Nebraska State Historical Society

Here’s a trivia question sure to trip up most Husker football fans: Which was the first team from Nebraska to win a bowl game?

The obvious—but incorrect—answer is the 1962 Huskers. Bob Devaney’s first team defeated Miami in the short-lived Gotham Bowl, played in a chilly and mostly empty Yankee Stadium in New York City.

But the first team from the state...

During the height of the Cold War, the Soviet Union launched the world’s first artificial satellite, Sputnik I, in October 1957. A perceived “missile gap” led to the massive construction of Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) sites in the United States in the early 1960s. The Atlas was America’s first ICBM. The 549th Strategic Missile Squadron at Offutt Ai...

During the Christmas season of 1886, a man from New York gave a scrapbook to his cousin in Connecticut. He’d filled the book with printed materials from the era, and in an attached note, he included the “warm love & best wishes of the compiler.”

The ephemera that he’d pasted into the book’s 200 pages include everything from news clippings and magazine ads to politi...

Boys Town was founded as a home and school for homeless, abandoned, neglected or otherwise underprivileged boys, regardless of color or creed, by Father Edward J. Flanagan (1886-1948) on December 10, 1917. The first Fa...

The Nebraska State Historical Society is seeking an organized and detail-oriented individual to serve as the State Historic Preservation Office’s (SHPO) Historic Tax Incentive Coordinator. As a member of SHPO, this position serves as the State of Nebraska’s recognized expert and administrator of the Federal Historic Tax Credit, Nebraska Historic Tax Credit, and Valuation Ince...