South Dakota is the home of the Dakota, Lakota and Nakota tribes, which make up the Sioux Nation.

In 1803, the United States purchased the Louisiana Territory, an area that included most of South Dakota, from Napoleon Bonaparte, and President Thomas Jefferson organized a group commonly referred to as the "Lewis and Clark Expedition" to explore the region.

As the southern part of the former Dakota Territory, South Dakota became a state on November 2, 1889, simultaneously with North Dakota. It was either the 39th or 40th state admitted to the union. Before signing the statehood papers, President Benjamin Harrison shuffled the papers so that no one could tell which state was first.

The state is bisected by the Missouri River, dividing South Dakota into two geographically and socially distinct halves, known to residents as "East River" and "West River".

Both the Sioux and Cheyenne believed the Black Hills were the axis mundi, or sacred center of the world. The conflict over control of the region sparked the Black Hills War, also known as the Great Sioux War, the last major Indian War on the Great Plains. Following the defeat of the Lakota and their Cheyenne and Arapaho allies in 1876, the United States took control of the Black Hills. Despite their defeat, the Lakota never accepted the validity of the U.S. appropriation.

In 1876, "Wild Bill" Hickok was shot and killed while playing poker in a saloon in Deadwood, Dakota Territory (present-day South Dakota) by "Broken Nose Jack" McCall, an unsuccessful gambler. The hand of cards which he supposedly held at the time of his death has become known as the dead man's hand: two pairs; black aces and eights.

South Dakota is officially known as the Mount Rushmore State in honor of the mountain carving of U.S. presidents in the Black Hills.

The sculpture features the 60-foot (18 m) heads of Presidents George Washington (1732-1799), Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919), and Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865). The four presidents were chosen to represent the nation's birth, growth, development, and preservation, respectively.

Pierre was founded in 1880 on the east bank of the Missouri River opposite Fort Pierre, a former trading post that developed as a community. It was designated as the state capital when South Dakota gained statehood in 1889.

Rapid City has been called the most patriotic city in America due to the series of life-sized bronze statues of our nation's past presidents that line the city's streets and sidewalks. Each sculpture is privately funded, and the pattern of placement was chosen to maintain orderly structure and eliminate any sense of favoritism or political gain.