Washington History

By | October 15, 2021

According to ebizdir, Washington is a state in the northwestern United States, bordering the states of Idaho and Oregon, as well as the Canadian province of British Columbia. The capital is Olympia and the largest city is Seattle. Its nickname is The Evergreen State.

The high mountains of the Cascades mountain range run from north to south and divide the state. The mountain range has several volcanoes, which are higher than other mountains in the mountain range. From north to south, these volcanoes are Mount Baker, Glacier Peak, Mount Rainier, Mount St. Helens and Mount Adams.

During World War II, the area around Puget Sound became a focus area for the war industry, and the company Boeing manufactured many of the United States bombers. The ports of Seattle, Bremerton and Tacoma were used for the manufacture of warships. Seattle was also the shipping point for many soldiers to the Pacific. In eastern Washington, the Handford Works nuclear power plant opened in 1943 and played a significant role in the manufacture of U.S. nuclear bombs.

There are a large number of Native American reservations in Washington, some of which have located casinos along highways, and residents have continued many of the traditional artistic themes from the northwest coast of the United States such as totem poles, longhouses, carved canoes, and animal paintings, such as those used by the Seattle Seahawks. Many cities have Native American names, such as Seattle, Spokane, Puyallup, and Walla Walla.

TIMELINE:

1774 – Juan Perez leads the first Spanish expedition to the northwest coast, discovering the Olympic Mountains, named Sierra Nevada de Santa Rosalia. The Englishman John Meares gave the mountain range its current name a few years later, and it became official in 1864.

1775 – The first European to land on the coast of Washington is believed to be the Spanish captain Don Bruno de Heceta, who took all the coastal areas up to the northern Russian territories of North America in possession of Spain. Later in the day on July 12, seven of Heceta’s men were killed while landing in Greenville Bay by Quinault warriors before even gaining a foothold on land. The two ships continued on and did not return until 17 August. Heceta had mapped Washington’s coast, including the mouth of the Columbia River, but did not sail in at Great River.

1778 – The British explorer Captain James Cook was Cape Flattery in sight, but the strait was not explored properly before the 1789th

1790 – Spain opens northwestern territory at Neah Bay to explorers and fur hunters from other lands.

1792 – George Vancouver explores and names Puget Sound after Peter Puget.

1805 – Lewis and the Clark Expedition reach the state on October 10.

1811 – In April, John Jacob Astor built Fort Astoria, part of the Pacific Fur Company at the mouth of the Columbia River.

1819 – Spain’s original claims to the territory, and supremacy is transferred to the United States. This was the beginning of a period of border disputes between the United States and the United Kingdom, which, however, ended when the United States was granted territory by the conclusion of the Oregon Treaty. Immigration to the area increased via the Oregon Trail, and many settlers settled in the area around Puget Sound.

1825 – Fort Vancouver and Fort Colvile are established on the Columbia River by the Hudson Bay Company.

1842 – John C. Fremont witnesses Mount St. Helen’s eruption, which had its largest of its kind out of a dozen in the period 1831-57.

1847 – Cayuse Indians attack Marcus Whitman’s Mission, located in Walla Walla.

1851 – The first settlers of the Arthur A Denny Expedition arrive in the area of Puget Sound, where the city of Seattle is later built. Their settlement was originally called New York, but around 1853, the city got its current name.

1853 – Washington Territory is established.

1855-58 – The Yakima War takes place.

1859 – Pig War, is a border conflict between Britain and the United States over the border between Canada and the United States on the Pacific Ocean. The name of the conflict refers to the fact that the only victim was a pig.

1860 – Gold and silver are found in Okanogan.

1886 – The coal mining town of Roslyn is founded.

1889 – A major fire burns the following cities: Seattle (June 6), Ellensburg (July 4) and Spokane Falls (August 4). Washington was admitted as the 42nd state of the United States on November 11th.

1890 – The population of Washington is 357,232.

1892 – An explosion at Mine No. 4 near Roslyn, the state’s worst accident on May 10, when 45 miners perished. Read more here.

