Native Americans lived around
Narragansett Bay for thousands of years before English settlers began arriving in the early 17th century. Rhode Island was unique among the
Thirteen British Colonies in having been founded by a refugee,
Roger Williams, who fled
religious persecution in the
Massachusetts Bay Colony to establish a haven for religious liberty. He founded Providence in 1636 on land purchased from local tribes, creating the first settlement in North America with an explicitly secular government. The
Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations subsequently became a destination for religious and political dissenters and social outcasts, earning it the moniker "Rogue's Island".
Rhode Island was the first colony to call for a
Continental Congress, in 1774, and the first to renounce its allegiance to the British
Crown, on May 4, 1776. After the
American Revolution, during which it was heavily occupied and contested, Rhode Island became the fourth state to ratify the
Articles of Confederation, on February 9, 1778. Because its citizens favored a weaker central government, it boycotted the
1787 convention that had drafted the
United States Constitution, which it initially refused to ratify; it finally ratified it on May 29, 1790, the last of the original 13 states to do so.
The state was officially named the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations since the colonial era but came to be commonly known as "Rhode Island". In November 2020, the state's voters
approved an amendment to the
state constitution formally dropping "and Providence Plantations" from its full name. Its official nickname is the "Ocean State", a reference to its 400 mi (640 km) of coastline and the large bays and inlets that make up about 14% of its area. (Full article...)
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The Narragansett Pacer was one of the first recorded horse breeds developed in the United States. It emerged in the 18th century (1700s), and was theorized to have been bred from a mix of English and
Spanish breeds, although the exact cross is unknown. The Pacer was associated with, and bred in, the state of
Rhode Island and the area of
New England; as
horse breeding shifted to
Kentucky and
Tennessee in the late 1700s, it became extinct by the 20th century.
Narragansett Pacer horses were owned and ridden by many famous people of the
American Revolutionary War era, including President
George Washington,
Paul Revere, and others. The last known purebred Pacer is thought to have died around 1880, though the breed disappeared earlier from pedigrees in the late 1700s or early 1800s. (Full article...)
Thomas Harper Ince (November 16, 1880 – November 19, 1924) was an American
silent era filmmaker and media proprietor.
Ince was known as the "Father of the
Western" and was responsible for making over 800 films.
... that a Rhode Island TV station broadcast for 14 months and then was off the air for 26 years before returning?
Quotes related to Rhode Island
One hundred years after the declaration that all men are created equal, there began to gather in Newport a colony of the rich, determined to show that some Americans were conspicuously more equal than others.
Image 14In 1936, on the 300th anniversary of the settlement of Rhode Island in 1636, the U.S. Post Office issued a commemorative stamp, depicting Roger Williams (from Rhode Island)
Image 58In 1936, on the 300th anniversary of the settlement of Rhode Island in 1636, the U.S. Post Office issued a commemorative stamp, depicting Roger Williams (from Rhode Island)
Image 59Ethnic origins in Rhode Island (from Rhode Island)
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