MAY 17, 1673. Jesuit missionary Jacques Marquette, fur trader Louis Jolliet and five voyageurs leave the recently established Indian mission at St. Ignace to explore a great river known by the Indians as the "Messissipi." The French have been exploring the Great Lakes since Etienne Brulé reached the St. Marys River around 1620. In two canoes, Marquette's party travels along the northern shore of Lake Michigan, enters Green Bay and crosses present-day Wisconsin. The explorers paddle down the Mississippi, but by mid-July they realize that the river is not the long-sought passageway across North America to China. Though Marquette will die in 1675, the French will continue to explore the Great Lakes, ship furs to Europe and Christianize the Indians. In 1679, Robert Cavelier Sieur de la Salle will direct the construction of the Griffin--the first sailing vessel on the upper Great Lakes. That same year, La Salle will build Fort Miami at present-day St. Joseph--the first non-Indian community in the Lower Pennsula.
JULY 24, 1701. Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac, a forty-three-year-old French army officer, selects a site at le détroit (the straits)--the waterway between Lakes St. Clair and Erie--and establishes a French settlement. Cadillac has convinced King Louis XIV's chief minister, Count Pontchartrain, that a permanent community at present-day Detroit will strengthen French control over the upper Great Lakes and repel British advances. The one hundred soldiers and workers that accompany Cadillac build a 200-square-foot palisade and name it Fort Pontchartrain. Cadillac's wife, Marie Thérèse, soon moves to Detroit, becoming one of the first white women to settle in the Michigan wilderness. At the same time, the French strengthen Fort Michilimackinac at the Straits of Mackinac in order to better control their lucrative fur-trading empire. By the mid-eighteenth century, the French will also occupy forts at present-day Niles and Sault Ste. Marie. However, they will lose their North American empire when the British de feat them in the French and Indian War (1754-1763). By 1760 the Union Jack will fly over the Great Lakes.
MAY 7, 1763. Three hundred Ottawa Indians, led by Pontiac, enter Fort Detroit intent upon launching a surprise attack upon the British garrison commanded by Major Henry Gladwin. Alerted to the plan, the British are ready, and Pontiac withdraws and places Detroit under siege. Since taking control of France's North American empire, the British have alienated the Indians by ending the longstanding practice of gift-giving. Moreover, the Indians feel threatened by the influx of white settlers into the Ohio River Valley. Indian uprisings occur throughout the Ohio River Valley. The Potawatomi capture Fort St. Joseph at present-day Niles on 25 May; the Chippewa take Fort Michilimackinac on 2 June. By mid-1763, Detroit is the only British post west of Niagara, New York, that has not fallen to Indian attack. Despite being vastly outnumbered, the British at Detroit hold on. Finally they receive supplies, and Pontiac ends his siege in late October. To maintain peace with the Indians, the British close the west to white settlement. Later they will tax the American colonists to pay for their military garrisons in the west. Both acts will be among the grievances cited by rebellious colonists in 1776.

JANUARY 26, 1987. Michigan celebrates its 150th anniversary of statehood. The day's festivities begin in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan's oldest continuous settlement, with a 26-gun salute and a bitter-cold dogsled ride. In Lansing the official Michigan Statehood Stamp is issued. At noon, ceremonies are held in the State Capitol and in every county in the state. Despite economic setbacks during the late 1970s and early 1980s, Michigan has rebounded. Michigan--with over nine million people--ranks twelfth in population among the fifty states.

1881-1956: Aircraft manufacturer, born in Detroit, Michigan, USA. A lumberman, in 1916 he formed the Pacific Aero Products Company. In 1927 he organized what would become United Aircraft and Transport. In 1934 the federal government divided United Aircraft and Transport into Boeing Aircraft (a major manufacturer of military and civilian aircraft), United Aircraft, and United Airlines, and he retired from business.

1946-89: Comedienne; born in Detroit, Mich. (married to Gene Wilder). After working with the Second City comedy troupe, she appeared on the National Lampoon Radio Hour in 1974. On National Broadcasting Company's Saturday Night Live (1975--80), she created zany characters whom she brought to Broadway in Gilda Radner Live from New York (1979). She wrote It's Always Something (1989) about the ovarian cancer that ended her life prematurely.