1893 – The Great Northern Railway’s transcontinental line is completed on January 6, from Saint Paul, Minnesota to Seattle, Washington.

1897-99 – The gold rush in the Klondike brought thousands of people to Seattle.

1899 – Mount Rainier National Park is established as the 5th National Park on March 2, and covers about 957 square kilometers of land, including the entire Mount Rainier, a 4,390-meter-high stratovolcano.

1909 – Harbor Island, at the time the world’s largest artificial island, is completed.

1910 – March 1, Wellington, one of the worst train disasters in the United States and Washington’s worst natural disasters occur. The state was ravaged by a terrible snowstorm for 9 days, and two trains en route from Spokane to Seattle were snowed down at Stevens Pass. A huge portion of the snow from Windy Mountain broke loose during a violent cloudburst. A forest fire had earlier this year ravaged the forest area, so there was not much help to stop the avalanche that missed the Bailets Hotel but hit the railway depot. Most of the passengers and crew on the train slept. The collision swung the train about 50 meters down the hill at Tye Riverdalen. 96 passengers were killed, including 35 passengers and 58 Great Northern employees, and three depot employees. 23 passengers survived. Only 21 weeks later in July was it possible to retrieve the last corpses from the accident site.

1916 – Prohibition period (alcohol) hits the state on January 1, ending December 5, 1933; The Everett Massacre, also known as ” Bloody Sunday “, took place on November 5 in the city of Everett, and was a confrontation between members of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) and local authorities. The IWW had intervened in a bloody strike as 300 IWW members sailed for Everett, where about 200 local deputy citizens were waiting for them. A shot was fired, which was the start of the largely unarmed fight on the boat, which nearly capsized as a result of being overweight. An unknown number of men drowned, and many were also killed by gunfire – over 175 shots pierced the wheelhouse, and the captain narrowly escaped being killed. When it was all over, there were 2 deputy citizens dead, with 16 or 20 others wounded. The IWW officially reported 5 dead, with 27 wounded, although it is speculated that up to 12 were killed.

1920 – Washington’s first radio stations begin broadcasting; The population of the state has risen to 1,356,621.

1921 – Washington state lawmakers introduce ” Alien Land Law ” – which seeks to curb Asians and other “unwanted” immigrants from settling permanently in the United States, by limiting their chances of owning land or property.

1924 – US military aircraft take off from Seattle’s Sand Point Airport on the first global tour of Earth from April 6. They returned again on the 28th of September; The Indian Citizenship Act makes all Native Americans citizens of the United States on June 2nd.

1927 – Lindbergh lands Spirit of St. Louis in Seattle and Spokane in September.

1934 – Eddie Bauer invents the anorak and begins production in Seattle.

1940 – Lake Washington Floating Bridge, the first floating bridge in the world, opens on July 2; One of the world’s first suspension bridges, the Tacoma Narrows Bridge, collapsed on November 7th. See the eerie twisting of the bridge in the link.

1942 – Hanford Nuclear Plant was built in Richland, and established in 1943 as part of the Manhattan Project. The plutonium produced from here was used in the first atomic bomb tested at the Trinity Site and in Fat Man, the bomb that detonated over Nagasaki, Japan.

1947-UFO MYTH: Experienced pilot Kenneth Arnold, on his way to Yakima in his own plane on June 24, flew through the area of Mount Rainier, where a transport plane was supposed to have crashed, and a bounty of $ 5,000 was waiting for the one who found it, so Arnold decided to keep an eye on it as he was going that way on his journey anyway. He suddenly saw a powerful flash of light and nine crescent-shaped flying disks flying past him at an estimated speed of 1930 km / h. This was the first of modern UFO sightings, followed by several reports over the following 2-3 weeks. His description of the objects, led to the expression – in Danish ” flying plate ” or “unidentified flying object ”- UFO. Kenneth Arnold died on January 16, 1984 and was buried in Bellevue, aged 68 years.

1959 – University of Washington researchers collect and document the first evidence of HIV. See a timeline here.

