Timeline of New Jersey
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Trenton: http://www.trentonnj.com/history.html
New Jersey is about the same size as Belgium, or
Israel or Switzerland.
(SFEC, 2/14/99, Z1 p.8)(SSFC, 10/9/05, Par p.27)
c200 Million BC A fossil of the
winged Icarosaurus siefkeri reptile of this time was found by 3 teenage
boys in a black shale New Jersey quarry in 1961.
(SFC, 7/17/00, p.A1)
1664 Mar 12, England’s King
Charles II granted land in the New World, known as New Netherland
(later New Jersey), to his brother James, the Duke of York.
(HN, 3/12/98)(AP, 3/12/08)
1664 Jun 24, New Jersey, named
after the Isle of Jersey, was founded.
(HN, 6/24/98)
1746 Oct 22, Princeton University
in New Jersey received its charter as the College of New Jersey. The
Univ. later established a reputation for its spring ritual of
sophomores running naked at midnight after the first snowfall.
(SFEC, 3/22/98, p.A23)(AP, 10/22/08)
1746 The American Presbyterian
College of New Jersey was founded.
(HNQ, 7/6/99)
1756 Feb 6, America's third vice
president, Aaron Burr, was born in Newark, N.J.
(AP, 2/6/97)
1758 Mar 22, Jonathan Edwards
(b.1703), US colonial theologian, philosopher (Great Awakening,
Original Sin), died in New Jersey following an inoculation for smallpox.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Edwards)
1758 Aug 29, New Jersey
Legislature formed the 1st Indian reservation.
(MC, 8/29/01)
1772 Sep 26, New Jersey passed a
bill requiring a license to practice medicine.
(MC, 9/26/01)
1775 Apr 13, Lord North extended
the New England Restraining Act to South Carolina, Virginia,
Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Maryland. The act forbade trade with any
country other than Britain and Ireland.
(HN, 4/13/99)
1775-1782 More Revolutionary War engagements were
fought in New Jersey--238--than in any other state. New York was second
with 228.
(HNQ, 4/17/99)
1776 Oct 28, The Battle of White
Plains was fought during the Revolutionary War, resulting in a limited
British victory. Washington retreated to NJ.
(AP, 10/28/06)(www.u-s-history.com/pages/h1283.html)
1776 Nov 18, Hessians captured Ft
Lee, NJ.
(MC, 11/18/01)
1776 Nov 20, The British invaded
New Jersey.
(NH, 5/97, p.76)
1776 Dec 2, George Washington's
army began retreating across the Delaware River from New Jersey to
Pennsylvania. In 2004 David Hackett Fischer authored "Washington's
Crossing."
(WSJ, 2/6/04, p.W8)
1776 Dec 8, George Washington's
retreating army in the American Revolution crossed the Delaware River
from New Jersey to Pennsylvania.
(AP, 12/8/97)
1776 Dec 25, Gen. George
Washington and his troops crossed the Delaware River for a surprise
attack against 1,400 Hessian forces at Trenton, N.J.
(AP, 12/25/97)(MC, 12/25/01)
1776 Dec 26, The British suffered
a major defeat in the Battle of Trenton during the Revolutionary War.
After crossing the Delaware River into New Jersey, George Washington
led an attack on Hessian mercenaries and took 900 men prisoner. Two
Americans froze to death on the march but none died in battle. There
were 30 German casualties, 1,000 prisoners and 6 cannon captured. Four
Americans were wounded in the overwhelming American victory, while 22
Hessians were killed and 78 wounded. The surprise attack caught most of
the 1,200 Hessian soldiers at Trenton sleeping after a day of Christmas
celebration. The Americans captured 918 Hessians, who were taken as
prisoners to Philadelphia. The victory was a huge morale booster for
the American army and the country. The victory at Trenton was a huge
success and morale booster for the American army and people. However,
the enlistments of more than 4,500 of Washington’s soldiers were set to
end four days later and it was critical that the force remain intact.
General George Washington offered a bounty of $10 to any of his
soldiers who extended their enlistments six weeks beyond their December
31, 1776, expiration dates. The American Revolution Battle of Trenton
saw the routing of 1,400 Hessian mercenaries, with 101 killed or
wounded and about 900 taken prisoner, with no Americans killed in the
combat. Four Americans were wounded and two had died of exhaustion en
route to Trenton.
(AP, 12/26/97)(HN, 12/26/98)(SFC, 12/26/98,
p.A3)(HNQ, 3/20/99)(HNQ, 4/11/99)(HNQ, 12/26/99)
1776 Dec 26, Johann Gottlieb Rall,
Hessian colonel and mercenary, died in battle of Trenton.
(MC, 12/26/01)
1777 Jan 3, Gen. George
Washington's army routed the British in the Battle of Princeton,
N.J.
(AP, 1/3/98)
1778 Jun 28, "Molly Pitcher," Mary
Ludwig Hays McCauley, wife of an American artilleryman, carried water
to the soldiers during the Revolutionary War Battle of Monmouth, N.J.
and, supposedly, took her husband's place at his cannon after he was
overcome with heat. Temperatures reportedly reached 96 degrees in the
shade. According to myth she was presented to General George Washington
after the battle. Her actual existence is a matter of historical debate
and the outcome of the battle was inconclusive.
(SFEC,11/23/97, Par p.19)(HNQ, 7/25/99)(AP,
6/28/08)(SSFC, 6/28/09, p.B12)
1779 Aug 19, Americans under Major
Henry Lee took the British garrison at Paulus Hook, New Jersey.
(HN, 8/19/98)
1780 Jan 2, A blizzard hit
Washington's army at the Morristown, NJ, winter encampment.
(AH, 2/05, p.16)
1783 Nov 2, Gen. George Washington
issued his "Farewell Address to the Army" near Princeton, N.J.
(AP, 11/2/97)
1787 Dec 18, New Jersey became the
third state to ratify the U.S. Constitution.
(AP, 12/18/97)
1789 Sep 15, James Fenimore Cooper
(d.1851), American novelist, was born in Burlington, NJ. He is best
known for "The Pioneers" and "Last of the Mohicans." "The press, like
fire, is an excellent servant, but a terrible master."
(AP, 6/25/97)(HN, 9/15/99)
1789 Nov 20, New Jersey became the
first state to ratify the Bill of Rights.
(HFA, '96, p.18)(AP, 11/20/97)
1793 Jan 9, The first US manned
balloon flight occurred as Frenchman Jean Pierre Blanchard, using a
hot-air balloon, flew between Philadelphia and Woodbury, N.J. He stayed
airborne for 46 minutes, traveled close to 15 miles and set down at the
"old Clement farm" in Deptford, New Jersey. [see Jun 23, 1784, Mar 9,
1793]
(WSJ, 3/31/98, p.A1)(AP, 1/9/99)(ON, 6/09, p.2)
1804 Feb 15, New Jersey became the
last northern state to abolish slavery.
(HN, 2/15/98)
1804 Jul 11, Vice President Aaron
Burr mortally wounded Alexander Hamilton (47), former first Treasury
Secretary, in a pistol duel near Weehawken, N.J. A warrant for Burr’s
arrest was soon issued in New Jersey and New York, where Hamilton died.
In 1999 Richard Brookhiser wrote "Alexander Hamilton: American." In
2001 Joanne B. Freeman edited his writings and published: Alexander
Hamilton: Writings."
(AP, 7/11/97)(HN, 7/11/98)(WSJ, 2/25/99, p.A16)(WSJ,
12/3/01, p.A17)(ON, 12/08, p6)
1804 Jul 12, Alexander Hamilton
(47), US Sec. of Treasury, died in New York of wounds from a pistol
duel in New Jersey with VP Aaron Burr. In 1920 Frederick Scott Oliver
authored a Hamilton biography. In 2002 Stephen Knott authored
"Alexander Hamilton and the Persistence of Myth." In 2004 Ron Chernow
authored the biography "Alexander Hamilton." Lawyer Ambrose Spencer
(1765-1848) said Hamilton “more than any man, did the thinking of his
time.”
(WSJ, 2/4/04, p.A1)(SSFC, 4/25/04, p.M3)(WSJ,
10/20/04, p.D12)
1811 Oct 11, The first
steam-powered ferryboat, the Juliana, was put into operation between
New York City and Hoboken, N.J.
(AP, 10/11/97)
1815 Feb 6, The state of New
Jersey issued the first American railroad charter to John Stevens, who
proposed a rail link between Trenton and New Brunswick. The line,
however, was never built.
(AP, 2/6/97)
1820 In New Jersey a county
poorhouse farm was established on 200 acres of land in what later
became Hudson County, directly across the river from Manhattan. Be the
end of the century it had become the sprawling Snake Hill complex with
isolation hospitals and 3 burial grounds. In the 20th century it was
renamed Laurel Hill. The institutions steadily emptied after the
Depression and in 1950 the new New Jersey Turnpike ran through the
site. In 2002 the New Jersey Turnpike Authority purchased the eastern
burial ground of Snake Hill. Research soon revealed an estimated 3,500
burials on the purchased property, which became known as the Secaucus
Potter’s field site. In 2003 the last burial was disinterred for a
total of 4,571 sets of human remains from 2686 graves.
(Arch, 5/05, p.43)
1830 Sep 9 Charles Durant flew a
balloon from New York City across the Hudson River to Perth Amboy, N.J.
(AP, 9/9/05)
1834 Feb 26, New York and New
Jersey ratified the 1st US interstate crime compact.
(SC, 2/26/02)
1834 New York and New Jersey made
a compact over Ellis Island, then a 3-acre site that held that the
surrounding submerged land belonged to New Jersey. By 1998 the island
was 27.5 acres due to landfill and its ownership was under contention.
(SFC, 1/13/98, p.A2)
1837 Mar 18, Stephen Grover
Cleveland was born in Caldwell, N.J. He was the 22nd (1885-1889) and
24th (1893-1897) president of the United States, the only President
elected for two nonconsecutive terms.
(AP, 3/18/97)(HN, 3/18/02)
1838 Jan 6, Samuel Morse
(1791-1872) first publicly demonstrated his telegraph, in Morristown,
N.J.
(AP, 1/6/98)
1846 Jun 19, The New York
Knickerbocker Club played the New York Club in the first baseball game
at the Elysian Field, Hoboken, New Jersey.
(HN, 6/19/98)
1854 Nov 13, "New Era" sank off
New Jersey coast with loss of 300.
(MC, 11/13/01)
1862 Aug 16, Amos Alonzo Stagg,
football pioneer, inventor of the tackling dummy, was born in West
Orange, New Jersey.
(MC, 8/16/02)
1864 Jan 1, Alfred Stieglitz
(d.1946), American photographer, was born in New Jersey.
(www.fact-index.com)
1868-1933 In Trenton, New Jersey, the Greenwood China
Co. made ironstone and white granite pottery.
(SFC,12/17/97, Z1 p.16)
1869 Alexander Turney Stewart
(d.1860), Irish-born entrepreneur, founded Garden City, NJ.
(www.lowermanhattan.info/history)
1869 Dr. Thomas Bramwell Welsh, a
wine steward at a church in Vineland, pasteurized Concord grape juice
to produce an unfermented sacramental wine. He later came to be known
as the father of the fruit juice industry.
(SFEC, 8/8/99, Z1 p.8)
1870 Jun 26, The first section of
the famous boardwalk in Atlantic City, N.J., was opened to the public.
(AP, 6/26/97)
1871 Deptford split in two and the
new town was named Woodbury.
(WSJ, 3/31/98, p.A1)
1874 Sandy Hook, New Jersey,
became operational as a proving ground for American military weapons.
It was later turned into a National Recreation Area.
(AM, 7/04, p.33)(AM, 11/04, p.9)
1875 Sep 8, An explosion destroyed
the Newark, NJ, factory of the Celluloid Manufacturing Co. The Hyatt
brothers rebuilt the factory and it turned profitable in 1877.
(ON, 11/03, p.4)
1876 Jun 11, A.L. Kroeber,
anthropologist, textbook author, was born in Hoboken, NJ.
(SC, 6/11/02)
1876 Thomas Edison established his
laboratory in Menlo Park, New Jersey.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R14)
1876 Webster Edgerley graduated
from Boston Univ. with a law degree and founded the Ralston Health Club
of America.
(Arch, 5/04, p.32)
1878-1881 George B. McClellan (d.1885), former Union
army general, served as governor of New Jersey.
