Short answers, pulled from the story.
Arkansas derives from Arcansas, a French plural transliteration of akansa, an Algonquian term for the Quapaw people believed to mean "south wind people." The Quapaw were a Dhegiha Siouan-speaking people who settled in the region around the 13th century. In 1881, the Arkansas General Assembly passed a resolution declaring the final "s" silent, settling a dispute between the state's two sitting senators over the official pronunciation.
Arkansas was admitted to the Union on the 15th of June 1836, as the 25th state and the 13th slave state. It had a population of about 60,000 at the time of admission. The territory had been organized on the 4th of July 1819, after a proposal for gradual emancipation was defeated by a single vote cast by Speaker of the House Henry Clay.
In September 1957, Governor Orval Faubus ordered the Arkansas National Guard to block nine Black students from enrolling at Little Rock's Central High School. President Dwight D. Eisenhower responded by sending 1,000 troops from the active-duty 101st Airborne Division. The students entered the school under federal military escort on the 25th of September 1957. The governor and city then closed all Little Rock high schools for the remainder of the school year rather than comply with integration orders.
On the 30th of September 1919, a confrontation erupted near Elaine, Arkansas, when white men including a deputy sheriff tried to break up a meeting of Black sharecroppers organizing a farmers' union. White mobs spread through Phillips County, killing an estimated 237 Black people before violence was largely suppressed after October 1. Five white men also died. Governor Charles Hillman Brough requested federal troops, which President Woodrow Wilson approved.
Walmart, the world's largest company by revenue, is headquartered in Bentonville, Arkansas. Sam Walton founded it in 1962. In 2025, Walmart ranked first on the Fortune 500 list, and Arkansas as a whole is home to six Fortune 500 companies.
Two internment camps operated in the Arkansas Delta during World War II. The Rohwer Camp in Desha County ran from September 1942 to November 1945 and at its peak held 8,475 prisoners. The Jerome War Relocation Center in Drew County operated from October 1942 to June 1944 and held about 8,000 people. Together they incarcerated nearly 16,000 Japanese Americans forcibly removed from the West Coast under orders from President Franklin D. Roosevelt.