March 31, 1976
Turning right on red was made OK.
A new traffic law went into effect, which allowed drivers to make right turns after stopping at a red light. The law was adopted in part to conserve fuel.
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March 30, 1815
Detroiters celebrated the war’s end.
The War of 1812 left Detroit impoverished. When word reached Michigan about the Treaty of Ghent, which ended America’s second war with Great Britain, Detroiters gathered at Ben Woodworth’s Hotel and held what is called a Pacification Ball to celebrate the war’s formal end.
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March 29, 1929
Fireworks were banned in Michigan.
Michigan becomes the first state in the Union to ban fireworks when the legislature adopts a law banning the use of fireworks by the general public. The law only allows displays by licensed operators.
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March 26, 1859
Articles of incorporation were adopted by Adrian College.
In 1840, a group of disenchanted Michigan Methodists seceded from the Michigan Episcopal Church and organized themselves in a conference bearing the name Wesleyan Methodist Connection. This led to the founding of the Leoni Theological Institute in 1848 near Jackson, Michigan. Eventually, the school’s name was changed to Michigan Union College. In 1857, the Reverend Asa Mahan became pastor of the Plymouth Congregational church in Adrian. Hearing the Michigan Union College was in financial trouble, Mahan worked to move the school to Adrian. To keep local residents from discovering the hegira, the school’s library and its students were transported under the cover of the night to Adrian where the name Adrian College was adopted. By 1862, Adrian College had a student enrollment of 82 women and 133 men.
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March 25, 1680
La Salle and his men left Fort Miami to explore interior Michigan.
French explorer René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle and five other men left Fort Miami (present-day St. Joseph) to journey across the southern Lower Peninsula. Battling cold temperatures, snow, swamps and Indians, La Salle’s men reached Niagara on April 4, 1680, becoming the first Europeans to see the interior of the Lower Peninsula.
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March 24, 1936
The Red Wings played the longest Stanley Cup game in history.
The Detroit Red Wings played an NHL Stanley Cup play-off game against the Montreal Maroons that combined 60 minutes of regulation play and 116 minutes, 30 seconds of overtime. Detroit won 1-0 and went on to win the series and their first Stanley Cup.
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March 23, 1984
The state’s first test-tube baby was born.
A woman from Hazel Park gave birth to the 7 pound, 13 ounce baby boy. Doctors had removed four eggs from the woman, fertilized them with her husband’s sperm, and then transferred one fertile egg back into the mother where the baby developed normally.
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March 22, 1954
The country’s first regional shopping mall opened in Southfield.
As Detroit’s population spread north and west out of the city, the J. L. Hudson Company built the huge Northland Shopping Center at Eight Mile Road, the boundary between Wayne and Oakland counties. The mall’s central store, a multi-storied J. L. Hudson’s, was flanked by one hundred smaller shops. The mall also had acres of parking lots. The success at Northland was soon adopted by developers all across the country.
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March 19, 1845
Houghton County was created.
Located in the heart of Michigan’s Copper Country, Houghton County received its earliest settlers in the 1840s. After the Civil War, Houghton, named for Douglas Houghton, the state’s first geologist, boomed. During the 1870s, the county’s biggest copper producer, Calumet & Hecla Mining Company, mined 50 percent of the nation’s copper. By the beginning of the twentieth century, Houghton County’s 66,000 people made it the state’s fourth most populous county.
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March 18, 1837
The University of Michigan prepared to move from Detroit to Ann Arbor.
The state legislature approved an act to provide for the organization and government of the University of Michigan. Two days later, the legislature adopted an act locating the school in Ann Arbor. As an inducement to move the university to Ann Arbor, an offer of forty acres of land was made to the legislature by Elijah Morgan and his partners in the Ann Arbor Land Company.
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Michigan is Amazing 