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Timeline on New Jersey

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
1756 – Princeton University is established
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
1935 – Scientist Albert Einstein establishes his home in New Jersey
1942 – German U-boats attack shipping off the New Jersey coast
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
1978 – New Jersey scientists win Nobel Prize for finding the echo of the 13.7 billion year old “Big Bang.”
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
2000 – The New Jersey Devils win the Stanley Cup defeating the Dallas Stars.
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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