Mississippi

Mississippi is exactly twice as long (340 mi) as it is wide (170 mi).

Emerald Mound

The Mississippian culture, established about 700 AD, is one of the longest-surviving cultures in North America.  They were Mound Builders and, although most are gone from erosion or bulldozing, some remain, including Emerald Mound, the 2nd largest in the US - the base is 435' x 770', about 8 acres.

One of the ironies of the white supremacy doctrine (whites are superior to blacks, slavery is blacks's natural condition) is that poor white people couldn't escape poverty because landowners used slaves to fill jobs the poor whites could have taken but, because they saw themselves as superior to blacks, they allied themselves with the landowners, thus ensuring they 
stayed poor.

Eli Whitney's 1793 invention of the cotton gin helped establish Mississippi as completely dependent, economically, on cotton.  The 1907 boll weevil infestation helped make Miss. one of the poorest states in the US.

During the Freedom Summer of 1964, the Ku Klux Klan was responsible for at least 6 murders, 35 shootings, 68 bombings of churches, businesses and homes, and hundreds of beatings.  It was much of the reason Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964.  However, the violence made industries reluctant to open factories and many young people left the state, contributing to the state's continuing poverty.

Mississippi River Basin

There was once a glacier that stretched from what is now the Gulf of Mexico to Minnesota.  When it melted, it became the Mississippi River.  This river is the world's 3rd longest at 2,348 mi.  The Miss. River Basin drains 1/3 of the US.

The National Weather Service has designated Miss. as the most tornado-prone state.

Miss. has the highest percentage of blacks in the US (37% of the population).

Between 2000 and 2010, Miss. had the highest rate of increase in the US of those saying they're mixed race, as well as the highest increase of mixed marriages.  And although in 2004 Miss. passed a constitutional amendment outlawing (by the highest margin in the US) same sex marriages, by 2010 33% of same sex couples in Miss. had one or more children (the highest percentage in the US).

Miss. is the most religious state in the US, with 59% identifying as "very religious" in 2012.  In 2009, 63% said they attend church weekly, the highest percentage in the US (US average was 42%).  In 2008, 85% said religion was an important part of daily life, the highest percentage in the US (US average was 65%).  Perhaps not a non sequitur, Miss.'s teenage birthrate is the highest in the US (more than 60% above the US average).

Miss. is one of the most rural US states: just over 1/2 live in rural areas.

The Belzoni area is the world's leader in catfish farms.

Greenville has the Great Wall of Mississippi (taller than the Great Wall of China) which is, in fact, a levee.

Alligator

Camp Shelby, near Hattiesburg, is the US's largest permanent National Guard training site, and was a POW camp and troop staging area in WWI and WWII.

Miss. has an official state food (sweet potato) and an official state reptile (alligator).

Miss. was birthplace to a wide variety of people such as: Craig Claiborne, William Faulkner, Brett Favre, Jim Henson, Jimmy Buffett, Britney Spears, Elvis Presley, Muddy Waters, BB King, Oprah Winfrey, and James Earl Jones.