Virginia

Did you know? The 1787 debates that produced the U.S. Constitution were held in strict secrecy — yet James Madison quietly took day-by-day notes, creating the only full record of a nation's birth. He never released it in his lifetime: only after his death in 1836 — as the last surviving delegate of the convention — were the notes allowed to appear.

Did you know? For the soundtrack of "O Brother, Where Art Thou?", Ralph Stanley was meant to sing the old Appalachian dirge "O Death" with backing music. Instead he set his banjo aside and sang it entirely a cappella — the way he had learned it as a boy in his instrument-free Primitive Baptist church. After a few verses, producer T-Bone Burnett stopped him: "That's it." In his seventies, that lone voice introduced Stanley to millions.