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Timeline of New Jersey

New Jersey is about the same size as Belgium, or Israel or Switzerland.
(SFEC, 2/14/99, Z1 p.8)(SSFC, 10/9/05, Par p.27)
The original inhabitants of Absecon Island, on which Atlantic City rests, were the Lenni-Lenape Indians. The Lenni-Lenapes would travel over the Old Indian Trail from the Mainland to the island to spend the summer months. The trail, which was located approximately where Florida Ave. is today, was five miles long over the marshland. The Indians would partake of the abundance the ocean and bay had to offer, along with the varieties of wildlife and flora of the island. www.cityofatlanticcity.org/con_abo_history.asp

New Jersey Timeline (1524-1008)
1524 – Verrazano explores the Jersey coast
1609 – Hudson explores Newark Bay
1660 – Bergen, now Jersey City, becomes the first permanent town in New Jersey
1664 – The British take control of New Jersey from the Dutch
1758 – The Old Barracks in Trenton is built
1766 – Rutgers University is founded
1776 – N.J.’s first newspaper, the New Jersey Gazette, issues its first edition
1776 – New Jersey adopts its first state constitution
1783 – Princeton briefly serves as the nation’s capital
1784 – Trenton briefly serves as the nation’s capital
1787 – New Jersey is the third state to ratify the U.S. Constitution
1790 – New Jersey is the first state to sign the Bill of Rights
1804 – Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr have a famous duel in Weehawken
1824 – The first ferry service in the U.S. opens between Hoboken and Manhattan
1844 – New Jersey adopts its second state constitution
1858 – The first nearly complete dinosaur fossil is found in Haddonfield
1869 – The first intercollegiate football game is played in New Brunswick
1876 – Thomas Edison opens laboratories in Menlo Park
1879 – Edison invents a practical incandescent lamp
1882 – The first amusement pier over the ocean is built in Atlantic City
1883 – Roselle is the first U.S. town to be lighted by electricity
1887 – Thomas Edison moves his laboratories to West Orange
1912 – New Jersey Governor Woodrow Wilson is elected President of the U.S.
1918 – A German U-boat sinks six American ships off the coast of New Jersey
1921 – The first Miss America Pageant is held
1927 – The Holland Tunnel opens
1933 – The first drive-in movie theater in the U.S. opens in Camden
1943 – The U.S.S. New Jersey battleship is put into active service
1947 – Larry Doby, from Paterson, becomes the second African American to play
Major League Baseball
1947 – New Jersey adopts its third state constitution
1951 – The New Jersey Turnpike opens
1957 – The first New Jersey State Little League Baseball Tournament is played
1963 – Snowboarding pioneer Tom Sims of Haddonfield creates the “ski board,”
an early version of the snowboard
1976 – The Meadowlands Sports Complex opens
1993 – Christine Todd Whitman is elected New Jersey’s first female governor
1995 – The New Jersey Devils win the Stanley cup, becoming the first
New Jersey team to win a major league professional sports championship
1998 – The Toms River East Little League team wins the Little League
World Series
2000 – The New Jersey population in the 2000 Census is 8,414,350
2001 – The U.S.S. New Jersey battleship becomes a museum
2001 – New Jersey is home to more scientists and engineers per square
mile than anywhere else in the world.
2003 – New Jersey preserves a record 20,000 acres of farmland.
2003 – The New Jersey Devils win the Stanley Cup defeating the Mighty Ducks
of Anaheim.
2004 – New Jersey Highlands Water Protection and Planning Act becomes law.
2005 – A beluga whale swims up the Delaware River to Trenton, more than
100 miles from the Atlantic Ocean.
2006 – New Jersey Constitution amended to create the Office of
Lieutenant Governor to be elected in 2010.
2006 – Lucy the Margate Elephant, a National Historic Landmark, is struck
by lightning for the first time, but recovered.
2006 – New Jersey Supreme Court rules that gay couples are entitled to the
same legal rights and financial benefits as heterosexual couples.
2006 – Rutgers University wins the inaugural Texas Bowl defeating Kansas State
by a score of 37-10.
2007 – Governor Corzine signs bill to eliminate the death penalty.
2008 – Princeton astronomer, Alicia Soderberg, becomes first person to view
a supernova, a star in the act of exploding.
2008 – New Jersey has more millionaire residents than any other state in
the nation.

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