The Nebraska state motto is “equality before the law”. Which is rather worrying if your definition of equality differs from that of someone else. I think the law is far more impartial than opinion.
State insect is the honeybee.
COOL FACT ALERT! In 1927, Edwin E. Perkins of Hastings invented the powered soft drink Kool-Aid. This was THE drink of choice when I use to go to the US to visit relatives as a kid. When in the UK, my drink of choice was Dandelion and Burdock. Kick-ass.
Nebraska has the U.S.’s largest aquifer (the Ogalala aquifer). This is actually quite an interesting fact and, for me, quite surprising.
The 911 system of emergency communications, now used nationwide, was developed and first used in Lincoln, Nebraska. Definitely a cool fact.
Lincoln County is the origin of the world’s largest “Woolly Mammoth” elephant fossil. And I think I am going to see it!
The name ‘Nebraska’ comes from an Oto Indian word ‘meaning ‘flat water’. Also, the other native name for Nebraska is Nebraski.
Lincoln topped 188 other metropolitan areas in the 2012 Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index, which tallies scores in six measures of well-being. This ‘fact’ just in from Caroline Burberry, who, unsurprisingly, lives in Lincoln.
Almost half the people (folk?) in Nebraska are of German descent, and Nebraska is the only state with German-American heritage as the largest group in every county.
COOLEST FACT ALERT! The movie Signs by M Night Shyamalan is actually about a Nebraskan’s struggle for organic farming against chemical giants and their GMOs.