Portal:Delaware
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Delaware (IPA: /ˈdɛ.ləˌwɛɹ/), named after Thomas West, 3rd Baron De La Warr, was the first state to ratify the United States Constitution. The state, located in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States, ranks 49th in land area, and 45th in population, but 7th in population density. The highest elevation, located at Ebright Azimuth, in the Brandywine Hundred, does not even rise 450 feet above sea level. Delaware's largest city and economic hub, Wilmington, is located about halfway between New York City and Washington, DC, within commuting distance of both Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and Baltimore, Maryland.
Before the Dutch established a trading post at Zwaanendael in 1631, the area was home to a number of Eastern Algonquian tribes of Native Americans. Prior to the American Revolution, the territory became known as the "Lower Counties on the Delaware", under the control of William Penn and his heirs. Delaware declared its independence from the colony of Pennsylvania and the Kingdom of Great Britain on June 15, 1776. The all night ride of Caesar Rodney to cast the deciding vote for the Declaration of Independence is commemorated in the state quarter issued in 1999.
Delaware's largest private employers include Bank of America, DuPont, Christiana Care Health System, JPMorgan Chase, AstraZeneca, Wal-Mart, Mountaire Farms, Dover Downs, Alfred I. duPont Institute, Perdue Farms, Chrysler, General Motors, Wilmington Trust, and Pepco Holdings. The state's Congressional Delegation includes Democratic Senators Thomas R. Carper and Joseph R. Biden, Jr., and Republican Representative Michael N. Castle.
Delaware has several National Historic Landmarks and National Wildlife Refuges, along with other botanical gardens, museums, festivals, parks, houses, lighthouses, and historic places.
Hurricane Esther was the fifth named storm and fifth hurricane of the 1961 Atlantic hurricane season. A long-lived Category 4 Cape Verde-type hurricane, Esther spent its lifetime offshore, before moving up the East Coast of the United States. Esther made two distinct landfalls in New England, passing over Nantucket Island as a rapidly weakening Category 3 hurricane, then coming ashore in Maine while losing its tropical characteristics. These landfalls were separated by a rather unusual anticyclonic loop over the north Atlantic Ocean.
The hurricane caused $6 million (1961 USD, $37.4 million 2005 USD) in damage along the Eastern Seaboard, mostly on Long Island. Seven indirect deaths were also attributed to Esther after a Navy aircraft crashed in the Atlantic Ocean north of Bermuda, one of only a few documented occurrences of a tropical cyclone causing an airplane crash.
Esther was also one of the first storms targeted by a Navy experiment aimed at weakening hurricanes by seeding their eyewalls with silver iodide. Two flights were made into the storm, and the results of this expedition led to the establishment of the ill-fated Project Stormfury in 1962.
Portal:Delaware/History/June 14
- ...that American Indian poet and Delaware-native James Dillet Freeman is referred to as the "poet laureate to the moon"? His 1941 "Prayer for Protection" was taken aboard Apollo 11 in July 1969 by Lunar Module pilot Buzz Aldrin, and a microfilm of his 1947 "I Am There" was left on the moon by James B. Irwin on Apollo 15.
- ...that according to a survey by the National Science Foundation, Delaware has more doctoral-level (Ph.D.) scientists and engineers, as a percentage of the population, than any other state? Delaware also has a higher rate of patent awards, per person, than any other state.
- ...that Holy Trinity Church (Old Swedes), built in 1698, is one of the oldest churches in America still in use? The National Historic Landmark is now part of the Episcopal Diocese of Delaware.
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- Alfred I. duPont Hospital for Children
- Delaware College of Art and Design
- Mountaire Farms
- Wilmington Flower Market
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Caesar Rodney (October 7, 1728 – June 26, 1784), was an American lawyer and politician from St. Jones Neck, in Dover Hundred, Kent County, Delaware, east of Dover. He was an officer of the Delaware militia during the French and Indian War and the American Revolution, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, a Continental Congressman from Delaware, and President of Delaware during most of the American Revolution.
Rodney was born October 7, 1728 at Byfield, his family's farm on St. Jones Neck, in Dover Hundred, Kent County, Delaware. Byfield is just north of John Dickinson's mansion, Poplar Hall. He was the son of Caesar and Mary Crawford Rodney, and grandson of William Rodney, who came to America in the 1680s and had been Speaker of the Colonial Assembly of the Lower Counties in 1704. Among the Rodney family ancestors were the prominent Adelmare family in Treviso, Italy. His mother was the daughter of the Rev. Thomas Crawford, the Anglican rector of Christ Church at Dover. Byfield was an 800 acre (3.2 km²) farm, worked by a small number of slaves. With the addition of other adjacent properties, the Rodney's were, by the standards of the day, wealthy members of the local gentry. Sufficient income was earned from the sale of wheat and barley to the Philadelphia and West Indies market to provide enough cash and leisure to allow members of the family to participate in the social and political life of Kent County.
Caesar Rodney was first educated at home, but later attended the Latin School in Philadelphia. Rodney's father died in 1745, when he was 17 years old, and the younger Rodney was placed under the guardianship of Nicholas Ridgely, Clerk of the Peace in Kent County. As the eldest son, he ran the family farm for 10 years before entering politics. His mother remarried and had two additional children, but she died in 1763. Subsequently, Caesar was the primary provider for his younger brothers and sisters, and was especially close to his brother, Thomas Rodney, and half sister, Sally Wilson, who kept house for him. He never married. According to tradition, he courted Mary (Polly) Vining, aunt of later U.S. Senator John M. Vining. However, she married the Rev. Charles Inglis, the rector of Christ Episcopal Church in Dover, where the family attended church.
Courthouse of Kent County in Dover.
The following list of Delaware state symbols have been approved by the Delaware General Assembly and added to the Delaware Code:
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