Timeline Wisconsin
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Facts: https://www.50states.com/wisconsi.htm
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450 Million A 650- to 700-foot meteorite crashed into the earth at speeds up to 67,500 mph. The impact dislodged rocks and created a massive hole in a 4-mile area called Rock Elm about 70 miles east of Minneapolis, Wisc.
(AP, 4/26/04)
12kBCE Southeast Wisconsin was free of ice by this time.
(Arch, 7/02, p.54)
11.5k-10.2kBCE A site near Kenosha, Wisc., indicates human butchery of wooly mammoths during this period.
(Arch, 7/02, p.50)
c1000 Dan Arnold, an amateur archeologist, found Indian charcoal drawings in a cave near La Crosse in 1998 that dated back at least 1000 years. The site was not revealed to the public until 2000 to allow official documentation.
(SFC, 11/21/00, p.A2)
1634 French explorer Jean Nicolet, looking for Cathay, traveled the western shores of Lake Michigan and landed on Wisconsin soil.
(www.wisconsinhistory.org/museum/exhibits/framed/landfall.asp)(Econ, 6/27/09, p.38)
1799 Feb 9, The USS Constellation captured the French frigate Insurgente off the coast of Wisconsin.
(HN, 2/9/97)
1814 Jul 18, The British captured Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin.
(MC, 7/18/02)
1832 Aug 2, Some 1,300 Illinois militia under General Henry Atkinson massacred Sauk Indian men, women and children who were followers of Black Hawk at the Bad Axe River in Wisconsin. Black Hawk himself finally surrendered three weeks later, bringing the Black Hawk War to an end.
(HN, 8/2/98)(MC, 8/2/02)
1835 Solomon Laurent Juneau, a fur trader, laid out the eastern part of Milwaukee and became the first president of the village in 1837. Juneau was born in Montreal and in 1818 settled on the site of Milwaukee and established a trading business. Juneau, who became a U.S. citizen in 1831, was elected the city‘s first mayor in 1846.
(HNQ, 2/6/00)
1836 Apr 20, The Territory of Wisconsin was established by Congress.
(AP, 4/20/97)(HN, 4/20/98)
1836 Jul 4, The territorial government of Wisconsin was established.
(IB, Internet, 12/7/98)
1848 May 29, Wisconsin became the 30th state of the union.
(AP, 5/29/97)(HN, 5/29/98)
1853 Aug 21, Henry Wellcome (d.1936) was born in Wisconsin. In 1880 Henry went to London to join Silas Burroughs and set up a successful pharmaceutical firm called Burroughs, Wellcome & Co.
(www.swan.ac.uk/egypt/infosheet/Wellcome.htm)
1854 Feb 28, Some 50 slavery opponents met in Ripon, Wis., to call for creation of a new political group, which became the Republican Party. [see Mar 20, Jul 6]
(AP, 2/28/00)
1854 Mar 20, The Republican Party was founded when former members of the Whig political party met to establish a new political party that would oppose the spread of slavery into the western territories. [see Feb 28, Jul 6]
(MC, 3/20/02)
1854 Jul 6, The Republican Party was officially organized in Jackson, Michigan. The Republican Party was formed in Ripon, Wisconsin, by a group of anti-slavery politicians at the Little White Schoolhouse. [see Feb 28, Mar 20]
(Hem., 7/96, p.28)(HN, 7/6/98)
1855 Jun 14, Robert Marion "Fighting Bob" La Follette, reform movement leader, Governor of Wisconsin, U.S. Senator, Progressive Party presidential candidate, was born.
(HN, 6/14/98)
1857 Thorstein Veblen (d.1929), political economist and social critic, was born in Wisconsin to Norwegian immigrants.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R20)(SFEC, 7/11/99, BR p.4)
1858 Feb 8, A record brawl in the US House of Representatives erupted over the issue of slavery. Wisconsin Congressman John F. Potter pulled a wig off a Mississippi congressman and declared “I’ve scalped him."
(WSJ, 6/13/06, p.D6)(www.wisconsinhistory.org/odd/archives/001067.asp)
1867 Oct 11, Carlos Glidden and Samuel Soule applied for a patent on their new direct action typewriter. Christopher Latham Sholes (1819-1890), Carlos Glidden (1834-1877) and Samuel Soule had invented the typewriter in the 1860s. Charles E. Weller coined the phrase "Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of the party" to check out the first typewriter built in Milwaukee.
(ON, 12/10, p.7)(SFC, 1/29/97, Z1 p.2)(SFEC, 3/22/98, Z1 p.8)
1867 Jacob Leinenkugel, an immigrant from Bavaria, founded Leinenkugel Beer to supply the lumberjack community of Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin. In 1988 the family business agreed to be acquired by the Miller Brewing Co.
(WSJ, 9/27/08, p.A16)(http://tinyurl.com/4epavl)
1868 Apr 19, Paul P. Harris, founder of the Rotary Club, was born in Racine, Wisconsin.
(www.rotary.org/en/AboutUs/History/paulharris/Pages/Timeline.aspx)
1871 Oct 8-14, In Peshtigo, Wisc., some 1,500 people were killed in the nation’s worst forest fire, which burned across six counties and into Michigan. Fires also broke out in the Michigan communities of Holland, Manistee and Port Huron.
(WSJ, 9/13/01, p.B11)(WSJ, 8/4/04, p.B1)(SSFC, 9/4/05, p.A7)(AP, 10/8/08)
1871 P.T. Barnum (Phineas Taylor Barnum,1810-1891), US showman, founded "The Greatest Show On Earth" in Delavan, Wis. He presented General Tom Thumb and Jenny Lind (1820-1870), "The Swedish Nightingale," to the public. He also introduced 3 rings to the circus.
(WUD, 1994, p.121)(WSJ, 1/7/97, p.A19)(WUD, 1994, p.832)(AP, 6/10/07)
1873 The Racine Silver Plate Co. was founded.
(SFC,11/26/97, Z1 p.7)
1877 Joseph S. Hartmann opened a luggage business in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The Hartmann family ran the business until 1955. In 1959 the company moved to Lebanon, Tennessee and was later taken over by Clarion Capital Partners.
(SFC, 1/2/08, p.G3)
1878 Jul 9, H.V. Kaltenborn, newscaster (Who Said That?), was born in Milwaukee, Wisc.
(MC, 7/9/02)
1878 Harry Houdini (1874-1926), magician and escape artist born as Erik Weisz (Ehrich Weiss) in Budapest, arrived in Appleton, Wisconsin, where his father became town rabbi.
(WSJ, 3/25/04, p.A1)
1880 Mar 23, John Stevens of Neenah, Wis., patented the grain crushing mill. This mill allowed flour production to increase by 70 percent.
(HN, 3/23/98)
1881 Jul 8, Edward Berner of Two Rivers, Wisconsin, created the Sundae.
(MC, 7/8/02)
1881 George B. Mattoon founded his Mattoon Manufacturing Co. in Sheboygan, Wisconsin. From 1904 to the 1950s the company manufactured upscale furniture. The name of the company was changed to Northern Furniture following Mattoon’s death (1916), when the Reiss family took over and re-named it R-Way Furniture. The Northern Furniture brand name continued.
(SFC, 10/4/06, p.G2)
1882 The factory of the Racine Silver Plate Co. burned down. It was re-opened a year later in Rockford, Ill.
(SFC,11/26/97, Z1 p.7)
1883 Jan 10, Fire at uninsured Newhall Hotel in Milwaukee, Wisconsin killed 71. General Tom Thumb of P.T. Barnum fame escaped unhurt.
(MC, 1/10/02)
1883 Jun 11, Frank O. King, "Gasoline Alley" cartoonist, was born in Cashton, Wisc.
(SC, 6/11/02)
1885 Joseph Steinwand created Colby cheese and named it after the township where his father built northern Clark County’s first cheese factory. In 2021 a bipartisan bill heard by the Wisconsin state Assembly committee aimed to make it the state's official cheese.
