives on January 31, 1865, and ratified by the required 27 of the then 36 states on December 6, 1865, and proclaimed on December 18, 1865. It was the first of the three Reconstruction Amendments adopted following the American Civil War.

President Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, effective on January 1, 1863, declared that the enslaved in Confederate-controlled areas (and thus almost all slaves) were free. When they escaped to Union lines or federal forces (including now-former slaves) advanced south, emancipation occurred without any compensation to the former owners. Texas was the last Confederate slave state, where enforcement of the proclamation was declared on June 19, 1865. In the slave-owning areas controlled by Union forces on January 1, 1863, state action was used to abolish slavery. The exceptions were Kentucky and Delaware, where chattel slavery and indentured servitude were finally ended by the Thirteenth Amendment in December 1865.

A local museum or local history museum is a type of museum that shows the historical development of a place/region (local history) using exhibits. These museums usually maintain a collection of historic three-dimensional objects which are exhibited in displays. Such museums are often small in nature and generally have a low budget for their running costs. As such, many of the collections are compiled, cataloged, and interpreted by amateur historians as well as professionals.

These museums can cover a governmental defined unit such as a town, city, county, or parish or they can cover an area defined within the museum's mission. In the United States while some museums may be part of the local government or receive funding from them in some way. However, most local history museums are usually self-funded. These museums can also run as independent organizations or they can managed by an accompanying local historical society which also will maintain an archive of local records in addition to the museum's three-dimensional object collection.

West Virginia is a state in the Southern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. Mountainous, it is bordered by Pennsylvania and Maryland to the northeast, Virginia to the southeast, Kentucky to the southwest, and Ohio to the northwest. West Virginia is the 10th-smallest state by area and ranks as the 12th-least populous state, with a population of 1,769,979 residents. The capital and most populous city is Charleston with a population of 49,055.

West Virginia was admitted to the Union on June 20, 1863, and was a key border state during the American Civil War. It separated from Virginia and was one of two states (along with Nevada) admitted to the Union during the Civil War. Some of its residents held slaves, but most were propertied farmers, and the delegates provided for the gradual abolition of slavery in the new state constitution. The state legislature abolished slavery in the state, and at the same time ratified the 13th Amendment abolishing slavery nationally on February 3, 1865.

The Tennessee River is a 652 mi (1,049 km) long river located in the southeastern United States . Flowing through the Tennessee Valley in the states of Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, and Kentucky, it begins at the confluence of French Broad and Holston rivers at Knoxville, and drains into the Ohio River near Paducah, Kentucky. It is the largest tributary of the Ohio, and drains a basin of 40,876 sq mi (105,870 km).

Its tributary, the Little Tennessee River, flows into it from Western North Carolina and northeastern Georgia.

American pioneers, were European Americans, African Americans, Hispanic/Latino Americans, and Asian Americans, who settled the Western United States. The majority of the European-American and African-American settlers had marched west from the British Thirteen Colonies and later the United States of America, to settle and develop areas of the nation within the continent of North America. Others migrated north from Latin America and east from Asia.

The pioneer concept and ethos greatly predate the settlement of the Western United States, with which they are commonly associated, and many places now considered "East" were settled by pioneers from even further east. For example, Daniel Boone, a key figure in U.S. history, settled in Kentucky, when that "Dark and Bloody Ground" was still undeveloped.

The Corn Belt is a region of the Midwestern United States and part of the Southern United States that, since the 1850s, has dominated corn production in the United States. In North America, corn is the common word for maize. More generally, the concept of the Corn Belt connotes the area of the Midwest dominated by farming and agriculture, though it stretches down into the South as well reaching into Kentucky.

Ohio (/oʊˈhaɪ.oʊ/ oh-HY-oh) is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. It borders Lake Erie to the north, Pennsylvania to the east, West Virginia to the southeast, Kentucky to the southwest, Indiana to the west, and Michigan to the northwest. Of the 50 U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area. With a population of nearly 11.9 million, Ohio is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated state. Its capital and most populous city is Columbus, with other major metropolitan centers including Cleveland and Cincinnati, as well as Dayton, Akron, and Toledo. Ohio is nicknamed the "Buckeye State" after its Ohio buckeye trees, and Ohioans are also known as "Buckeyes".

Ohio derives its name from the Ohio River that forms its southern border, which, in turn, originated from the Seneca word ohiːyo', meaning "good river", "great river", or "large creek". The state was home to several ancient indigenous civilizations, with humans present as early as 10,000 BC. It arose from the lands west of the Appalachian Mountains that were contested by various native tribes and European colonists from the 17th century through the Northwest Indian Wars of the late 18th century. Ohio was partitioned from the Northwest Territory, the first frontier of the new United States, becoming the 17th state admitted to the Union on March 1, 1803, and the first under the Northwest Ordinance. It was the first post-colonial free state admitted to the union and became one of the earliest and most influential industrial powerhouses during the 20th century.