(ON, 12/03, p.4)
1878 A major fire hit the seaside
town of Cape May, NJ.
(WSJ, 9/30/02, p.R10)
1879 Oct 21, Thomas Edison
perfected his carbonized cotton filament light bulb after 14 months of
testing at his laboratory in Menlo Park, N.J. It was the first
incandescent electric lamp. The bulb burned for about 13 ½ hours.
(AP, 10/21/97)(HN, 10/21/02)(AH, 10/04, p.15)
1879 Dec 20, Thomas A. Edison
privately demonstrated his incandescent light at Menlo Park, N.J.
(AP, 12/20/97)
1879 Dec 31, Thomas Edison first
publicly demonstrated his electric incandescent light in Menlo Park,
N.J.
(AP, 12/31/97)
1880 Thomas Moran painted "Lower
Manhattan From Communipaw, New Jersey."
(SFC,10/15/97, p.D3)
1881 James T. Lafferty, a real
estate developer, built his 65-foot, wood and tin, Lucy the Elephant
building in Margate, NJ., a suburb of Atlantic City. In 1970 the
6-story structure was relocated to a nearby park.
(SSFC, 8/19/01, p.T2)(NW, 8/26/02, p.51)(NG, 8/04,
p.146)
1881 Enrico Rosenzi and Benjamin
Lupton, founder of the West Side Glass Co. of Bridgeton, NJ, patented
Ferroline, an opaque black glass. Their factory burned down in 1885 and
production ceased in 1886 as sales faltered.
(SFC, 12/5/07, p.G2)
1885 Oct 29, George B. McClellan
(58), Union army general and governor of New Jersey (1878-1881), died.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_McClellan)(ON, 12/03, p.4)
1888 Webster Edgerley, head of the
Ralston health Club of America, authored “Lessons in the Mechanics of
Personal Magnetism.”
(Arch, 5/04, p.33)
1892 Mar 26, Poet Walt Whitman
died in Camden, N.J. In 1997 Gary Schmidgall published the biography:
"Walt Whitman: A Gay Life." It focused on the poet’s homosexuality. In
1999 a critical biography: Walt Whitman: The Song of Himself" by Jerome
Loving was published along with "A Whitman Chronology" by Joann P.
Krieg.
(AP, 3/26/97)(SFEC, 9/14/97, BR p.7)(SFC, 3/3/99,
p.E4)(SFEC, 4/4/99, Par p.15)
1892 Jul 9, A stray 500-pound
shell from the Sandy Hook, New Jersey, testing range sank the schooner
Henry R. Tilton.
(AM, 7/04, p.35)
1892 Sep 26, John Philip Sousa and
his newly formed band performed publicly for the first time, at the
Stillman Music Hall in Plainfield, N.J.
(AP, 9/26/07)
1893 Aug 22, Dorothy Parker
(d.1967), poet, satirist and screenwriter, was born in West Bend, N.J.
"Authors and actors and artists and such / Never know nothing, and
never know much."
(AP, 8/22/97)(HN, 8/22/98)
1893 Buck Duke began buying up
farmland in rural New Jersey. His daughter Doris Duke died in 1993 and
was said to be the richest woman in the world. In 2003 Duke Farms
opened 700 of 2,700 acres to the public.
(WSJ, 10/1/03, p.D9)
1894 Jan 7, One of the earliest
motion picture experiments took place at the Thomas Edison studio in
West Orange, N.J., as comedian Fred Ott was filmed sneezing.
(AP, 1/7/98)
1894-1895 Webster Edgerly, head of the Ralston
movement, bought up large chunks of farmland in central New Jersey’s
Hopewell Valley. The name of the movement was an acronym for his 7
principles for living: regime, activity, light, strength, temperation,
oxygen and nature. His plan was to build the City of Ralston, a utopian
community based on his 7 principles.
(Arch, 5/04, p.31)
1897 Victor Durand Jr.,
French-born glassmaker, started the Vineland Glass Manufacturing Co. in
Vineland, NJ.
(SFC, 3/31/99, Z1 p.6)
1898 Jun 18, The 1st amusement
pier opened in Atlantic City, NJ.
(MC, 6/18/02)
1899 The American Rice Food and
Manufacturing Co. of New Jersey established a copyright for an
advertising doll for Cook’s Flaked Rice.
(SFC, 3/11/98, Z1 p.5)
1901 The Victor Talking Machine
Co. was founded in Camden, NJ. It introduced the Victrola with an
internal horn, rather than an external one, in 1906. The company was
sold to RCA in 1929.
(SFC, 1/21/09, p.G4)
1902 The New Jersey Ralston Health
Club run by Webster Edgerley merged with Purina Mills, a food
manufacturer run by Will Danforth, to form the Ralston-Purina Co.
Ralston Breakfast Food had been manufactured by Purina and its success
led to the merger.
(Arch, 5/04, p.32)
1903 Sep 22, Italo Marchioni
applied for a patent for pastry cornets to hold ice cream and was
granted the patent on Dec 13, 1903. Ice cream cones were popularized in
the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair.
(HN, 5/2/98)(SFEC, 5/23/99, p.B7)(MC, 9/22/01)(SSFC,
10/5/03, p.C3)
1903 Dec 13, Italo Marconi
received a patent for the ice cream cone in NJ. [see Sep 22, 1903]
(MC, 12/13/01)(SSFC, 10/5/03, p.C3)
1904 Jun 6, The National
Tuberculosis Association was organized in Atlantic City, NJ.
(MC, 6/6/02)
1906 Mar 6, Lou Costello (d.1959),
American film comedian, was born in Paterson, NJ. He paired with Bud
Abbott in numerous films and the famous "Who's on First" routine.
(HN, 3/6/99)(MC, 3/6/02)
1906 Apr 25, William Joseph
Brennan Jr., future Supreme Court Justice (1956-90), was born in
Newark, New Jersey.
(SFC, 7/25/97, p.A8)(AP, 4/25/07)
1907 A brick building was
constructed on Cornelia Street in East Rutherford, NJ, to serve as the
headquarters for Becton Dickinson Corp. In 1977 the executive offices
were moved to Paramus, NJ. The original site was used for offices and
manufacturing until 1992. The Federal Reserve Bank of New York
purchased the site and erected a 40-story building where the original
BD facility stood.
(Echo, 12,2007)
1909 Peter Rodino (d.2005), US
Congressman (1949-1989), was born in New Jersey.
(AP, 5/8/05)(SSFC, 5/8/05, p.A2)
1910 Aug 27, Thomas Edison
demonstrated the first "talking" pictures using a phonograph in his New
Jersey laboratory.
(HN, 8/27/01)
1910 Woodrow Wilson ran for
governor of New Jersey.
(WSJ, 2/27/98, p.A12)
1912 Aug 12, Jane Wyatt, actress
(Father Knows Best, Star Trek), was born in Campgaw, NJ.
(SC, 8/12/02)
1912 Florence Lawrence and her
director-husband Harry Solter created their own Victor Film Studio in
Fort Lee, New Jersey.
(ON, 4/06, p.6)
1913 Apr 21, Gideon Sundback of
Sweden patented the zipper. [see Apr 29]
(MC, 4/21/02)
1913 Apr 29, Gideon Sundback of
Hoboken patented an all-purpose zipper. The name was coined by B.F.
Goodrich, who used it to fasten rubber galoshes. [see Apr 21]
(HN, 4/29/98)(SFEC, 5/23/99, p.B7)
1915 May 5, Richard H. Rovere,
journalist (Goldwater Caper), was born in Jersey City.
(MC, 5/5/02)
1915 Dec 12, Frank Sinatra, actor
and singer, was born in Hoboken New Jersey. He died May 14, 1998. In
1986 Kitty Kelly wrote his biography "His Way."
(WSJ, 12/14/95, p.A-12)(SFC, 11/11/96, p.D1)(SFC,
12/13/96, p.C10)(SFC, 5/16/98, p.E7)
1916 Jul 3, The 1st of 3 fatal
shark attacks occurred near the NJ shore.
(MC, 7/3/02)
1916 Jul 30, German saboteurs blew
up a munitions pier on Black Tom Island, Jersey City, NJ. 7 people were
killed. Damages totaled about $20-25 million. After much legal
maneuvering a commission in 1939 ruled that Germany was guilty of
sabotaging Black Tom and another plant in Kingsland, NJ, and awarded$50
million to the claimants. In 1953 the new Federal Republic of Germany
began making payments. The last payment was made in 1979.
(AH, 10/04, p.36,77)
1917 Mar 5, The 1st jazz recording
for Victor Records was released by RCA Victor in Camden, NJ. Viktor
issued "Dixie Jass Band One-Step" and "Livery Stable Blues" by The
Dixie Jass Band.
(SFC, 1/19/02, p.D5)(MC, 3/5/02)
1917 Mar 20, Gideon Sundback,
Swedish-born engineer, patented an all-purpose zipper while working for
the Automatic Hook and Eye Co. of Hoboken, New Jersey. The zipper name
was coined by B.F. Goodrich in 1923, who used it to fasten rubber
galoshes.
(ON, 7/04, p.5)(www.inventors.about.com)
1917 Frank Hague (1876-1956) was
elected mayor of Jersey City and served until he retired 1947. He built
an $8 million fortune out of an annual salary of $7,500. During his
tenure city workers gave a kickback, known as “rice pudding,” to City
Hall of 3% of their salaries.
(www.jerseycityonline.com)(Econ, 1/20/07, p.24)
1918 Jan 29, John Forsythe, actor
(Bachelor Father, Charlie's Angels, Dynasty), was born in NJ.
(MC, 1/29/02)
1918 The Bailey Radium
Laboratories, Inc., of East Orange, New Jersey, began manufacturing
Radithor. It was advertised as "A Cure for the Living Dead" as well as
"Perpetual Sunshine." It consisted of triple distilled water containing
at a minimum 1 microcurie (37 kBq) each of the radium 226 and 228
isotopes. The FTC issued a cease and desist order against the
manufacture in 1931.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radithor)(AH, 10/07,
p.37)
1919 Jul 2, Johnny Bradford, actor
(Ransom Sherman Show), was born in Long Branch, NJ.
(SC, 7/2/02)
1920 Oct 12, Construction began on
Holland Tunnel connecting NJ and NYC.
(MC, 10/12/01)
1920 The Steel Pier in Atlantic
City, New Jersey, opened and was called "The World's Playground."
(SSFC, 10/5/03, p.D12)
1921 Sep 8, Margaret Gorman of
Washington, D.C., was crowned the first Miss America in Atlantic City,
N.J.
(AP, 9/8/97)(HN, 9/8/98)
1922 Feb 10, Harold Hughes,
Governor of New Jersey, was born.
(HN, 2/10/97)
1922 Sep 16, Rev. Edward Wheeler
Hall and his mistress, choir member Eleanor Mills, were found shot to
death in a New Jersey apple orchard. Hall’s wife and her 2 brothers
were indicted for the murder, but they were acquitted at trial. In 1964
William Kunstler authored “The Minister and the Choir Singer, “ an
account of the double murder and trial.
(WSJ, 11/10/07, p.W8)
1922 The Deborah Jewish
Consumptive Relief Society was founded by Dora Moness Shapiro, the wife
of a garment manufacturer, to provide free treatment to Jewish
tuberculosis patients. It later changed to the Deborah Heart and Lung
Center with continued free treatment.
(WSJ, 1/5/00, p.A1)
1923 Jan 31, Norman Mailer
(d.2007), NYC mayoral candidate, novelist (Naked and the Dead), was
born in NJ. In 1999 Mary V. Dearborn published "Norman Mailer: A
Biography."
(SFEC, 12/26/99, BR p.7)(SSFC, 11/11/07, p.A7)
1924 Apr 4, Eva Marie Saint,
actress (Sandpiper, Loving, Exodus), was born in Newark, NJ.
(MC, 4/4/02)
1923 Apr 5, Michael V. Gazzo,
actor (Cookie, Fear City), was born in Hillside, NJ.
(MC, 4/5/02)
1925 Nov 26, Linda Hunt, actress
(Bostonians, Eleni, Silverado), was born in Morristown, NJ.
(MC, 11/26/01)
1926 Nov 5, Webster Edgerly
(b.1852), head of the New Jersey-based Ralston Health movement and
co-founder of Ralston Purina, died.
