Timeline of Kansas history

Important dates in Kansas's history

July–August 1541 Coronado explores Kansas April 30, 1803 Louisiana Purchase; US buys most of Kansas May 30, 1854 Kansas Territory organized July 29, 1859 Constitution adopted by convention; prohibits slavery January 29, 1861 Kansas becomes 34th state August 21, 1863 Quantrill's Raid on Lawrence Spring 1879 Exodusters February 19, 1881 First state to prohibit alcohol 1890s Populist Revolt July 1951 Great Flood of 1951 May 1954 Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka

The timeline of Kansas details past events that happened in what is present day Kansas. Located on the eastern edge of the Great Plains, the U.S. state of Kansas was the home of sedentary agrarian and hunter-gatherer Native American societies, many of whom hunted American bison. The region first appears in western history in the 16th century at the time of the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire, when Spanish conquistadors explored the unknown land now known as Kansas. It was later explored by French fur trappers who traded with the Native Americans. It became part of the United States in the Louisiana Purchase of 1803. In the 19th century, the first American explorers designated the area as the "Great American Desert."

When the area was opened to Euro-American settlement in the 1850s, Kansas became the first battlefield in the conflict in the American Civil War. After the war, Kansas was home to Wild West towns servicing the cattle trade. With the railroads came heavy immigration from the East, from Europe, and from Freedmen called "Exodusters". For much of its history, Kansas has had a rural economy based on wheat and other crops, supplemented by oil and railroads. Since 1945 the farm population has sharply declined and manufacturing has become more important, typified by the aircraft industry of Wichita.