Huntsville, Alabama

Huntsville is a city in Alabama. It is the county seat of Madison County and has a population of around 165,000. It was originally settled by John Hunt and named by him Twickenham after the town in England where the poet Alexander Pope, whom Hunt greatly admired, had his home. During the 1812-14 War 'Twickenham', Alabama, which had become the first incorporated municipality in the state, was renamed Huntsville after its founder. The city thrived from the cotton industry during the nineteenth century, but it was not until the mid twentieth century that the city became more well-known.

With the onset of World War II the city was chosen as the location of Redstone Arsenal, a military base. After the war, captured Nazi scientist Wernher von Braun was brought to the base to work at the Marshall Space Flight Center and develop what would become NASA. Due to its history of involvement with the US space program, the city has been nicknamed "Rocket City", for which it has been famous ever since.