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Timeline of Events

Mason’s Fun Fact! Did you know that Londonderry, New Hampshire, claims to be home to the first potato planted in North America? See if you can find it on the Timeline!

Timelines help you organize historical events so you can see how they relate to one another. They are usually organized chronologically, which means in date order. The timeline below is separated into two parts: New Hampshire events and events happening elsewhere in America and sometimes the world. An event on one side of the timeline might influence an event on the other side in the same way that New Hampshire is influenced by events in America and the world. You can also see how the Granite State has made a big impact on America. 

NEW HAMPSHIRE EVENTS

U.S. & WORLD EVENTS

Click the Green Button to expand every event on the timeline.

Click the Purple Buttons on the timeline to see all event details in that date range.

Circa 2.6 million years BCE
Ice Age in New Hampshire
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Circa 2.6 million years BCE
Ice Age in New Hampshire
Millions of years ago, most of North America, and all of New Hampshire, was covered in ice. These large sheets of ice and snow covered the land for a very long time. This period was known as the Ice Age. There was very little plant or animal life that survived it.
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Circa 14,000–9,000 BCE
Glaciers melt in New Hampshire
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Circa 14,000–9,000 BCE
Glaciers melt in New Hampshire
As the ice melted, it left its mark upon the land. Deep holes became lakes. Valleys where the ice had been became rivers. As the ice receded and the temperature warmed up, plant and animal life began to flourish.
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Circa 10,000-8,000 BCE
Abenaki settle in New Hampshire
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Circa 10,000-8,000 BCE
Abenaki settle in New Hampshire
The earliest known settlers in New Hampshire were Native Americans known as the Abenaki. The Abenaki, like most Native Americans in North America, originally came from Asia. Thousands of years ago, they crossed a land bridge linking what is now Russia to the Asian continent...
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Circa 1,000 BCE
Abenaki develop agriculture
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Circa 1,000 BCE
Abenaki develop agriculture
The Abenaki were originally hunters and gatherers. They got their food by hunting and fishing and by gathering nuts and berries that grew in the forests. Then around 3,000 years ago, they began to grow crops to provide more food. Native tribes grew three kinds of crops—squash, corn, and beans...
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1492
Christopher Columbus reaches North America
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1492
Christopher Columbus reaches North America
Christopher Columbus was an Italian explorer. He “discovered” America--even though there were Native American people already living here. After Columbus’s voyage to what became called the “New World,” many Europeans were interested in both North America and South America...
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1607
Jamestown established
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1607
Jamestown established
The first English settlement in America was in Virginia in 1607. The colonists named their settlement Jamestown after the English king, James I. Life was very hard for these settlers because they had come looking for gold and did not bring enough food to eat...
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1614
John Smith lands at Isles of Shoals
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1614
John Smith lands at Isles of Shoals
In the early 1600s, a few European explorers came to New England. Among them was Captain John Smith, who was famous for helping to found the Jamestown colony in Virginia. Smith landed on a small group of islands off the coast of New Hampshire in 1614...
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1616–1619
Disease strikes the Abenaki
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1616–1619
Disease strikes the Abenaki
The Europeans who visited New England accidently brought with them diseases like small pox and chicken pox. Unfortunately, thousands of the Abenaki caught these diseases and became sick. Since the Abenaki were not used to European diseases, their bodies had no resistance to the infections...
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1620
Pilgrims land at Plymouth
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1620
Pilgrims land at Plymouth
A second group of English colonists, called the Pilgrims, landed in Massachusetts in 1620. The Pilgrims came to America because they wanted to practice their religion freely. They built a settlement that they named Plymouth Plantation...
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1623
First English settlement in New Hampshire
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1623
First English settlement in New Hampshire
The first permanent European settlement in New Hampshire was at Odiorne Point in Rye. A group of English settlers led by a man named David Thomson came to the area mainly to fish. They built stone houses because they planned to stay year-round, even through the winter...
