New Hampshire Miscellaneous
Miscellaneous
- The Appalachian National Scenic Trail passes through New Hampshire. Mount Washington holds the record for the highest recorded surface wind gust (231 mph).
- The Saint-Gaudens National Historic Site is located in Cornish.
- New Hampshire is home to the largest music festival in New England (SoulFest), held at Gunstock Mountain Resort the first week in August.
- The reconstructed Fort at Number 4 from the 1740s and 1750s is in Charlestown.
- New Hampshire is host to the New Hampshire Highland Games[6]. New Hampshire has also registered an official tartan with the proper authorities in Scotland, used to make kilts worn by the State Police while they serve during the games.
- New Hampshire has the only piece of Interstate highway that is two-lane (a single northbound lane and a single southbound lane) with a cobblestone median. This was done to preserve Franconia Notch, the site of the Old Man of the Mountain, a former rock formation visible from Interstate 93 in Franconia.
- Its license plates boast the famous state motto: "Live free or die."
- New Hampshire is the only state in the country to not require seatbelts for adults, and was previously the only to not require motorcycle helmets.
- New Hampshire was the last of the New England states to observe Fast Day, a day of prayer for a bountiful harvest. It was a legal holiday until 1991, when it was replaced by Civil Rights Day, which was later renamed "Martin Luther King, Jr. Civil Rights Day", becoming the second to last state to have a "Martin Luther King" day. [7]
- In 2003, it gained international attention for having the first openly gay bishop of a large mainline Christian church, Gene Robinson, within the Anglican Communion (the Episcopal Church in the United States of America).
- USS New Hampshire was named in honor of this state.
- Killington, Vermont has twice voted to secede from Vermont and join New Hampshire—a largely symbolic act, since secession would require the agreement of both states' legislatures and the U.S. Congress. Supporters of secession note that almost all Vermont towns were first chartered by New Hampshire and point out that the two states already have some unusual cross-border links, including two of the rare interstate school districts in the United States (a third is shared by Oregon and Nevada).
- Keene held the world record for the most jack-o’-lanterns in one place (28,952) until 2006, when it was beaten by Boston (30,128).
Granite State firsts[8]
- On January 5, 1776 at Exeter, the Provincial Congress of New Hampshire ratified the first independent state constitution, free of British rule.
- On June 12, 1800, Fernald's Island in the Piscataqua River became the first government-sanctioned US Navy shipyard.
- Started in 1822, Dublin's Juvenile Library was the first free public library.
- In 1828, the first women's strike in the nation took place at Dover's Cocheco Mills.
- In 1845, the machine shop of Nashuan John H. Gage was considered the first shop devoted to the manufacture of machinists' tools.
- On August 29, 1866, Sylvester Marsh demonstrated the first mountain-climbing "cog" railway.
- Finished on June 27, 1874, the first trans-Atlantic telecommunications cable between Europe and America stretched from Balinskelligs Bay, Ireland, to Rye Beach, New Hampshire.
- On February 6, 1901, a group of nine conservationists founded the Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests, the first forest conservation advocacy group in the US.
- In 1908, Monsignor Pierre Hevey organized the nation's first credit union, in Manchester, to help mill workers save and borrow money.
- In 1937 The Belknap Recreation Area installed the first chairlift for skiing in the East.
- In July 1944, the Bretton Woods Agreement, the first fully-negotiated system intended to govern monetary relations among independent nation-states, was signed at the Mount Washington Hotel.
- On May 5, 1961, Alan Shepard of Derry rode a Mercury spacecraft and became the first American in space.
- In 1963, New Hampshire's legislature approved the nation's first modern state lottery, which began play in 1964.
- In 1966, Ralph Baer of Sanders Associates, Inc., Nashua, recruited engineers to develop the first home video game.
- Christa McAuliffe of Concord became the first private citizen selected to venture into space. She perished with her six space shuttle Challenger crewmates in January 28, 1986.
- On May 17, 1996 New Hampshire became the first state in the country to install a green LED traffic light. NH was selected because they were the first to start installing the red and yellow ones statewide.[22]
- On May 31, 2007 New Hampshire became "...the first state to embrace same-sex unions without a court order or the threat of one."[23]
More Information for your New Hampshire Miscellaneous:
|