(AP, 7/7/21)
1887 Nov. 15, Georgia O'Keefe (d.1986), American painter, was born in Wisconsin.
(WUD, 1994, p.1002)(HFA, '96, p.42)(SFC, 7/16/97, p.E3)
1888 In Wisconsin the Theresa diamond, weighing 21.5 carats, was found on or near the Green Lake Moraine near Kohlsville, Washington county.
(http://wgnhs.uwex.edu/minerals/diamond/)
1890-1900 Black River Falls was plagued by a series of suicides, murders, financial ruin and bizarre eruptions of violence. These events were described in the 1973 book “Wisconsin Death Trip" by Michael Lesy. In 2000 a documentary film was completed based on the book and this period.
(SFC, 1/2/02, p.D1)
1892 Kiel Manufacturing Co. was founded in Kiel, Wis. The name was changed to Kiel Furniture in 1907. In 1935 a manager bought the company and changed the name to A.A. Laun Furniture Co. and continued operations.
(SFC, 7/6/05, p.G3)
1894 Sep, A major fire in Wisconsin burned several million acres.
(SFC, 10/30/03, p.A15)
1895 In Wisconsin Frank Grove, James Clark, J. Howard Jenkins and George Jones co-founded OshKosh B’Gosh.
(SSFC, 8/20/06, p.M4)
1900 Jun 11, Belle Boyd (b.1844), former Confederate spy, died in Wisconsin. Her 1865 autobiography was titled “Belle Boyd in Camp and Prison." In 1944 Louis Sigaud authored “Belle Boyd: Confederate Spy."
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belle_Boyd)(http://tinyurl.com/27holn6)(ON, 4/10, p.3)
1901 Jan 28, Byron Bancroft Johnson announced that the American League would play the 1901 baseball season as a major league and would not renew its membership in the National Agreement. The new league would include Baltimore and Washington, DC, recently abandoned by the National League. The league would also invade 4 cities where National League teams existed: Boston, Cleveland, Detroit and Philadelphia. The 8 charter teams included: the Baltimore Orioles, Boston Americans, Chicago White Stockings, Cleveland Blues, Detroit Tigers, Milwaukee Brewers, Philadelphia Athletics, and Washington Senators.
(ON, 6/09, p.11)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_League)
1901 After the 1901 baseball season the Milwaukee Brewers were moved to St. Louis, Mo.
(ON, 6/09, p.11)
1903 Aug 14, John Ringling North, circus director (Ringling Bros), was born in Baraboo, Wisc.
(MC, 8/14/02)
1903 William Harley and the 3 Davidson brothers: Arthur (20), Walter and William (21), started out in a Milwaukee basement to produce their first motorized bike. In 1999 Brock Yates published "Outlaw Machine: Harley-Davidson and the Search for the American Soul."
(WSJ, 5/28/99, p.W6)(NW, 7/22/02, p.60)
1904 Feb 16, George Keenan, U.S. diplomat, was born in Milwaukee. He became a historian and proposed the policy of “containment" for dealing with the Soviet Union.
(HN, 2/16/99)
1905 Sep 25, Red Smith, sportscaster and columnist, was born in Green Bay Wisc.
(MC, 9/25/01)
1907 Oct 11, The freighter Cyprus foundered during a storm on Lake Superior, while on its second voyage hauling iron ore from Superior, Wis., to Buffalo, NY. All but one of the Cyprus' 23 crew members died. The 420-foot shipwreck was found in 2007, 8 miles north of Deer Park, Mich., where a single survivor had reached shore. The ship was built in Lorain, Ohio, and launched on Aug. 17, 1907.
(AP, 9/10/07)
1907 Oct 22, The five Ringling brothers of Baraboo, Wisconsin, bought out Barnum & Bailey Circus to form the Greatest Show on Earth.
(HN, 10/22/98)(SFC, 3/6/15, p.A10)
1908 Mar 13, Walter Annenberg (d.2002), publisher (Triangle-TV Guide), Ambassador to GB, was born in Milwaukee, the 6th of 9 children.
(SFC, 10/2/02, p.A2)(AP, 3/13/08)
1908 May 31, Actor Don Ameche was born in Kenosha, Wis.
(AP, 5/31/08)
1908 Nov 14, Senator Joseph McCarthy, anti-Communist Senator from Wisconsin who gave the name “McCarthyism" to his communist witch-hunts, was born. In 1999 William F. Buckley Jr. published "The Redhunter," a historical novel about Joe McCarthy.
(HN, 11/14/98)(WSJ, 7/22/99, p.A24)
1908 Dec 29, A patent was granted for a 4-wheel automobile brake in Clintonville, Wisc.
(MC, 12/29/01)
1911 Jul 31, George Liberace, violinist (Liberace Show), was born in Menasha, Wisc.
(MC, 7/31/02)
1912 Oct 14, Theodore Roosevelt, former president and the Bull Moose Party candidate, was shot at close range by anarchist William Schrenk while greeting the public in front of the Hotel Gilpatrick in Milwaukee while campaigning for the presidency. He was saved by the papers in his breast pocket and still managed to give a 90 minute address in Milwaukee after requesting his audience to be quiet because “there is a bullet in my body." Schrenk was captured and uttered the now famous words "any man looking for a third term ought to be shot."
(WSJ, 8/5/96, p.A10)(AP, 10/14/97)(WSJ, 8/5/96, p.A10)(HN, 10/14/98)
1912 Nov 4, Arizona and Kansas granted women the right to vote. Wisconsin voted against suffrage for women.
(HN, 11/5/98)(http://library.wisc.edu/etext/WIReader/WER0124-12.html)
1914 Aug 15, Mamah Borthwick Cheney, the mistress of Frank Lloyd Wright, was axed to death along with her 2 children and 4 others by a crazed servant at Wright’s rural Taliesin home. Wright restored the house, which was set aflame in the rampage. The house was ravaged by fire again in 1925 and again restored by Wright.
(SFEC, 11/8/98, DB p.48)(Econ, 3/5/11, p.92)(http://tinyurl.com/4w943ss)
1915 May 6, Orson Welles (d.1985), actor, director, and writer, was born in Kenosha, Wisc. He is famous for his movie Citizen Kane (1941).
(HN, 5/6/99)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orson_Welles)
1916 The Four Wheel Drive Auto Co. of Clintonville, Wis., got a boost from WW I demand for its trucks.
(WSJ, 9/16/05, p.W12)
1917 Nov 24, In Wisconsin a large black powder bomb exploded at a Milwaukee police station killing 9 officers and a female civilian. It had been discovered by a social worker, next to an evangelical church. It was suspected at the time that the bomb had been placed outside the church by anarchists, particularly by adherents of Luigi Galleani.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milwaukee_Police_Department)(SFC, 11/22/14, p.C4)
1919 May 16, Liberace (d.1987), pianist, was born in a Milwaukee suburb as Wladziu Valentino Liberace. At 17 he debuted with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. He later averaged an income of $5 million for over 35 years.
(SSFM, 4/29/01, p.22)
1919 Jun 10, Wisconsin became the first state to ratify the 19th amendment granting national suffrage to women.
(www.wisconsinhistory.org/turningpoints/tp-032/)
1919 The first owner of the Green Bay Packers, Indian Packing Company, paid an unofficial purchase price of $500 to supply Curly Lambeau with uniforms and equipment. In turn, Lambeau and team manager George Calhoun called the club "Packers."
(www.packers.com)
1921 Aug 27, J.E. Clair of Acme Packing Co. of Green Bay was granted an NFL franchise.
(MC, 8/27/02)
1921 Oct 23, Green Bay Packers played their 1st NFL game. They won 7-6 over Minneapolis.
(MC, 10/23/01)
1922 Aug 21, Curly Lambeau and Green Bay Football Club were granted an NFL franchise.
(SC, 8/21/02)
1923 The Villa Terrace Decorative Arts Museum in Milwaukee was designed in the style of a 16th century Italian villa.
(SSFC, 4/3/05, p.E11)
1924 Oct 1, William Rehnquist was born in Milwaukee. He served as Supreme Court Justice (1972-86) and US Chief Justice (1987- ).
