New Mexico is a state in the western region of the United States with the abbreviation of NM. Mew Mexico became the 47th state on January 6, 1912, making the state 113 years old, as of January, 2025. The land that is now part of the state of New Mexico was part of the territory northwest of the Rio Grande River, which was called New Mexico by the Mexicans in the 16th century. The name Mexico itself is believed to have been derived from either the Aztec phrase meaning habitation of the god of war or the Aztec god of war: Mexitli.
New Mexico is the 5th largest state and the 36th most populous; the capital of New Mexico is Santa Fe and its demonym is New Mexican. The state of New Mexico is bordered by the states of Arizona, Utah, Colorado, Oklahoma, and Texas and the Mexican states of Chihuahua and Sonora.
The motto of New Mexico is Crescit Eundo, which is Latin for It Grows as It Goes.
The official nickname of New Mexico is The Land of Enchantment, which refers to the state’s scenic beauty and rich history.
The landscape of New Mexico has desert plateaus, towering mountains, vast plains, and even volcanic formations.
New Mexico is known for its diverse landscape, its unique cuisine and chile peppers, the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta, and its National Parks — including White Sands and Carlsbad Caverns. New Mexico possesses many minerals such as perlite, pumice, mica, barite, potassium salts, and sodium salts as well as numerous metals including iron, zinc, lead, copper, silver, gold, tungsten, manganese, molybdenum, beryllium, uranium, lithium, vanadium, selenium, tellurium, and niobium.
On February 2, 1917, Pedro “Pete” Jimenez was born in Vaughn, New Mexico. At the age of 27, Jimenez served in the US Army, fighting from Omaha Beach during the D-Day invasion until Germany surrendered nearly a year later. In September of 1944, Jimenez led a three-man patrol in the French city of Brest, where they discovered a German tunnel. The patrol was pinned down by German 20mm antiaircraft fire, but Jimenez managed to silence the gun by eliminating some of its crew. Some Germans attempted to exit the tunnel, but they were unable to exit due to the heavy fire from Jimenez and his men, after which roughly 200 Germans came out of the tunnel and surrendered; Jimenez later stated that “they must have thought there was a lot more of us than there were.” For his actions during the war, Jimenez received 2 Bronze Stars and 5 Purple Hearts along with the French awards of the Chevalier of the Legion of Honor and the Croix de guerre.
It is often believed that the Altair 8800 was the first personal computer to be sold. The Altair 8800 was developed by Ed Roberts, the co-owner of the Albuquerque calculator company, Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems (MITS), based in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
On March 9, 1916, The Battle of Columbus occurred in Columbus, New Mexico. The battle began as the remaining troops of the Mexican Division of the North led by Pancho Villa raided the small town of Columbus, New Mexico, which is just north of the Mexican-American border. Before the battle, Villa sent spies to Columbus, which reported that roughly 30 American soldiers were garrisoned there, however, the actual number of American troops was nearly 12 times greater. Villa launched his raid at 4 in the morning, which took the Americans by surprise, yet the Americans quickly established defenses and brought out their machine guns; some of the civilians joined in the defense with their rifles and shotguns. Soon after, the Mexicans retreated as the American troops and civilians pursued them. The battled concluded with an American victory; the Mexicans suffered 67 fatalities with many more wounded while the Americans only suffered light casualties. The battle outraged Americans and caused President Woodrow Wilson to order Brigadier General John J. Pershing to invade Mexico in the Punitive Expedition.
An interesting fact about New Mexico is that the state is home to the largest gypsum desert in the world. This gypsum desert, which is partially contained in White Sands National Park, spans across 275 square miles; strangely, the rolling dunes of this blistering desert can deceivingly look like drifts of snow. What makes this gypsum sand so unusual is that, unlike the sand in most deserts which is composed of silicon dioxide crystals, the sand in White Sands is a vast deposit of calcium sulfate crystals.
A strange fact about New Mexico is that the peak of Capulin Volcano, located near Capulin, New Mexico, is 8,182 feet (about 1.5 miles) above sea level, which is high enough to view 4 other states from its peak: Colorado (15 miles away), Oklahoma (54 miles away), Texas (55 miles away), and Kansas (108 miles away).
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Source: Origins of State Names
Source: Demonyms for US States
Source: The Land of Enchantment
Source: 10 Firsts of New Mexico
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