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Great Lakes

group of lakes in North America

19 dated entries naming Great Lakes, drawn from 18 separate years between 1616 CE and 1988 CE. Nothing here is written by us: each line is the sentence a Wikipedia year article used, and the link beside it opens the exact revision.

Also written as Great Lakes (North America) in the source articles; Wikipedia redirects those to the same subject, so their entries are on this page.

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17th century

  • 1616January 15 – After overwintering with the Huron Indians, Samuel de Champlain and Recollect Father Joseph Le Caron visit the Petun and Ottawa Indians of the Great Lakes. This is Champlain's last trip in North America before returning to France. Having secured Canada, he helps create French America, New France, or L'Acadie.source
  • 1673May 17 – In America, trader Louis Joliet and Jesuit missionary-explorer Jacques Marquette begin exploring the Mississippi River and the Great Lakes.source
  • 1679August 7 – The brigantine Le Griffon, commissioned by René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, is towed to the southern end of the Niagara River, to become the first ship to sail the upper Great Lakes of North America.source

18th century

  • 17121712-34 - Fox resistance against the French in the Great Lakes area. Fox Wars begin.source
  • 17401740s: The Mandan Indians west of the Great Lakes begin to trade in horses descended from those brought to Texas by the Spanish. Itinerant Assiniboine Indians bring them from Mandan settlements to their own territories southwest of Lake Winnipeg.source
  • 1748Treaty of Logstown (English with Shawnee, Delaware, Wyandot). English later base their claim to the whole Great Lakes and midwest (or Old Northwest as it was later called) on these two treaties.source
  • 1760Fall of Montreal and surrender of Great Lakes and Ohio Valley French forts to English. Lord Jeffery Amherst starts a "get tough with Indians" policy, including the first biological warfare --smallpox-infested blankets. Amherst granted some Seneca (originally his allies) lands to his officers. Odawa chief Pontiac (and the Delaware Prophet) organize a resistance preaching return to traditional Indian customs. The 1761 draft Proclamation (to English governors), and the Royal Proclamation of 1763 (with a large Indian country in what's now the U.S. Great Lakes/Midwest) were part of the English Crown's attempt to mollify the Indians. Neither proclamation of undisturbed Indian lands was followed by settlers or the Crown.source
  • 17631763–64 – Pontiac's Rebellion threatens British control of the Great Lakes region before being suppressed.source
  • 179629 February – ratifications of the Jay Treaty between Great Britain and the United States are officially exchanged, bringing it into effect. Britain vacates the forts it has been retaining in the Great Lakes region.source

19th century

  • 1809From 1809 to 1811, Tecumseh, Shawnee chief, and the Prophet campaign to unite tribes of the Great Lakes, Ohio Valley, and Southeast against the United States. His brother Tenskwatawa, the Shawnee Prophet, is defeated at the Battle of Tippecanoe in 1811.source
  • 1817April 29 – The Rush–Bagot Treaty is signed between the United States and the British Empire, limiting the number of warships on the Great Lakes between the U.S. and Canada in the aftermath of settling the War of 1812.source
  • 1817July 4 – At Rome, New York, construction on the Erie Canal begins in the U.S. to link the Hudson River to Lake Erie, with the long-range goal of making the first navigable waterway between the Atlantic Ocean and the Great Lakes, and reducing the amount of time and costs for transporting goods westward past the Appalachian mountains.source
  • 1883September 29 – A consortium of flour mill operators in Minneapolis forms the Minneapolis, Sault Ste. Marie and Atlantic Railway, as a means to get their product to the Great Lakes ports, avoiding the high tariffs of Chicago.source
  • 1899July 7 – The Great Lakes Towing Company is incorporated by John D. Rockefeller and William G. Mather to acquire more than 150 tugboats to control shipping in four of the North American Great Lakes and quickly builds a monopoly on Great Lakes traffic.source

20th century

  • 1905November 28 – The Mataafa Storm buffets the Great Lakes region. Named after the SS Mataafa, a boat sunk outside of the Duluth Ship Canal, the storm ultimately destroys 29 vessels, leading to 29 deaths and shipping losses of US$3.567 million (1905 dollars).source
  • 1913November 7 – November 8 – A storm on the Great Lakes sinks some thirty-four shipssource
  • 1959April 25 – The Saint Lawrence Seaway linking the Great Lakes and the Atlantic Ocean officially opens to shipping.source
  • 1978January 25–27 – The Great Blizzard of 1978 strikes the Ohio Valley and Great Lakes, killing 70.source
  • 1988Zebra mussels, a species originally native to the lakes of southern Russia and Ukraine, are found in the Great Lakes of North America.source

Named in the same entries