(Arch, 5/04, p.35)
1926 U.S. Radium stopped
processing radium at its Orange, NJ, facility. In 1983 the EPA put the
2-acre plant site on its Superfund national Priorities List. In2006 the
EPA declared the site clean and that concerns over contaminated
groundwater had been effectively addressed.
(AH, 10/07, p.37)
1927 May, Grace Fryer (1893-1933)
and 4 other former dial painters filed suit in the New Jersey Supreme
Court against U.S. Radium for medical expenses and pain. They were
dubbed the “Radium Girls” and their case was championed by journalist
Walter Lippman. The case was settled out of court in 2008.
(AH, 10/07, p.34)
1927 Nov 13, The Holland Tunnel
opened to the public, linking New York City and New Jersey beneath the
Hudson River.
(TMC, 1994, p.1927)(AP, 11/13/97)
1928 Aug 25, An expedition led by
Richard E. Byrd set sail from Hoboken, N.J., on its journey to
Antarctica.
(AP, 8/25/08)
1928 Oct 15, The German dirigible
Graf Zeppelin landed in Lakehurst, N.J., on its first commercial flight
across the Atlantic.
(AP, 10/15/97)
1928 Russian guitarist Savelli
Walevitch recorded "The Many Wonders of the Steppes" in Camden, New
Jersey.
(NH, 6/97, p.66)
1929 Jan 29, The first seeing-eye
Dog Guide School in the United States was begun. Seeing Eye, Inc., was
founded in 1929 in Morris Township, New Jersey, by Dorothy Harrison
Eustus.
(HNQ, 3/10/01)(MC, 1/29/02)
1929 Jun 3, The 1st trade show at
Atlantic City Convention Center featured electric light.
(MC, 6/3/02)
1929 Aug 8, The Graf Zeppelin
embarked from Lakehurst, New Jersey, on the first round-the-world
passenger voyage.
(Hem., 2/96, p.43)(MC, 8/8/02)
1929 Aug 29, The Graf Zeppelin
returned to Lakehurst, New Jersey, after 21 days 4 hours, a new world
record.
(Hem., 2/96, p.43)(MC, 8/29/01)(ON, 1/03, p.10)
1929 Oct 22, Dory Previn, pop
singer (Love Be My Cover), was born in Rahway, NJ.
(MC, 10/22/01)
1929 The Harris family began the
Cowtown Championship Rodeo in Pilesgrove, Salem County, New Jersey.
(SFC, 8/31/98, p.A3)
1930 The Institute for Advanced
Study was founded in Princeton to promote research and scholarship
across many fields.
(Wired, 2/98, p.176)
1930 Russell Aubrey "Lena"
Blackburne, a coach for the Philadelphia Athletics, discovered that
ebb-tide mud from a tributary of the Delaware River near Palmyra, NJ,
provided a good coating for new baseballs making them easier to grip.
(WSJ, 6/12/00, p.A1)
1931 Jan 13, The Bridge connecting
New York and New Jersey was named the George Washington Memorial
Bridge. [see Apr 30, Oct 24]
(HN, 1/13/99)
1931 Aug, Dorothy Harrison Eustis
purchased property in Morristown, New Jersey, to establish a training
facility for "Seeing Eye" dogs.
(ON, 12/03, p.6)
1931 Oct 18, Inventor Thomas Alva
Edison died in West Orange, N.J., at age 84.
(AP, 10/18/97)
1931 Oct 24, The George Washington
Bridge, connecting New York and New Jersey, was officially dedicated.
It opened to traffic the next day.
(AP, 10/24/08)
1931 Oct 25, The George Washington
Bridge, linking New York City and New Jersey, opened to traffic. It was
completed at a cost of $59 million and 12 lives. The US Post Office
featured a commemorative stamp. It was described as the most beautiful
bridge in the world.
(http://www.nycroads.com/crossings/george-washington/)(SFC, 9/3/98,
p.A19)
1932 Mar 1, Charles Lindbergh Jr.
(20 months), the infant son of Charles and Anne Lindbergh was kidnapped
from his nursery at the family home near Hopewell, (Princeton) N.J. A
handwritten note left at the scene demanded a $50,000 ransom. Under
relentless public scrutiny, the Lindberghs complied with the ransom
demands, but on May 12, the child’s remains were found two miles from
their home. German immigrant Bruno Richard Hauptmann was arrested and
convicted for the crime amid a frenzy of biased media coverage.
Hauptmann maintained his innocence until his execution in 1936. In 1961
George Waller authored “Kidnap,” an account of the kidnapping and trial.
(TMC, 1994, p.1932)(AP, 3/1/98)(HN, 3/1/98)(HNPD,
3/1/99)(WSJ, 11/10/07, p.W8)
1932 May 12, The body of the
kidnapped son of Charles and Anne Lindbergh was found in a wooded area
of Hopewell, N.J.
(AP, 5/12/97)(HN, 5/12/98)
1932 Jul 2, Sammy Turner, vocalist
(Lavender Blue), was born in Paterson, NJ.
(SC, 7/2/02)
1933 Mar 7, George Darrow
copyrighted the board game Monopoly and within 2 years sold it to
Parker Brothers. The game had originally been patented in 1904 as the
Landlord’s Game by Elizabeth J. Magie. In Oct 1929 Ruth Hoskins brought
a version to Atlantic City, refined the rules and street names. It was
later introduced to George Darrow.
(HN, 3/7/98)(Econ, 11/22/03, p.81)(WSJ, 2/3/05,
p.W12)
1933 Jun 6, Richard M.
Hollingshead Jr., auto products salesman, opened the first drive-in
movie theater, in Camden, NJ. The movie shown was "Wives Beware," an
Adolphe Menjou comedy previously released under the title "Two White
Arms." The number of drive-ins peaked at over 4,000 in 1958.
(SFEC,11/30/97, Par p.2)(Hem, 11/02, p.38)(AP,
6/6/08)
1933 Dec 8, Flip Wilson (d.1998),
the fist successful black host of a TV variety show, was born in Jersey
City. He hosted the Flip Wilson Show from 1970-1974.
(SFC, 11/26/98, p.B9)
1934 Sep 7-8, The luxury liner
"Morro Castle," enroute from Havana to NYC, caught fire and ran aground
at Asbury Park, NJ. 134 people were killed. [see Sep 8]
(www.jerseyboardwalk.com/morro.htm)
1934 Sep 8, 134 people lost their
lives in a fire aboard the liner Morro Castle off the New Jersey coast.
The crew of the cruise ship let a small blaze get out of control and
commandeered most of the spots in the lifeboats. Only 15 passengers
survived as compared to 119 crew. 124 people died. The event was part
of a 1999 TV documentary "Escape, Because Accident Happen" for a NOVA
miniseries. [see Sep 7]
(AP, 9/8/97)(WSJ, 2/8/99, p.A21)
1935 Feb 13, A jury in Flemington,
N.J., found Bruno Richard Hauptmann guilty of first-degree murder
in the kidnap-death of the infant son of Charles and Anne Lindbergh.
Hauptmann was later executed.
(AP, 2/13/98)
1935 Oct 23, Dutch Schultz (33),
born as Arthur Flegenheimer, was shot in the men’s room of the Palace
Chop House and Tavern in Newark, New Jersey. He lingered for nearly a
day before dying after being the target of a mob hit. Schultz wanted to
have Thomas E. Dewey murdered because the special prosecutor had set
his sights on the numbers racket operated by Schultz. A syndicate of
New York’s top mobsters decided to murder Schultz because it feared the
wrath of the authorities and decided against the assassination. Schultz
gang members Abe Landau and Otto "Aba Daba" Berman and bodyguard
Bernard "Lulu" Rosencrantz were shot.
(HNQ,
9/27/02)(http://www.mobmagazine.com/ManageArticle.asp?C=20&A=115)
1936 The community of Jersey
Homesteads was created for Jewish garment workers under a plan where
they would own and run a clothing factory and farm. Albert Einstein
argued on behalf of the co-op community. The co-op failed before WW II
and the town was settled anew and renamed Roosevelt after the war.
(SFC, 11/26/99, p.A6)
1937 Jan 19, Millionaire Howard
Hughes set a transcontinental air record by flying his monoplane from
Los Angeles to Newark, N.J., in seven hours, 28 minutes and 25 seconds.
(AP, 1/19/06)
1937 Apr 22, Jack Nicholson, actor
(One Flew Over Cuckoo's Nest, Shining), was born in NJ.
(MC, 4/22/02)
1937 May 6, At
7:25 p.m. the giant German airship (dirigible or zeppelin) Hindenburg
burst into flames and crashed to the ground as it attempted to dock
with a mooring mast at Lakehurst Naval Air Station in New Jersey.
Carrying 36 passengers and 61 crew, Hindenburg left Frankfurt on May 4
for its first transatlantic voyage of the 1937 season. A total of 36
died when the fire ignited the 16 hydrogen-filled cells and destroyed
the zeppelin in only 34 seconds. It was 803 feet long and had private
rooms for 50 passengers. It had an 11,000 mile range. A newsreel film
of the Hindenburg Disaster was made. The true cause of the disaster
remains a mystery, although crash investigators considered claims that
Hindenburg was lost due to sabotage or an accidental charge of static
electricity.
(TMC, 1994, p.1937)(Hem., 1/96, p.108)(AP,
5/6/97)(SFC,11/21/97, p.C17)(HNPD, 5/6/00)
1938 Jan 22, Thornton Wilder's
play "Our Town," a portrait of small-town life in Grover's Corners, NH,
was performed publicly for the first time, in Princeton, N.J. It opened
on Broadway on Feb 4.
(AP, 2/4/97)(AP, 1/22/98)
1939 Jul 18, Edwin H. Armstrong
(1890-1954), US radio engineer, started the 1st FM (frequency
modulation) radio station in Alpine, NJ.
(SSFC, 10/24/04, Par p.5)
1940 May 8, Ricky Nelson, rock
star (Hello Mary Lou, It's Late, Garden Party), was born in NJ.
(MC, 5/8/02)
1940 Jun 11, Joey Dee, actor (Hey
Let's Twist, 2 Tickets to Paris), was born in Passaic, NJ.
(SC, 6/11/02)
1940 Sep 11, Brian DePalma, film
director (Body Double, Dressed to Kill), was born in Newark, NJ.
(MC, 9/11/01)
1941 Aug 3, Beverly Lee, singer
(Shirelles-Soldier Boy), was born in Passaic, NJ.
(SC, 8/3/02)
1942 Aug 23, Patricia McBride,
ballerina (NYC Ballet Co), was born in Teaneck, NJ.
(MC, 8/23/02)
1942 Sep 27, Glenn Miller and his
Orchestra performed together for the last time, at the Central Theater
in Passaic, N.J., prior to Miller's entry into the Army.
(AP, 9/27/97)
1942 Lionel Corp. of New Jersey
ceased the production of toy electric trains to save metal for the war
effort. The company went out of business in 1969 and sold the brand
name.
(WSJ, 5/7/99, p.W14)
1943 Princeton Univ. decided to
publish the complete papers of Thomas Jefferson and expected to finish
the project in 15-20 years. In 2005 expectations for completion were
pushed to 2026.
(WSJ, 3/15/05, p.A1)
1944 Mar 17, Danny DeVito, actor
(Louie-Taxi, Twins), was born in Neptune, NJ. [see Nov 17]
(MC, 3/17/02)
1944 Mar 20, A bus fell off bridge
into Passaic River, NJ, killing 16.
(MC, 3/20/02)
1944 Sep 25, Michael Douglas,
actor (Coma, Wall St, Jewel of the Nile), was born in New Jersey.
(MC, 9/25/01)
1944 Nov 17, Danny DeVito, actor
(Taxi, Ruthless People, Twins), was born Neptune, NJ. [see Mar 17]
(MC, 11/17/01)
1945 Apr 2, Linda Hunt, actress
(Bostonians, Eleni, Silverado), was born in Morristown, NJ.
(MC, 4/2/02)
1945 Dec 1, Bette Midler, singer,
actress (Do You Want to Dance?), was born in Patterson, NJ.
(MC, 12/1/01)
1946 Jan 10, US Army established
the 1st radar contact with Moon from Belmar, NJ.
(MC, 1/10/02)
1946-1977 PCBs were released into the Hudson River by
2 General Electric plants and were buried in sediment along 197 miles
that was later declared a Superfund site. The EPA expected GE to dredge
some 35 miles at a cost of some $1 billion. GE fought the cleanup law
and was also involved in Superfund sites at Hoboken NJ and Milford NH.
