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First people to settle in Connecticut
The first European settlers in the Connecticut area were the Dutch. In 1614, Adriaen Block explored the lands along the Connecticut River. Settlement did not occur until 1633, when a small fort was erected at the site of Hartford, then called New Hope. In that year, a small party from Plymouth also entered the Connecticut River. The Dutch asserted their claim to the lands, but the Massachusetts group, instead of retreating down river, sailed farther north and established a trading post . -
First Settlement in connecticut
The first European settlement in the Connecticut Colony occurred in Windsor, and then in the Hartford and Wethersfield areas in 1633. The settlers were Dutch, having arrived from New Netherlands (present day New York). These settlements combined to form the Connecticut Colony in 1633, founded by Thomas Hooker. -
pequot war
Pequot War, war fought in 1636–37 by the Pequot people against a coalition of English settlers from the Massachusetts Bay, Connecticut, and Saybrook colonies and their Native American allies (including the Narragansett and Mohegan) that eliminated the Pequot as an impediment to English colonization of southern New England. It was an especially brutal war and the first sustained conflict between Native Americans and Europeans in northeastern North America. -
Fundamentals were written
The Fundamental Orders was a probably written by Roger Ludlow, a lawyer who had sailed to the Massachusetts Bay Colony from England in 1630. He may have had help from former Massachusetts governor John Haynes, Edward Hopkins and John Steel. It's considered extraordinary because nowhere did it mention a king or a sovereign. And nowhere did it refer to any power outside of Connecticut. -
First state house was finished
The construction of Connecticut’s Old State House was completed in 1796. It hosted the Hartford Convention, a meeting of Federalist leaders in which the adoption of seven proposed amendments to the Constitution was considered by many to be treasonous. -
Jonathan Trumbull was state's governor
Jonathan Trumbull was the state’s governor from 1769 to 1784. He had the distinction of being the only colonial governor in office in 1775 who publicly announced his support for the Patriots. Trumbull’s politics assured that Connecticut supported the war effort in a myriad of ways. -
Connecticut was founded
Connecticut is a U.S. state in southern New England that has a mix of coastal cities and rural areas dotted with small towns. Mystic is famed for its Seaport museum filled with centuries-old ships, and the beluga whale exhibits at Mystic Aquarium. On Long Island Sound, the city of New Haven is known as the home of Yale University and its acclaimed Peabody Museum of Natural History. -
Connecticut changes from colony to state
On January 9, 1788, Connecticut ratified the U.S. Constitution, making it the fifth state to join the young United States. English colonists from Massachusetts founded Connecticut’s first permanent European settlement, Windsor, in 1633. Most of these settlers left Massachusetts seeking political and religious freedom. Other settlements quickly followed, including Hartford, New London, Saybrook, and Wethersfield. In 1636, Hartford, Wethersfield, and Windsor united to form the Colony. -
Western land sold for 1,200,000
Connecticut was one of several states that had land claims in the Ohio Country going back to the colonial period. Connecticut gave up most of its claims to the federal government so that the Northwest Territory could be created. However, it reserved the northeast corner of the territory for itself. This area came to be known as the Connecticut Western Reserve. The Western Reserve had two parts. The western part of the region was known as the Fire Lands. -
Thomas Hubbard starts courier at Norwich
Norwich claims the first movable parts and mass production in making clocks. Connecticut’s Fundamental Orders were the first written Constitution of a democratic government. This occurred in 1639 in “The Constitution State.” New London was given its current name in 1658, but was founded two years earlier by John Winthrop Jr. The Connecticut General Assembly, at that time, wanted to name the town “Faire Harbour,” but town citizens protested. -
Hartford convention held at old state house
The Hartford Convention was held at the Old State House. This meeting of Federalist leaders from Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Vermont, secretly adopted seven proposed amendments to the Federal Constitution that were later accused of being treasonous. -
First steam boat voyage up Connecticut river to Hartford
Long Island Sound was a perfect place to foster development of the steamboat as a revolutionary mode of transportation. This protected inland sea is almost 100 miles long, and its northern shore, dominated by the Connecticut coastline, is dotted with populous ports. At one end sits New York City, which during the early 19th century grew into the nation’s distribution center for western wheat and foodstuffs for eastern cities. -
Washington college founded in Hartford
As Trinity continues to evolve, we carry forward meaningful traditions and remain committed to helping our students discover their strengths, develop their potential, and prepare for a life that is both personally satisfying and valuable to others. -
The Farmington Canal is opened
Running from New Haven through Farmington to the Massachusetts line, the canal operated until 1844. Boats on the canal carried goods such as sugar, coffee and flour. Canals were eventually replaced by railroads. Commerce for the United States of America in the early 1800s was firmly anchored in the farms and small towns along the Eastern Seaboard, yet travel among the new country’s states was difficult and slow. -
