| Prior to the westward movement of Native American | | | | Creek, Cherokee, and Seminole, inhabited Arkansas. |
| people, Arkansas was inhabited by Quapaw, Caddo, | | | | Arkansas was admitted to the Union on June 15th |
| and Osage Nations. | | | | 1836 as the 25th state. Arkansas was a slave state, |
| The first European to reach the region was the | | | | but initially refused to join the Confederate States of |
| Spaniard, Hernando de Soto, at the end of the 16th | | | | America during the American Civil War, although it did |
| Century. Early Spanish and French explorers gave the | | | | join later, and was the scene of several battles. |
| state its name which is probably a phonetic spelling for | | | | During the Civil Rights struggle, Arkansas was the site |
| the French or Catalan word for "downriver people" - a | | | | of a famous confrontation between the federal |
| reference to the Quapaw Native Americans. | | | | government and local whites, who were resisting the |
| Arkansas was part of the area acquired by the United | | | | desegregation of Central High School in the state |
| States in the 1803 Louisiana purchase from France. | | | | capital, Little Rock. During this period, President |
| Prior to statehood, the region was known as the | | | | Eisenhower famously sent troops to escort nine |
| "Arkansaw Territory". In this territorial period, the five | | | | African-American students who were trying to enroll in |
| "civilized" tribes, namely the Choctaw, Chickasaw, | | | | the school. |