After a long and bloody battle over whether it would be a slave state or not, Kansas entered the Union on January 29, 1861 as a free state. Your Day Thread author may not always love living in Kansas, but it is her home and it does have some good points. Here’s everything you (n)ever wanted to know about Kansas:
- For those of you who don’t live in the US, Kansas is smack dab in the middle of the (contiguous) states.
- Brown vs. Topeka Board of Education, the Supreme Court Case that enshrined desegregation of schools, was fought in Kansas’s capital city (Topeka).
- Our state motto is Ad astra per aspera, “To the stars through difficulties.”
- Our state song is “Home on the Range” (try not to hold it against us).
- Famous people from Kansas include:
- President Dwight D. Eisenhower (born in Texas, but grew up in KS – his Presidential Library is here, and he is buried here)
- Abolitionist John Brown
- “Wild Bill” Hickok
- Amelia Earhart – pilot
- Langston Hughes – poet
- Charlie Parker – jazz musician
- Clyde Tombaugh – discovered Pluto
- Our state animal is the Bison (Buffalo)
