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Timeline Of New Jersey

Timline 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.

1871- 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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