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21 unusual facts about Navajo Nation


1st California Infantry

For the remainder of the war, the 1st California Infantry was engaged in garrison duty dispersed in posts across New Mexico Territory and Texas and fighting Apache and Navajo Indians in these places and in the Utah Territory.

American Indian College Fund

The Navajo Nation was the first tribe to create the first tribal college, called Diné College, that was controlled by the tribe, located on the reservation and established specifically for the Native American students that wished to gain a higher education in 1968.

Arizona State Route 77

State Route 77 (or SR 77) is a state highway in Arizona that traverses much of the state's length, stretching from its northern terminus at the boundary of the Navajo Nation north of Holbrook to its junction with I-10 in Tucson.

Barbara Lukermann

She also served as part of a federal advisory group that helped the Navajo Nation with urban planning.

Blanding, Utah

Blanding is located near both the Navajo and White Mesa Ute Native American reservations, and a significant percentage of Blanding's population has family ties to these nearby cultures.

Dan K. Morhaim

He has had numerous other activities, including: Medical director, Region III, for the Maryland Institute for Emergency Medical Services System (MIEMSS) from 1982–1989; Fire Surgeon for Baltimore County since 1982; member of the Maryland-Kuwait Health Care Task Force (to Kuwait & Saudi Arabia, April 1991); physician at Indian Health Service Hospital (Navajo), Chinle, Arizona from 1991–92.

Daniel C. Swan

The exhibition was organized by the Gilcrease Museum and traveled to the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, the Navajo Nation Museum, and the Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History.

Edward T. Begay

Edward T. Begay is a Native American politician who served as the Speaker of the Navajo Nation from 1999 to 2003.

Edward T. Hall

From 1933 through 1937, Hall lived and worked with the Navajo and the Hopi on native American reservations in northwestern Arizona, the subject of his autobiographical West of the Thirties.

Herbert E. Gregory

His seminal work included mapping much of the bedrock geology of the Colorado Plateau, particularly in geologic monographs concentrating on what is now the Navajo Nation in northeastern Arizona and southeastern Utah.

Interstate 40 in New Mexico

The route departs the Laguna Pueblo, briefly transits the Tohajiilee Indian Reservation (a chapter of the Navajo Nation), crosses the Rio Puerco and begins a steep climb to the top of a mesa marked by several small cinder cones overlooking the Rio Grande rift and Albuquerque.

Jeneda Benally

Not only has she been a Miss Flagstaff Indian Days Powwow Princess, she is also a national Native American Honor Roll Society member, a spokeswoman for the Navajo Nation Tribal Employee Program, and one of the founders of the Indigenous Youth Network.

Michael Daly Hawkins

He was the United States Attorney for Arizona from 1977 until 1980, and was a Special Prosecutor for the Navajo Nation from 1985 through 1989.

Navajo AIDS Network

The Navajo AIDS Network (NAN) is a Chinle, Arizona-based HIV prevention and AIDS service organization for American Indians who reside within the Navajo Nation, located in western New Mexico and eastern Arizona.

Navajo white

Navajo White is an orangish white color, or pastel yellow orange, and derives its name from its similarity to the background color of the Navajo Nation flag.

Navajodactylus

The generic name honors the Navajo Nation, combining their name with a Greek δάκτυλος, daktylos, "finger".

Roslyn O. Silver

Silver then served as an adviser and litigator for the Education Division of the Navajo Nation's Native American Rights Fund from 1974 to 76.

Shades of white

Navajo White is a whitish orange color, and derives its name from its similarity to the background color of the Navajo Nation ethnic flag.

Solon Toothaker Kimball

Kimball did groundbreaking anthropology work concerning family and community in rural Ireland (with Conrad Arensberg) and on the Navajo reservation in the American Southwest.

Stacy Johnson

In 1993, he was granted immunity from prosecution in exchange for his testimony against Thomas J. Meier, the finance manager for the Navajo Nation and with whom Johnson split commissions from the sale of insurance annuities to the Navajos.

Tribal colleges and universities

The first was founded by the Navajo Nation in 1968 in Arizona, and several others were established in the 1970s.


Bestor Robinson

From October 9 to 12, 1939 a Sierra Club climbing team including Robinson, David Brower, Raffi Bedayn, and John Dyer, completed the first ascent of Shiprock, the erosional remnant of the throat of a volcano with nearly vertical walls on the Navajo reservation in northwestern New Mexico.

Black Indians in the United States

Radmilla Cody, 46th Miss Navajo Nation (1998), traditional singer, enrolled member of the Navajo Nation with ancestry, and advocate against domestic violence in both the Navajo Nation and the state of Arizona.

Peyote song

In recent years, modernized peyote songs have been popularized by Verdell Primeaux, a Sioux, and Johnny Mike, a Navajo.

Samuel Nathan Blatchford

His mother, Pauline Manuelito was the great-granddaughter of the great warrior Chief Manuelito who fought Kit Carson in the Navajo Wars (1869–63) and led his people in exile to the current Navajo Reservation.

Seth Tanner

He later returned to Utah Territory and married Anna Maria Jensen in 1876, then moved his family to Arizona, to an isolated cabin on the Little Colorado River near Tuba City, on the present-day Navajo reservation.

Vice President of the Navajo Nation

In 2010, Ben Shelly became the first Vice President to be elected President of Navajo Nation.