Cleanup of the Hudson River began in 2009 at an estimated cost of $750
million, to be paid by GE. The sludge was scheduled to be buried in
West Texas.
(SFC, 11/29/00, p.A10)(SFC, 5/16/09, p.A5)(SFC,
6/22/09, p.A9)
1947 Jul 19, Gerard Schwarz,
trumpeter, conductor (LA Chamber Orch), was born in Weehawken, NJ.
(MC, 7/19/02)
1947 Dec 23, John Bardeen and
Walter Brattain of AT&T Bell Labs in Murray Hill, New Jersey,
unveiled what was soon to be called the transistor, short for the
electrical property known as trans-resistance. The device was improved
by William Schockley as a junction transistor. All 3 received a Nobel
Prize in 1956. The events are described in the 1997 book by Michael
Riordan and Lillian Hoddeson: "Crystal Fire: The Birth of the
Information Age."
(WSJ, 9/22/95, p.A-7)(SFEC, 8/17/97, BR p.4)
1947 The College Board helped to
create the Educational Testing Service (ETS), which developed and
administered SAT exams (scholastic aptitude testing for college entry).
ETS was founded in New Jersey by Henry Chauncey (d.2002 at 97). In 1999
Nicholas Lemann authored "The Big Test," an analysis of the SAT and its
history.
(WSJ, 8/27/99, p.A1)(WSJ, 9/29/99, p.A20)(SFC,
12/5/02, p.A29)
1949 Aug 24, Stephen Harrison
Paulus, composer, was born in New Jersey.
(MC, 8/24/02)
1949 Sep 6, Howard Unruh (28)
killed 13 neighbors in 12 minutes in Camden, New Jersey.
(www.fact-index.com/h/ho/howard_unruh.html)
1949 Peter Rodino (1909-2005) was
elected US Congressman from Newark, NJ.
(AP, 5/8/05)(SSFC, 5/8/05, p.A2)
1950 Mar 30, Phototransistor
invention was announced in Murray Hill, NJ. It was invented by Dr. John
Northrup Shive of the Bell Telephone Laboratories.
(http://tinyurl.com/ewxqh)
1950 Nov 28, Ed Harris, actor
(Right Stuff, Swing Shift, Walker, Coma), was born in Tenafly, NJ.
(MC, 11/28/01)
1951 Jul 5, Dr. William Shockley
invented junction transistor at Murray Hill, NJ.
(MC, 7/5/02)
1951 Nov 10, Direct-dial,
coast-to-coast telephone service began as Mayor M. Leslie Denning of
Englewood, N.J., called his counterpart in Alameda, Calif.
(AP, 11/10/97)
1952 Nov 15, Newark Airport
reopened after closing earlier in the year because of an increase in
accidents.
(HN, 11/15/98)
1952 J. Henry Kruse (1925-2004)
became the 1st blind graduate of Rutgers Univ. School of Law. He later
served 2 terms as mayor of Albany, Ca.
(SFC, 6/24/04, p.B7)
1954 Mar 29, Karen Anne Quinlan,
famous comatose patient (right to die case), was born in NJ.
(MC, 3/29/02)
1954 Jun 7, The 1st microbiology
laboratory was dedicated in New Brunswick, NJ.
(SC, 6/7/02)
1955 Apr 18, Albert Einstein (76),
physicist, died in Princeton New Jersey. Dr. Thomas Harvey, chief
pathologist at Princeton Hospital, performed Albert Einstein’s autopsy.
He removed the brain and took it home. In 2000 Michael Paterniti
authored "Driving Mr. Albert: A Trip Across America with Einstein’s
Brain." In 1999 it was reported that Einstein’s inferior parietal lobe
was larger than normal. In 2000 Amir D. Aczel published "God's
Equation: Einstein, Relativity, and the Expanding Universe." [see Apr
15] In 1983 Abraham Pais (d.2000 at 81) authored "Subtle Is the Lord:
The Science and the Life of Albert Einstein." In 2000 Dennis Overbye
authored "Einstein In Love," on Einstein’s 1st marriage with Mileva
Maric. In 2002 Fred Jerome authored "The Einstein File: J. Edgar
Hoover’s Secret War Against the World’s Most Famous Scientist." In 2007
Walter Isaacson authored “Einstein: His Life and Universe;” Jurgen
Neffe authored “Einstein: A Biography;” and Jozsef Illy edited “Albert
Meets America,” a chronicle of Einstein’s first visit to the US (1921)
on a fundraising tour with Zionist leader Chaim Weizman.
(AP, 4/18/97)(SFC, 6/18/99, p.A18)(SFEC, 1/9/00, BR
p.4)(SFC, 8/1/00, p.B2)(WSJ, 10/20/00, p.W10)(SSFC, 3/18/01, BR
p.6)(SFC, 9/15/02, p.M5)(WSJ, 4/6/07, p.B3)(SSFC, 5/13/07, p.M6)
1955 Oct 12, Bernarr Macfadden
(b.1868), weight-lifter and publisher born as Bernard MacFadden, died
in New Jersey. His magazines included “True Story,” which first
appeared in 1919. In 2009 Mark Adams authored Mr. America: How Muscular
Millionaire Bernarr Macfadden Transformed the Nation Through Sex,
Salad, and the Ultimate Starvation Diet.”
(WSJ, 3/20/09,
p.W10)(www.bernarrmacfadden.com/macfadden7.html)
1957 Jul, Two "unarmed" nuclear
bombs were dropped off Cape May, N.J., by a cargo plane that developed
engine trouble. They were never found.
(SFEC, 11/22/98, Par p.22)
1957 Sep 12, James Vicary
(b.1915), a market researcher, announced that he had invented a new way
to get people to buy things, whether they wanted them or not. He called
it subliminal advertising and said that he had tested the process at a
New Jersey movie theater. In 1962 he admitted that his results were
fabricated in order to drum up business for his market research firm. A
subliminal projector called a tachistoscope had been used during World
War II in training soldiers to recognize enemy aircraft. A book
published in 1898 (The New Psychology by E.W. Scripture) laid out most
of the principles of subliminal response.
(WSJ, 11/5/07,
p.B1)(www.straightdope.com/classics/a1_187.html)
1958 Sep 6, Miss Mississippi Mary
Ann Mobley was crowned Miss America 1959 in Atlantic City, N.J.
(AP, 9/6/08)
1958 Sep 15, A commuter train
crashed through a drawbridge, killing 48 in Newark, NJ.
(http://www.emergency-management.net/traincrash.htm)
1958 In Fair Lawn, New Jersey, a
new Nabisco bakery opened.
(WSJ, 11/22/08, p.W4)
1959 Jul 21, First atomic powered
merchant ship, Savannah, christened, Camden NJ.
(OGA, 11/24/98)
1959 Jul 26, Kevin Spacey, actor
(Henry & June, Darrow), was born in South Orange, NJ.
(MC, 7/26/02)
1959 Dec 31, Bebe Neuwirth,
actress (Lilith-Cheers, Damn Yankees), was born in Princeton, NJ.
(MC, 12/31/01)
1961 A&P grocery heirs Charles
and Marie Robertson gave Princeton Univ. $35 million to educated
graduate students for careers in government. In 2008, as the fund
reached $600 million, a suit was settled by the descendants of the
donors, who alleged that the school had strayed from the original
intent of the gift. Legal fees were put at $40 million.
(SFC, 12/11/08, p.A16)
1962 Nov 14, Laura San Giacoma,
actress (Pretty Woman, Vital Signs), was born in Danville, NJ.
(MC, 11/14/01)
1963 May 20, A fire in New Jersey
burned out of control and killed 7 people. Nearly 1,000 were left
homeless as the fire moved 9 miles in 6 hours on what was called Black
Saturday.
(SFC, 5/20/09, p.D8)
1964 Aug 2, There was a race riot
in Jersey City, NJ.
(MC, 8/2/02)
1964 Aug 11, There was a race riot
in Paterson, NJ.
(MC, 8/11/02)
1964 Aug 12, There was a race riot
in Elizabeth, NJ.
(SC, 8/12/02)
1964 In Hillsborough, New Jersey,
the indoor display gardens of Doris Duke were opened to the public.
They were located in glass houses on the 2,740-acre Duke Farms estate.
The main glass building, one of the largest in America, was designed by
Horace Trumbauer and completed in 1917. In 2008 the display gardens
were closed down as the estate transformed to an ecological and
environmental learning center.
(WSJ, 5/27/08, p.D7)
1965 Feb 8, Eastern DC-7B crashed
into the Atlantic off Jones Beach, NJ, and 84 people were killed.
(MC, 2/8/02)
1966 Princeton granted its first
graduate degree to a woman.
(WSJ, 6/5/98, p.W13)
1966 In New Jersey Rubin
"Hurricane" Carter was wrongly convicted for killing 3 whites in a
Paterson bar. In 1974 "Hurricane: The Miraculous Journey of Rubin
Carter" by James S. Hirsch was published. In 1991 "Lazarus and the
Hurricane: The Freeing of Rubin "Hurricane" Carter" by Sam Chaiton and
Terry Swinton was published. A 1999 film was made based on Carter's
story.
(WSJ, 12/31/99, p.W1)(SFEC, 2/27/00, BR p.7)
1967 Jun 23, President Johnson and
Soviet Premier Aleksei Kosygin held the first of two meetings in
Glassboro State College in New Jersey.
(AP, 6/23/07)
1967 Jul 12, Blacks in Newark
rioted. 26 were killed, 1500 injured and over 1000 arrested.
(MC, 7/12/02)
1967 Jul 13, Race-related rioting
broke out in Newark, N.J.; by the time the violence ended four days
later, 27 people had been killed.
(AP, 7/13/97)
1967 Jul, Maxine Hartman Nellen
became the first woman to earn her Golden Wings when she jumped out of
a hot-air balloon for her 1,000th free-fall parachute jump over
Lumberton N.J.
(SFC, 6/19/98, p.B6)
1968 Sep 6, Feminists protesting
outside the Miss America pageant in Atlantic City, N.J., tossed
articles including cosmetics, girdles and bras into a trash can
ostensibly for burning, although nothing was actually set on fire. Miss
Illinois Judith Ford won the pageant.
(AP, 9/7/08)
1969 Jan 3, police in Newark, NJ,
confiscated 30,000 copies of the John Lennon, Yoko Ono album, Two
Virgins. A nude photo of John and Yoko on the cover violated
pornography laws in Jersey.
(www.goatview.com/january03.htm)
1970 Jan 20, William T. Cahill
(1912-1996), began serving as the governor of New Jersey and continued
to 1974.
(SFC, 7/3/96,
p.C4)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_T._Cahill)
1970 Jun 16, Kenneth A. Gibson of
Newark, N.J., became the first black to win a mayoral election in a
major Northeast city. He won on the heels of race riots and followed a
mayor indicted for extortion.
(AP, 6/16/98)(NW, 5/13/02, p.41)
1970 Jul 4, Some 100 people were
injured in race rioting in Asbury Park, NJ. In 2005 Daniel Wolff
authored “Fourth of July, Asbury Park: A History of the Promised Land.”
(SSFC, 7/3/05, p.E1)
1970 Nov 29, Charles Ives'
"Yale-Princeton," premiered.
(MC, 11/29/01)
1971 Nov 24, A prison rebellion
took place at Rahway State Prison, NJ.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rahway_State_Prison)
1971 Nov 27, Eric Menendez,
accused with his brother of killing their parents (1989), was born in
New Jersey.
(www.biography.com/notorious/crimefiles.do?catId=259455&action=view&profileId=259645)
1972 Mar 6, Shaquille O'Neal, NBA
center (Magic, Lakers, Oly-gold-96), was born in Newark, NJ.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaquille_O'Neal)
1972 Construction began on the New
Jersey Meadowlands sports complex.
(SFC, 10/7/03, p.A21)
1972 The 600-room Traymore Hotel
in Atlantic City was demolished with explosives. Controlled Demolition,
founded in 1960 by John Loizeaux (d.2000 at 85), did the work.
(SFC, 12/2/00, p.A24)
1973 Jan 13, In Bernardsville,
N.J., Rabbit Wells (21) was shot a killed by a local patrolman. In 1998
William Loizeaux authored "The Shooting of Rabbit Wells: An American
Tragedy."
(www.amazon.com/Shooting-Rabbit-Wells-American-Tragedy/dp/1559703806)(SFEC,
2/8/98, BR p.5)
1973 Oct 24, On the NJ Turnpike
heavy fog caused collisions killing 11 people.
