1. Arkansas became a state on June 15, 1836, but the road to statehood actually began on June 12, 1812 when the Territory of Arkansas was created by the U.S. Congress.

2. On June 12, 1948, the University of Arkansas Board of Trustees voted to allow the admission of black students, making it one of the first southern universities to integrate.

3. The late civil rights activist Daisy Lee Gatson Bates was born on June 11, 1914, in Huttig, Arkansas. Bates was a key figure in the desegregation of Little Rock Central High School in 1957.

4. On June 12, 1975, an EF4 tornado struck the small town of Omaha, Arkansas, killing 7 people, injuring 50 others, and causing extensive damage to homes and businesses.

5. Arkansas native and former governor Mike Huckabee made headlines on June 12, 2009, when he commuted the sentence of the man known as the "West Memphis Three." The three men had been convicted of murdering three young boys, but their guilt had been widely questioned and they were eventually released from prison in 2011.