Michigan consists of two peninsulas: the heavily forested Upper Peninsula (commonly called "the U.P."), which juts eastward from northern Wisconsin, and the more populated Lower Peninsula, stretching north from Ohio and Indiana. The peninsulas are separated by the Straits of Mackinac, which connects Lake Michigan and Lake Huron, and are linked by the 5-mile-long Mackinac Bridge along Interstate 75. Bordering four of the five Great Lakes and Lake St. Clair, Michigan has the longest freshwater coastline of any U.S. political subdivision, measuring 3,288 miles. The state ranks second behind Alaska in water coverage by square miles and first in percentage, with approximately 42%, and it also contains 64,980 inland lakes and ponds.
In the 17th century, French explorers claimed the Great Lakes region for New France, though the area had largely been inhabited for thousands of years by Indigenous peoples such as the Ojibwe, Odawa, Potawatomi, and Wyandot. French settlers and Métis established forts and settlements. Some people contend that the region’s name is derived from the Ojibwe word ᒥᓯᑲᒥ (mishigami), meaning "large water" or "large lake". While others say that it comes from the Mishiiken Tribe of Mackinac Island, also called Michinemackinawgo by Ottawa historian Andrew Blackbird, whose surrounding lands were referred to as Mishiiken-imakinakom, later shortened to Michilimackinac. After France's defeat in the French and Indian War in 1762, the area came under British control and later the U.S. following the Treaty of Paris (1783), though control remained disputed with Indigenous tribes until treaties between 1795 and 1842. The area was part of the larger Northwest Territory; the Michigan Territory was organized in 1805. Michigan was admitted as the 26th state on January 26, 1837, entering as a free state and quickly developing into an industrial and trade hub that attracted European immigrants, particularly from Finland, Macedonia, and the Netherlands. In the 1930s, migration from Appalachia, the Middle East and the Great Migration of Black Southerners further shaped the state, especially in Metro Detroit.
Michigan has a diversified economy with a gross state product of $719.392billion as of Q4 2024, ranking 14th among the 50 states. Although the state has developed a diverse economy, in the early 20th century it became widely known as the center of the U.S. automotive industry, which developed as a major national economic force. It is home to the country's three major automobile companies (whose headquarters are all in Metro Detroit). Once exploited for logging and mining, today the sparsely populated Upper Peninsula is important for tourism because of its abundance of natural resources. The Lower Peninsula is a center of manufacturing, forestry, agriculture, services, and high-tech industry. (Full article...)
In March 2011, the rivalry was refueled by media commentary related to the ESPN Films documentary entitled The Fab Five. The latest meeting between the teams occurred in the 2013 ACC–Big Ten Challenge, a game on December 3, which Duke won, 79–69. (Full article...)
Howard Henry Peckham, (July 13, 1910 – July 6, 1995) was a professor and historian and an authority on colonial and early American history who published a number of works on those subjects. His academic career encompassed a wide variety of involvements in educational institutions and various historical societies. Peckham played a fundamental role in establishing professional academic standards for the management of historical manuscripts and historical society work in the 20th century that have endured to this day. He was a founding member of the Society of American Archivists and the Director of the William L. Clements Library at the University of Michigan. Peckham and his associate, Lloyd A. Brown, were the first historians to publish the American Revolutionary War journals of Henry Dearborn, in 1939, making them available to the general public for the first time. He is also noted for establishing more accurate numbers of American Revolutionary War deaths, which were much greater than previously assumed. (Full article...)
Image 6Treaty of Paris, by Benjamin West (1783), an unfinished painting of the American diplomatic negotiators of the Treaty of Paris which brought official conclusion to the Revolutionary War and gave possession of Michigan and other territory to the new United States (from Michigan)
Image 9Union members occupying a General Motors body factory during the Flint Sit-Down Strike of 1937 which spurred the organization of militant CIO unions in auto industry (from History of Michigan)
Image 45A map of Michigan by Henry Schenck Tanner, published in 1842, showing such county names as "Negwegon County," "Okkuddo County," and "Unwattin County," prior to an 1843 legislative action renaming sixteen counties in northern Michigan (from History of Michigan)
Image 46Detroit in the mid-twentieth century. At the time, the city was the fourth-largest U.S. metropolis by population, and held about one-third of the state's population. (from Michigan)
Image 47Père Marquette and the Indians (1869), by Wilhelm Lamprecht (from Michigan)
Image 48Ford Dearborn Proving Ground (DPG) completed major reconstruction and renovations in 2006. (from Michigan)
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The Flag of Michigan
The Seal of Michigan
State Quarter – Released in 2004
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