(USAT, 1/7/99, p.2A)(MC, 10/1/01)
1927 Nov 22, 1st snowmobile patent was granted to Carl Eliason in Sayner, Wisc.
(MC, 11/22/01)
1927 John Hammes (1895-1953), a Wisconsin architect, invented the sink-connected garbage disposal. In 1938 he started the InSinkErator company, which later became a part of Emerson Electric Corp.
(WSJ, 2/26/08, p.B1)(http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_gx5202/is_1995/ai_n19122482)
1928 Frank Lloyd Wright announced that he would establish his own school of architecture. He took in 60 students for $300 in tuition plus voluntary labor at his Taliesin homestead in Spring Green, Wisconsin. In 2006 Roger Friedland authored “The Fellowship," an account of Wright and his students.
(WSJ, 8/25/06, p.W5)
1929 Keil Furniture of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, advertised a radio table with an Atwater Kent screen-grid radio for $179.
(SFC, 2/13/08, p.G8)
1930s The Depression era "Eau Claire" system set milk prices according to the distance from Eau Claire, Wisconsin, to ensure that every region of the country maintained a local supply of fresh milk.
(SFC, 11/17/99, p.A12)
1932 Jan, Wisconsin became the first state to provide unemployment benefits.
(http://dwd.wisconsin.gov/dwd/publications/ui/ucb3006.pdf)(Econ, 2/26/11, p.31)
1933 A Wisconsin milk strike began as a series of strikes conducted by a cooperative group of dairy farmers in an attempt to raise the price of milk paid to producers during the Great Depression. Three main strike periods occurred in 100933, with length of time and level of violence increased during each one.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1933_Wisconsin_milk_strike)
1934 A postcard of a man in bikini shorts inspired a Wisconsin-based Cooper’s Inc. designer to invent Jockey Shorts, the first pair of briefs.
(SSFC, 11/29/09, p.N6)
1935 Jan 26, Bob Uecker, catcher, actor, was born in Milwaukee, Wisc.
(MC, 1/26/02)
1935 Feb 2, A lie detector was 1st used in court at Portage, Wisc.
(MC, 2/2/02)
1935 Jun 11, Gene Wilder, actor (Young Frankenstein, Silver Streak), was born in Milwaukee.
(SC, 6/11/02)
1937 John Steuart Curry, American painter, began his work “Wisconsin Landscape," and completed it in 1938.
(SFC, 6/13/98, p.E1)
1938 Jul 21, Les Aspin, (Rep-D-Wisc, 1971-93), Minister of Defense (1993-94), was born.
(MC, 7/21/02)
1939 Jan 19, Ernest Hausen of Wisconsin set a chicken-plucking record of 4.4 sec.
(MC, 1/19/02)
1940 Nov 17, The Green Bay Packers became the 1st NFL team to travel by plane.
(MC, 11/17/01)
1942 Dec, Dr. Ira Baldwin (1896-1999), plant bacteriologist at the Univ. of Wisconsin, was selected to head US biological warfare.
(AH, 6/03, p.46)
1948 Two Milwaukee lawyers founded Manpower after they failed to find extra administrative help for an urgent legal brief. By 2009 the company had over 4,000 offices in 82 countries.
(Econ, 1/6/07, p.57)(Econ, 12/12/09, p.74)
1950 Mar 11, Jerry Zucker, film director and TV producer, was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
(www.imdb.com/name/nm0958387/)
1950s-60s Harry Harlow (1905-1981) conducted psychology experiments on baby rhesus monkeys at the Univ. of Wisconsin. In 2003 Deborah Blum authored “Love at Goon Park: Harry Harlow and the Science of Affection."
(NYTBR, 2/2/03, p.19)
1951 Jul 4, The "Capital Times" in Madison, Wisconsin, reported that one of its reporters was turned down by 99 out of 100 people he asked to sign a petition made up of quotations from the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights. Many said the petition was subversive.
(IB, Internet, 12/7/98)
1953 Mar 18, The Braves baseball team announced that they were moving from Boston to Milwaukee.
(HN, 3/18/98)
1954 Mar 11, The U.S. Army charged that Wisconsin Sen. Joseph R. McCarthy and his subcommittee's chief counsel, Roy Cohn, had exerted pressure to obtain favored treatment for Pvt. G. David Schine, a former consultant to the subcommittee.
(AP, 3/11/98)
1954 Dec 2, The US Senate voted 67-22 to censure Sen. Joseph R. McCarthy, R-Wis., for "conduct that tends to bring the Senate into dishonor and disrepute." This followed the McCarthy investigation of the Army. Roy Cohn was McCarthy’s aide and Joseph Welch was the attorney for the army. Army general counsel John G. Adams (d.2003) later authored "Without Precedent: The story of the Death of McCarthyism." In 1999 Arthur Herman published "Joseph McCarthy," a reexamination of McCarthy's accusations.
(NYT, 12/3/54, p.1)(WSJ, 8/5/96, p.A10)(AP, 12/2/97)(WSJ, 12/6/99, p.A32)(SFC, 6/28/03, p.A1)
1954 US Congress voted to withdraw support to Wisconsin Indians guaranteed in 1854. The Menomonee (people of the wild rice) Chiefs Oshkosh and Keshena met with federal Indian agents in Keshena Falls, Wisconsin, in 1854 and agreed to retain only 275,000 acres from their original 9 1/2 million acres. As part of the settlement the chiefs and their followers were promised eternal government protection.
(NG, Aug., 1974, p.235)
1955 The Old Milwaukee brand was first brewered by the Joseph Schlitz Brewing Company of Wisconsin. It was the first beer brand launched exclusively as a “popular" beer.
(www.oldmilwaukee.com/ourbeer_main.htm)(http://tinyurl.com/rvxp4)
1955 The Hearst Corp. acquired WISN-TV, Milwaukee.
(SFC, 8/7/99, p.A9)
1957 May 2, Sen. Joseph R. McCarthy (48), the controversial Republican from Wisconsin, died at Bethesda Naval Hospital in Maryland. McCarthy drank himself to death.
(AP, 5/2/97)(WSJ, 2/9/00, p.A26)
1957 Oct 10, The Milwaukee Braves won the World Series, defeating the New York Yankees in Game 7, 5-0.
(AP, 10/10/07)
1957 William Proxmire (1915-2005), Wisconsin Democrat, won a special election to fill the seat of US Sen. Joseph R. McCarthy. Proxmire served until 1989.
(SFC, 12/16/05, p.A4)
1957 All 30,000 high school graduating students were given questionnaires with questions on family background, and educational and occupational aspirations. Dr. William H. Sewell found them in the early 1960s and used them with colleagues for the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study.
(SFC, 7/14/01, p.C2)
1957-1974 Edward Gein, a handyman in Plainfield, Wis., liked to dig up fresh graves, cut the skin off corpses, wear the skin on his own body and dance in the moonlight. He was picked up in this year and evidence showed that he’d been collecting body parts for years. He had skulls on bedposts, a human heart in a saucepan, and a lady out in his barn dressed like a deer. The 1974 film “Texas Chainsaw Massacre" was based on his story. It starred Gunnar Hansen as Leatherface and was directed by Tobe Hooper and was first shown in San Francisco. The film was narrated by John Larroquette.
(SFC, 5/18/96, p.E-4)(WSJ, 10/31/97, p.A1)
1959 Sep 27, Beth Heiden, 3000m speed skater (Olympic-bronze-1980), was born in Madison, Wisc.
(MC, 9/27/01)
1959 Wisconsin became the 1st US state to enact a comprehensive collective bargaining law.
(SFC, 2/17/11, p.A8)
1962 Gaylord Nelson (1916-2005), defeated Republican Sen. Alexander Wiley to win his 1st term as US Senator form Wisconsin. Nelson was defeated in 1980.