(http://openweb.tvnews.vanderbilt.edu/1973-10/1973-10-24-ABC-14.html)
1973 The class of 1973 was
Princeton’s first coeducational class and included Lisa Halabym, who
became the Queen Noor of Jordan.
(WSJ, 6/5/98, p.W13)
1974 Jun 6, James Quisenberry
(26), in prison for aggravated assault and armed robbery, escaped from
a New Jersey prison. In 2007 he was found and arrested in California.
(SFC, 2/22/07, p.B2)
1974 Rev. S. Howard Woodson Jr.
(d.1999 at 83) became the first black speaker of a state legislature.
(SFC, 8/7/99, p.A23)
1976 Feb, Swine flu broke out at a
US Army base in New Jersey. Pres. Ford announced a National Swine Flu
Immunization Program a month after the virus was identified. In 1982
Richard E. Neustadt and Harvey V. Fineberg authored “The Epidemic That
Never Was.”
(WSJ, 11/28/05, p.B1)
1976 Mar 31, The New Jersey
Supreme Court allowed the removal of the respirator that assisted Karen
Ann Quinlan, who had been comatose since Apr 15, 1975. Quinlan, who
remained comatose, died Jul 11, 1985.
(SFC, 12/12/96, p.C8)(AP, 3/30/97)
1976 Sep 1, The New Jersey
Meadowlands racetrack opened.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meadowlands_Sports_Complex)
1976 Oct 10, In New Jersey the
Meadowlands' Giant's Stadium opened with an NFL game between the Giants
and Dallas Cowboys.
(www.meadowlands.com/giantsStadiumFAQ.asp)
1976 Nov 2, New Jersey voters
approved gambling for Atlantic City.
(NG, 8/04, p.96)
1976 The Electronic Information
Exchange System (EIES), an electronic conferencing system, was built at
the New Jersey Inst. of Technology.
(Wired, 5/97, p.101)
1977 Jun 2, New Jersey Gov.
Brendan T. Byrne signed a law allowing casino gambling in Atlantic City.
(http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=3864697)
1978 May 26, The first legal
casino in the eastern U.S. opened in Atlantic City, N.J.
(AP, 5/26/98)
1979 Nov 2, Black militant Joanne
Chesimard escaped from a New Jersey prison, where she was serving a
life sentence for the 1973 slaying of a New Jersey state trooper.
Chesimard moved to Cuba to live as Assata Shakur.
(AP, 11/2/99)
1980 Oct 30, New Jersey Dem. Sen.
Harrison Williams (d.2001 at 81) was indicted in the Abscam sting
operation and later convicted.
(WSJ, 11/20/01, p.A1)
1981 May 1, Harrison Williams
(Sen-D-NJ) was convicted on FBI Abscam charges.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abscam)(AP, 5/1/01)
1981 Jul 2, The Continental
Airlines Arena, part of the Meadowlands Sports complex in East
Rutherford, NJ, opened with a concert by Bruce Springsteen.
(www.continentalairlinesarena.com/COArenaFacts.asp?navID=7)
1981 State Supreme Court cases in
Massachusetts and New Jersey ruled that husbands can be prosecuted for
raping their wives.
(NW, 6/30/03, p.44)
1981-1986 J. Richardson Dilworth (d.1997 at 81)
served as the chairman of the Institute for Advanced Study in
Princeton, N.J., a center for theoretical research and advanced study.
(SFC, 1/1/98, p.A25)
1982 Mar 11, Protesting his
innocence, Sen. Harrison A. Williams Jr., D-N.J., resigned after 23
years in the Senate, rather than face expulsion in the wake of his
ABSCAM conviction.
(AP,
3/11/02)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harrison_A._Williams)
1982 Thomas Kean (b.1935) began
serving as the 48th governor of New Jersey. In 2002 President George W.
Bush appointed him as Chairman of the National Commission on Terrorist
Attacks Upon the United States, widely known as the 9/11 Commission,
which was responsible for investigating the causes of the September 11,
2001 attacks and providing recommendations to prevent future terrorist
attacks.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Kean)
1983 In Ringwood, New Jersey, a
500-acre site once used by Ford Motor Co. as a dump site was declared a
Superfund site. Ford paid for a $2.5 million cleanup in 1994.
Complaints in 2004 led to calls for a re-testing of the site.
(USAT, 3/23/04, p.11A)
1985 Jan 17, A jury in New Jersey
ruled that terminally ill patients have the right to starve.
(HN, 1/17/99)
1985 Jun 11, Karen Ann Quinlan,
the comatose patient whose case prompted a historic right-to-die court
decision, died in Morris Plains, N.J., at age 31.
(AP, 6/11/97)
1985 The "New Jersey Orators" was
founded by African American business executives concerned with the
inability of young people interviewing for jobs to express themselves
well.
(WSJ, 11/6/00, p.A32)
1985 The World Series of Birding,
sponsored by the Cape May Bird Observatory, was first held.
(WSJ, 5/8/97, p.A1)
1986 Dec 17, Richard Kuklinsky, a
Mafia hitman known as the Iceman, was arrested in New Jersey. He was
found guilty of all charges May 25, 1988. Anthony Bruno later authored
"The Iceman."
(www.crimelibrary.com)
1986 Sharpe James was elected
mayor of Newark over Kenneth Gibson.
(NW, 5/13/02, p.41)
1986 A 450-yard bridge from New
Jersey to Ellis Island was built to allow construction employees to
restore historic buildings on the Island.
(SFC, 10/19/98, p.A3)
1987 New Jersey adopted
legislation requiring bottled water to carry an expiration date. Water
companies began stamping all bottles.
(WSJ, 2/11/04, p.D11)
1987 First Friday, an African
American networking organization, began in New Jersey as a happy hour
for people in their 30s.
(SSFC, 8/18/02, p.E1)
1988 Jun 13, A US federal jury
found cigarette manufacturer Liggett Group liable in the lung-cancer
death of New Jersey resident Rose Cipollone, but innocent of
misrepresenting the risks of smoking. An appeals court later overturned
the jury's award of $400,000 and ordered a new trial; the family
dropped the lawsuit in 1992.
(AP, 6/13/98)
1988 Jun 27, Mike Tyson retained
the undisputed heavyweight crown as he knocked out Michael Spinks 91
seconds into the first round of a championship fight in Atlantic City,
N.J.
(AP, 6/27/98)
1989 Mar 1, Three teenagers in New
Jersey assaulted a mentally retarded girl with a broom and a baseball
bat as up to ten classmates watched. They were sentenced to up to 15
years in a youth facility in 1997. In 1997 Prof. Bernard Lefkowitz
wrote "Our Guys," an investigation of the events surrounding the crime.
(SFC, 7/1/97, p.A3)(SFEC,11/16/97, BR p.3)
1989 Jun 1, Former Sunday school
teacher John E. List, sought for 18 years in the slayings of his
mother, wife and three children in Westfield, N.J., was arrested in
Richmond, Va. List was later sentenced to life in prison.
(AP, 6/1/99)
1989-1997 West New York Police Chief Alexander V.
Oriente and members of his 140-officer department took hundreds of
thousands of dollars in bribes and kickbacks. Oriente was indicted in
1998 and sentenced to 4 years in prison in 2000.
(SFC, 1/6/00, p.A7)
1990 New Jersey enacted a gun
control law that listed 37 models by name and covered others that were
substantially identical. The US Supreme Court in 2001 refused to hear a
challenge.
(SFC, 11/27/01, p.A3)
1991 Apr 19, Evander Holyfield won
a unanimous decision over George Foreman to retain boxing’s heavyweight
title in Atlantic City, New Jersey.
(AP, 4/19/01)
1993 Jan 6, Jazz trumpeter Dizzy
Gillespie died in Englewood, N.J., at age 75.
(AP, 1/6/98)
1993 Jun 8, In New Jersey,
Christie Todd Whitman defeated four other Republicans for the chance to
face Governor Jim Florio in the November election.
(AP, 6/8/98)
1993 Nov 2, Christie Todd Whitman
(R) was elected 1st woman governor of NJ.
(www.gale.com/free_resources/whm/bio/whitman_c.htm)
1994 Jul 29, Jesse Timmendequas, a
convicted child molester, raped and strangled 7-year-old Megan Kanka in
New Jersey. The case spawned the 1996 "Megan’s Law," the
requirement that communities be informed of paroled sex offenders
living in their midst. A jury ordered the death penalty for
Timmendequas in 1997. He remained on New Jersey's Death Row until
December 17, 2007, when the New Jersey Legislature abolished the
state's death penalty. Timmendequas' sentence was then commuted to life
in prison without parole.
(SFC, 6/21/97,
p.A2)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesse_Timmendequas)
1994 Nov 1, In Cherry Hill, Pa.,
Len Jenoff and Paul Daniels clubbed to death Carol Neulander (52), the
wife of Rabbi Fred J. Neulander (53), under a contract from Rabbi
Neulander. Neulander stood trial in 2001 in New Jersey. He was
convicted of murder Nov 20, 2002 and sentenced to life in prison.
(SFC, 10/20/01, p.A18)(SFC, 11/21/02, p.A6)(SFC,
11/23/02, p.A4)
1995 Jun 18, About 300 inmates
trashed an immigration detention center in Elizabeth, New Jersey.
(AP, 6/18/00)
1995 Jun 24, The New Jersey Devils
won the Stanley Cup as they completed a sweep of the Detroit Red Wings.
(AP, 6/24/00)
1995 In New Jersey the Newark
school system was taken over by the state.
(Econ, 8/18/07, p.27)
1995 A strong wind pushed a tanker
away from a refinery dock in West Deptford, N.J., snapping a fuel line
that spilled 40,000 gallons into the Delaware River.
(AP, 11/28/04)
1997 Apr 19, In Newton, New
Jersey, Giorgio Gallara, a Pizza shop owner, and employee Jeremy
Giordano, were killed after being lured to an abandoned house. [see Apr
21]
(SFC, 12/23/99, p.A9)
1997 Apr 21, Police in Franklin,
N.J., arrested 2 teen-agers they say lured two pizza deliverymen on
April 19 to an abandoned house before opening fire, killing both men.
Thomas Koskovich and Jayson Vreeland were convicted in 1999 of
murdering Jeremy Giordano and Giorgio Gallara. Thomas Koskovich and
Jayson Vreeland were later convicted of murdering Jeremy Giordano and
Giorgio Gallara and sentenced to life in prison.
(AP, 4/21/07)
1997 Jun 20, A jury in Trenton,
N.J., ordered the death penalty for Jesse K. Timmendequas, whose rape
and strangling of his 7-year-old neighbor, Megan Kanka, led to the
creation of "Megan's Laws" requiring that communities be notified of
sex offenders in their midst.
(AP, 6/20/07)
1997 Jun 24, In Freehold, N.J.,
18-year-old Melissa Drexler, who gave birth during her prom, was
charged with murder in the death of her baby. In 1998 she was sentenced
to 15 years in prison in a plea bargain with parole possible in less
than 3 years. Drexler later pleaded guilty to aggravated manslaughter,
and served three years in prison.
(SFC, 10/30/98, p.A3)(AP, 6/24/07)
1997 Sep 13, Katherine Shindle of
Illinois was crowned Miss America in Atlantic City, N.J.
(SFEC, 9/14/97, p.A2)
1997 cOct 17, The new $180 million
New Jersey Performing Arts Center opened in Newark.
(WSJ, 10/21/97, p.A20)
1997 Dec 17, A settlement was
reached that allows gay and unmarried couples to adopt children.
(WSJ, 12/18/97, p.A1)
1997 Dec 20, Vincent Ciccone,
candy-maker, died in New Jersey. He invented the "Blow Pop" lollipop, a
lollipop with a bubble-gum center, and a method to combine hard candies
with medicine used in throat lozenges.
(SFC,12/26/97, p.B6)
1997 Sam Manzie (15) raped,
strangled and killed Eddie Werner (11) after Werner rebuffed sexual
advances during a candy and gift wrap sales pitch. Manzie pleaded
guilty to strangling Werner in 1999. Manzie was sentenced in 1999 to 70
years in prison and would have to serve at least 59 ½ of them.
