The University of Kansas (KU) is a public research university and the largest in the U.S. state of Kansas. KU branch campuses are located in the towns of  Lawrence, Wichita, Overland Park, Salina, and Kansas City, Kansas, with the main campus located in Lawrence on Mount Oread, the highest location in Lawrence. Founded March 21, 1865, the university was opened in 1866, under a charter granted by the Kansas State Legislature in 1864 following enabling legislation passed in 1863 under the Kansas State Constitution, adopted two years after the 1861 admission of the former Kansas Territory as the 34th state into the Union following a very famous bloody internal civil war known as "Bleeding Kansas" during the 1850s.