Tiktaalik is a transitional fossil; it is to tetrapods what Archaeopteryx is to birds, troodonts and dromaeosaurids. 1  While it may be that neither is ancestor to any living animal, they serve as evidence that intermediates between very different types of vertebrates did once exist.
Minnesota became a part of the United States as the Minnesota Territory in 1849, and became the 32nd U.S. state on May 11, 1858.
As it turned out, Alaska entered as a state at the very beginning of 1959, making it the 49th, and when Hawaii came in several months later, it became the 50th state of the Union. An Act to Provide for the Admission of the State of Hawaii into the Union.