(“The Nebraska-Kansas Act of 1854,” John R. Wunder and Joann M. Ross, editors, University of Nebraska Press, 220 pages, $30 paperback.) One of the most important events to affect Nebraska came before ...

January 4, 1854 - A bill introduced by Sen. Stephen Douglas in January, 1854, divided the land west of Missouri into the territories of Kansas and Nebraska with the idea that the territories’ settlers ...

The Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 led to a violent conflict known as Bleeding Kansas over whether the territory would be a free or slave state. The state has a complicated past that includes both ...

March 20, 1854 - The founding meeting of the Republican Party took place in Wisconsin on March 20, 1854. Former Whig Party members gathered to establish a new party to oppose the spread of slavery ...

The land that is now Kansas was acquired by the U.S. in the 1803 Louisiana Purchase. Before European settlement, the area was home to numerous Native American tribes for thousands of years. The 1854 ...