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1629
John Mason founds New Hampshire
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1629
John Mason founds New Hampshire
Although other Englishmen came to New Hampshire in the early 1600s, the founder of New Hampshire was a man named Captain John Mason. He named this land after his home county in England, Hampshire. Mason planned to bring his wife and newborn baby with him when he and a group of settlers came to the New World in 1635...
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1642
Darby Field ascends Mount Washington
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1642
Darby Field ascends Mount Washington
At more than 6,000 feet, Mount Washington is the tallest mountain in New England. The first person to climb it was an Englishman named Darby Field. The Abenaki had warned Field that it was dangerous to go to the top of Mount Washington because of “evil spirits,” but the real danger was the terrible weather conditions so high up...
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1660
Passaconaway’s farewell
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1660
Passaconaway’s farewell
For most of the 1600s, the leader of the Abenaki in southern New Hampshire was a man named Passaconaway. He was the sachem, or chief, of the Pennacook tribe, which included as many as 12,000 people...
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1719
Scots-Irish come to New Hampshire
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1719
Scots-Irish come to New Hampshire
In the 1600s, European settlers to New Hampshire were from England. In 1719, a new group of settlers came here. They were known as the Scots-Irish. A group of 16 families founded a settlement in Nutfield, which later became the town of Londonderry...
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1741
Benning Wentworth appointed first colonial governor
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1741
Benning Wentworth appointed first colonial governor
When New Hampshire was first founded, it shared a government with Massachusetts. They both had the same governor, and at one point, there was even talk about making all of New Hampshire a county in Massachusetts! Most people living in New Hampshire did not want to be part of Massachusetts, and they asked King George II of England to keep them separate and give them their own governor...
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1765
Stamp Act protests
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1765
Stamp Act protests
By the 1760s, many people in New Hampshire—and America—were getting tired of being British colonies and having to pay taxes to the British government. In 1765, the British imposed a new tax called the Stamp Act, which put a tax on books, newspapers, documents, playing cards, and anything made of paper...
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1772
Pine Tree Riot
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1772
Pine Tree Riot
One of the British laws that the people of New Hampshire did not like involved pine trees! The British government declared that all the big pine trees in New Hampshire belonged to the king, who used them as ships’ masts for the British navy...
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1774
Attack on Fort William and Mary
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1774
Attack on Fort William and Mary
In December 1774, an American patriot named Paul Revere rode to Portsmouth, New Hampshire, to warn his friends that the British army was going to send more soldiers and supplies to Fort William and Mary in Portsmouth Harbor...
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1775–1783
American Revolution
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1775–1783
American Revolution
By the 1760s, most of the colonies in North America belonged to England (which was also known as Britain or Great Britain). The British had not paid much attention to America over the years, and the Americans were used to making their own decisions and laws...
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1775
Bunker Hill
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1775
Bunker Hill
The Battle of Bunker Hill was the first major battle of the American Revolution. The British army, which was very well trained, attacked American troops in the hills surrounding Boston. The American troops did not have much experience as soldiers, but they put up a good fight against the British...
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1776
New Hampshire declares independence
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1776
New Hampshire declares independence
On January 4, 1776, New Hampshire became the first British colony to declare its independence from Great Britain. Since New Hampshire was now an independent state, its leaders wrote a new constitution for it, which laid out how the government would function. New Hampshire, therefore, formed the first state government in America...
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1776
Declaration of Independence
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1776
Declaration of Independence
During the American Revolution, the Americans created a congress to pass laws for the colonies and to raise taxes to support the war effort. On July 4, 1776, this congress approved a document called the Declaration of Independence...
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1777
Battle of Bennington
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1777
Battle of Bennington
In the summer of 1777, the British army launched a massive campaign through the Hudson River Valley in New York and Vermont to divide the New England colonies from the rest of America. Fighting between the British and Americans went on all summer, but in the middle of August, New Hampshire’s General John Stark arrived in southern Vermont with a large group of New Hampshire soldiers...
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1779
Freedom Petition
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1779
Freedom Petition
New Hampshire used to have enslaved people. The first enslaved people in America were kidnapped in Africa and brought to the New World where they were sold for their labor. They had to work for their masters without being paid, and they weren't allowed to make their own decisions about their lives. Their children were also enslaved, and their grandchildren and so on. Most enslaved people in America lived in the South, but even colonies in the North, like New Hampshire and Massachusetts, had enslaved people.
