New Jersey Timeline of Events

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New Jersey

New Jersey is a state in the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States. , its population was 8,791,894. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York, on the southeast and south by the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by Pennsylvania and on the southwest by Delaware...

Timeline of Events

1664

3.12.1664

New Jersey becomes a colony of England.

6.24.1664

The colony of New Jersey is founded.

1673

3.18.1673

John Berkeley, 1st Baron Berkeley of Stratton sells his part of New Jersey to the Religious Society of Friends, commonly known as Quakers.

1766

11.10.1766

The last colonial governor of New Jersey, William Franklin, signs the charter of Queen's College (later renamed Rutgers University).

1777

1.2.1777

American Revolutionary War: American forces under the command of George Washington repulsed a British attack at the Battle of the Assunpink Creek near Trenton, New Jersey

1783

11.30.1783

A 5.3 magnitude earthquake strikes New Jersey.

1787

12.18.1787

New Jersey becomes the third state to ratify the U.S. Constitution.

1789

11.20.1789

New Jersey becomes the first U.S. state to ratify the Bill of Rights.

1815

2.6.1815

New Jersey grants the first American railroad charter to John Stevens.

1831

9.15.1831

The locomotive ''John Bull'' operates for the first time in New Jersey on the Camden and Amboy Railroad.

1927

11.13.1927

The Holland Tunnel opens to traffic as the first Hudson River vehicle tunnel linking New Jersey to New York City.

1931

10.1.1931

The George Washington Bridge linking New Jersey and New York opens.

1932

8.24.1932

Amelia Earhart becomes the first woman to fly across the United States non-stop (from Los Angeles to Newark, New Jersey).

1934

9.8.1934

Off the New Jersey coast, a fire aboard the passenger liner SS Morro Castle kills 135 people.

1950

5.19.1950

A barge containing munitions destined for Pakistan explodes in the harbor at South Amboy, New Jersey, devastating the city.

1955

4.19.1955

The German automaker Volkswagen, after six years of selling cars in the United States, founds Volkswagen of America in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey to standardize its dealer and service network.

1956

4.26.1956

First container ship left Port Newark, New Jersey for Houston, Texas.

6.20.1956

A Venezuelan Super-Constellation crashes in the Atlantic Ocean off Asbury Park, New Jersey, killing 74 people.

1998

5.26.1998

The Supreme Court of the United States rules that Ellis Island, the historic gateway for millions of immigrants, is mainly in the state of New Jersey, not New York.

2001

9.18.2001

First mailing of anthrax letters from Trenton, New Jersey in the 2001 anthrax attacks.

10.9.2001

Second mailing of anthrax letters from Trenton, New Jersey in the 2001 anthrax attack.

2004

8.12.2004

New Jersey Governor James McGreevey comes out publicly as gay and would resign from office the following November.