Nebraska became the 37th state on March 1, 1867, two years after the end of the American Civil War.

The Nebraska legislature designated it the "Tree Planter's State" in 1895, but the nickname was repealed in 1945 and replaced with the "Cornhusker State" in honor of the University of Nebraska's athletic teams.

Kool-Aid was invented by Edwin Perkins in Hastings, Nebraska. All of his experiments took place in his mother's kitchen. Its predecessor was a liquid concentrate called Fruit Smack.

Rising nearly 300 feet (91 m) above the surrounding North Platte River valley, the peak of Chimney Rock is 4,228 feet (1,289 m) above sea level. The Nebraska state quarter features a covered wagon headed west past Chimney Rock, commemorating Nebraska's role in westward migration.

Next to P.T. Barnum, "Buffalo Bill" Cody was the greatest showman of the nineteenth century. In 1883, he founded Buffalo Bill's Wild West, a circus-like attraction, in the vicinity of North Platte, Nebraska. Performers such as Annie Oakley, Frank Butler, Calamity Jane, and Buffalo Bill himself re-enacted the riding of the Pony Express, Indian attacks on wagon trains, and stagecoach robberies.

Lincoln was founded in 1856 as the village of Lancaster on the wild salt marshes of what was to become Lancaster County. Renamed after President Abraham Lincoln, it became Nebraska's state capital in 1869.

Chinook winds are warm, dry winds that can cause extreme increases in temperatures within a few hours. The Blackfoot people term this wind "Snow Eater".

The University of Nebraska State Museum has the largest woolly mammoth skeleton on display anywhere in the world. The columbian mammoth, nicknamed "Archie", towers over the other specimens in the museum's great hall. Archie's skeleton was famously discovered by chickens, when Nebraska farmer Henry Kariger noticed that his hens were pecking at some white minerals eroding out of a hillside. Thinking the substance would be a good source of lime for his flock, Kariger started collecting it and adding it to their feed until the hill eroded further, and he realized he had something much more impressive than a lime deposit.

The world's largest porch swing is located in Hebron, Nebraska. It hangs from a giant crop irrigator pole and seats 25, but it's not on a porch ... which seems wrong.

The Orleans Room restaurant in Omaha's Blackstone Hotel has been credited with creating Butter Brickle ice cream in the late 1920s. Small pieces of toffee candy bar were used to make a mix-in, which was sold as Fenn's Butter Brickle Candy Ice Cream Flavoring. The company also made Walnut Crush, Blue Seal Nougat, Smooth Sailin', Royal Brazils, and Big Bogie ice cream.