What does Louisiana mean? Louisiana (La Louisianne) was named by explorer RenÃ©-Robert Cavelier in the mid 1600's to honor King Louis XIV of France. President Thomas Jefferson purchased the Louisiana territory from Napoleon in 1803 (the original Louisiana territory is now divided between 13 states). Louisiana.
Reagan started it. In his 1982 State of the Union speech, Reagan did something new. Almost 200 years after George Washington gave the first annual message from the President to Congress, Reaganâs first State of the Union started a tradition by inviting Lenny Skutnik to attend.
These seven states formed the Confederate States of America (February 4, 1861), with Jefferson Davis as president, and a governmental structure closely modeled on the U.S. Constitution. In April and May 1861, four more slave states seceded and joined the Confederacy: Arkansas, Tennessee, North Carolina and Virginia.