1959 – The 18-year-old Bruce Lee moved to the United States, living in San Francisco for the first few months before moving permanently to Seattle, to continue his education at the University of Washington, and worked for Ruby Chow as a waitress in her restaurant. He began teaching martial arts to his friends and others who were interested, and later opened a school called the Lee Jun Fan Gung Fu Institute.

1971 MYTH: The unknown man named ” DB Cooper ” boarded a Boeing 727 on November 24 in Portland to fly on to Seattle. He gave the stewardess a note, but she did not read it at once, but put it in her pocket. When she had time to read it, it said that Cooper had a bomb and demanded $ 200,000 not to detonate it. He simultaneously demanded four parachutes. After he got the requirement met, the plane took off again and Cooper ordered the pilot to fly low. He jumped out with the money somewhere near Ariel, Washington. A search was launched, but no one could find him. There has been much speculation as to where he ended up. There were subsequently two people linked to Cooper – Richard McCoy imitated his hijacking of a plane with the same instructions in Denver on April 7, 1972, Two days after the hijacking, McCoy was arrested. A bag with $ 499,970 was found in his house. McCoy kept claiming he was innocent. But he was found guilty of a 45-year prison sentence. He fled in 1974, but was captured and shot by FBI agents. The other person, Duane Weber, who before his death in 1995 told his wife that he was Cooper, published this in an article in US News andWorld Report in 2000. Jo Weber could tell that one night she had overheard her husband when he had nightmares and talked in his sleep. He said something about jumping out of a plane. Later, she had found an old plane ticket in his jacket. On the ticket was SEA-TAC. This means Seattle-Tacoma. At the same time, Duane Weber suffered from pain in his knee. He had told his wife that it was due to a jump from a plane he had once performed. Read more here and here.

1973 – On May 10, Bruce Lee collapses in the Golden Harvest studio while working on the dubbing of Enter The Dragon. He had accumulation of fluid in the brain, which the doctors quenched with Mannitol. A small lump of Nepalese hash was also removed from his stomach. On July 20, Lee was in Hong Kong to discuss the movie Game of Death with Raymond Chow, and later to have dinner with George Lazenby, with whom he would like to record a movie. While Lee was at the home of his colleague Betty Ting Pei, with Raymond Chow, he complained of headaches and rested after receiving a painkiller at. 19:30. When Lee did not show up for the appointment, Chow returned to the apartment and could not wake him. An ambulance was called, but doctors declared him dead before reaching Queen Elizabeth Hospital. Lee was only 32 years old, and at the autopsy, remnants of Equagesic were found in his body – the pill he allegedly had an allergic reaction to. Lee’s wife, Linda Lee, returned to Seattle with his body and buried him at Lakeview Cemetery in place 276. The coffin bearers at his July 31 funeral included Taky Kimura, Steve McQueen, James Coburn, Chuck Norris, George Lazenby, Dan Inosanto, Peter Chin, and Lee’s brother Robert.

1975 – On April 4, Bill Gates and Paul Allen founded the IT company Microsoft, based in Redmond, Seattle. In 1981, Microsoft entered into a contract with IBM to supply an operating system for their upcoming product, the first PC. The PC became a huge success, and Microsoft marketed DOS to the other PC manufacturers under the name MS-DOS, and DOS quickly became the de facto standard on PCs. With that, the foundation was laid for Microsoft dominance on the PC platform.

1980 – On May 18, the volcano Mount St. Helens, which led to the loss of 57 human lives; The population of the state is now up to 4,132,400.

1983 – The Tacoma Dome opens on April 21. The very first concert to be played is David Bowie, with his opening band The Tubes on August 11th. See the set list here.

1986 – Astronaut Richard F. Scobee (born in Cle Elum ) and six colleagues die in the January 28 Challenger accident.

1992 – On October 6, Metallica and Guns N ‘Roses play their last show at Kingdome Stadium in Seattle, on their joint tour, with Motörhead and Body Count as the opening bands.

