1. Kansas became a state on January 29, 1861, but on December 12, 1861, it became the 34th state to join the Union during the height of the Civil War.
2. BTK Killer Dennis Rader was born on December 9, 1945, and committed his final murder on February 25, 2004. However, it was on December 12, 1977, that Rader killed his first victims, Joseph Otero, 38, and Julie Otero, 34, along with their two children, 11-year-old Joseph Jr. and 9-year-old Josephine, in their Wichita home.
3. On December 12, 1963, four people were killed and 63 were injured in a major railroad accident in Lawrence when two Missouri Pacific trains collided head-on. The cause of the accident remains unknown.
4. Isaac Goodnow, one of the founders of Manhattan and Kansas State University, died on December 12, 1894. Goodnow was a prominent abolitionist and played a key role in the formation of early Kansas politics.
5. The famous Dodge City shootout, in which lawman Wyatt Earp and his brothers confronted a group of cowboys who had been causing trouble in the town, took place on December 12, 1872. The shooting resulted in three deaths and three injuries, and Earp went on to become a legendary figure in American Western folklore.