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1788
New Hampshire ratifies the U.S. Constitution
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1788
New Hampshire ratifies the U.S. Constitution
When the 13 American colonies declared themselves independent from Britain, they had to form a government for their new country. They had to decide how political power was going to be shared between the states and the federal government and develop a process for passing laws that would govern the new country...
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1789
U.S. Constitution
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1789
U.S. Constitution
After the Americans won the American Revolution, they had to create a new form of government for their new country. It took them several years to figure out which form of government would work best for them. They knew the government would be a democracy, meaning the people would get to vote about how they would be governed...
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1796
Ona Judge flees slavery
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1796
Ona Judge flees slavery
In 1796, an enslaved woman named Ona Judge ran away from her master in the South and came to New Hampshire. Her master was George Washington, the president of the United States. Washington owned many slaves at his plantation in Virginia, and he wasn’t willing to just let Ona go...
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1796
Roads across the state
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1796
Roads across the state
There were no big roads in New Hampshire during the 1700s like the highways we have today. Instead, all the roads in the state were local, linking one village to another. Each town was responsible for building and repairing their own roads, and sometimes the towns didn’t do a great job of it. In the late 1700s, some investors got together and decided to build a nice, big road that would run across the middle of the state, from Portsmouth to Concord...
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1803
First textile mill in New Hampshire
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1803
First textile mill in New Hampshire
The first cotton mill in New Hampshire was built in New Ipswich in 1803. It was a small mill, but it used giant machines, known as looms, to weave cloth, which would normally take a long time to weave by hand. The looms were powered by water...
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1803
Louisiana Purchase
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1803
Louisiana Purchase
In 1803, President Thomas Jefferson bought a huge area of land from the French for $15 million. It doubled the size of America! The Louisiana Purchase included most of the land in what is now the middle of the country and extended all the way to the Pacific Ocean...
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1805
Old Man of the Mountain “discovered”
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1805
Old Man of the Mountain “discovered”
It wasn’t until the early 1800s that people started exploring the White Mountains, which were beautiful but rugged. Men building a road through Franconia Notch in 1805 saw a group of rocks that looked just like a giant head. They called the rock formation the Old Man of the Mountain, and soon tourists came from all over to see the Old Man...
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1809
Live free or die
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1809
Live free or die
New Hampshire’s most famous Revolutionary War soldier, General John Stark, used the term “Live free or die” in 1809. He was writing a letter to some fellow veterans who had organized a dinner to celebrate the anniversary of Stark’s great victory in 1777, the Battle of Bennington...
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1815
Textile mills in Lowell
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1815
Textile mills in Lowell
The first factories in America opened in the early 1800s when inventors found a way to use water power to make machines work. Machines could work much faster than people, even though people still needed to tend the machines...
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1815
Merrimack River made navigable
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1815
Merrimack River made navigable
The Merrimack River is the largest river in New Hampshire. At a time when it was still difficult and slow to travel on roads, water travel was the fastest way to move goods and people from one place to another. People used rivers almost like they use highways today...
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1816
Carrigain Map completed
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1816
Carrigain Map completed
Maps have always been very important in settling new land and in protecting people’s claims to land they believe they own. There were a few early maps of parts of New Hampshire, but by the early 1800s, people realized they needed a map of the whole state...
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1816–1819
State House built
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1816–1819
State House built
For the first few decades New Hampshire was a state, it didn’t have a state capital. Instead, the state government moved between several towns, including Portsmouth, Exeter, Dover, and Hopkinton. Finally, around 1810, the state government decided to settle in Concord, which was in the center of the state geographically and had a good road system, making it easy for people to travel to and from the new capital...
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1825
The Granite State
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1825
The Granite State
In June 1825, the state government held a big dinner on the State House lawn in honor of the Marquis de Lafayette. Lafayette was a Frenchman who became an American hero during the American Revolution 50 years earlier. He returned to America in 1825 and took a grand tour of all the states to celebrate America’s 50th birthday...
