U.S. states 11-20, New York through Mississippi

11	New York  The English took over of the area that had been called "New Netherland" in 1664, and renamed it New York to honor the Duke of York (York is a city in England).	July 26, 1788
12	North Carolina  North Carolina was named to honor King Charles I (Carolus is Latin for Charles).	November 21, 1789
13	Rhode Island  Rhode Island was either named for the Isle of Rhodes (in the Mediterranean Sea) or for its red clay (the Dutch explorer Adriaen Block may have named it "Rood Eylandt" meaning Red Island, in Dutch).	May 29, 1790
14	Vermont  The name Vermont comes from the French words for green mountain, "mont vert."	March 4, 1791
15	Kentucky  Kentucky is from the Iroquois Indian word "Ken-tah-ten," which means "land of tomorrow."	June 1, 1792
16	Tennessee  The name Tennessee came from a Cherokee village in the region that is called "Tanasie."	June 1, 1796
17	Ohio  Ohio derives from the Iroquois Indian word meaning "good river" or "large river."	March 1, 1803
18	Louisiana  Louisiana was named by the French explorer Sieur de La Salle in 1682 to honor King Louis XIV (14) of France.	April 30, 1812
19	Indiana  Indiana is a word that refers to the local Indians.	December 11, 1816
20	Mississippi  Mississippi is perhaps from the Ojibwa (Chippewa) Indian words "mici zibi," which means "great river" or "gathering of waters"	December 10, 1817

http://www.enchantedlearning.com/usa/states/statehood.shtml

New York, the Empire State, has the rose as its flower.

North Carolina, the Tarheel State/Old North State, has the cardinal as its bird.
Rhode Island, Little Rhody/Ocean State, is the smallest state and the first of the original 13 colonies to declare independence from British rule, declaring itself independent on May 4, 1776, two months before any other colony.
Vermont, the Green Mountain State, has red clover as its flower.
Kentucky, the Bluegrass State, has the cardinal as its bird.
Tennessee, the Volunteer State, has the iris as its flower.
Ohio, the Buckeye State, has the cardinal as its bird.
Louisiana, Pelican State/ Bayou State/Sugar State/ Creole State, has the magnolia as its flower.
Indiana, the Hoosier State, has the cardinal as its bird.
Mississippi, the Magnolia State, has the mockingbird as its bird.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's first epic poem, Evangeline:  A Tale of Acadie, published in 1847, is a story of loss and devotion set against the deportation of the Acadian people in 1755.  The poem elevated Longfellow to be the most famous writer in America and has had a lasting cultural impact, especially in Nova Scotia and Louisiana, where most of the poem is set.  On April 5, 1840, Longfellow invited a few friends to dine at his rented rooms in Cambridge at the Craigie House.  Nathaniel Hawthorne brought the Reverend Horace Conolly with him.  At dinner, Conolly related a tale he had heard from a French-Canadian woman about an Acadian couple separated on their wedding day by the British expulsion of the French-speaking inhabitants of Nova Scotia.  The bride-to-be wandered for years, trying to find her fiancé.  Conolly had hoped Hawthorne would take the story and turn it into a novel, but he was not interested.  Longfellow, however, was intrigued, and reportedly called the story, "the best illustration of faithfulness and the constancy of woman that I have ever heard of or read."  He asked for Hawthorne's blessing to turn it into a poem.  Seven years after Longfellow first heard the story, Evangeline was published.  By 1845 when Longfellow began working on the poem, the fate of the Acadians had largely been forgotten.  Longfellow researched the basic history of the expulsion at the Harvard library and the Massachusetts Historical Society.  He learned that the French began to settle Acadie, modern-day Nova Scotia, in 1604.  For the next 150 years, they cultivated the land, maintained a friendly relationship with the native Micmac Indians, and remained neutral in the ongoing conflicts between the French and the English.  By the mid-18th century, there were 12,000 to 18,000 Acadians.  In 1755 when these British subjects refused to take up arms against the French, they were exiled from their lands, in what the Acadians call "Le Grand Dérangement."  The Acadians were scattered far and wide.  Many eventually ended up in Louisiana where they formed the basis of the Cajun culture.  According to Longfellow biographer Charles Calhoun, "As was his poetic practice, once Longfellow had briefed himself on the factual background, he used his material with a very free hand.  He was a bard, not a historian; what mattered was the basic human truth of his story, not its particulars."  Evangeline is a work of fiction; Longfellow devised its heroine and her quest, as well as the scenery that she moves through.  The poem even starts on a fictional note:  "This was the forest primeval" is a better description of the coast of Maine, where Longfellow grew up, than the low-lying marshlands of Acadia, which he had never visited.  Factual or not, Longfellow's Evangeline became a huge success.  The poem went through six printings in the first six  months after being published, and within ten years had been translated into a dozen languages. The poem has been made into two films, one in 1922 and the second, starring popular silent film actress Dolores Del Rio, in 1929.  Generations of American children read, memorized, and recited the poem as part of their schooling.  Other authors capitalized on the success of the poem by writing alternate versions of the story.  Louisiana Judge Felix Voorhies published Acadian Reminiscences:  The True Story of Evangeline, in 1907. In his telling, the lovers are reunited under an oak tree in the Louisiana town of St. Martinville, but when Evangeline discovers that Gabriel has fallen in love with another woman, she goes mad and dies.  This version became very popular in Voorhies' home state, where his novel was often taken as historical fact. 

Longfellow's Evangeline created a tourist industry in the lands of the Acadians.  Visitors are still drawn to sites such as the Longfellow-Evangeline State Historic Site in Louisiana, which interprets the lifestyle of the Acadian settlers.  Once there, it is just a short ride to St. Martinville to see the "Evangeline Oak" which features so prominently in Voorhies' version of the story.  In Nova Scotia, the Evangeline Trail stretches along the Bay of Fundy coast from Yarmouth to Grand Pré and beyond.  http://www.hwlongfellow.org/works_evangeline.shtml 

NOTE:  I first heard of the connection between Evangeline and Louisiana in the song Give Me Louisiana.  

Toledoan Judith Ann Lanzinger is a justice on the Ohio Supreme Court.  From her blog:  September 4, 2012  You may be surprised to learn that not every case appealed to the Ohio Supreme Court is accepted for review. Our jurisdiction, meaning the scope of our work, is defined in the Ohio Constitution. The constitution provides that we are to decide cases with constitutional questions, death penalty cases and those from administrative agencies such as the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio.  But that is just a small portion of the 2,000 cases that are filed in the court every year.  Most of our work comes through “discretionary review” of court of appeals’ cases.  This is another way of saying that we ourselves choose the cases that we will hear and decide.  We call these “jurisdictional” cases, and at least four of the seven justices must vote to accept a case before it is accepted.  Otherwise, we decline jurisdiction and the case stays settled as it was by the court of appeals.  Her August 28 blog describes the artwork and its relation to labor in the Thomas J. Moyer Ohio Judicial Center.  http://justicejudy.blogspot.com/