(SFC, 3/20/99, p.A6)(SFC, 4/15/99, p.A3)
1998 Mar 9, In a case pitting
former high school sweethearts against each other, Brian Peterson
pleaded guilty in Wilmington, Del., to manslaughter in the death of his
newborn son in a Newark, N.J., motel and agreed to testify against the
mother, Amy Grossberg. A month later, Grossberg also pleaded guilty to
manslaughter; she ended up serving nearly two years of a 2 1/2-year
sentence; Peterson served 1 1/2 years of a two-year sentence.
(AP, 3/9/08)
1998 Apr 23, Two New Jersey
troopers fired 11 shots into a van carrying African American and Latino
men from the Bronx. They admitted to racial profiling and pleaded
guilty to misdemeanor charges in 2002.
(SFC, 1/15/02, p.A3)
1998 May 26, The US Supreme Court
ruled that Ellis Island is mainly in New Jersey, based on an 1834
border agreement between New York and New Jersey.
(SFC, 5/27/98, p.A3)
1998 Aug 17, Some 23,000 acres of
New Jersey wetland known as the Meadowlands was described as reviving
after years of use for hazardous wastes and landfills. A huge shopping
mall was planned and being contested. Local writer John R. Quinn was
the author of the book "Fields of Sun and Grass," that described the
area.
(SFC, 8/17/98, p.A3)
1998 Sep 27, In Holmdel, N.J., the
nation’s first Vietnam Museum opened as the Vietnam Era Educational
Center.
(SFC, 9/28/98, p.A7)
1998 Nov 25, Michael Howard (19)
was killed during a shootout with police in Elizabeth. He had been on a
10-day crime spree that included 2 civilian shootings, a bank robbery
and the wounding of 2 police officers.
(SFC, 11/27/98, p.A4)
1998 Dec 24, In New Jersey a bus
carrying New Yorkers to Atlantic City casinos skidded and flipped on
the Garden State Parkway. 8 people were killed and 15 injured.
(SFC, 12/25/98, p.A3)
1998 Two state troopers, John
Hogan and James Kenna, wounded 3 of 4 minority men in a van they had
stopped for speeding.
(SFC, 11/4/00, p.A7)
1999 Apr 12, The Princeton Board
of Trustees voted to ban the traditional "Nude Olympics," where
students would gather for a nude frolic at midnight after the year's
first snowfall. The ritual began in the 1970s and was banned because
the event had become an alcoholic brawl.
(SFC, 4/13/99, p.A3)
1999 Apr 20, In New Jersey
Attorney Gen'l. Peter Verniero acknowledged that state troopers had
engaged in racial profiling to target minority motorists.
(SFC, 4/21/99, p.A7)
1999 May 5, Some 300-400 Kosovar
refugees from camps in Macedonia were expected to arrive at the
31,000-acre Fort Dix, New Jersey. A total of up to 20,000 refugees were
expected.
(SFC, 5/5/99, p.C2)
1999 Jun 19, The USA beat Denmark
3-0 on the opening day to the Women's World Cup in Giants Stadium, New
Jersey. 78,992 people watched in the largest ever attendance at a
woman's sporting event in the world to date.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1999_FIFA_Women's_World_Cup)
1999 Aug 4, The New Jersey Supreme
Court ruled that the 1990 expulsion of a gay assistant scoutmaster by
the Boy Scouts of America violated the state's anti-discrimination law.
(SFC, 8/5/99, p.A3)
1999 Aug 5, Gov. Christie Whitman
declared a state-wide drought emergency.
(SFC, 8/6/99, p.D6)
1999 Aug 28, At Ocean City a child
and adult were killed on a roller coaster at Gillian's Wonderland Pier.
(SFEC, 8/29/99, p.A14)
1999 Sep 7-19, Hurricane Floyd
caused one death in Caribbean and 56 in United States. Storm hit
Bahamas before striking Florida, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, New
Jersey, Virginia, Delaware, New York, Connecticut, and Vermont.
(AP, 9/11/04)(www.wunderground.com)
1999 Sep, Martin A. Armstrong, a
New Jersey investment manager, was indicted on 14 counts of securities
fraud, wire fraud and conspiracy for losing as much as $950 million in
Japanese corporate investments through his firm Princeton Economics
Int'l. Ltd.
(WSJ, 1/13/00, p.A19)
1999 Nov 26, A small plane crashed
in Newark, N.J. Pilot Itzhak Jacoby (56), his wife Gail and daughter
Atira (13) were killed. 22 people were injured on the ground.
(SFC, 11/27/99, p.A3)
2000 Jan 19, In New Jersey 3
students were killed in a fire at a dormitory at Seton Hall Univ. 62
students were injured. In 2006 two former roommates pleaded guilty to
arson admitting that a prank had got out of hand.
(SFC, 1/20/00, p.A3)(SFC, 11/16/06, p.A15)
2000 Jun 9, The Big Game lottery
ticket offered a $46 million prize. Melvin Milligan found his winning
ticket June 7, 2001, 2 days before its expiration.
(SFC, 6/16/01, p.A2)
2000 Jun 9, George Segal (b.1924),
sculptor and painter, died at his home in south Brunswick, N.J., at age
75.
(SFC, 6/10/00, p.A23)
2000 Jun 10, In Dallas the New
Jersey Devils beat the Dallas Stars 2-1 to win hockey’s Stanley Cup.
(WSJ, 6/12/00, p.A1)
2000 Jun, Stephen Pendergrast,
co-founded Fictionwise, a retailer of electronic books, in Chatham, NJ.
In 2009 Barnes & Noble acquired the company for $15.7 million.
(WSJ, 3/6/09, p.B4)
2000 Jul 26, A federal appeals
court struck down New Jersey’s ban on so-called partial-birth abortions.
(SFC, 7/27/00, p.A5)
2000 Aug 9, In New Jersey 2 small
planes collided in midair and the bulk of one plane crashed through the
roof a house. All 11 passengers were killed.
(SFC, 8/10/00, p.A3)
2000 Oct, In New Jersey Mills
Corp. spent $2 million to promote its $500 million Xanadu shopping and
entertainment center at Meadowlands, expected to open in 2008.
(WSJ, 3/15/06, p.B4)
2000 Nov 24, A fire at the Gaitway
Farm in Manalapan left 20 race horses dead.
(SFC, 11/25/00, p.A3)
2000 Nov 7, Al Gore carried New
Jersey by 16 points.
(Econ, 10/2/04, p.33)
2000 Nov, The Health Wellness
Promotion Act went into effect and required HMOs and health insurers to
provide free annual physicals as part of a17-point "Healthful Life
Program."
(SFC, 11/25/00, p.A2)
2000 Dec 21, Christine Todd
Whitman, governor of New Jersey, agreed to serve as director of the EPA
for Pres.-elect Bush. She was succeeded by Senate president Donald
DiFrancesco.
(WSJ, 12/22/00, p.A1)(SFC, 1/7/02, p.A10)
2000 Dec 21, Camden Mayor Milton
Milan was convicted on 14 0f 19 charges that included taking mob
payoffs, laundering drug money and stealing campaign funds.
(SFC, 12/22/00, p.A8)
2000 Jon Corzine, former chairman
of Goldman Sachs, spent $63 million to win a Senate seat for New
Jersey. In 2005 he planned to run for governor of NJ.
(Econ, 10/8/05, p.40)
2001 Feb 2, John Farmer Jr., the
attorney general, agreed to pay $13 million to settle a suit by 4
minority men shot and wounded in a 1998 traffic stop. Criminal charges
against 128 other minority defendants were dismissed under charges of
racial profiling.
(SFC, 2/3/01, p.A3)
2001 Oct 15, Anthrax in a letter
to a Reno Microsoft office was reported to be from Malaysia. 2
anthrax-tainted letters were reported to have been mailed from Trenton,
New Jersey and 2 postal employees there showed symptoms. Anthrax spores
were in a letter deliver to a Senate office.
(SFC, 10/16/01, p.A1)(SFC, 10/19/01, p.A16)
2001 Oct 18, Two new cases of
anthrax were reported in New Jersey.
(SFC, 10/19/01, p.A1)
2001 Oct 28, The CDC reported a
13th case of anthrax in a New Jersey postal worker. Spores were found
at the mail center in Landover, Md.
(SFC, 10/29/01, p.A1)
2001 Nov 6, In New Jersey Democrat
Jim McGreevey defeated Republican Bret Schundler in the race for
governor.
(SFC, 11/7/01, p.A14)
2001 Nov 17, Former Sen. Harrison
A. Williams Jr. (81) died. Charges in the 1980 Abscam sting ended his
political career.
(SFC, 11/21/01, p.A25)
2001 Dec 3, In New Jersey Judge
Clarkson S. Fisher began jailing striking teachers, who defied his
back-to-work order.
(SFC, 12/5/01, p.A3)
2001 Dec 7, Nearly 230 teachers
were ordered freed from jail after their union agreed to end the 9-day
strike and go into mediation.
(SFC, 12/8/01, p.A4)
2001 Nov 29, Pauline Campanelli
(58), still-life artist, died of complications from childhood polio.
(SFC, 12/15/01, p.A25)
2001 Tom Szaky and Jon Beyer
co-founded TerraCycle, an environmentally friendly consumer products
firm, at the end of their freshman year at Princeton, NJ. In 2009 Tom
Szaky (27) authored “Revolution in a Bottle: How TerraCycle Is
Redefining Green Business.”
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TerraCycle)(WSJ,
3/11/09, p.A13)
2002 Jan 8, The term of acting
Gov. DiFrancesco was set to expire.
(SFC, 1/7/02, p.A10)
2002 Jan 9, The new Senate
president began to serve as governor until Jan 15. The senate was
equally divided so the office was to be shared by John Bennet (R) and
then Richard Codey (D). Attorney Gen. John J. Farmer served as gov. for
one hour to swear in the new senate president.
(SFC, 1/7/02, p.A10)
2002 Jan 10, An F-16 crashed near
the Garden State Parkway in New Jersey. The pilot ejected safely.
(SFC, 1/11/02, p.A5)
2002 Jan 15, Gov. elect James
McGreevey was scheduled to be sworn in.
(SFC, 1/7/02, p.A10)
2002 Feb 14, Jayson Williams (34),
former NBA star and NBC Sports commentator, accidentally shot and
killed Costas Christofi (55), a limousine driver. Williams turned
himself in Feb 25.
(SFC, 2/26/02, p.A3)
2002 Feb 21, In New Jersey a
retired police officer, John W. Mabie (70) shot and killed his
22-year-old daughter and then killed 3 neighbors.
(SFC, 2/22/02, p.A5)
2002 Feb 22, A New Jersey teenager
(16) was arrested for killing 6 people in a 2-day shooting spree on the
outskirts of Philadelphia that began Feb 4.
(SSFC, 2/24/02, p.A1)
2002 Feb 23, It was reported that
Bergen and Hudson counties were placed on water restrictions as the
worst drought in 75 years lingered on along the East Coast.
(SFC, 2/23/02, p.A24)
2002 Feb 25, Former NBA star
Jayson Williams was charged with manslaughter in the shooting death of
Costas "Gus" Christofi, a limousine driver at Williams' estate in
Alexandria Township, N.J. A jury convicted Williams in 2004 of trying
to cover up the slaying; it acquitted Williams of aggravated
manslaughter but deadlocked on a lesser charge of reckless manslaughter.
(AP, 2/25/07)
2002 Mar 23, Eileen Farrell (82),
opera and pop soprano, died in New Jersey. In 1999 Brian Kellow
co-wrote her biography "Can’t Help Singing."
(SFC, 3/25/02, p.B5)
2002 Apr 9, In Dover Township
Edward Lutes, a former police officer, killed 5 of his neighbors and
wounded 2 others. He wounded his boss in Barnegat Township and then
shot and killed himself.
(SFC, 4/10/02, p.A5)(SFC, 4/11/02, p.A5)
2002 Apr 30, Joanne and Jorge
Lopes stepped forward as winners of 58.9 million in the Apr 16 Big Game
jackpot of 331 million.
(SFC, 5/1/02, p.A6)
2002 May 8, It was reported that a
federal judge issued an injunction against Newark for using "selective
enforcement" to tear down signs of public housing tenants supporting
Cory Booker (32) for mayor over Mayor Sharpe James (66). Cops were
reported to be ticketing cars of Booker supporters.
(WSJ, 5/8/02, p.A18)
2002 May 14, Mayor Sharpe James
won the elections for a 5th term with federal observers posted at the
polls.