(SFC, 7/4/05, p.A2)
1962 Kohl’s discount department store was founded in Wisconsin. The company went public in 1992 and by 2009 it counted 1,059 stores nationwide, including 121 in California.
(SFC, 8/5/09, p.C1)
1962 Edwin Traisman (1915-2007), food researcher for McDonald’s, patented a method for preparing frozen French fried potatoes. In 1968 his associate Ken Strong patented a method for quick frying cut potatoes before freezing along with a short steam blanch to preserve sugars and other flavors. Traisman was instrumental in the development of Cheese Whiz for Kraft Foods and had bought the first McDonald’s franchise in Madison, Wis., in the late 1950s.
(SFC, 6/9/07, p.B6)
1964 Jan 22, World's largest cheese (15,723 kg) was manufactured in Wisconsin.
(MC, 1/22/02)
1964 Mammoth bones were discovered at the Schaefer farm near Kenosha, Wisc. Butcher marks indicated human activity. Other bones were found as early as 1935.
(Arch, 7/02, p.51)
1967 Jan 15, The first Super Bowl was played as the Green Bay Packers of the National Football League defeated the Kansas City Chiefs of the American Football League, 35-10 in Los Angeles. The matchup was officially called the AFL-NFL World Championship Game.
(WSJ, 1/28/97, p.A16)(AP, 1/15/98)
1967 Jul 30, There was a race riot in Milwaukee and 4 people were killed.
(MC, 7/30/02)
1967 Oct 18, A protest in Madison, Wisc., against recruiting by Dow Chemical, the maker of napalm and Agent Orange, turned violent. In 2003 David Maraniss authored "They Marched Into Sunlight: War and Peace, Vietnam and America." It centered on an Oct 17 battle in Vietnam and the Wisconsin protest.
(Econ, 11/22/03, p.82)(SSFC, 12/28/03, p.M3)
1967 Dec 10, Singer Otis Redding (26) and 6 others died in the crash of his private plane in Lake Monona, Wisconsin. He had recently recorded “Sittin’ on the Dock of the Bay," which became a big hit in 1968.
(SFC, 4/25/06, p.B5)(AP, 12/10/07)
1967-1968 Dr. William H. Sewell (d.2001 at 91), sociologist, served as the chancellor of the Univ. of Wisconsin.
(SFC, 7/14/01, p.C2)
1968 Jan 14, The Green Bay Packers under Vince Lombardi, after winning its third consecutive NFL championship, won the 2nd Super Bowl Football game over the Oakland Raiders. This was Lombardi's last game as coach of the Packers. The game drew the first $3 million gate in football history. In 1999 David Maraniss authored "When Pride Still Mattered: A Life of Vince Lombardi."
(WSJ, 1/28/97, p.A16)(SFEC, 1/9/00, BR p.5)(Superbowl.com)
1968 Jan 28, Vince Lombardi resigned as coach of Wisconsin’s Green Bay Packers, two weeks after winning Super Bowl II. He remained as general manager. On Feb 1 Phil Bengtson was named coach of the Packers.
(www.packers.com/history/chronology/)(www.nfl.com/history/chronology/1961-1970)
1968 Apr 2, Senator Eugene McCarthy won the Democratic primaries in Wisconsin. In 2004 Dominic Sandbrook authored "Eugene McCarthy: The Rise and Fall of Postwar American Liberalism."
(http://news.minnesota.publicradio.org/features/2005/06/15_newsroom_mccarthytimeline/)(SSFC, 4/11/04, p.M6)
1968 In Grand Chute, Wis., a night watchman was killed during a robbery at a car dealership. In 2005 police in Appleton, Wis., arrested Robert Mitchell (75) for the murder.
(SFC, 11/19/05, p.A3)
1970 Apr 22, The first Earth Day and Earth Week was celebrated and millions protested pollution on Earth and their concern for the environment. The event was organized by a 33-member committee in Philadelphia. Wisconsin Senator Gaylord Nelson suggested Earth Day as a means to focus national attention on ecological issues. Gaylord selected Pete McCloskey as co-chairman. Organizers later identified 12 anti-environment members of the US House and Senate, 7 of whom soon lost their seats.
(AP, 4/22/97)(WSJ, 5/12/99, p.A23)(SSFC, 4/18/04, p.E3)(http://www.nelsonearthday.net/)
1970 Jun 2, Har Gobind Khorana (1922-1993), Indian-American chemist at the Univ. of Wisconsin, announced the synthesis of the 1st artificial gene.
(www.super70s.com/Super70s/Timeline/1970/)(www.answers.com/topic/har-gobind-khorana)
1970 Aug 24, A bomb planted by anti-war extremists exploded at the University of Wisconsin's Army Math Research Center in Madison, killing 33-year-old researcher Robert Fassnacht. On Sep 2 the FBI began a nationwide hunt for Dwight Armstrong (19), Karleton Armstrong (22), David S. Fine (18), and Leo F. Burt (22). Dwight Armstrong (1951-2010), the last to be caught, was arrested in Toronto in April, 1977.
(AP, 8/24/97)(SSFC, 6/27/10, p.C9)
1970 Sep 3, Vince Lombardi (57), one of Fordham University‘s stalwart linemen known as the "Seven Blocks of Granite" during his college days, succumbed to cancer in Washington, D.C. He had recently coached the Washington Redskins to their first winning season in 14 years. Lombardi had previously coached the Green Bay Packers to five NFL championships and victories in the first two Super Bowls. He went to the Washington Redskins in 1969 as head coach, general manager, and part owner. The team wound up with a 7-5-2 record for the season. In 1999 David Maraniss authored "When Pride Still Mattered: A Life of Vince Lombardi."
(AP, 9/3/97)(WSJ, 10/7/99, p.A28)
1970 Dec 31, Lorine Niedecker (b.1903), died. She was a Wisconsin-born objectivist-influenced poet.
(SFEC, 4/23/00, BR p.6)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorine_Niedecker)
1970 George L. Mosse (1918-1999), a Univ. of Wisconsin historian, published "Germans and Jews: The Right, the Left, and the Search for a 'Third Force' in Pre-Nazi Germany."
(SFEC, 1/31/99, p.D8)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Mosse)
1970 The Seattle Pilots baseball team after one season moved to Milwaukee and became the Brewers.
(WSJ, 4/7/99, p.B1)
1972 May 13, Milwaukee Brewers beat Minn. Twins, 4-3, in 22 innings. The game had started the evening of May 12.
(www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/MIN/MIN197205120.shtml)
1975 Mar, US Sen. William Proxmire (1915-2005), Wisconsin Democrat, started his monthly Golden Fleece Awards to highlight examples of government waste. The 1st award went to the National Science Foundation for squandering $84,000 to try to find out why people fall in love.
(SFC, 12/16/05, p.A4)(www.taxpayer.net/awards/goldenfleece/1975-1980.htm)
1976 Jul 9, In Wisconsin Ellen Matheys (24) and David Schuldes (25) were fatally shot in McClintock Park in Silver Cliff. In early 2020 a judge ruled that Raymand Vannieuwenhoven (83), a man charged with the killing, is not mentally competent to stand trial. DNA from evidence from the assault was eventually used to tie him to the crime scene. In November, 2020, a judge ruled that Vannieuwenhoven is competent to stand trial. In 2021 he was convicted and sentenced to consecutive life sentences.
(https://tinyurl.com/weq98zj)(SFC, 3/28/20, p.A3)(SFC, 11/6/20, p.A6)(Fox News, 8/27/21)
1976 Dec 1, Konerak Sinthasomphone, Jeffrey Dahmer's victim, was born in Milwaukee, Wisc.
(MC, 12/1/01)
1978 William Steiger, congressman from Wisconsin, led a drive to reduce the capital gains tax rate from nearly 50% to 28%. In 1999 this was credited by Brian S. Wesbury in "The New Era of Wealth" as one of the factors that contributed to the economic boom of the 1990s.
