Michigan consists of two peninsulas. The Lower Peninsula resembles the shape of a mitten, and comprises a majority of the state's land area. The Upper Peninsula (often called "the U.P.") is separated from the Lower Peninsula by the Straits of Mackinac, a five-mile (8 km) channel that joins Lake Huron to Lake Michigan. The Mackinac Bridge connects the peninsulas. Michigan has the longest freshwater coastline of any political subdivision in the United States, being bordered by four of the five Great Lakes and Lake St. Clair. It also has 64,980 inland lakes and ponds. Michigan has the second-most water area of any state, behind only Alaska.
The area was first occupied by a succession of Native American tribes over thousands of years. In the 17th century, French explorers claimed it as part of the New France colony, when it was largely inhabited by Indigenous peoples. French and Canadian traders and settlers, Métis, and others migrated to the area, settling largely along the waterways. After France's defeat in the French and Indian War in 1762, the region came under British rule. Britain ceded the territory to the newly independent United States after its defeat in the American Revolutionary War. The area was part of the larger Northwest Territory until 1800, when western Michigan became part of the Indiana Territory. Michigan Territory was formed in 1805, but some of the northern border with Canada was not agreed upon until after the War of 1812. Michigan was admitted into the Union in 1837 as the 26th state, a free one. It soon became an important center of industry and trade in the Great Lakes region, attracting immigrants in the late 19th and early 20th centuries from many European countries. Immigrants from Finland, Macedonia, and the Netherlands were especially numerous. Migration from Appalachia and of Black Southerners as part of the Great Migration increased in the 1930s, with many settling in Metro Detroit.
Although Michigan has developed a diverse economy, in the early 20th century it became widely known as the center of the U.S. automotive industry, which developed as a major national economic force. It is home to the country's three major automobile companies (whose headquarters are all in Metro Detroit). Once exploited for logging and mining, today the sparsely populated Upper Peninsula is important for tourism because of its abundance of natural resources. The Lower Peninsula is a center of manufacturing, forestry, agriculture, services, and high-tech industry. (Full article...)
After his football career ended, he operated a sporting good store in Grand Rapids. He officiated football games for the Big Ten Conference for 16 years and also served in the U.S. Navy on an aircraft carrier in World War II. He was active in Republican Party politics in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and was one of the organizers of a reform movement to oust the city's political boss, Frank McKay. As an anti-McKay reform candidate, Goebel was three times elected mayor of Grand Rapids in the 1950s. He was later elected to the University of Michigan Board of Regents, where he served from 1962 to 1970. (Full article...)
Image 5Union members occupying a General Motors body factory during the Flint Sit-Down Strike of 1937 which spurred the organization of militant CIO unions in auto industry (from History of Michigan)
Image 9A map of Michigan by Henry Schenck Tanner, published in 1842, showing such county names as "Negwegon County," "Okkuddo County," and "Unwattin County," prior to an 1843 legislative action renaming sixteen counties in northern Michigan (from History of Michigan)
Image 10Michigan as part of the Province of Quebec 1774–1776 (from History of Michigan)
Image 12Map of the original 13 colonies and their territories. Note that Michigan was the object of multiple claims. (from History of Michigan)
Image 13Treaty of Paris, by Benjamin West (1783), an unfinished painting of the American diplomatic negotiators of the Treaty of Paris which brought official conclusion to the Revolutionary War and gave possession of Michigan and other territory to the new United States (from Michigan)
Image 18Detroit in the mid-twentieth century. At the time, the city was the fourth-largest U.S. metropolis by population, and held about one-third of the state's population. (from Michigan)
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The Flag of Michigan
The Seal of Michigan
State Quarter – Released in 2004
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