(SFC, 5/15/02, p.A6)
2002 Aug 28, Amiri Baraka, poet
known as LeRoi Jones until 1968, was proclaimed the poet laureate for
New Jersey. Gov. Jim McGreevey later regretted the proclamation
following Baraka’s poem "Somebody Blew Up America."
(WSJ, 10/3/02, p.D6)
2002 Sep 21, Erika Harold, Miss
Illinois, was crowned in Atlantic City, NJ, as Miss America 2003.
(SSFC, 9/22/02, p.A2)
2002 Sep 30, Sen. Robert
Torricelli, D-N.J., withdrew from his race for re-election over
allegations of accepting expensive gifts. NJ law barred parties from
replacing candidates less than 51 days before elections. Gov. James E.
McGreevey announced on Oct 1 that former Sen. Frank Lautenberg (78)
would replace Torricelli. The state Supreme Court ok'd the replacement
Oct 2.
(SFC, 10/1/02, p.A3)(SFC, 10/2/02, p.A7)(SFC,
10/3/02, p.A3)
2002 Oct 1, New Jersey Democrats
chose former Senator Frank Lautenberg to be on the November ballot in
place of scandal-tainted Senator Robert Torricelli.
(AP, 10/1/03)
2002 Dec 16, Pres. Bush named
Thomas Kean, former Gov. of New Jersey, as head of the Sep. 11
investigation panel.
(SFC, 12/17/02, p.A2)
2003 Feb 3, New Jersey doctors
joined the protest against high malpractice insurance premiums.
(WSJ, 2/4/03, p.A1)
2003 Apr 15, Theodore Weiss
(b.1916), poet and teacher at Princeton, died. He and his wife had
edited the Quarterly Review of Literature for nearly 60 years.
(SFC, 4/21/03, p.B5)
2003 May 21, Christie Whitman
(56), former New Jersey governor, announced her resignation as chief of
the Environmental Protective Agency.
(SFC, 5/22/03, p.A1)
2003 Aug 12, The FBI arrested
Hemant Lakhani, an Indian-born British arms dealer, in a sting
operation in New Jersey and foiled a contrived plot aimed at smuggling
a shoulder-fired missile for some $80,000 to US-based terrorists. It
involved cooperation between the intelligence services of the US and
Russia.
(AP, 8/13/03)(WSJ, 8/13/03, p.A1)(SFC, 8/14/03, p.A3)
2003 Sep 20, In Atlantic City, NJ,
Miss Florida Ericka Dunlap beat out 50 rivals to be crowned Miss
America.
(AP, 9/21/03)
2003 Oct 30, A multistory parking
garage under construction at the Tropicana Casino & Resort in
Atlantic City, NJ, collapsed, killing 4 construction workers and
injuring 22 others.
(Reuters, 10/30/03)(SFC, 10/31/03, p.A3)(AP,
10/30/08)
2003 Dec 15, Charles Cullen (43),
a former nurse, was charged with murder after telling prosecutors that
he killed 30-40 severely ill patients in Pennsylvania and New Jersey
since 1987 by injecting them with drugs. Cullen later pleaded guilty to
killing 29 people and attempting to kill six others; he was sentenced
to 18 life prison terms.
(SFC, 12/17/03, p.A3)(WSJ, 4/30/04, p.A1)(SFC,
5/20/04, p.A3)(AP, 12/15/08)
2004 Feb 3, New Jersey Gov.
McGreevey signed an agreement with US agriculture officials to create a
10 year program to shield streams from runoff pollution.
(USAT, 2/4/04, p.9A)
2004 Mar 18, New Jersey officials
arrested 11 people in a pharmaceutical theft ring and charged them with
stealing some $3 million in drugs for resale.
(WSJ, 3/19/04, p.A1)
2004 Jun 1, In New Jersey a new
ruling took effect that barred reduced nightclub cover charges and
cocktail tabs for women due to a discrimination suit filed 6 years
earlier.
(SFC, 6/18/04, p.W2)
2004 Jul 8, New Jersey became the
2nd state in the nation after New York to ban the use of handheld cell
phones while driving.
(USAT, 6/29)
2004 Jul 10, New Jersey began
issuing documents for domestic partnerships.
(SSFC, 7/11/04, p.A3)
2004 Jul 12, A foot or more of
rain fell in parts of the Northeast. No injuries had been reported in
the stricken areas of New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Maryland.
(AP, 7/13/04)
2004 Aug 9, Trump Hotels and
Casino Resorts Inc. announced it would soon file for Chapter 11
bankruptcy. 3 Trump properties had filed for bankruptcy in 1992.
(SFC, 8/11/04, p.C1)
2004 Aug 12, New Jersey Gov. James
E. McGreevey, a one-time rising Democratic star and twice-married
father, announced his resignation with the startling disclosure that he
is gay and had an extramarital affair with a man who threatened to
undermine his "ability to govern."
(AP, 8/13/04)
2004 Sep 14, It was reported that
Paul Fireman, sneaker magnate, was constructing the $129 million
Liberty National golf course over a toxic-waste site on the banks of
New York Harbor.
(WSJ, 9/14/04, p.A1)
2004 Nov 1, Casino workers in
Atlantic City tentatively accepted a new 5-year contract.
(SFC, 11/3/04, p.C1)
2004 Nov 3, A National Guard F-16
fighter plane mistakenly fired off 25 rounds of ammunition at the
Little Egg Harbor Intermediate School in South New Jersey on this night.
(Reuters, 11/5/04)
2004 Nov 15, New Jersey Gov. James
E. McGreevey stepped down from office amid rumors of that he was about
to be sued for sexual harassment. Senate Pres. Richard Codey, also a
Democrat, served out the final year of McGreevy’s term. McGreevey left
office three months after admitting that he had had an extramarital
affair with his homeland security advisor, Golan Cipel. Upon publicly
revealing his homosexuality on August 12, 2004, McGreevey became the
first and, to date, the only openly gay state governor in United States
history.
(SFC, 11/9/04, p.A2)(Econ, 7/1/06,
p.27)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_McGreevey)
2005 May 7, Peter Rodino (95), the
House of Representatives Judiciary Committee chairman who directed the
impeachment investigation of President Richard Nixon, died in New
Jersey. Rodino represented a Newark, NJ, district from 1949-1989.
(AP, 5/8/05)(SSFC, 5/8/05, p.A2)
2005 Nov 8, Democrats cleaned up
big in off-year elections from New Jersey to California. Democratic
Sen. Jon Corzine easily won the New Jersey governor's seat after an
expensive, mudslinging campaign, trouncing Republican Doug Forrester by
10 percentage points.
(AP, 11/9/05)
2005 Oct, New Jersey opened a
campaign for a new state slogan to the public, establishing a Web site
and telephone hot line to receive suggestions. The state once used "New
Jersey and You: Perfect Together," but has not had a new marketing
slogan in four years. "Get Away, Without Going Far Away" has been used
in the interim, but tourism officials said it does not resonate with
out-of-staters.
(AP, 11/14/05)
2005 Nov 21, Camden, NJ, was named
the most dangerous city in the USA for the 2nd year in a row by the
Morgan Quitno, a Kansa-based publishing and research company.
(SFC, 11/21/05, p.A2)
2005 Dec 7, New Jersey Sen. Jon
Corzine picked Rep. Menendez to serve out his Senate term. Wining the
governorship let him appoint his own successor.
(WSJ, 12/8/05, p.A1)
2005 Dec 23, In a NYC probe, first
reported by the Daily News in October, authorities confirmed this week
that investigators found paperwork indicating that bones of British
broadcaster Alistair Cooke had been removed and sold by Biomedical
Tissue Services, before he was cremated in 2004. Human bone, skin and
tendons were allegedly removed from the bodies of hundreds of others
without required permission from their families. The Brooklyn case
stemmed from a deal struck between Michael Mastromarino (42), a Fort
Lee, NJ, dentist who started Biomedical Tissue Services, and Joseph
Nicelli (49), an embalmer and funeral parlor operator from Staten
Island. In 2006 seven funeral directors pleaded guilty to undisclosed
charges and agreed to cooperate with investigators. In 2008
Mastromarino pleaded guilty to hundreds of counts of abusing corpses,
forgery, theft and other allegations stemming from the operation, which
he ran with 3 Philadelphia funeral directors.
(AP, 12/23/05)(SFC, 2/24/06, p.A2)(SFC, 10/19/06,
p.A7)(SFC, 8/30/08, p.A2)
2006 Jan 12, The winning entry in
New Jersey’s slogan contest was: "New Jersey: "Come See For Yourself."
(AP, 1/12/06)
2006 Feb 7, Phoenix Coyotes
assistant coach Rick Tocchet was charged with financing a nationwide
gambling ring based out of New Jersey.
(AP, 2/7/07)
2006 Feb 17, Ray Barreto (76), a
Grammy-winning Latin jazz percussionist, died in New Jersey.
(SFC, 2/18/06, p.B5)
2006 Mar 2, "Killer nurse" Charles
Cullen, who'd killed at least 29 patients, was sentenced in Somerville,
N.J., to spend the rest of his life in prison.
(AP, 3/2/07)
2006 Apr 11, In New Jersey a jury
awarded $9 million in punitive damages to a man who blamed his heart
attack on Vioxx, finding that manufacturer Merck & Co. failed to
warn about the risks of its arthritis drug and misrepresented the risks
to physicians.
(AP, 4/11/06)
2006 Apr 18, Josephine Crawford
(84), a Galloway Township widow, hit a $10 million jackpot, the biggest
in the history of casino gambling in Atlantic City, NJ.
(AP, 4/20/06)
2006 Feb 7, US federal Judge
Kathryn Ferguson penalized the law firm of Gilbert, Heintz &
Randolph $13 million for conflicts of interest while working on the
Congoleum asbestos bankruptcy, while at the same time representing some
10,000 people with asbestos claims against the New Jersey flooring
manufacturer.
(WSJ, 4/24/06, p.B1)(http://tinyurl.com/lg4qf)
2006 May 9, Cory Anthony Booker
(b.1969) was elected the 36th mayor of Newark, New Jersey. The
Democratic politician and former Newark Councilman and community
activist had run unsuccessfully for mayor in 2002 against longtime
incumbent Sharpe James. Booker inherited a $44 million deficit from
James, who had boasted of a $30 million surplus.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cory_Booker)
2006 Jun 1, Katharine Close, a
13-year-old New Jersey girl making her fifth straight appearance at the
Scripps National Spelling Bee, rattled off "ursprache" to claim the
title of America's best speller. For the first time in its 81-year
history, the final rounds of the spelling bee were broadcast live on
prime-time network TV.
(AP, 6/2/06)(Econ, 6/10/06, p.31)
2006 Jul 1, New Jersey failed to
approve a budget and Gov. Jon S. Corzine began closing the state
government amid a bitter dispute with fellow Democrats in the Assembly
over his plan to increase the sales tax, threatening to shutter
beaches, parks and possibly casinos in the coming days.
(AP, 7/1/06)(WSJ, 7/3/06, p.A1)(Econ, 7/8/06, p.27)
2006 Jul 5, New Jersey's casinos
ushered the last of the gamblers away from slot machines and tables,
and janitors locked the doors behind them as a state government
shutdown claimed its latest victims.
(AP, 7/5/06)
2006 Jul 6, New Jersey’s governor
and lawmakers reached a deal on a new state budget. The deal included
an increase in sales tax from 6 to 7%, half of which would be used to
lower property taxes, which were among the highest in the US.
(SFC, 7/7/06, p.A7)
2006 Jul 8, New Jersey Gov. Jon S.
Corzine issued an executive order that ended a weeklong state
government shutdown, bringing slot machine bells noisily to life as
Atlantic City casinos reopened.
(AP, 7/8/06)
2006 Sep 11, The memorial statue
titled, 'To the Struggle Against World Terrorism', by Russian artist
Zurab Tsereteli, was dedicated in Bayonne, N.J. The 100-foot-tall
bronze monument with a 40-foot steel teardrop at it's center, a gift
from the Russian government and Tsereteli, is dedicated to victims of
terrorism.
(AP, 9/11/06)
2006 Oct 25, New Jersey’s Supreme
Court ruled that same-sex couples deserve the same privileges as
heterosexuals, but left it up to lawmakers to define marriage.
