Did You Know?
On July 20, 1969 Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first men to walk on the moon. As part of the three person, Apollo 11 mission, they took off from Kennedy Space Center on July 16 and entered a lunar orbit three days later. Armstrong and Aldrin then separated from the third astronaut, Michael Collins, and landed on the moon aboard the lunar module, Eagle. The two men remained on the
On June 19, 1846 the first baseball game was played at Elysian Fields in Hoboken, NJ between the Knickerbockers and the New York Nine. Alexander Cartwright, the father of baseball, who developed the basic rules that we know today, was the umpire. The New York Nine beat the Knickerbockers 23-1 in four innings.
On May 14, 1804, Captain Meriwether Lewis and Second Lieutenant William Clark embarked on the nation’s first expedition to explore the Western U.S. all the way to the Pacific coast. The expedition, commissioned by President Jefferson following the Louisiana Purchase, began in St. Louis and lasted from May 1804 until September 1806.
One of Roosevelt Stadium’s most historic events was Jackie Robinson’s opening game with the Montreal Royals, a Brooklyn Dodgers farm team, on April 18, 1946. Robinson broke the baseball color line when he became the first African American to play in Major League Baseball. Roosevelt Stadium, located on nineteen acres at Droyers Point, opened on April 22, 1937.
Did you know some of the most important stops on the Underground Railroad were in New Jersey? One of the first stops for freedom seekers was the home of the Goodwin Sisters in Salem, NJ. Abigail and Elizabeth Goodwin began their work on the Underground Railroad in 1855 when Samuel Nixon and others arrived on their doorstep seeking shelter for the night.
On February 9, 1776, future New Jersey Governor and Member of Congress Joseph Bloomfield became captain of the third New Jersey Regiment in the Continental Army. Bloomfield was born in Woodbridge, NJ. He studied law, and was admitted to the bar in 1775. In 1776, he entered the Continental Army as captain of the Third New Jersey Regiment and later earned the rank of major.
On January 1, 1892, Ellis Island opened its doors as an immigration processing station for the first time. Between 1892 and 1954, Ellis Island processed over 12 million immigrants, many of whom settled in New Jersey. To learn more about Ellis Island, please visit: http://www.nps.gov/elis/index.htm