1. Kansas officially became a state on May 17, 1861. It was the 34th state to enter the Union.

2. The first successful airplane flight in Kansas took place on May 17, 1909. The pilot was a Frenchman named Jean Conneau, also known as "Andre Beaumont."

3. On May 17, 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its landmark ruling in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, declaring segregation in public schools unconstitutional.

4. In 1977, on May 17th, the Wichita State University plane crash occurred. A small plane carrying 31 passengers, mostly members of the WSU football team, crashed in Colorado en route to a game in Utah. 29 people were killed in the tragedy.

5. On May 17, 1996, the state of Kansas became the first state in the U.S. to ban a late-term abortion procedure known as "partial-birth abortion." The law was eventually overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2000.