January 29: Kansas

January 29 1861 was the day Kansas became the 34th state of the Union. Here are some things you might not know about Kansas.

1. Kansas is named for the Kansa people, who lived there about 12,000 years ago. Kansa is from a Sioux word meaning "people of the south wind". The name of the state capital, Topeka, comes from a Native American word for "to dig good Potatoes". Nicknames for Kansas include the Sunflower State, the Jayhawk State, the Midway State (because the geographical centre of the contiguous United States is near Lebanon, Kansas), and the Wheat State.
2. Dodge City is the windiest city in the USA, even more so than the official "Windy City" of Chicago. Dodge City has an average wind speed of 14mph compared to 10mph in Chicago.
3. The Wheat state? It produces more wheat than any other state, with 88% of it being farmland. Nearly one-fifth of all wheat grown in the United States is grown in Kansas, and it’s said that enough is cultivated to bake 36 billion loaves of bread, or feed everyone in the world for about two weeks. The state is also home to the world's biggest grain elevator.
4. It also has a contender for the world's biggest ball of twine - in the mid-1950s, a Cawker City man named Frank Stoeber started making an enormous twine ball. It reached 5,000lbs of string before he died and left it to the town. Residents and visitors have been adding to it ever since. Then there is the world's largest easel, made of steel and measuring 80 feet in height and weighing 40,000lb. It holds a giant replica of Vincent Van Gough's “Sunflower” painting. The tallest waterslide in the world is at the Schlitterbahn Waterpark in Kansas city - at 168ft it is higher than Niagara Falls and is not surprisingly called 'the Verrückt', the German word for "insane".
5. The state motto of Kansas is “to the stars through difficulties.” The State animal is the American Buffalo. The state flower is the sunflower. The state insect is the Honey Bee. The state bird is the Western meadowlark. The state tree is the cottonwood. The state reptile is the ornate box Turtle. The state song is Home on the Range.
6. The state is known for being flat, and there's a common saying that it is "flatter than a pancake." In 2003, scientists discovered that was actually true. They compared the topographic profile of a pancake with a digital model of the state’s elevation and found Kansas was indeed the flatter of the two. Even so, it's not the flattest state in the US. Six other states, including Florida, Illinois and North Dakota, are even flatter.
7. Laura Ingalls Wilder’s novel Little House on the Prairie and Truman Capote’s true crime tale In Cold Blood are two classic works of literature set in Kansas, along with a reasonable chunk of one of the most famous films of all time, Wizard of Oz, which contains the famous line, 'Toto, I've a feeling we're not in Kansas any more'.
8. Famous people from Kansas include Susan Madora Salter, the first female mayor in the US, elected in 1889; Hattie McDaniel, the first black woman to win an Academy Award; Almon Stowger who invented the dial telephone in 1889; William Purvis and Charles Wilson who invented the Helicopter in 1909; Omar Knedlik of Coffeyville who invented the first frozen carbonated drink machine in 1961; Amelia Earhart, first woman granted a pilot's license by the National Aeronautics Associate and first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean; actress Kirstie Alley; and Ann Dunham, Barack Obama's mother. Former president Dwight D. Eisenhower was born in Texas, but called Abilene, Kansas his home.
9. Kansas officially has the most beautiful vehicle licence Plates in America - the wheat plate design issued in 1981.
10. There is an intersection in Wichita where drivers are required to get out of their cars and fire three shotgun rounds into the air before crossing it. It's illegal in parts of the state to use Mules to hunt ducks, shoot Rabbits from motorboats, sing the alphabet in the streets at night, wear a bee in a hat, hit a vending machine when it steals your Money, or serve Ice cream on cherry pie.