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Michigan Through the Years
A Brief History of the Great Lake State
Michigan has a rich past. These 16 important dates chronicle over 300 years of Michigan history by featuring the people, places and events that make them significant.
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 MAY 17, 1673
Jesuit missionary Jacques Marquette, fur trader Louis Jolliet and five voyageurs leave the recently established Indian mission at St. Ignace . . .
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JULY 24, 1701
Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac, a 43-year-old French army officer, selects a site at le detroit (the straits)—the waterway between Lakes St. Clair and Erie—and establishes a French settlement. . . .
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 MAY 7, 1763
Three hundred Ottawa Indians, led by Pontiac, enter Fort Detroit intent upon launching a surprise attack upon the British garrison commanded by Major Henry Gladwin. . . .
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 JULY 11, 1796
U.S. regulars under the command of Lt. Colonel John F. Hamtramck enter Detroit and replace the British Union Jack with the Stars and Stripes. . . .
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JANUARY 22, 1813
A British force of 1,300 soldiers and Indians falls upon an American army at the River Raisin near present-day Monroe. . . .
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 JANUARY 26, 1837
In Washington, DC, President Andrew Jackson signs the bill making Michigan the nation's twenty-sixth state. . . .
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 JANUARY 27, 1847
Francis Troutman and several others arrive at the home of the Adam Crosswhite family—Kentucky slaves who have escaped to Marshall. . . .
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 JUNE 22, 1855
The passage of the steamer Illinois through the locks at Sault Ste. Marie marks the opening of unobstructed shipping between Lakes Superior and Huron. . . .
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 JULY 1, 1863
The Twenty-fourth Michigan Infantry, a member of the famed Iron Brigade, engages advancing Confederate forces at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. . . .
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JANUARY 28, 1877
Winfield Scott Gerrish opens the 7.1-mile-long Lake George and Muskegon River Railroad in Clare County. . . .
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 MARCH 6, 1896
Charles King of Detroit is the first person to test drive a gasoline-powered automobile in Michigan. Three months later, also in Detroit, Henry Ford drives his gasoline-powered, two-cylinder quadricycle. But it is Ransom E. Olds of Lansing . . .
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 MAY 2, 1933
Two hundred young men from Detroit arrive at an isolated spot in Chippewa County and set up Camp Raco—Michigan's first Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) facility. . . .
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DECEMBER 30, 1936
Spurred by an unfounded rumor that work is going to be transferred to plants with weak union support, autoworkers begin a spontaneous sit-down strike at General Motors Corporation (GMC) plants in Flint. . . .
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 OCTOBER 1, 1942
The first B-24 bomber rolls off the assembly line at the Willow Run Bomber Plant near Ypsilanti. . . .
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 NOVEMBER 1, 1957
The Mackinac Bridge, connecting Michigan's two peninsulas, opens. . . .
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