(WSJ, 12/22/99, p.A16)
1979 Aug 14, In northern Wisconsin Rob Pfiel (27) was killed by a shotgun blast to the back of his head. 2 months earlier Rusk County sheriff’s deputies killed his 3 dogs because they had gotten loose. Rusk County DA Robert Rogers (d.1984), his wife Cherie Barnard, and 3 brothers were later accused of plotting to kill Pfiel, who had threatened to get even. In 2005 police arrested 2 of the Rogers’ brothers for Pfiel’s murder as well as Barnard.
(SFC, 8/4/05, p.B1)(SFC, 10/17/05, p.A1)
1979 Sep 16, In Wisconsin the Madison Press Connection published a detailed explanation of how to build a hydrogen bomb in an article written by Charles Hansen (1947-2003) of Mountain View, Ca. In 1988 Hansen published "U.S. Nuclear Weapons: The Secret History."
(SFC, 9/17/04, p.F4)(http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/News/HansenRetrospective.html)
1979 Dec 26, Robert Ben Madison (14) founded the virtual Kingdom of Talossa in his Milwaukee, Wisc., bedroom and migrated it to the Internet in 1996.
(Econ, 12/24/05, p.85)(www.wired.com/wired/archive/8.03/kingdoms_pr.html)
1980 Mar 11, Marilyn McIntyre (18) was beaten stabbed and strangled to death at her home in Columbus, Wis. In 2009 Curtis Forbes, a friend of her husband, was charged with 1st degree murder based on DNA evidence.
(SFC, 3/31/09, p.A6)(www.nbc15.com/home/headlines/11251061.html)
1981 Jan 18, Wendy O. Williams (1949-1998), lead singer for the punk band the Plasmatics, was arrested in Milwaukee for on-stage obscenity.
(http://tinyurl.com/3dsq4g)
1981 The Univ. of Wisconsin began a multivolume History of Cartography. In 2004 editor David A. Woodward, British-born geographer, died at age 61.
(SFC, 9/1/04, p.B7)
1982 Jun 10, The Jos. Schlitz Brewing Company and the Old Milwaukee brand was acquired by Stroh Brewing Company of Detroit. The Old Milwaukee brand was first brewered by the Joseph Schlitz Brewing Company.
(http://tinyurl.com/rvxp4)
1983 Eugene Von Bruenchenhein (b.1910), commercial bakery worker, died In Milwaukee, Wis. He was also a prolific artist but never exhibited any of his work.
(NYT, 10/8/04, p.B35)
1985 Mar 1, Herb Kohl (b.1935), Milwaukee businessman and later US Senator (1988), purchased the Milwaukee Bucks basketball team.
(www.nba.com/bucks/history/history.html)
1985 Sep 6, All 31 people aboard a Midwest Express Airlines DC-9 were killed when the Atlanta-bound jetliner crashed just after takeoff from Milwaukee's Mitchell Field.
(WSJ, 6/14/96, p.A15)(AP, 9/6/05)
1985 Pleasant Rowland, a textbook publishing executive, founded The American Girl company in Madison, Wis. The company started with 3 dolls, each one set in a specific moment in American history. Mattel bought the company for $700 million in 1998.
(WSJ, 12/30/06, p.A1)
1988 Apr 5 Gov. Michael S. Dukakis won a solid victory in Wisconsin's Democratic presidential primary while, on the Republican side, Vice President George Bush overwhelmed his opposition.
(AP, 5/5/97)
1988 The Bradley Center in Milwaukee, home to the NBA Bucks, indoor soccer, minor league hockey and Marquette Univ. basketball, was completed for $90 million.
(SFC, 5/21/01, p.A3)
1989 May 29, The first Weedstock Festival, a pro-marijuana event, was held on Memorial Day in Wisconsin. Steve Wessing worked the event as a stage manager.
(SFC, 5/27/97, p.A12)(www.facebook.com/groups/460746184020328/)
1990 Milwaukee, Wisconsin, pioneered a school voucher program.
(Econ, 2/14/15, p.23)
1990 The Russian city of Dubna began a sister-city relationship with La Crosse, Wisconsin.
(http://tinyurl.com/mrtq7n9)(SFC, 12/31/00, p.B5)
1991 Mar 30, In Milwaukee, Wisc., serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer killed and dismembered Konerak Sinthasomphone (b.1976).
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffrey_Dahmer)
1991 Jul 22, Police in Milwaukee arrested serial killer Jeffrey L. Dahmer. He was murdered while in prison in 1994.
(AP, 7/22/97)(SFC, 5/29/96, A4)
1991 Wisconsin introduced wild turkeys in Marathon County and sold licenses to hunt them. The birds took a taste to the local ginseng crops and wrought havoc. In the early 1900s 4 Fromm brothers had begun cultivating Ginseng in Wisconsin and it became much appreciated by Chinese users. In the 1990s Canada, having acquired Wisconsin ginseng seeds, began competing and sold seeds to China causing ginseng prices to plummet to about $15 per pound.
(WSJ, 3/8/06, p.A1)
1992 Feb 17, Serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer was sentenced in Milwaukee to life in prison. He was beaten to death in prison in November 1994.
(AP, 2/17/98)
1992 After hearing about his cutting-edge research on the brain and emotions through mutual friends, the Dalai Lama invited Richard Davidson, a University of Wisconsin-Madison neuroscientist, to his home in India to pose a question: Scientists often study depression, anxiety and fear, but why not devote your work to the causes of positive human qualities like happiness and compassion? In 2010 the Dalai Lama marked the opening of the Center for Investigating Healthy Minds at the university's Waisman Center.
(AP, 5/14/10)
1993 Mar, Drinking water in Milwaukee became contaminated with the cryptosporidium bacterium and more than 100 people died and some 400,000 got sick.
(SFC, 6/26/96, p.A6)(SFC, 6/24/98, Z1 p.5)(SFC, 8/1/98, p.A11)
1893 Pickard China was established in Edgerton, Wisconsin, by Wilder Austin Pickard, and moved to Chicago in 1897. For some forty years the Pickard China Studio, as the firm was then known, was a decorating company specializing in hand painted art pieces, dessert and tea sets.
(www.pickardchina.com/About_us.htm)
1994 Nov 28, Jeffrey Dahmer (b. May 21, 1960), a serial killer who sexually abused, tortured, and cannibalized murder victims during the 1980's, was clubbed to death in prison by a fellow inmate while cleaning a prison toilet. He was serving several life terms for the killing of 17 young men and boys over a 13-year rampage of necrophilia and dismemberment.
(SFC, 5/29/96, A4)(AP, 11/28/97)(DT internet 11/28/97)
1995 Aug 3, Gov. Tommy Thompson announced an end to welfare offices in the state at the site of a new jobs center in Racine.
(SFC, 9/1/97, p.A3)
1997 May 26, In Ferryville the 8th annual Weedstock Festival, a pro-marijuana event, had 3,500 people with 60 arrests.
(SFC, 5/27/97, p.A3)
1997 Dec 19, In Milwaukee a postal clerk, Anthony J. De Culit, shot and killed his supervisor, a co-worker and wounded another and then killed himself.
(SFC,12/20/97, p.A3)
1998 Apr 19, In Madison Salim Amara doused a fellow passenger on a city bus with gasoline and ignited a fire burning himself and others severely.
(SFC, 4/21/98, p.A9)
1998 May 14, Abortion clinics across the state closed as a sweeping ban against “partial birth" abortions went into effect following last month’s bill signed by Gov. Tommy Thompson.
(SFC, 5/15/98, p.A3)
1998 May 20, Abortion clinics resumed first-trimester abortions after being assured that the new state law did not impact the first trimester operations.
(SFC, 5/21/98, p.A6)
1998 Jun 10, The Wisconsin Supreme court ruled that taxpayer could be used to send poor children to private religious schools.
