1. In 1823, William Becknell established the Santa Fe Trail, a trade route from Missouri to Santa Fe, New Mexico, which greatly impacted commerce in the region and brought new settlers to the area.
2. On March 4, 1912, New Mexico became the 47th state to join the United States of America.
3. In 1925, the New Mexico State Capitol building was dedicated in Santa Fe, replacing the original territorial capitol that had been destroyed by a fire in 1892.
4. The Trinity Test, the first detonation of an atomic bomb, took place on July 16, 1945, but the site where it occurred, Alamogordo Bombing and Gunnery Range, is located in New Mexico.
5. On March 4, 1970, a uranium tailings dam in Church Rock, New Mexico, collapsed, spilling 94 million gallons of radioactive waste into the Puerco River, making it one of the worst nuclear disasters in US history.