First revolver
On February 25, 1836, Samuel Colt received a patent for a “revolving gun” US patent number 138, later known as 9430X. His improvement in fire-arm design allowed a gun to be fired multiple times without reloading. Committed to his revolutionary idea but lacking the funds to patent and produce it, young Sam Colt had tried to raise money touring Canada and the United States for three years as “a practical chemist. -
First portable typewriter
On August 26, 1843, inventor Charles Thurber received a patent for the first practical typewriter, invented to aid the nervous and the blind. Thurber received US patent 3228 for "improvements in machines for printing." He described his invention as a new and useful machine for printing by hand by pressing upon keys which contain the type. -
first sewing machine
French tailor Barthelemy Thimonnier patented a device in 1846 that mechanized the typical hand-sewing motions to create a simple chain stitch. He planned to mass-produce uniforms for the French army. His competition had different ideas. -
First can opener
The first can opener was actually an American invention, patented by Ezra J. Warner on January 5, 1858. At this time, writes Connecticut History, “iron cans were just starting to be replaced by thinner steel cans. -
first pay phone
The printing press was the big innovation in communications until the telegraph was developed. Printing remained the key format for mass messages for years afterward, but the telegraph allowed instant communication over vast distances for the first time in human history. Telegraph usage faded as radio became easy to use and popularized; as radio was being developed, the telephone quickly became the fastest way to communicate person-to-person. -
First United States Navy Submarine, Holland, constructed by Electric Boat Company.
Electric Boat has established standards of excellence in the design, construction and lifecycle support of submarines for the U.S. Navy. Primary operations are the shipyard in Groton, CT, the automated hull-fabrication and outfitting facility in Quonset Point, RI, and an engineering building in New London, CT. The current workforce is more than 14,000 employees. -
General Assembly adopted public accommodations act.
All persons shall be entitled to the full and equal enjoyment of the goods, services, facilities, privileges, advantages, and accommodations of any place of public accommodation, as defined in this section, without discrimination on the ground of race, color, religion, or national origin. -
Connecticut College for Women founded at New London
The College was founded in 1911, but its history began in 1909 when Wesleyan University announced that it would no longer offer admission to women. At that time, more women than ever were seeking higher education and demanding the right to vote. A committee was formed and towns across the state of Connecticut began offering prospective sites. -
University of New Haven founded.
The University of New Haven was founded in 1920 as the New Haven YMCA Junior College, a division of Northeastern University, which shared buildings, laboratories, and faculty members at Yale University, for nearly forty years. -
Approximately 52,000 Connecticut men serve in Korean War
Since 1968, Connecticut Society of Genealogists has been the premier organization dedicated to serving family history enthusiasts and genealogists with interests in Connecticut ancestry. -
Constitutional Convention held. New Constitution approved by voters.
The voters approved a convention, to be held in 1967. The legislature (Laws of 1965, Chapter 443) soon created a Temporary State Commission on the Revision and Simplification of the Constitution and to Prepare for a Constitutional Convention. -
Ella Grasso, first woman elected Governor in Connecticut.
On May 10, 1919, Ella Grasso, née Ella Rosa Giovanna Oliva Tambussi, the first woman governor in the US to be elected “in her own right,” was born in Windsor Locks. Grasso devoted her entire adult life to governmental service, initially as a state legislator in 1952 and in 1954, then serving as Connecticut’s secretary of state in 1958 for three terms. -
Appellate Court created by Constitutional Amendment
The Supreme Court often insists that Congress cannot really "over rule "its decisions on what a law means: The justices' interpretation has to be correct since the Constitution gives final say to the highest court in the land. But Congress certainly has the power to pass a new or revised law that "changes" or "reverses" the meaning or scope of the law as interpreted by the Court. -
9/11 Terrorist attacks on New York City kill 152 Connecticut citizens.
The worst international terrorist attack ever—involving four separate but coordinated aircraft hijackings—occurred in the United States on September 11, 2001. The 19 hijackers belonged to the al-Qaida terrorist network. According to investigators and records of cellular phone calls made by passengers aboard the planes. -
Reapportionment Commission creates five Congressional districts due to national population shifts identified in the 2000 census.
According to U.S. Census Bureau "Apportionment is one of the most important functions of the decennial census. Apportionment measures the population so that seats in the U.S. House of Representatives can be correctly apportioned among the states. Until the middle of the twentieth century, Congress enacted new apportionment legislation following almost every census." -
M. Jodi Rell becomes Connecticut's second female Governor elected in her own right.
It would be easy for people to assume that it might be awkward for the current gubernatorial administration to be in the same room as a former gubernatorial administration, but it wasn’t.