1993 – On May 31, Bruce Lee’s son, Brandon Lee, is accidentally killed by a gunshot in the stomach during the filming of The Crow, which began on his 28th birthday on February 1, 1993 in Wilmington, North Carolina. The doctors at the city hospital operated on him for 6 hours, but they failed to save his life. The recording of his death was used as evidence in the investigation, and was later destroyed as part of a deal. Brandon was buried next to his father, at Lakeview Cemetery on April 3rd. A stunt double helped complete the film, which was posthumously released on May 13, 1994.

1994 – On April 8, lead singer Kurt Cobain of the band Nirvana, was found dead in his garage in Seattle. He had committed suicide by shooting himself in the head with his shotgun three days earlier. Cobain married Courtney Love in 1992, and they had a daughter, Frances Bean Cobain, later that year. Cobain, however, never found himself at ease in either the role of rock star or family man. He was a heavy heroin addict during this period and was admitted to a hospital in Rome on March 4, 1994 after taking an overdose. This is said to have been his first suicide attempt. On the way home on the plane, one of the last people he spoke to was Duff McKagan from Guns N ‘Roses, who himself had been through a violent detox. His death was a shock to his fans, and subsequently he has gained increased cult status. Several conspiracy theories arose about his suicide – one of them is e.g. that it was in fact his wife Courtney Love who directly or indirectly killed him. Read more here and here.

1996 – An archeological find of bones from what came to be known as the ” Kennewick Man ” on the Columbia River in Kennewick on July 28, is one of the most complete skeletons of antiquity. The bones date back to between 7300-7600 BCE. The find was also the starting point for a series of clashes between scientists, the government and the Native American tribes who claim the bones are from one of their ancestors. Read more here about the trial.

2000 – On January 31, Alaska Flight 261 en route to Seattle loses control of the aircraft and is forced to land in the Pacific Ocean, 4.3 km north of Anacapa Island, California. All 88 people on board the plane died.

2001 – On November 30, Gary Leon Ridgway, known as the American serial killer “The Green River Killer”, was arrested for the murders of four women whose cases were linked to him using DNA evidence as he left the Kenworth factory in Renton., where he worked. In November 2003, he pleaded guilty to 48 murders, although he said he had actually killed 90 women or more, almost all prostitutes. Ridgway murdered several women in Washington in the 1980s and 1990s. 1983 was a particularly deadly year. Ridgway strangled most of the victims with his bare fists, while a few were strangled with a piece of string or the like. He is also believed to have participated in other forms of atrocities including torture, rape, and necrophilia.

2003 – Michael P. Anderson (from Spokane), and six colleagues, died in the Columbia accident during the descent to Earth on November 5.

2004 – ” Frasier,” which takes place in Seattle in the series, aired the final episode on May 13th. The series aired on NBC throughout all 11 seasons, from September 16, 1993 until the end. The show became one of the most popular sitcoms among viewers and critics and won 39 Emmy Awards over the years.

2005 – Between August 5 and 19, a forest fire ravages and engulfs nearly 52,000 acres of land in the central parts of Columbia and Garfield counties in the Blue Mountains. More than 100 homes and 100 buildings were destroyed. The bill for the forest fire was over $ 15 million. The fire was originally detected from space by NASA ‘s Terra satellite. Read more here.

2006 – The last coal mine in the state closes on November 27. The Centralia power plant is today the state’s only coal power plant.

2007 – The BlackPast.org website launches on February 1st. The site acquires information about the history of African Americans in America and in other parts of the world. The Northwest African American Museum opened on March 8, 2008.

2012 – In Seattle, at 325 5th Avenue N, Seattle Center, a memorial park was opened for Jimi Hendrix, who died in London, England on September 18, 1970. The park, shaped like a guitar, contains many imaginative effects., to be reminiscent of his music.

2014 – At Marysville Pilchuck High School in Marysville, another school shooting in the United States took place on October 24th. The perpetrator, 14-year-old Jaylen Freshman, who was a student at the school, shot and killed two other students and injured three others, two of whom were critical. He committed suicide shortly after.

Washington History