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1825
Erie Canal opens
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1825
Erie Canal opens
It took a long time to get places back in the early 1800s, before there were trains, cars, or airplanes. The fastest way to travel was by water on a boat, but the problem was that many rivers and lakes did not link up with each other. To connect them, people built canals so the boats could travel by water farther...
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1826
Willey slide tragedy
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1826
Willey slide tragedy
In the 1820s, not many people lived in the White Mountains. One family, the Willeys, built a homestead near Crawford Notch. The family included a mother, father, five children, and two hired hands. In August 1826, a huge storm moved through the area and set off a massive landslide in the little valley where the Willeys lived...
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1827
First railroad in America
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1827
First railroad in America
Trains were invented in the early 1800s in England. Powered by steam engines, they offered a way to move people and goods long distances in a much shorter time than traveling by horse and wagons on roads or by boats on water...
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1827
First Concord coach built
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1827
First Concord coach built
A Concord coach is a type of stagecoach that made travel easier and more comfortable for people in the 19th century. The Abbot-Downing Company of Concord became famous for making the best and most luxurious stagecoaches of the century...
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1831
Amoskeag Manufacturing Company founded
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1831
Amoskeag Manufacturing Company founded
With all of the rivers in New Hampshire, the state soon became a center for textile mills, which needed water power from the rivers to work the machinery, like looms, to weave cloth and fabric. Manchester was particularly well-placed for textile mills, as the Merrimack River ran strong in that area, and its water generated a lot of power...
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1838
First railroad in New Hampshire
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1838
First railroad in New Hampshire
The first railroad tracks were laid in New Hampshire in 1838. The tracks ran from Nashua south for 5 miles before crossing the Massachusetts border and continuing on to Boston. Within less than 10 years, the Boston, Concord, and Montreal Railroad had built railroads throughout the southern part of the state...
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1844
First telegraph communication
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1844
First telegraph communication
In the 1840s, a man named Samuel Morse invented a new way for people to communicate with one another. It was called the telegraph, and it used wires to transmit signals between telegraph stations. The signals were a series of long and short sounds that represented different letters of the alphabet...
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1845
Senator Hale speaks out against slavery
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1845
Senator Hale speaks out against slavery
By the middle of the 19th century, more and more people in the North had decided that slavery was a bad thing, but not very many politicians had spoken against slavery. In 1845, John Parker Hale, who was a senator from New Hampshire, publicly declared that slavery was a terrible thing and should be stopped, even in the South where slavery was very popular...
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1845–1851
Irish potato famine
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1845–1851
Irish potato famine
Millions of people who lived in Ireland in the 1800s depended on potatoes more than any other crop to survive. When a disease attacked the potato crop in Ireland in the 1840s and killed almost all of the potatoes, the people of Ireland began to starve...
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1848
Seneca Falls Convention
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1848
Seneca Falls Convention
Women did not always have the same rights as men like they do today. For a long time, they couldn’t even vote. In the middle of the 19th century, many women began to argue that they deserved the same rights as men, but only some men agreed with them...
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1849
California gold rush
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1849
California gold rush
When gold was discovered in California, hundreds of thousands of people traveled there from around the world, thinking they could find a vein of gold and get rich quick. In truth, few people found gold, but lots of people made their fortunes by selling supplies to the miners who came looking for treasure...
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1849
Harriet Tubman escapes from slavery
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1849
Harriet Tubman escapes from slavery
Before 1865, there were slaves in America. Originally from Africa, slaves were people who belonged to someone else. Slaves were forced to work wherever their owners needed them. They often didn’t even get to stay with their own families...
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1852
Franklin Pierce elected U.S. president
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1852
Franklin Pierce elected U.S. president
Franklin Pierce was a very important man in New Hampshire politics. He led the Democratic Party in the state and served New Hampshire as both a congressman and a senator. In November 1852, he was elected president of the United States, the only president to come from New Hampshire...