(SFC, 6/11/98, p.A3)
1998 Sep 23, In Milwaukee Sammy Sosa hit homers 64 and 65 against the Brewers.
(SFC, 9/24/98, p.A18)
1998 Nov 6, Scientists reported the successful culture of human stem cells in research financed by Geron Corp. James Thomson of the Univ. of Wisconsin first isolated stem cells from human embryos. Science published this research in an article titled "Embryonic Stem Cell Lines Derived from Human Blastocysts."
(SFC, 11/6/98, p.A1,A18)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Thomson_%28cell_biologist%29) (Econ, 1/28/12, p.77)
1998 Nov 10, A heavy snow storm hit the northern Midwest. Minnesota, Wisconsin and the Dakotas suffered loss of power, heavy snow and violent winds.
(SFC, 11/11/98, p.A3)
1998 Rep. Tammy Baldwin, Democrat, was elected as the 1st openly gay woman in Congress.
(SFC, 6/23/00, p.A26)
1998 Dr. James Thomson, Univ. of Wisconsin research biologist, announced that he had successfully grown human embryonic stem cells in a privately funded research lab.
(WSJ, 8/23/01, p.A18)
1998 Rev. Lawrence Murphy (d.1998), who had worked at the former St. John's School for the Deaf in St. Francis, Wisconsin (1950-1975), died. In July 1996, Milwaukee Archbishop Rembert G. Weakland sent a letter to the Vatican seeking advice on how to proceed with charges of sexual molestation by Murphy on as many as 200 deaf students. Cardinal Ratzinger, who led the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith from 1981 until 2005, when he was elected pope, did not respond. The case was made public in 2010.
(AP, 3/25/10)
1999 Mar 25, Six people were killed and 8 injured when a speeding van loaded with young salespeople rolled over near Janesville. Jeremy Holmes (20), the driver, was later sentenced to 7 years in prison.
(SFC, 3/26/99, p.A4)(SFC, 6/12/99, p.A2)
1999 Wisconsin dairy farmers began a cow-sharing program in order to send owners unpasteurized milk. Sale of unpastuerized milk was illegal in Wisconsin and 21 other states.
(WSJ, 9/11/03, p.A1)
2000 Jan 1, In the Rose Bowl Wisconsin beat Stanford 17-9.
(SFEC, 1/2/00, p.A1)
2000 Jan 6, Many state rebate checks, sent as a postcard from Gov. Tommy Thompson as part of a relief package in the 1999-2001 budget, were mistaken by recipients as junk mail and discarded.
(SFC, 1/7/00, p.A3)
2000 Jul 28, Brianna Kriefall (3) of South Milwaukee died from E. coli poisoning. 21 people were reported sickened from E. coli after eating at a Sizzler restaurant.
(SFC, 7/29/00, p.A5)
2000 Nov 7, Wisconsin voters supported Al Gore by a margin of some 5,700 votes.
(Econ, 7/24/04, p.30)(Econ, 9/13/08, p.39)
2000 Dec 1, Milwaukee Mayor John Norquist (51) announced that he had had a 5-year affair with staff aid, Marilyn Figueroa (41).
(SFC, 12/27/00, p.A3)
2001 Apr, Part of the new $121 million extension of the Milwaukee Art Museum, designed by Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava, opened. The rest of the Quadracci Pavilion was set to open in September.
(WSJ, 2/14/00, p.B12)(SSFC, 4/3/05, p.E11)
2001 Jun 19, A tornado struck in Siren and 3 people were killed.
(SFC, 6/20/01, p.A5)
2001 Sep 5, The new Kenosha Public Museum opened.
(Arch, 7/02, p.54)
2001 Sep 6, Scott Stoll (38) and Dennis Snader (36) set off from San Francisco on a bicycle journey that aimed to cover 24,901.55 miles, equal to the circumference of the Earth. After 3+ years Stoll completed 25,752 miles across North and South America, Europe, Asia, Australia and Africa. Stoll ended his adventure on the southern tip of South Africa on October 24, 2004. The Milwaukee native returned to Waukesha where he grew up and his parents still live.
(SSFC, 2/26/06, p.F3)(www.theargonauts.com)
2001 Tommy Thompson joined the Bush administration as Sec. for Health and Human Services. Scott McCallum served as governor.
(WSJ, 8/23/01, p.A18)
2001 Wisconsin hunters killed 446,000 deer and generated over $1 billion in economic activity. Brain tests of white-tailed deer showed that about 3% were infected with chronic wasting disease (CWD).
(WSJ, 5/24/02, p.A1)
2002 Feb 24, Leo Ornstein (b.1893), Russian-born Futurist composer, died in Green Bay, Wisc. In 1918 Frederick H. Martens authored “Leo Ornstein: The Man, His Ideas, His Work." In 1990 Ornstein composed his last work: the Eighth Piano Sonata.
(SFC, 3/8/02, p.A31)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leo_Ornstein)
2002 Mar 26, In Ixonia a bus carrying residents of a retirement home collided with a delivery van on Hwy 16 and 4 people were killed.
(SFC, 3/27/02, p.A5)
2002 May 24, Pope John Paul accepted the resignation of Rembert Weakland (75), archbishop of Milwaukee. Weakland admitted to a $450,000 settlement in 1998 to Paul Marcoux (53) for an alleged sexual assault in 1979.
(SFC, 5/25/02, p.A3)
2002 Jul 9, To the boos of disappointed fans, the All-Star game in Milwaukee finished in a 7-7 tie after 11 innings when both teams ran out of pitchers.
(AP, 7/9/03)
2002 Jul 15, A Canadian National freight train derailed and caught fire near Allenton, Wisc., and 34 of 107 cars jumped the tracks.
(SFC, 7/16/02, p.A4)
2002 Sep 2, In Ladysmith a tornado injured 43 and cut a swath 14 blocks long by 4 wide.
(WSJ, 9/4/02, p.A1)
2002 Sep 29, In Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Charlie Young Jr. (36) was beaten to death by a mob of youths after he punched and knocked out the tooth of a 14-year-old who hit him with an egg.
(ADN, 10/8/02, p.A4)
2002 Oct 11, In Wisconsin 10 people were killed in a crash on I-43 that involved over 2 dozen vehicles north of Milwaukee.
(SFC, 10/12/02, p.A4)
2003 Jan 6, Jim Doyle was sworn in as Wisconsin’s 44th governor.
(www.wisgov.state.wi.us)
2003 Aug 30, Harley-Davidson celebrated its 100th anniversary in Milwaukee with a parade of 10,000 motorcycles. Some 250,000 bikers packed the roads around Milwaukee for a 3-day celebration.
(AP, 9/1/03)
2003 Wisconsin consumers filed a record 28,225 bankruptcy petitions, 12% higher than 2002.
(USAT, 1/20/04, p.12A)
2003 Robert Posser (81) of Turtle Lake, Wisconsin, died. He left behind his collection of over 750,000 old telephones.
(WSJ, 10/10/05, p.A1)
2004 Jan 2, Marvin Pratt was sworn in as acting mayor of Milwaukee following the resignation of 4-term Mayor John Norquist due to a sex scandal.
(Econ, 1/10/04, p.25)
2004 Jan, La Gloria English School opened on Isla Mujeres, Mexico. Maggie and Tom Washa of Wisconsin opened the school to help the local Mayan children.
(SSFC, 9/25/05, E5)
2004 Feb 17, In Wisconsin John Kerry won the primary with about 40 percent of the vote while Edwards finished a close second with 34 percent. Dean, who had banked his future on a strong showing, drew just 18 percent.
(AP, 2/18/04)(SFC, 2/18/04, p.A1)
2004 Apr 8, Milwaukee residents elected former white Rep. Tom Barrett as mayor over acting Mayor Marvin Pratt. The city's population of 50% white, 37% black and 12% Hispanic voted along racial lines.
(SFC, 4/9/04, p.A2)
2004 May 19, Flooding from storms hit Wisconsin. On June 19 Pres. Bush granted federal disaster recognition to 12 counties.
