Delaware Timeline
1609 Henry Hudson reached Delaware.
1610 A ship from the Virginia Colony sailed into Delaware Bay. Captain Samuel Argall of the ship named the bay De La Warr Bay for Lord De La Warr the governor of Virginia.
1631 The Dutch attempted to make the first settlement in Delaware. Within a year the Indians killed the settlers and burned down their fort.
29 March 1638 Swedish settlers came to the Delaware region. They founded the colony of New Sweden. It was the first permanent colony in the region.
1651 Peter Stuyvesant, the governor of the New Netherland colony, set up Fort Casimir at present-day New Castle.
1654 Fort Casimir was captured by the Swedish colonists.
1655 The Dutch captured all of New Sweden. They made it a part of New Netherland.
1664 The British captured all of New Netherland. They ruled it under the colony of New York.
1673 The Dutch recaptured the Delaware region.
1674 The Dutch returned the land to the British.
1681 The English King granted William Penn a charter for the colony of Pennsylvania.
1682 The Duke of York gave Penn Delaware as a territory for his colony.
1682 Penn established a representative form of government. Delaware had the same number of delegates as Pennsylvania.
1701 The Delaware region became known as the Three Lower Counties. Because Pennsylvania had grown so large, these counties were afraid that they would soon have a minority voice in the government. This year the delegates refused to meet with the delegates from Pennsylvania. They asked Penn to give them a separate legislature, and he consented.
1704 The first separate legislature of the Three Lower Counties met.
Mid 1700s All the Native Americans had been forced out of Delaware by the European colonists.
1774 The Three Lower counties sent delegates to Philadelphia to the First Continental Congress.
1775 The Revolutionary War began.
2 July 1776 The Three Lower Counties joined the American Colonies in voting for their independence.
1776 The Three Lower Counties became Delaware the state.
1777 John McKinley became the first governor. New Castle became the first capital.
22 February 1777
Delaware signed the Articles of Confederation.
August 1777 British troops marched across Delaware toward Philadelphia.
3 September 1777 American troops met the troops at Coochs Bridge near Newark. The Americans were greatly outnumbered, so they retreated. The British then marched into Pennsylvania.
12 September 1777 British troops occupied Wilmington. The Capital was moved to Dover, because New Castle was too close to the British.
1775-1783 Wilmington became the center of the nation's flour-milling industry.
7 December 1787 Delaware became the first state to ratify the United States Constitution.
1792 The state legislature established a public school fund
1802 Eleuthere Irenee du Pont set up a powder mill on Brandywine Creek. This was the beginning of Delaware's great chemical industry.
1829 The state legislature established a system of public education.
1863 The Emancipation Proclamation was issued by Abraham Lincoln. The slaves in Delaware were not freed, however, because the Emancipation only dealt with the states that had seceded from the union. Delaware, even though they were a slave state, did not secede from the Union and they fought on the side of the Union during the Civil War.
1865 All of the slaves in Delaware were freed with the adoption of the 13th amendment.
1897 Delaware's present constitution was adopted.
1920 By this year the state had developed an industrial-accident board, a state board of charities, and a state highway department
1920s Pierre S. du Pont donated several million dollars to build new schools and to aid public education. Du Pont also served as the state tax commissioner.
1930s The Great Depression put thousands of Delawareans out of work
1939-1945 During World War II many factories and mills of Delaware produced materials for the armed service.
1951 The Delaware Memorial Bridge was completed connecting Delaware with New Jersey.
1960s All of Delaware's public schools were integrated
1963 Segregation in public eating and drinking places was banned.
1969 The legislature approved a bill which ended discrimination in the rental or sale of housing in Delaware.
1969 The state set up the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control to promote conservation and to control air and water pollution.
1971 The Delaware legislature passed the Coastal Zone Act. It banned the production of industrial plants along the Delaware coastline.
1980 The state adopted a constitutional limit that restricted government spending to 95% of the government's expected revenue.
1996 Delaware recognized the Delaware Indian tribe
2002 Delaware suffered from a severe drought.
Works Cited
Barbara E. Benson and Peter W. Rees. "Delaware."
Worldbookonline.com.
Ratnikas, Algis.
Today in History. Online.
http://timelines.ws/TODAY.HTML.