U.S. Route 25E (US 25E) is the eastern branch of US 25 from Newport, Tennessee, where US 25 splits into US 25E and US 25W, to North Corbin, Kentucky, where the two highways rejoin. The highway, however, continues as US 25E for roughly two miles (3.2 km) until it joins Interstate 75 (I-75) in the Laurel County community of North Corbin at exit 29. The highway serves the Appalachia regions of Kentucky's Cumberland Plateau and the Ridge-and-Valley section of East Tennessee, including the urbanized areas of Corbin and Middlesboro in Kentucky and Morristown in Tennessee.

US 25E follows the original pathway of early U.S. pioneer Daniel Boone's Wilderness Road, which contributed to the increased settlement of Appalachia given its access through the rugged Cumberland Gap. By 1815, the route became the first state-funded road in Tennessee and, in 1923, unsigned State Route 32 (SR 32) in the Tennessee State Route System in its statewide entirety. It would be recognized as part of the Dixie Highway, one of the earliest federal auto trails, in 1915. The route was officially established as US 25E with the creation of the U.S. Numbered Highway System in 1926.

A state of the United States is one of the 50 constituent entities that shares its sovereignty with the federal government. Americans are citizens of both the federal republic and of the state in which they reside, due to the shared sovereignty between each state and the federal government. Kentucky, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Virginia use the term commonwealth rather than state in their full official names.

States are the primary subdivisions of the United States. They possess all powers not granted to the federal government nor prohibited to them by the Constitution of the United States. In general, state governments have the power to regulate issues of local concern, such as regulating intrastate commerce, running elections, creating local governments, public school policy, and non-federal road construction and maintenance. Each state has its own constitution grounded in republican principles, and government consisting of executive, legislative, and judicial branches.

The Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions were political statements drafted in 1798 and 1799 in which the Kentucky and Virginia legislatures took the position that the federal Alien and Sedition Acts were unconstitutional. The resolutions argued that the states had the right and the duty to declare unconstitutional those acts of Congress that the Constitution did not authorize. In doing so, they argued for states' rights and strict construction of the Constitution. The Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions of 1798 were written secretly by Vice President Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, respectively.

The principles stated in the resolutions became known as the "Principles of '98". Adherents argued that the states could judge the constitutionality of federal government laws and decrees. The Kentucky Resolutions of 1798 argued that each individual state has the power to declare that federal laws are unconstitutional and void. The Kentucky Resolution of 1799 added that when the states determine that a law is unconstitutional, nullification by the states is the proper remedy. The Virginia Resolutions of 1798 refer to "interposition" to express the idea that the states have a right to "interpose" to prevent harm caused by unconstitutional laws. The Virginia Resolutions contemplated joint action by the states.

The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) is a federally-owned electric utility corporation in the United States. TVA's service area covers all of Tennessee, portions of Alabama, Mississippi, and Kentucky, and small areas of Georgia, North Carolina, and Virginia. While owned by the federal government, TVA receives no taxpayer funding and operates similarly to a private for-profit company. It is headquartered in Knoxville, Tennessee, and is the sixth-largest power supplier and largest public utility in the country.

The TVA was created by Congress in 1933 as part of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal. Its initial purpose was to provide navigation, flood control, electricity generation, fertilizer manufacturing, regional planning, and economic development to the Tennessee Valley, a region that had suffered from lack of infrastructure and even more extensive poverty during the Great Depression than other regions of the nation. TVA was envisioned both as a power supplier and a regional economic development agency that would work to help modernize the region's economy and society. It later evolved primarily into an electric utility. It was the first large regional planning agency of the U.S. federal government, and remains the largest.

The Allegheny Plateau (/ˌælɪˈɡeɪni/ AL-ig-AY-nee) is a large dissected plateau area of the Appalachian Mountains in western and central New York, northern and western Pennsylvania, northern and western West Virginia, and eastern Ohio. It is divided into the unglaciated Allegheny Plateau and the glaciated Allegheny Plateau.

The plateau extends southward into western West Virginia, eastern Kentucky, and Tennessee, where it is instead called the Cumberland Plateau.

Tennessee (/ˌtɛnɪˈsiː/ , locally /ˈtɛnɪsi/), 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 the northwest. Tennessee is the 36th-largest by area and the 15th-most populous of the 50 states. According to the United States Census Bureau, the state's estimated population as of 2024 is 7.22 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 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 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.