Montgomery (pics) became Alabama’s capital city in 1847 and the current Capitol dates from 1851. Alabama’s State Capitol is notable for two very significant events. In 1861, The Confederate States of America was born in the Senate Chamber, where delegates from Southern states voted to establish a new nation. A little more than a century later, the 1965 Selma to Montgomery Voting Rights March led by the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., ended on the street in front of the Capitol.