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1853
Amos Tuck founds the Republican Party
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1853
Amos Tuck founds the Republican Party
In 1853, a man from New Hampshire named Amos Tuck got a bunch of his friends together in Exeter and decided to form a new political party called the Republicans. The Republican Party stood against slavery in America. They challenged the Democratic Party for state and national offices...
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1861–1865
Civil War
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1861–1865
Civil War
By 1860, many Americans had become angry over slavery. In the South, slavery had become part of a cherished way of life in which African-American slaves were forced to work for their white masters. In the North, where slavery had been outlawed, people began to argue that slavery was wrong and that African-Americans should be free...
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1863
The Battle of Gettysburg
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1863
The Battle of Gettysburg
Thousands of soldiers from New Hampshire fought in the Union Army during the Civil War, when the North (the Union) fought against the South (the Confederacy). The biggest battle of the war was the Battle of Gettysburg, fought on July 1-3, 1863, which the Union won...
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1867
Alaska becomes a U.S. territory
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1867
Alaska becomes a U.S. territory
Alaska did not become a U.S. territory until 1867. Before that, it was part of Russia. Russia had once had colonies all down the west coast through what is now Canada, Washington, Oregon, and even parts of California. Russia sold Alaska to the United States for $7.2 million...
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1869
Transcontinental railroad
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1869
Transcontinental railroad
Railroads were built all over America in the mid-1800s, but the most important railroad was the transcontinental railroad. It linked the eastern portion of the United States with the western portion. No longer did people have to make the dangerous and long trip across the continent on foot or by wagon, which could take months...
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1869
Cog Railway opens
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1869
Cog Railway opens
An inventor named Sylvester Marsh loved the views from the top of Mount Washington, the highest peak in the Northeast. But he thought there must be an easier way to get to the top than climbing up 6,000 feet. He developed a special kind of train, called a cog railway, that could climb such a steep terrain...
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1870
Marilla Ricker tries to vote
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1870
Marilla Ricker tries to vote
Women in New Hampshire—and throughout America—were not allowed to vote for many years. In 1870, a New Hampshire woman named Marilla Ricker tried to vote in her hometown of Dover. She was denied, but she kept turning in her votes in town elections for the rest of her life even if town officials refused to count them...
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1872
Skiing comes to New Hampshire
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1872
Skiing comes to New Hampshire
Lots of people from Scandinavian countries moved to New Hampshire in the 1800s to work in the timber industry in the White Mountains. They brought with them many traditions from the countries they came from, including cross-country skiing...
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1879
Light bulb invented
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1879
Light bulb invented
When Thomas Edison invented the light bulb, he introduced a whole new way for people to see in the dark. Before then, people had to use candles, oil, or gas lamps, although neither of them provided very good light. The light bulb, however, was reliable and safe...
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1881
Camp Chocorua opens
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1881
Camp Chocorua opens
In the summer of 1881, a New Hampshire man named Ernest Balch opened the first children’s summer camp in the United States. Located on Squam Lake, he called it Camp Chocorua. The camp was for boys who lived in big cities, like Boston and New York...
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1886
Statue of Liberty
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1886
Statue of Liberty
In honor of America’s 100th birthday in 1876, the French people donated a giant, copper statue of Lady Liberty. It took 10 years to design and build her, but when the French were finished, the Statue of Liberty stood over 300 feet high in New York Harbor...
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1899
First Old Home Week
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1899
First Old Home Week
At the end of the 19th century, more people were moving out of New Hampshire than moving to it. People especially didn’t want to stay working on farms. Many of the state’s small towns saw a decline in their population...
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1903
Wright Brothers’ first flight
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1903
Wright Brothers’ first flight
The first airplane in the world was built by two brothers from Ohio, Wilbur and Orville Wright. The Wright Brothers made their first powered flight, which lasted for 59 seconds, in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, on December 17, 1903. Within just a few years of this flight, many others had built airplanes using a similar design, and flying eventually became a popular way to travel, offering people a way to go long distances in a short amount of time.
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1903
Forest fires burn the White Mountains
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1903
Forest fires burn the White Mountains
The White Mountains have long been known for their beautiful forests and abundant trees. In 1903, though, a series of forest fires swept through the mountains and burned over 12,000 acres and millions of trees. The loss of so much of the forest made many people in New Hampshire concerned for the forests’ survival...