(SSFC, 6/20/04, p.A3)
2004 Nov 2, John Kerry carried Wisconsin by 11,400 votes.
(Econ, 9/13/08, p.39)
2004 Nov 21, A trespassing deer hunter in northern Wisconsin opened fire on other hunters when they asked him to leave, killing 5 and wounding 3. Another hunter died the next day. Police arrested Chai Soua Vang, a Hmong man of St. Paul Minn., for killing 6 hunters. In 2005 Vang (36) was convicted of 1st degree murder and sentenced to 6 life terms.
(AP, 11/22/04)(WSJ, 11/23/04, p.A1)(SFC, 11/9/05, p.A3)
2005 Mar 12, In Brookfield, Wisconsin, Terry Ratzmann (44) opened fire with a handgun during an evangelical church service at a suburban Milwaukee hotel, killing 7 people before taking his own life.
(AP, 3/13/05)(SFC, 3/14/05, p.A1)
2005 Apr 11, Some 12,000 Wisconsin citizens took part in an advisory poll on shooting free-roaming domestic cats. 57% voted to allow shooting them. An advisory committee dropped the issue May 13 following an outcry from animal rights groups.
(Econ, 4/16/05, p.27)(SFC, 5/14/05, p.A2)
2005 Jul 3, Gaylord Nelson (b.1916), former Wisconsin governor (1959-1963) and US senator (1963-1981), died. He founded Earth Day (1970), and helped spawn the modern environmental movement. Nelson was at the center of legislation that resulted in the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act (1968), the Clean Air Act (1970), and passage of the Endangered Species Act.
(AP, 7/3/05)(SFC, 7/4/05, p.A2)(http://www.nelsonearthday.net/)
2005 Jul, The new Milwaukee Public Market was set to open.
(SSFC, 4/3/05, p.E11)
2005 Oct 16, In Wisconsin a bus carrying Chippewa Falls High School students home from a band competition collided with a semi truck, killing five passengers near Osseo.
(AP, 10/16/05)
2005 Oct 30, In Madison, Wisconsin, police used pepper spray to break up rowdy Halloween celebrations. Over 400 arrests were made mostly for alcohol-related offenses.
(SFC, 10/31/05, p.A3)
2006 Mar 12-2006 Mar 13, Swarms of tornadoes killed at least 10 people across the Midwest states of Indiana, Missouri, Oklahoma, Arkansas, South Dakota, Minnesota and Wisconsin. It caused so much damage in Springfield, Ill., that the mayor compared it to the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
(AP, 3/13/06)
2006 May 19, The NRA opened its annual convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Wayne LaPierre, executive VP, signed copies of his new book: “the Global War on Your Guns: Inside the UN Plan to destroy the Bill of Rights."
(Econ, 5/27/06, p.28)
2006 Aug 24, Deadly storms swept across the northern Plains, bringing tornadoes that ripped roofs off houses and hail that smashed car windshields. One man was killed when a tornado hit his home in Minnesota, and in Wisconsin, lightning apparently killed a dozen cows and struck a woman as she left a supermarket.
(AP, 8/25/06)
2006 Sep 14, US federal health officials said an outbreak a deadly strain of E. coli (0157:H7) had left at least one person dead in Wisconsin over 100 others sick and warned consumers not to eat bagged fresh spinach. The outbreak in 8 states soon extended to 25. The number sickened rose to at least 190. Most of the spinach crop at this time of the year comes from California. A special effort was under way in the Salinas Valley of California, a major leafy-vegetable growing region, to look for any possible source of contamination there. The outbreak was traced to California’s Natural Selection Foods of San Juan Bautista, which recalled all suspect products. This was the same deadly strain that in 1982 had sickened at least 47 people in Oregon and Michigan who ate McDonald’s burgers. A surveillance system setup after a 1993 outbreak at the Jack-in-the-Box fast food chain helped single out spinach as the likely source of this outbreak. A 2nd death on Sep 20, a 2-year-old boy in Idaho, was attributed to the spinach E. coli. A 3rd death in late August, a woman (84) in Nebraska, was also attributed to the spinach E. coli. On Sep 29 the FDA cleared spinach from California’s Monterey, San Benito and Santa Clara counties.
(SFC, 9/23/06, p.A9)(WSJ, 9/25/06, p.A4)(SFC, 9/30/06, p.A5)(SFC, 10/7/06, p.A6)
2006 Sep 14, In Green Bay, Wisc., police arrested two 17-year-olds, suspected of plotting a shooting spree at East High School. William C. Cornell and Shawn R. Sturtz were arrested for suspicion of conspiracy to commit first-degree intentional homicide and conspiracy to commit arson. Police found homemade bombs and weapons at their homes.
(http://kutv.com/topstories/topstories_story_258075847.html)
2006 Sep 29, In Cazenovia, Wisconsin, Eric Hainstock (15) walked into Weston High School with a shotgun. The principal confronted him in a corridor and was shot and killed. Hainstock was taken into custody and all the children were reported safe.
(AP, 9/29/06)(Econ, 10/7/06, p.38)
2006 Oct 20, US federal authorities arrested Jake Brahm, a 20-year-old Wisconsin grocery store clerk, for making a hoax threat that said seven football stadiums across the nation would be targeted by terrorists with radiological "dirty bombs" this weekend.
(AP, 10/20/06)(SFC, 10/21/06, p.A5)
2006 Dec 6, In Wisconsin a propane gas leak led to a huge explosion in a west side Milwaukee industrial area, killing three people at the Falk Corp. transmission parts plant. 46 others were injured.
(SFC, 12/7/06, p.A3)
2006 The US Navy planned to launch 2 versions of its new Littoral Combat Ships (LCS), currently under construction in Wisconsin and Alabama.
(SFC, 6/16/06, p.A24)
2007 Jan 6, The body of Cha Vang (30), a Hmong man, was found hidden under a log in a Wisconsin wild life refuge. Vang had been shot and stabbed 5 times. On Nov 28 James Nichols (29) was sentenced to 69 years in prison for Vang’s murder.
(SFC, 11/29/07, p.A3)
2007 Feb 24, In Arkansas tornado winds injured 40 people and damaged dozens of homes and businesses. The Midwest storm system was blamed for 8 traffic deaths, 7 in Wisconsin and one in Kansas.
(SFC, 2/26/07, p.A4)
2007 Apr 1, Tommy Thompson, former Wisconsin governor (GOP), announced that he is running for president.
(SFC, 4/2/07, p.A4)
2007 Jun 4, A small plane from Milwaukee carrying a six-member organ transplant team and their cargo of donor organs to Michigan crashed in Lake Michigan with no survivors.
(AP, 6/5/07)
2007 Jun 4, In Portage, Wisconsin, Tammie Garlin was killed. Felicia Garlin (15) and Michaela Clerc (20) had kicked her, then later that day carried her into the bathroom, where Clerc dropped her head on the floor. A roving band of suspected identity thieves buried her in the backyard and locked her bloody and beaten 11-year-old son in an upstairs closet. Authorities reached the house on June 14.
(AP, 6/21/07)
2007 Jun 7, Severe thunderstorms spawned tornadoes, produced baseball-size hail and dropped more than 6 inches of rain across the Upper Midwest, killing a swimmer in Illinois. Four people in Wisconsin were injured, none seriously. A northern Wisconsin resort was demolished by one of at least five tornadoes that swept across the state.
(AP, 6/8/07)
2007 Jun 9, In Delavan, Wisconsin, a shooting inside a home killed six people including twin baby boys. A 1-year-old daughter was found wounded in a nearby vehicle. Place later said Ambrosio Analco committed the murder and suicide.
(AP, 6/10/07)(SFC, 6/14/07, p.A3)
2007 Jun, A team from the Univ. of Wisconsin claimed to have developed a biofuel, called 2,5-dimethlyfuran, with a 40% higher energy density than ethanol.
