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New Mexico became a state on January 6, 1912 and was the 47th state to be admitted to the Union.  The capital city of Santa Fe and the other major urban area is Albuquerque.  With an area of 121, 356 square miles and a population of only about 1.9 million people, New Mexico is the 36th most populous state.

New Mexico is famous for the nuclear testing and research that took place at the defunct Los Alamos School for Boys (purchased by the US government in 1942) near Alamogordo.  Just 3 years later scientists were testing the world's first atomic bomb.  The explosion cloud reached 8 miles in altitude and tore a giant crater in the desert floor.  Just a few weeks later the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan in retaliation for the bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.  The Japanese cities were destroyed and World War II was over.

On a lighter note - if you’ve never been to Carlsbad caverns in Southeastern New Mexico - you are missing something really cool!  Carlsbad Caverns includes a large cave chamber called the Big Room which is a natural limestone chamber which is almost 4,000 feet long, 625 feet wide, and 350 feet high at the highest point. It is the third largest chamber in North America and the seventh largest in the world. The largest in the world is the Sarawak Chamber in Malaysia.  There are also 17 species of bats that live in the cave and many people show up at dusk to see the "bat show".

A brief history of Arizona. Drag the time line to see more events and click on the titles to see a description.

Download the State of New Mexico Reference Map

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