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1909
Lewis Hine photographs child mill workers
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1909
Lewis Hine photographs child mill workers
Thousands of people worked in the factories and mills of New Hampshire, including many children. Kids could work in the factories starting at the age of 5, and often they worked instead of going to school. For many struggling families, the money that children earned helped them survive...
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1909
NAACP founded
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1909
NAACP founded
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People was formed in 1909 to fight for the rights of African Americans. Its founder, a man named W.E.B. Dubois, argued that African Americans were not treated equally in America...
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1913
Moving assembly lines
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1913
Moving assembly lines
Although factories had been in America since the early 1800s, inventor Henry Ford developed a better way to produce factory goods faster with a moving assembly line. Ford introduced this technique in his most popular invention, the Model T automobile...
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1914–1918
World War I
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1914–1918
World War I
World War I was such a big war with such terrible fighting that people thought it could never happen again. That’s why it is sometimes called “the war to end all wars.” Most of the fighting was in Europe between France, England, and Russia on one side, and Germany and Austria-Hungary on the other...
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1917
Yankee Division formed
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1917
Yankee Division formed
In April 1917, the United States joined World War I, fighting on the side of England and France. America had a small army at the time, so the government encouraged volunteers to join up. Thousands of young men from New Hampshire signed up for the army...
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1918
White Mountain National Forest opens
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1918
White Mountain National Forest opens
The White Mountains are among the most important of New Hampshire’s natural resources. One of the state’s biggest exports has been the timber found in the mountains. By the early 1900s, so many trees had been cut down that people began to worry that the White Mountains would no longer have such beautiful forests...
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1918
Potato drive campaign
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1918
Potato drive campaign
During World War I, Granite State farmers grew food for the soldiers serving in Europe. The U.S. government told the farmers what crops to plant and how much to plant to cover the needs of the army. But in the spring of 1918, New Hampshire farmers discovered that they had grown too many potatoes...
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1920
19th Amendment passes
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1920
19th Amendment passes
Before 1920, women could not vote in national elections in the United States. Women had been fighting for the right to vote since the mid-1800s. They finally got the right to vote with the passage of the 19th Amendment. An amendment is a change to the Constitution.
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1920
Radio becomes popular
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1920
Radio becomes popular
In November 1920, radio station KDKA in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, went on the air to announce the results of the presidential election. Over the next several weeks, it began broadcasting all sorts of programs, including sports, news, and music...
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1923
Robert Frost publishes New Hampshire poems
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1923
Robert Frost publishes New Hampshire poems
One of the most famous writers to live in New Hampshire was a poet named Robert Frost. He had two farms in the Granite State: one in Derry and one in Franconia. In 1923, Frost published a book of poems that were all about his home state...
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1929
Stock market crash
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1929
Stock market crash
On October 24, 1929, the stock market crashed. The stock market is a place where many Americans invest their money. When the market crashed in 1929, millions of Americans lost all their savings. The day was such a disaster for so many people that Americans began calling it Black Tuesday...
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1929
Chinook saves the day
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1929
Chinook saves the day
New Hampshire has an official state dog—the chinook. All chinooks are descended from one dog, who was named, unsurprisingly, Chinook. Chinook was a sled dog, who was trained to survive in extreme weather conditions...
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1929–1939
Great Depression
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1929–1939
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a 10-year period in American history when the American economy did very poorly. It started with the stock market crash of 1929. Soon after the crash, many businesses closed. Millions of people lost their jobs. Lots of people struggled to find enough food to eat...
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1931
League of New Hampshire Craftsmen formed
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1931
League of New Hampshire Craftsmen formed
Many artists have lived in New Hampshire over the years. Some of them are painters who were inspired by the state’s beauty, especially the White Mountains. Others created pottery or glassware. Still others made jewelry or furniture...
