New Jersey
nj-docs.com

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 wint he 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. 

Tags:  jersey first state opens constitution becomes league governor stanley devils