1. Nevada became a state on October 31, 1864, but it was not until April 1, 1865, that the state government was officially organized. Tensions were high during the Civil War, and Nevada was eager to prove its loyalty to the Union. It is said that the "battle-born" state chose April 1 as a symbolic date for the organization of its government to demonstrate that Nevada was no fool when it came to supporting the Union cause.

2. In 1931, Governor Fred Balzar signed into law Assembly Bill 98, legalizing gambling in the state of Nevada. The bill was signed on March 19, but it did not go into effect until April 1, making it the official "birthday" of legalized gambling in the state. Today, Las Vegas is known as the gambling capital of the world, and the industry is a major contributor to Nevada's economy.

3. On April 1, 1946, the Nevada Test Site (NTS) was established as a location for nuclear testing. The first nuclear bomb was detonated in July of that year, and testing continued at the site for decades. The NTS was also used for subcritical experiments, as well as for testing other military technologies.

4. In 1987, a group of tourists visiting Las Vegas decided to play an April Fool's Day prank on the city by staging a fake UFO landing. The pranksters used construction equipment to create a large saucer-shaped impression in the desert outside of the city, and they placed an alien in the cockpit to make it look like the craft had crashed. The hoax was reported on local news stations, and it caused a stir in the area for several days.

5. On April 1, 2014, Nevada became the first state in the nation to license self-driving cars for public use. The Nevada Department of Motor Vehicles granted Google a license to test its autonomous vehicles on the state's roads, paving the way for the development of self-driving cars in the US. Today, other states have followed Nevada's lead, and autonomous vehicles are becoming more common on American roads.