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1934
Highest wind speed recorded
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1934
Highest wind speed recorded
As the highest peak in the Northeast, Mount Washington sees all sorts of crazy weather. Even on days when it’s sunny in the rest of New Hampshire, it can be cold and windy on top of Mount Washington. To monitor weather conditions on the mountain, scientists built the Mount Washington Observatory where they record weather conditions like temperature, barometric pressure, and wind speed...
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1935
Yankee Magazine founded
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1935
Yankee Magazine founded
One of the most popular publications about life in New England is Yankee Magazine, which was first published in Dublin, New Hampshire, in 1935. “Yankee” is a term used to describe someone from New England, particularly northern New England...
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1936
Amoskeag mills close
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1936
Amoskeag mills close
Although New Hampshire had a long history of having mills and factories, the state’s economy began to change in the early 20th century. Most of the factories moved to the southern part of America, where people would work for less money...
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1937
First chair ski lift
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1937
First chair ski lift
In the 1920s and 1930s, downhill skiing became a popular new sport in America, particularly in New Hampshire’s White Mountains. But if it was fun to ski down a mountain, it was hard work to climb up the mountain in the first place...
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1938
Hurricane of 1938
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1938
Hurricane of 1938
On a September day in 1938, New England got hit with the strongest hurricane in its history. It was a Category 5 hurricane, which is the worst kind of hurricane. The hurricane destroyed thousands of homes and buildings and caused widespread flooding...
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1939–1945
World War II
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1939–1945
World War II
World War II was the biggest war the world has ever seen—even bigger than World War I! It involved over 30 countries, and there was fighting all over the globe on almost every continent. The fighting was mainly between Germany, Italy, and Japan on one side, against England, France, Russia, and America on the other side...
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1947
Jackie Robinson plays major league baseball
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1947
Jackie Robinson plays major league baseball
Jackie Robinson was the first African American to play major league baseball. Before that, African Americans had to play in their own separate leagues. Robinson played for the Brooklyn Dodgers, where he played second base. He was a great all-around player, although he was known for being able to steal bases...
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1952
First presidential primary
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1952
First presidential primary
New Hampshire is now famous for holding the first-in-the-nation presidential primary, which means the people of New Hampshire get to pick before people in other states who should run for president. A presidential primary is not an election to see who becomes president—it’s an election to see who will be nominated to run for president by one of the major political parties, the Democrats and the Republicans...
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1953
Chippa Granite is created
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1953
Chippa Granite is created
In the 1950s, the state government wanted people to use more products made or grown in New Hampshire. The government asked artist Alice Cosgrove to design a character who could be used for this type of promotion. Cosgrove created Chippa Granite, a fresh-faced boy who appeared on all sorts of posters and flyers promoting everything to do with New Hampshire, from skiing to apples.
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1954
Birth of rock n’ roll
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1954
Birth of rock n’ roll
In the 1950s, a new kind of music swept through America known as rock and roll. Rock and roll music had simple melodies, usually played on guitars, and a loud beat with lots of drums. It was particularly popular with American teenagers as dance music...
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1955
Rosa Parks arrested
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1955
Rosa Parks arrested
Even though slavery had ended at the end of the Civil War, many African Americans still were not treated equally with other Americans. For example, for many years African-Americans went to different schools than other Americans, had to use different drinking fountains, and were only allowed to sit in some sections of movie theaters...
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1959
Hawaii becomes the 50th state
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1959
Hawaii becomes the 50th state
How many states are there in America? 50! The 50th state, Hawaii, became a state on August 21, 1959. Hawaii was known for being a tropical paradise. The weather was always warm, and there were beautiful beaches. It was also known for growing sugar cane and pineapples...
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1961
Alan Shepard's space flight
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1961
Alan Shepard's space flight
On May 5, 1961, Alan Shepard became the first American in space. Shepard was born and grew up in Derry, New Hampshire...
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1963
Martin Luther King Jr. speech
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1963
Martin Luther King Jr. speech
One of the most important leaders of the civil rights movement was a man named Martin Luther King Jr., who was a minister from Georgia. He led many protests for more equality for African Americans. He believed that all protests should be peaceful and that eventually Americans would come to agree with him that whether people were black or white they should be treated the same...
