1. In 1934, Mississippi State Senator Theodore Bilbo proposed a bill that aimed to create a "white man's paradise." The bill would have banned all African Americans from purchasing or even renting property in certain areas of the state. It also proposed sterilizing all African Americans who were deemed "feebleminded or unfit for reproduction." Although the bill did not pass, it is a stark reminder of Mississippi's dark history of racial inequality.

2. On June 25, 1948, a fire broke out at the Rhythm Night Club in Natchez, Mississippi, killing over 200 people. The club was packed with patrons celebrating the end of World War II when a discarded cigarette ignited a curtain, causing a rapid and deadly spread of the flames. The tragedy remains one of the deadliest nightclub fires in U.S. history.

3. In 1912, Mississippi became the first state to extend the right to vote to women. However, African American women were still subject to discrimination and disenfranchisement through barriers like poll taxes and literacy tests.

4. On June 25, 1964, civil rights activists James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner were kidnapped and murdered by members of the Ku Klux Klan in Neshoba County, Mississippi. The three men had been working to register African American voters in the state as part of the Freedom Summer campaign.

5. In 1863, Confederate forces under General John C. Pemberton surrendered to Union General Ulysses S. Grant at the Siege of Vicksburg, marking a major turning point in the Civil War. The fall of Vicksburg gave the Union control of the Mississippi River, effectively splitting the Confederacy in two.