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The Passenger Pigeon in Michigan

More than a century ago, passenger pigeons were among the most numerous birds on the planet. Great Lakes explorer Samuel de Champlain reported "countless numbers" in the early 1600s, while 250 years later, the skies over Saginaw, Michigan, were…
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Michigan at the 1893 World's Fair

During the summer of 1893, tens of thousands of Michiganians headed to Chicago to enjoy a giant fair that marked the 400th anniversary of the European discovery of the New World by Christopher Columbus. (Although the Italian explorer had "sailed…
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Father Marquette Discovers the Mississippi River

During the summer of 1673, Father Jacques Marquette became the first Frenchman to explore the Mississippi River. To this day, these explorations remain among the most fascinating that occurred in North America. Born in France, the twenty-nine-year-old…
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Michigan at Gettysburg

For three frantic and bloody days in early July 1863, tens of thousands of Americans fought in the streets and fields around a small town in south-central Pennsylvania. The Battle of Gettysburg, the Civil War's biggest battle, occurred midway…
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Detroit's Walk To Freedom

The Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. is among America's best-recognized civil rights activists. His many accomplishments include his "I Have A Dream" speech that he gave on August 28, 1963, in Washington, DC. King, however, first gave that now-famous…
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SOO LOCKS at 150

On June 18, 1855, the steamer Illinois became the first boat to pass through the Soo Locks at Sault Ste. Marie. The trip past the rapids of the St. Mary's River took less than an hour. Although the Soo Locks were difficult to build, they soon…
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Michigan and "The Longest Day"

On Monday, June 6, 2005, aging allied veterans gathered on the rain-whipped beaches of northwestern France and quietly honored friends who had fallen 61 years earlier in the battle that changed the course of World War II. In Michigan, the…
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The Toledo War (aka the Ohio-Michigan War)

Money Shot by by allotta (Stevens T. Mason Statue, Capitol Park, Detroit) Most wars leave people injured, dead, and leave damage in their wake. The Toledo War was an exception. It was not an official war, no one died, and there was little…
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Sitting Down to Take a Stand

On the night of December 30, 1936, workers at one of the General Motors automobile assembly plants in Flint, Michigan, locked the doors from the inside and guarded the windows. The Flint Sit-Down Strike had begun. For the next forty-four…
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Highway Lighthouses

We are all acquainted with the yellow warning signs along Michigan's roads alerting us to dangerous intersections, sharp curves, steep grades and other driving hazards. But few people are familiar with the devices that preceded these modern…
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Pontiac's Rebellion

On the morning of May 7, 1763, fifty Indian warriors approached Fort Detroit. Their leader, a charismatic Odawa chief named Pontiac, had requested a meeting with Major Henry Gladwin, the fort's British commandant. Pontiac carried a wampum…