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1964
Beatles come to America
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1964
Beatles come to America
Although rock and roll had been popular in America since the 1950s, a new kind of rock and roll music became popular in the early 1960s when a British rock band called the Beatles came to America. The Beatles were four handsome, young men who played an upbeat, fun form of rock and roll that made people want to sing along...
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1969
Apollo 11 lands on the moon
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1969
Apollo 11 lands on the moon
In 1960, President John F. Kennedy promised the American people that the United States would be able to send a man to the moon within 10 years. Nine years later, astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first men to stand on the surface of the moon on July 20, 1969...
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1970
First Earth Day
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1970
First Earth Day
By the middle of the 20th century, some people began to realize that the earth was a precious resource that needed to be cared for and preserved, not just used up. To remind everyone to care for the planet, some Americans started celebrating Earth Day in 1970 to draw attention to the environment and the need to protect it.
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1972
The Pledge
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1972
The Pledge
Political leaders in New Hampshire usually take "the pledge" when they are running for office. The "pledge" is a promise that they won't support income tax or sales tax...
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1974
Oil refinery project defeated
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1974
Oil refinery project defeated
In the early 1970s, a Greek billionaire wanted to build an oil refinery on New Hampshire's Great Bay. A group called "Save Our Shores" worked to prevent the oil refinery...
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1980
Refugee resettlement communities
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1980
Refugee resettlement communities
Thousands of people fled from war-torn countries in the 1970s and 1980s. The American government made arrangements with several cities around the country to take in these refugees and help them get settled in new communities...
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1986
Challenger tragedy
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1986
Challenger tragedy
In 1985, Concord High School teacher Christa McAuliffe was chosen to be the first Teacher in Space...
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1990
Seabrook Nuclear Power Plant opens
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1990
Seabrook Nuclear Power Plant opens
The Seabrook Nuclear Power Plant in Seabrook, New Hampshire, opened in 1990. Nuclear power is a kind of energy that was developed in the middle of the 20th century...
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1990
Internet invented
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1990
Internet invented
Although computers had been around since the 1940s, they could not communicate with one another until 1990. That’s the year that a British man named Tim Berners-Lee invented the internet, which is also called the world wide web. The internet is a way for computers to “talk” to one another...
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2001
September 11 attacks
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2001
September 11 attacks
The largest terrorist attack on American soil happened on September 11, 2001, when terrorists hijacked four airplanes and flew them into important buildings. Two of the planes hit the World Trade Center in New York City, one hit the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., and a fourth was headed for the U.S. Capitol building before it crashed in a field in Pennsylvania...
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2001
Segway is unveiled
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2001
Segway is unveiled
Although New Hampshire faced hard times after most of the mills and factories in the state closed in the early part of the 20th century, new businesses began to emerge in the state by the end of the 1900s. Many of these businesses focused on new technology, like video games and computers...
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2003
Old Man of the Mountain falls
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2003
Old Man of the Mountain falls
The Old Man of the Mountain has been one of New Hampshire’s most popular tourist destinations since the 1800s. By the early 1900s, though, there were signs that the Old Man wasn’t as stable as he should be. In the 1920s, scientists installed a series of steel rods and clamps to keep the Old Man in place...
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2012
Women represent New Hampshire
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2012
Women represent New Hampshire
In 2012, New Hampshire became the first state in the country to have all its representatives to the federal government be women. The Granite State’s two senators that year were Jeanne Shaheen and Kelly Ayotte. New Hampshire’s two delegates to the House of Representatives were Ann McLane Kuster and Carol Shea Porter. New Hampshire’s governor was also a woman, Maggie Hassan.
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2015
African Burying Ground Memorial Park opens
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2015
African Burying Ground Memorial Park opens
The African Burying Ground Memorial Park opened in Portsmouth in 2015. The park is on the site of a Black cemetery from the 18th century...
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2018
Northern Pass stopped
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2018
Northern Pass stopped
In the 2018, Granite Staters came together to preserve New Hampshire's forests. Energy companies had a plan to run power lines through the White Mountains to bring energy from Canada to New England...
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