(SFC, 10/26/06, p.A1)
2006 Oct 30, A new ranking
compiled by Morgan Quitno Press listed St. Louis as the most dangerous
city in the USA, leading a trend of violent crimes rising much faster
in the Midwest than in the rest of nation. The study looked at crime
only within St. Louis city limits, with a population of about 330,000
under Mayor Francis Slay. The safest city in 2005 was Brick, N.J., with
a population about 78,000, followed by Amherst, N.Y., and Mission
Viejo, Calif. The second most dangerous city was Detroit, followed by
Flint, Mich., and Compton, Calif.
(AP, 10/30/06)
2006 Dec 4, An E. coli outbreak
that sickened at least 58 people, two of them seriously, was linked by
health investigators to three Taco Bell restaurants in New Jersey. The
outbreak, initially believed to stem from green onions, was later
believed to have come from lettuce.
(AP, 12/4/06)(SFC, 12/14/06, p.A6)
2006 Dec 21, New Jersey Gov. Jon
Corzine signed legislation giving same-sex couples all the rights and
responsibilities of marriage under state law, but not the title.
(SFC, 12/22/06, p.A4)
2006 Newark, New Jersey, counted
104 murders this year.
(Econ, 2/10/07, p.32)
2007 Feb 7, Indictments were filed
in New Jersey against 3 US Army Reserve officers for taking part in a
bid-rigging scam that steered millions of dollars for Iraq
reconstruction to a contractor in exchange for cash, luxury cars and
jewelry.
(SFC, 2/8/07, p.A12)
2007 Feb 19, New Jersey became the
3rd US state to offer civil unions for gay couples.
(SFC, 2/20/07, p.A3)
2007 Mar 7, At least two people
woke on their way to becoming millionaires. Someone bought a winning
ticket for the record $370 million Mega Millions jackpot in Dalton,
Ga., and another winning ticket was purchased in Woodbine, N.J. Ed
Nabors (52), a Georgia truck driver, stepped forward to claim half of a
$390 million jackpot, the richest lottery prize in US history. He
elected to take his winnings in a lump sum instead of annual
installments, and will get over $80 million after taxes.
(AP, 3/7/07)(AP, 3/8/07)
2007 Mar 8, Dr. Martin Wikelski of
Princeton Univ. along with colleagues proposed a satellite tracking
system, the International Cooperation for Animal Research Using Space
(ICARUS), based on one gram transmitters for the study of animal
behaviour.
(Econ, 3/10/07, p.80)
2007 Mar 12, New Jersey based
Schering-Plough Corp. said it will buy the pharmaceuticals division of
Akzo Nobel NV for 11 billion euros ($14.5 billion) in cash, acquiring
the Organon brand of birth control and strengthening its drug pipeline
with an anti-schizophrenia medication.
(AP, 3/12/07)
2007 Mar 12, A New Jersey a jury
reversed an earlier verdict and hit Merck with a total of $47.5 million
in damages in a Vioxx case of an Idaho postal worker. To date Merck had
won 9 cases lost 5 over its former arthritis pill.
(SFC, 3/13/07, p.A9)
2007 Apr 5, FBI Special Agent
Barry Lee Bush was accidentally shot and killed by a fellow agent as a
stakeout team closed in on three suspected bank robbers in Readington,
N.J.
(AP, 4/5/08)
2007 Apr 9, Don Imus, nationally
syndicated shock jock, was suspended for 2 weeks by CBS Radio and MSNBC
due to his calling members of the Rutgers Univ. women’s basketball team
“nappy-headed ho’s.”
(SFC, 4/10/07, p.A1)
2007 Apr 12, New Jersey Gov. Jon
S. Corzine was involved in an SUV crash as he headed to a meeting
between radio show host Don Imus and the Rutgers women's basketball
team. The crash occurred when the SUV, driven by a state trooper, was
hit by another vehicle that swerved to avoid the pickup truck. Corzine
was not wearing his seat belt, as required by law, and the crash left
him with such serious injuries that he required a ventilator.
(AP, 4/14/07)
2007 Apr 21, Reid Stowe (55) and
his girlfriend, Soanya Ahmad (23), set off from Hoboken, NJ, on a
sailing voyage planned to last 1,000 days and nights with no port calls
for supplies. Ahmad abandoned the cruise in February 2008, citing
seasickness.
(SSFC, 4/22/07, p.A9)(AP, 4/21/08)
2007 May 7, In New Jersey 6
Islamic militants from Yugoslavia and the Middle East were arrested on
charges of plotting to attack the Fort Dix Army post and "kill as many
soldiers as possible." In Dec 2008 a federal jury found 5 of the men
guilty of plotting to kill US soldiers. 4 of the 5 men were also
convicted of weapons charges. All were acquitted of attempted murder
charges. In 2009 three brothers, Dritan (30), Shain (28) and Eljvir
Duka (25), were convicted of conspiracy and sentenced to life in
prison. Mohamad Schnewer was also sentenced to life in prison and
Serdar Tatar was sentenced to 33 years.
(AP, 5/8/07)(WSJ, 12/23/08, p.A3)(SFC, 4/29/09,
p.A4)(SFC, 4/30/09, p.A4)
2007 May 18, In New Jersey a
second rainstorm in three days soaked a forest fire and raised hopes
that it could be brought under full control by day's end. New Jersey
Air National Guard officials said one of their F-16s dropped a flare
into the tinder-dry Pinelands during a training mission May 15,
possibly starting the blaze.
(AP, 5/18/07)
2007 Jul 12, In New Jersey former
Newark Mayor Sharpe James (71) was indicted on corruption charges.
James stepped down as mayor in 2006 to serve as a state senator.
Prosecutors alleged that James arranged the sale of 9 city-owned
properties at a discounted rate to former girlfriend Tamika Riley from
2001 to 2005. Riley quickly sold the properties at a profit without
required rehabilitation work. On April 16, 2008, James and his
ex-mistress were convicted of corruption charges.
(SFC, 7/13/07, p.A5)(WSJ, 4/10/08, p.A2)(SFC,
4/17/08, p.A4)
2007 Aug 4, In Newark, New Jersey,
3 friends were forced to kneel against a wall behind an elementary
school and were shot to death at close range, and a fourth was found
about 30 feet away with gunshot and knife wounds to her head. Natasha
Aerial (19) was listed in fair condition at Newark's University
Hospital. Police identified her companions as her brother, Terrance
Aerial (18), Ofemi Hightower (20), and Deshawn Harvey (20). On Aug 7 a
15-year-old boy was arrested in the case. On Aug 8 Jose Carranza (28),
an illegal immigrant from Peru, was also arrested as a suspect. Two
more suspects were arrested in suburban DC on Aug 18.
(AP,
8/6/07)(www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,292911,00.html)(AP, 8/18/07)
2007 Aug 14, In New Jersey the
Newark Community Foundation, launched last month, said it will help pay
for Community Eye, a surveillance system tailored towards gun crime.
(Econ, 8/18/07, p.27)
2007 Sep 6, FBI agents arrested 12
people, including 11 public officials, in New Jersey on charges of
taking bribes in exchange for influencing the awarding of public
contracts. Mims Hackett Jr., mayor of Orange, was among those arrested.
(SFC, 9/7/07, p.A3)(WSJ, 5/27/08, p.A2)
2007 Oct 5, Topps Meat Co. of
Newark, NJ, founded in 1940, said a massive meat recall has forced it
out of business. Government scientists have yet to determine the source
of the E. coli contamination that appears to have sickened 32 people
who ate its hamburgers.
(AP, 10/6/07)
2007 Oct 10, Robert Levy (64),
mayor of Atlantic City, NJ, resigned. He had gone missing for 2 weeks
after being accused of lying about his military record.
(SFC, 10/11/07, p.A6)
2007 Dec 17, New Jersey Gov. Jon
Corzine signed into law a measure that abolished the death penalty,
making New Jersey the first US state in over decades reject capital
punishment.
(SFC, 12/18/07, p.A4)
2007 Dec 18, In New Jersey
authorities broke up a major organized crime ring that took in $2.2
billion in gambling bets over the last 15 months and supplied drugs and
cell phones to gang members in a New Jersey state prison. 2 ruling
members of New York’s Lucchese crime family and 30 others were arrested.
(SFC, 12/19/07, p.A4)
2007 Dec 24, George Warrington
(b.1952), former head of New Jersey Transit (2002-2007) and former
president of Amtrak, died.
(WSJ, 12/29/07, p.A7)
2007 A small unmanned submarine,
developed and operated by Rutgers Univ., traveled from New jersey to
Halifax, Nova Scotia, collecting scientific data under sponsorship by
the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. In 2008 the
sub, dubbed Scarlet Knight, embarked on a journey from New Jersey to
Spain.
(SSFC, 7/13/08, p.A15)
2008 Apr 18, In New Jersey 5
people were shot and 3 others stabbed in 4 separate incidents in
Irvington.
(SFC, 4/21/08, p.A3)
2008 May 22, Several companies
agreed to pay a combined $24 million to pet owners to resolve lawsuits
over contaminated pet food linked to the illness and death of animals.
The settlement involving Canada-based Menu Foods Income Fund and other
pet food manufacturers and suppliers was outlined in documents filed in
the US District Court in New Jersey.
(Reuters, 5/23/08)
2008 May 27, In New Jersey Mims
Hackett Jr. (67), mayor of Orange and former state Assemblyman, pleaded
guilty to federal and state corruption charges.
(WSJ, 5/27/08, p.A2)
2008 Jun 21, In New Jersey Scott
Kalitta died when his Funny Car crashed and burst into flames during
the final round of qualifying for the Lucas Oil NHRA SuperNationals at
Old Bridge Township Raceway Park.
(AP, 6/21/08)
2008 Oct 13, Paul Krugman, the
Princeton University scholar and New York Times columnist, won the
Nobel prize in economics for his analysis of how economies of scale can
affect trade patterns and the location of economic activity. The Royal
Swedish Academy of Sciences praised Krugman for formulating a new
theory to answer questions about free trade and said his theory has
inspired an enormous field of research.
(AP, 10/13/08)(Econ, 10/18/08, p.90)
2008 Nov 19, The New Jersey Office
of the Attorney General said online dating service eHarmony has agreed
to create a new website for gays and lesbians as part of a settlement
with a gay man in New Jersey.
(Reuters, 11/19/08)
2008 Nov 23, In New Jersey Joseph
Pallipurath (27) of Sacramento, Ca., shot and killed Reshma James (24),
his estranged wife, at the Syrian Orthodox Knayaya Church in Clifton.
He also killed a 2nd man at the church and wounded a 3rd person.
Pallipurath was arrested late the next day in Georgia.
(SFC, 11/25/08, p.A3)(SFC, 11/26/08, p.A3)
2009 Feb 11, Estelle Bennett (67),
one of the Ronettes, was found dead at her home in Englewood, N.J. She
was part of the singing trio whose 1963 hit "Be My Baby" epitomized the
famed "wall of sound" technique of its producer, Phil Spector.
(AP, 2/13/09)
2009 Feb 12, A commuter plane,
Continental Connection Flight 3407 from Newark, N.J., coming in for a
landing nose-dived into a house in suburban Buffalo, sparking a fiery
explosion that killed all 49 people aboard and a person in the home. It
was the nation's first fatal crash of a commercial airliner in 2 1/2
years. Historian Alison Des Forges (66), prominent human rights
advocate who documented genocide in Rwanda, was among the victims of
the crash.
(AP, 2/13/09)(AP, 2/13/09)
2009 Mar 26, A New Jersey girl
(14) was accused of child pornography after posting nearly 30 explicit
nude pictures of herself on MySpace.com, charges that could force her
to register as a sex offender if convicted.
(AP, 3/27/09)
2009 Jun 8, New Jersey officials
broke ground for a new tunnel under the Hudson River linking to NYC.
The $8.7 billion project was expected to be completed in 2017.
(SFC, 6/8/09, p.A6)
2009 Jun 12, In New Jersey an
Indictment was unsealed today against three individuals who allegedly
hacked into the telephone systems of large corporations and entities in
the US and abroad and sold information about the compromised telephone
systems to Pakistani nationals residing in Italy. Italian law
enforcement conducted searches of approximately 10 locations in four
regions of Italy and arrested the financiers of the hacking activity.
Those financiers allegedly used the information to transmit over 12
million minutes of telephone calls valued at more than $55 million over
the hacked networks of victim corporations in the US alone.
(SFC, 6/15/09,
p.A2)(http://newark.fbi.gov/dojpressrel/2009/nk061209.htm)
Go to http://www.timelinesdb.com
Subject = New Jersey
End of file.