Delaware - History: History and Events, 1609-2002 ******************************************************* USGenWeb Archives. Copyright. All rights reserved http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm ******************************************************* HISTORY and EVENTS 1609-2002 1609: Explorer Henry Hudson leads the first known European expedition to the Delaware Bay. Samuel Argall names the bay the next year. 1631: First European settlers arrive when the Dutch colonize what is now Lewes. The colony, known as Zwaanendael (Valley of the Swans), ends when Indians kill the settlers. 1638: Swedes and Finns bring log cabins to the New World, to what is now Wilmington. They land at an area called "The Rocks" and name it Fort Christina, after their queen. 1651: The Dutch build Fort Casimir near what is now New Castle. The Swedes take the Dutch fort in 1654, and the Dutch take it back a year later. 1664: The English conquer the Dutch. King Charles II grants what is now Delaware to his brother James, Duke of York. 1682: To pay off a favor, Charles II gives Delaware's three counties to William Penn, who had just founded the colony of Pennsylvania. 1704: Pennsylvania's three Lower Counties (aka Delaware) are given their own governing body. 1731: Thomas Willing founds a town on the banks of the Christina River, Willingtown, which later becomes Wilmington. 1765: Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon survey the western boundary of the state. 1776: On June 15, Delaware declares its separation from England. The day is still celebrated in New Castle as Separation Day. On July 1-2, Caesar Rodney rides from his home near Dover to break a tie in Delaware's three-man delegation and votes for independence. 1777: Delaware's only Revolutionary War battle is fought on Sept. 3 at Cooch's Bridge, outside Newark. 1787: On Dec. 7, Delaware becomes the first state to ratify the new U.S. Constitution. 1802: E.I. du Pont establishes a gunpowder mill on the banks of the Brandywine outside Wilmington, forming the basis of the modern-day DuPont Co. 1829: The Chesapeake & Delaware Canal is completed. 1863: Fort Delaware, on Pea Patch Island, is the state's largest "city." Its population of more than 16,000 - soldiers, citizens and Confederate prisoners of war - tops Wilmington's 15,000. The fort is Delaware's only significant Civil War site. 1876: The Indian River Lifesaving Station is built. It's one of the nation's oldest on its original site. 1880: Rehoboth Beach holds what some say is the first beauty contest in the United States. 1900: Arden is founded, the first of three Delaware communities based on the unitary tax system of Henry George. (The others are the adjacent Ardentown and Ardencroft.) 1900: Howard Pyle opens an art studio in Wilmington, leading to what would later be known as the "Brandywine school" of illustration. N.C. Wyeth is one of his students. 1907: Emily P. Bissell of Wilmington creates the Easter Seal Society. On Dec. 9, Christmas seals go on sale for the first time; proceeds are used to fight tuberculosis. 1923: Wilmer and Cecile Steele of Ocean View order 50 chicks, but Vernon Steen of Dagsboro mistakenly sends 500. They raise the larger number, and the techniques they develop eventually make Sussex County the nation's top broiler- growing county. 1924: T. Coleman du Pont, a former president of the DuPont Co., opens the state's first paved north-south highway, which cost him $4 million to build. 1929: Louis L. Redding of Wilmington is the first black lawyer admitted to the Delaware Bar Association and in 1954 is a primary litigant in the landmark U.S. Supreme Court desegregation case, Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka, Kan. 1935: The U.S. Supreme Court rules that the 12-mile arc that defines the Pennsylvania-Delaware line should be extended into the Delaware River, giving Delaware a couple of uninhabited acres attached to New Jersey. 1937: Wallace H. Carothers, leading a DuPont Co. synthetic polymers research team, invents nylon. 1943: Delaware is first in the nation in broiler production. 1951: H. F. du Pont, great-grandson of the founder of the DuPont Co., opens his garden and massive decorative arts collection to the public as Winterthur Museum, Library and Gardens. 1952: A Delaware judge is the first in the country to order a segregated public school to admit black students. 1952: The last public whipping occurs in Delaware, though the General Assembly doesn't abolish the whipping post until 20 years later. 1956: Jazz trumpeter Clifford Brown, a Wilmington native acclaimed as one of the nation's greatest bebop musicians, dies at age 25 in a traffic accident. A jazz festival is held in his honor in Wilmington each June. 1965: On May 21, a "Delaware Closed Today" sign is posted at a barricade on the Delaware-Pennsylvania line on Ebright Road. "The people of Delaware are doing something about the population explosion," is the explanation from "Candid Camera." 1968: Race-related disturbances occur in Wilmington after the April killing of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. The Delaware National Guard patrols the city until January 1969. 1969: On July 6, Dover Downs hosts its first NASCAR-sanctioned race. Richard Petty wins. 1970: Brother Ronald Giannone opens an eight-bed homeless shelter for women that grows into the multimillion-dollar-per-year Ministry of Caring, with 20 facilities in New Castle County. 1971: The General Assembly passes the Coastal Zone Act, strictly regulating heavy industry in the wetlands and marshes along the Delaware River and Bay. 1975: William J. "Judy" Johnson of Marshallton becomes the first Delawarean to be named to the Baseball Hall of Fame. He's praised as a star shortstop, third baseman and manager in the Negro Leagues during the 1920s and '30s. 1981: The Delaware Legislature passes the Financial Center Development Act, giving credit-card banks the freedom to set fees and interest rates. The state becomes home to five of the nation's top 10 credit-card issuers within a few years. 1987: The LPGA Championship moves to the DuPont Country Club in Rockland. Betsy King wins. 1992: James H. Sills Jr. is elected the first black mayor of Wilmington. 1993: After being gone for decades, minor-league baseball returns to Delaware with the Wilmington Blue Rocks' first season at Judy Johnson Field at Daniel S. Frawley Stadium in Wilmington. 1994: The General Assembly passes the Horse-Racing Preservation Act, legalizing "video lotteries" - slot machines - at three Delaware racetracks. 1998: Delaware's tall ship, a replica of the Kalmar Nyckel, the ship that brought the first permanent European settlers to the state, is commissioned. 1999: Jury convicts attorney Thomas Capano of murder in death of gubernatorial scheduling secretary Anne Marie Fahey in a case that draws national attention, spawns TV movie, books. "Nicholas & Alexandra," the first exhibit at Wilmington's Riverfront Arts Center, draws 500,000 in six months. 2000: Delawareans join global celebration of new millennium. The so-called Y2K bug causes so few problems that the outage of 283 of 1,866 slot machines at Delaware Park makes national news. 2001: Sept. 11 terrorist attacks claim thousands of victims, some with Delaware connections. 2002: U.S. Census Bureau data shows newcomers outnumber natives for the first time in Delaware history.