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The first Europeans to arrive in Michigan were the French, while searching for a route to China.
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The first permanent European settlement in Michigan was Sault Ste. Marie which was established in 1668 by Father Jacques Marquette. Ducksters.
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In 1701, Frenchman Antoine de La Mothe Cadillac founded a trading post at Fort Pontchartrain du Detroit. It would later become the city of Detroit. Ducksters.
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In 1763, the British gain control of Michigan after winning the French and Indian War. Ducksters.
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The British gain control of Michigan after winning the French and Indian War.
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After the Revolutionary War, the United States declared that Michigan was a part of the Northwest Territory of the United States. Duckster.
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Detroit and Fort Mackinac are surrendered to the British during the War of 1812
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The Erie Canal opened providing easier travel to Michigan.
In its early days, the canal was not very large, but it was large enough to move Michigan's grain and wool east, thereby providing Michigan with a market for it's commodities, which rapidly fueled the influx of settlers.
https://project.geo.msu.edu/geogmich/eriecanal.html#:~:text=It%20opened%20in%201825.&text=In%20its%20early%20days%2C%20the,fueled%20the%20influx%20of%20settlers. -
President Andrew Jackson signed a bill that made Michigan the twenty-sixth state.
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In 1847, the legislature passed a law to locate the state capital in Lansing.
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Henry Ford drives his first automobile on the streets of Detroit.
https://theweek.com/articles/461968/rise-fall-detroit-timeline -
Henry Ford introduced his “everyman's car,” the Model T. This impacted the entire US through a new form of transportation. -
The moving assembly line was developed for the Ford Model T and began operation on October 7, 1913, at the Highland Park Ford Plant, and continued to evolve after that, using time and motion study. The assembly line made Detroit a magnet for blue-collar workers seeking to be part of the middle-class. -
The American Federation of Labor officially chartered the United Auto Workers in Detroit, Michigan. This was during the height of the depression when jobs were scarce and mass layoffs were commonplace. The UAW thus rapidly found success organizing sit-down strikes across the country.
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This was a series of violent encounters between African American residents of Detroit and the city’s police department that began on July 23, 1967, and lasted five days. The deeper causes of the riot were high levels of frustration, resentment, and anger that had been created among African Americans by unemployment and underemployment, persistent and extreme poverty, racism and racial segregation, police brutality, and lack of economic and educational opportunities.