Nashville, Tennessee

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:''For other cities named Nashville, see Nashville (disambiguation).'' '''Nashville''' is the capital city of Tennessee, a state of the United States of America. Nashville is located on the Cumberland River in Davidson County. Nicknamed "Music City, U.S.A.," it is the home of the Grand Ole Opry and a major recording center. It has also been called the Athens of the South, for its educational institutions and classical architecture. The mayor is Bill Purcell. The primary news source in Nashville is the ''Tennessean'', a daily newspaper. Another daily paper, the ''Nashville Banner'' ceased publication in the 1990s, but a new daily, the ''Nashville City Paper'' has since been started. Nashville has a rivalry of sorts with the town of Branson, Missouri, the reason being Branson's status as a competing country-music themed tourist destination; it is also a friendly rival of Tennessee's second city, Memphis.

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Capitol Building

==Transportation== Nashville is centrally located at the crossroads of three interstates—40, 24, and 65. The Metropolitan Transit Authority provides bus transit within the city. The city is served by Nashville International Airport, which was a hub for American Airlines between 1986 and 1995 and is now a hub of sorts for Southwest Airlines. Nashville has not had passenger rail service since the 1970s, but CSX Transportation has a large freight rail yard in the southern part of the city. A plan to provide commuter rail service from the nearby town of Lebanon, Tennessee has been agreed upon by several governmental authorities but not yet implemented. ==Economy== Although Nashville is renowned for being a major recording centre, its largest industries are actually insurance and finance, followed by publishing. Religious publishing is a significant part of this, and the city also hosts headquarters operations for several Protestant denominations, the largest of which is the Southern Baptist Convention. Nashville is also a major center for healthcare enterprise, and home to Hospital Corporation of America, the largest private operator of hospitals in the world, as well as the headquarters of Shoney's. Other headquarters: * Bridgestone Americas Holding (Bridgestone-Firestone) * Caremark * Dollar General (in Goodlettsville, Tennessee) * Louisiana Pacific ==Higher education== Nashville is home to a variety of colleges and universities, as follows: * Belmont University * Fisk University * Lipscomb University * Meharry Medical College * Tennessee State University * Trevecca Nazarene University * Vanderbilt University ==History== Nashville was founded as '''Fort Nashborough''' on Christmas Day, 1779 by James Robertson, and was named in honour of Francis Nash, a Revolutionary War soldier. It was renamed Nashville in 1784 when it also became established as a town, and became the capital of Tennessee in 1843. It became the trailhead of the Natchez Trace, an important trade feature of the 1800s. In 1856, William Walker, filibuster and mercenary, briefly managed to make himself president of Nicaragua. He is still the only native Nashvillian ever to become a head of state. In the early-to-mid-19th century, three U.S. presidents came from Tennessee and all were closely associated with Nashville—James Knox Polk, Andrew Jackson, and Andrew Johnson. Jackson's home, '''The Hermitage''', remains on the east side of Nashville. In 1897 an exact replica of the '''Parthenon''' was built for the Tennessee Centennial Exposition. In the 20th century, several politicans from the Middle Tennessee area influenced the national scene, including Cordell Hull, Albert Gore, Sr., and Albert Gore, Jr.. The Great Train Wreck of 1918 occurred on July 9, 1918 in Nashville when an inbound local train collided with an outbound express, killing 101 people. Tennessee was the state that put the 19th Amendment, allowing women to vote, over the top, and the ratification struggle convulsed the city in August, 1920. On March 1, 1941 W47NV (now known as WSM-FM) began operations in Nashville becoming the first FM radio station. The city played a prominent part in the U.S. civil rights movement; particularly important were the Nashville sit-ins of 1960. Nashville has had a metropolitan government of a consolidated city-county since 1963, and was one of the first large U.S. cities to adopt this structure. The 1998 tornado struck the downtown area on April 16 at around 3:30pm, causing serious damage and blowing out hundreds of windows from skyscrapers, raining shattered glass on the streets and closing the business district for nearly four days. Over 300 homes were damaged, and three cranes at the then-incomplete Tennessee Titans stadium were toppled. It was one of the most serious urban tornados on record in the U.S. As the 21st century opened, a Nashville native rose to national political prominence when Dr. Bill Frist, formerly a transplant surgeon at the Vanderbilt University Medical Center, became majority leader of the U.S. Senate. ==Culture== Many popular tourist sites involve country music, including the Country Music Hall of Fame and the Ryman Auditorium, which was for many years the site of the Grand Ole Opry. Each year, the Country Music Association's Fan Fair (renamed "CMA Music Festival" in 2003) brings many thousands of country fans to the city. Other popular destinations include Fort Nashborough, a reconstruction of the original settlement; the Tennessee State Museum; and the Parthenon, a full-scale replica of the original Parthenon in Athens, Greece. The graceful state capitol is one of the oldest working state capitol buildings in the nation, while The Hermitage is one of the older presidential homes open to the public. The Nashville Zoo is one of the city's newer attractions. Civil War history is also important to the city's tourism industry. Sites pertaining to the Battle of Nashville and the nearby Battle of Franklin can be seen, along with several well-preserved antebellum plantation houses such as Belle Meade Plantation and Belmont Mansion. ===Museums=== Nashville has several arts centers and museums, including the Frist Center for the Visual Arts, located in what was formerly the main post office; Cheekwood Botanical Garden and Museum of Art; Fisk University's Van Vechten and Aaron Douglas Galleries; and the Parthenon itself. Nashville is also the home of the Tennessee Performing Arts Center, where the Tennessee Repertory Theatre makes its home. == Geography ==

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