Indiana (ⁱ/ɪndiˈænə/) is a US state, admitted to the United States as the 19th on December 11, 1816. It is located in the midwestern and Great Lakes regions of North America. Indiana is the 38th largest by area and the 15th most populous of the 50 United States. Indiana is the least extensive state in the continental US west of the Appalachian Mountains. Its capital and largest city is Indianapolis, the second largest of any state capital and largest state capital east of the Mississippi River.

Before it became a territory, varying cultures of indigenous peoples and historic Native Americans inhabited Indiana for thousands of years. Angel Mounds State Historic Site, one of the best preserved ancient earthwork mound sites in the United States, can be found in Southwestern Indiana near Evansville. Residents of Indiana are known as Hoosiers. The etymology of the word is disputed, but the leading theory as advanced by the Indiana Historical Bureau and the Indiana Historical Society has "Hoosier" originating from the upland South region of the U.S. as a derogatory slang term for a rough countryman, a country bumpkin.

The Indiana State Museum is a museum located within White River State Park in Indianapolis, Indiana, USA. The museum houses exhibits on the science, art, culture, and history of Indiana from prehistoric times up to the present day. The museum is also the site of the state's largest IMAX theater.

The museum was started in 1862 by then-state librarian R. Deloss Brown as a natural history collection. For many years, the museum was located in various rooms in the state Capitol building in Indianapolis. It was moved into its first permanent home in the old Indianapolis City Hall building at 202 N. Alabama Street in 1967. The Indiana State Museum Society was established in 1969 as a private fund-raising support organization.

The museum moved to its current location, a new building at 650 W. Washington Street, on May 22, 2002. The building on the Indiana Central Canal in White River State Park cost about $105 million.

With more than 40,000 square feet (4,000 m²) of exhibit space, and over 300,000 artifacts in collections, the museum covers the history of the natural world, Native Americans, cultural history, and the future of Indiana.

Abraham Lincoln ⁱ/ˈeɪbrəhæm ˈlɪŋkən/ (February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865) was the 16th President of the United States, serving from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. He successfully led his country through its greatest constitutional, military and moral crisis – the American Civil War – preserving the Union while ending slavery, and promoting economic and financial modernization. Reared in a poor family on the western frontier, Lincoln was mostly self-educated. He became a country lawyer, a Whig Party leader, Illinois state legislator in the 1830s, and a one-term member of the United States House of Representatives in the 1840s. After a series of debates in 1858 that gave national visibility to his opposition to the expansion of slavery, Lincoln lost a Senate race to his arch-rival Stephen A. Douglas. Lincoln, a moderate from a swing state, secured the Republican Party nomination. With almost no support in the South he swept the North and was elected president in 1860. His election was the signal for seven southern slave states to declare their secession from the Union and form the Confederate States of America. The departure of the Southerners gave Lincoln's party firm control of Congress, but no formula for compromise or reconciliation was found. And the war came.