State Motto: Ad astra per aspera (To the stars through difficulties)

State Motto: Ad astra per aspera (To the stars through difficulties)

Origin of Name: from a Sioux word meaning "people of the south wind"

Spain explored Kansas in 1541. French explorers from Canada arrived In 1673.

In 1803, the United States purchased Kansas from France in the Louisiana Purchase.

The US government decided to let the people of Kansas vote for or against slavery. There were many fights between these people, but eventually those against slavery won. Because of the great violence during this time, Kansas became known as “Bleeding Kansas.”

At one time it was against the law to serve ice cream on cherry pie in Kansas.

Pizza Hut restaurants opened its first store in Wichita, Kansas.

The graham cracker was named after the Reverend Sylvester Graham. He was a minister who strongly believed in eating whole-wheat flour products.

Every type of prairie habitat can be found in Kansas

Helium was discovered in 1905 at the University of Kansas

William Purvis and Charles Wilson of Goodland, Kansas invented the helicopter in 1909

Dodge City is the windiest city in the United States, with an average wind speed of 14 miles per hour.

Sumner County is known as The Wheat Capital of the World. Kansas leads the nation in wheat production.

Kansas is the nation's second largest producer of beef cattle, behind only Texas.

Abilene is the ending point of the Chisholm Trail where the cattle driven from Texas were loaded onto rail cars.

Almon Stowger of El Dorado invented the dial telephone in 1889.

Wyatt Earp, James Butler "Wild Bill" Hickok and William B. "Bat" Masterson were three of the legendary lawmen who kept the peace in rowdy frontier towns like Abilene, Dodge City, Ellsworth, Hays, and Wichita.

Amelia Earhart, the first woman granted a pilot's license by the National Aeronautics Associate and the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean, was from Atchison.

Handel's Messiah has been presented in Lindsborg each Easter since 1889.

Kansas' Ethnic Roots: German 25.9%, Irish 11.5%, English 10.8%, American 8.8%, French 3.1%, Swedish 2.4%.

Religion in Kansas: 81.3% Christian (61.3% Protestant, 20% Catholic), 17.5% No Religion, 0.8% LDS, 0.4% Other Religions

Kansas was the first state to ratify the 15th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution which gave African-American men the right to vote.

Wichita is one of the nation's top plane manufacturing cities.