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Sports
Montana is one of a select few states in America that lack a major sports team.
However, Montana does have these Minor League baseball teams:
Missoula Osprey
Great Falls White Sox
Helena Brewers
Billings Mustangs
Rugby is also played in Montana, with teams such as the Billings Bulls and the
Helena All-Blues playing under the jurisdiction of the Montana Rugby Union.
Miscellaneous topics
The state's name is derived from the Spanish word montaña ("mountain"). The
state nickname is the "Treasure State." Other nicknames include "Land of Shining
Mountains," "Big Sky Country," and the slogan "the last best place."
The planned battleships USS Montana were named in honor of the state. However,
neither battleship was completed, making Montana the only state of the 48 states
during World War II not to have a battleship named after it. Additionally,
Alaska and Hawaii have both had nuclear submarines named after them. As such
Montana is the only state in the union with out a modern naval ship named in
honor of it.
The Hell Creek Formation is a major source of dinosaur fossils. Paleontologist
Jack Horner, of the Museum of the Rockies in Bozeman, Montana, brought this
formation to the world's attention with several major finds. For example, Jane
was discovered in 2001 in Hell Creek and is the world's most complete juvenile
tyrannosaurus rex.
In 1902, a group of female students from the Fort Shaw Indian Industrial School
began playing basketball and traveled throughout Montana, defeating high school
teams and some college teams. In 1904, the girls' basketball team traveled by
train to the St. Louis World's Fair. Over a period of five months, the team was
challenged by numerous other basketball teams and won every contest, returning
to Fort Shaw with the "world champion" trophy. On May 1, 2004, a monument in
honor of the basketball team was unveiled at the entrance of the present-day
Fort Shaw Elementary School.
In the movie 'Star Trek: First Contact', Montana is the location of the
fictitious first contact between humans and an alien race, the Vulcans. Star
Trek producer Brannon Braga is originally from Bozeman, Montana.
Montana has the largest grizzly bear population in the lower 48 states.
Montana's triple divide allows water to flow into three oceans: the Pacific
Ocean, the Atlantic Ocean (Gulf of Mexico), and the Arctic Ocean (Hudson Bay).
This phenomenon occurs at Triple Divide Peak in Glacier National Park.
In 1888, Helena (the current state capital) had more millionaires per capita
than any other city in the world.
Montana is one of two states in the continental United States which, in addition
to not having a major metropolitan area over 1,000,000 in population, also does
not border a state that does have one (Maine is the other). However, it does
border the Canadian Provinces Alberta (population in 2005 of 3,237,000) and
British Columbia (population in 2006 of 4,292,000, which have a combined three
cities with a metro population of over 1,000,000 each.
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