There’s a lot of great history in Nevada, and because some of the state’s historical events are better known than others, there may be some you aren’t quite familiar with. Listed below are 10 interesting historical facts that you may or may not already know about the Silver State.
1. Nevada was named after the mountain range "Sierra Nevada," and despite the name meaning "snow-covered," Nevada is the driest state in the U.S.
4. The largest public works project to ever take place in the U.S. is the Hoover Dam. It actually has greater structural volume than Eqypt's largest pyramid.
5. Nevada was the first state to ratify the 15th Amendment to the United States Constitution. This amendment prohibits the federal and state governments from denying a citizen the right to vote based on their race, color or previous condition of servitude.
7. Ever since the lower 48 states first voted in the election of 1912, the state of Nevada has voted for the winning presidential candidate 96% of the time.
9. Many people believe Nevada was illegally admitted to the Union as a state to help Lincoln's re-election because at the time, there were only 35,000 inhabitants in Nevada. To become a state, there had to be a minimum of 60,000 inhabitants.
