Friday, January 28, 2011

Jour du Kansas

Today is Kansas’s sesquicentennial, marking 150 years of prairie pride. During mon enfance (my childhood), I thought it was the lamest state since no one every bothered to talk about us. Then we got caught up in an evolutionary standards scandal – yeah! Attending one of the flagship universities gave me a) a better appreciation of the state’s diversity and b) the realization that you can’t change where you’re from, so il vaut mieux (it’s better) to accept it.

I always remember Kansas Day because in elementary school one of my classmates shared her birthday with the state. One of my good college friends was also chanceux (fortunate) enough to be born on January 29th. Happy birthday L and P! We may be best known for tornados and their use as transport to magical lands, but there’s more to offer than that. Take the quiz below to find out! (Answers will appear on Monday).

1) Name at least five historic trails of Kansas.
2) Where does the name “Kansas” come from?
3) Which events in the 1850s gave rise to the name “Bleeding Kansas”?
4) Name the historical figure depicted in the large mural in the Capitol building.
5) Which explorer was said to have reached Kansas in 1541? HomeTown is located a few miles away from a “fort” marking his furthest point of exploration. I thought he had really camped there hundreds of years ago. Turns out it was a WPA project, which explained the absence of historical markers and the presence of cigarette butts and beer bottles.
6) What is the state motto? It was the second Latin phrase I learned, after “E pluribus unum.”

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