History of Montana degree of longitude northward to the boundary line of the British possessions. The boundaries of Montana territory did not change during its existence. Montana was admitted to the Union as the state of Montana on November 8, 1889. The Battle of the Little Bighorn—also called Custer's Last Stand and the Battle of the Greasy Grass—was an armed engagement between a Lakota (Sioux)-Northern Cheyenne-Arapaho combined force and the 7th Cavalry of the United States Army. It occurred June 25–June 26, 1876, near the Little Bighorn River in eastern Montana Territory near present-day Hardin, Montana, on land that today is part of
Little Bighorn River turn, would wet moccasins and leggings of Indian people, and the bellies and legs of horses, and cause them to look greasy. On the main stream, the name Greasy Grass slowly gave way to the name Little Bighorn. For one major tributary of the Little Bighorn, the (presently named) Lodge Grass Creek retained the name "Greasy Grass Creek", but as Joe Medicine Crow explained in the 2012 video, this name morphed from "Greasy Grass" to "Lodge Grass" due to the error of an interpreter since the Crow word for "greasy" is Tah-shay, and the Crow word for "lodge" is Ah-shay.