(Econ, 6/23/07, p.89)
2007 Aug 12, Tommy Thompson, former governor of Wisconsin, said he was dropping out of the Republican presidential campaign following his 6th place finish in Iowa’s straw poll.
(SFC, 8/13/07, p.A2)
2007 Aug 22, The death toll across the Upper Midwest and from the remnants of Tropical Storm Erin that swept Texas, Oklahoma and Missouri over the past week rose to at least 26. Three people were electrocuted by lightning at a bus stop in Madison, Wis.
(AP, 8/23/07)
2007 Oct 7, In Crandon, Wisconsin, Tyler Peterson (20), an off-duty sheriff's deputy, killed six young people and critically wounded another, before he was shot to death, during a homecoming weekend gathering. Relatives of the victims said the rampage may have been fueled by a romantic dispute.
(AP, 10/8/07)
2007 Dec 16, Street and highway crews were at work trying to clear roads across the Great Lakes states into New England as a storm blamed for three deaths spread a hazardous mix of snow, sleet and freezing rain. The storm was blamed for at least 10 deaths including 4 in Indiana, 2 in Michigan and Wisconsin, one in Pennsylvania and one in Nova Scotia.
(AP, 12/16/07)(SFC, 12/18/07, p.A19)
2007 Dec 18, John Morgridge, the retired chairman of Cisco Systems, and his wife Tashia, both graduates from the Univ. of Wisconsin, announced that they are donating $175 million to help low-income Wisconsin students attend any of the state’s public colleges and universities. Morgridge’s fortune was estimated at $2.1 billion.
(SFC, 12/19/07, p.C2)
2007 Dec 21, Ken Hendricks (b.1941), creator of ABC Supply (1982), one of the largest US roofing supply companies (1982), died. He used his wealth in part to rebuild his home town of Beloit, Wisconsin.
(WSJ, 12/29/07, p.A7)
2007 Dec 23, High wind and ice coated power lines blacked out tens of thousands of people in the Midwest. The storm was blamed for at least 22 deaths. At least 8 people in Minnesota, 5 in Wisconsin, 3 each in Indiana and Wyoming and one each in Michigan, Texas and Kansas were killed in traffic accidents.
(AP, 12/23/07)(WSJ, 12/24/07, p.A1)(SFC, 12/25/07, p.A11)
2008 Jan 7, Tornadoes were reported or suspected in southwest Missouri, southeastern Wisconsin, Arkansas, Illinois and Oklahoma. Two people were killed in Missouri.
(AP, 1/8/08)
2008 Feb 19, Barack Obama won Wisconsin (58%) and Hawaii (76%) adding to a primary season winning streak that now totals 10. This put Hillary Rodham Clinton into a virtual must-win scenario in Democratic contests coming early next month in Texas and Ohio.
(AP, 2/20/08)(SFC, 2/21/08, p.A10)
2008 Mar 4, Gary Gygax (b.1938), co-creator of the role-playing Dungeons & Dragons game, died in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. Gygax and David Arneson founded Tactical Studies Rules (TSR) and published D&D in 1974. In 1997 TSR was sold to Wizards of the Coast.
(WSJ, 3/8/08, p.A7)(Econ, 3/15/08, p.102)
2008 Mar 23, In Wisconsin Madeline Neumann (11) died of complication from diabetes after her parents prayed in lieu of seeking medical help. Both parents were charged with reckless homicide.
(SSFC, 7/26/09, p.A12)(www.religionnewsblog.com/21316/madeline-kara-neuman)
2008 May 10, In Wisconsin a medical helicopter crashed killing a surgeon, nurse and pilot.
(SFC, 5/12/08, p.A3)
2008 Jun 8, Wicked weekend storms pounded the US from the Midwest to the East Coast, forcing hundreds of people to flee flooded communities, spawning tornadoes that tore up houses and killing at least eight people in Indiana (1), Michigan (6), Connecticut (1). Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle declared a state of emergency in 29 counties and President Bush declared a major disaster in 29 Indiana counties, freeing up aid. Iowa Gov. Chet Culver declared an emergency in nearly a third of the state's 99 counties.
(AP, 6/8/08)
2008 Jul 4, In Milwaukee, Wisconsin, early morning gunfire killed 2 men and 2 women on the city’s north side.
(SFC, 7/4/08, p.A4)
2008 Jul 31, In Wisconsin a gunman opened fire on a group of young adults from Michigan killing 3, aged 17-19, along the Menominee riverbank in the town of Niagara. The next day police arrested Scott J. Johnson (38). He had a raped a woman near the same site the evening before the murders. In 2009 Johnson was sentenced to life in prison without parole.
(AP, 8/2/08)(SFC, 5/22/09, p.A6)
2008 Oct 3, The Great Lakes Governors (Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin) applauded President George W. Bush for signing a joint resolution of Congress providing consent to the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence River Basin Water Resources Compact. It barred new diversions beyond the Great Lakes Basin.
(www.cglg.org/projects/water/CompactConsent.asp)(Econ, 5/22/10, p.36)
2008 Dec 16, Melvin S. Cohen (b.1918), longtime chairman of Wisconsin-based National Presto Industries, died.
(WSJ, 12/27/08, p.A7)
2008 Dec 31, SF ended the year with 98 homicides. In Milwaukee, Wisc., the total number of homicides dropped 32%, from 105 in 2007 to 71 in 2008, the lowest number since 1985. Detroit had 344 slayings, a 13% drop from the 396 in 2007; Philadelphia's 332 killings were a 15% drop from the 392 in 2007; and the 234 homicides in Baltimore were 17% less than the 392 the year before. Cleveland recorded 102 homicides in 2008, down from a 13-year high of 134 in 2007. Homicides in New York rose 5.2%, to 522 from 496 the year before. Slayings in Los Angeles were down to 376 in 2008 compared to 400 the prior year. Preliminary data in Chicago showed 508 homicides were reported in 2008, the first time the city had more than 500 murders since 2003 and about 15% more than the 442 homicides reported in 2007. Washington, D.C., ended 2008 with 186 homicides, up from 181 in 2007.
(SFC, 1/2/09, p.1)(AP, 1/3/09)
2008 The new Harley-Davidson Museum was scheduled to open in Milwaukee.
(SSFC, 4/3/05, p.E11)
2009 Mar 16, Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle said the state will use "Live like you mean it" to promote the state as a tourism and business destination, replacing the slogan "Life's So Good."
(AP, 3/18/09)
2009 Mar 19, Josias Kumpf (83), a former Nazi concentration-camp guard, was deported from Wisconsin to Austria, despite objections from his lawyer that the guard was simply present at the Trawniki Labor Camp in Poland but committed no acts of persecution [see Nov 3, 1943].
(AP, 3/20/09)
2009 Apr 30, In Wisconsin Shane Kettner (36) was arrested in Nelsonville for killing his estranged girlfriend and 2 of their children.
(SFC, 5/5/09, p.A7)
2009 May 4, Wolves in parts of the northern Rockies and the Great Lakes region come off the endangered species list, opening them to public hunts in some states for the first time in decades. States such as Idaho and Montana planned to resume hunting the animals this fall, but no hunting has been proposed in the Great Lakes region. About 300 wolves in Wyoming will remain on the list because the US Fish and Wildlife Service rejected the state's plan for a "predator zone" where wolves could be shot on sight. An estimated 4,000 wolves lived in Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota.
(AP, 5/4/09)
2009 May 18, In Guatemala Rev. Lawrence Rosebaugh (74) of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, was shot and killed by masked gunmen who stopped a car carrying him and four other missionaries to a meeting in Playa Grande. He had put an international spotlight on human rights abuses in Brazil in 1977.
(AP, 5/19/09)
2009 Jul 28, At the EAA AirVenture air show in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, Aabar Investments, an Abu Dhabi-based sovereign wealth fund, and Virgin Galactic signed a strategic partnership in which Aabar would take a 32% stake in Virgin Galactic for $280 million. To date Virgin Galactic has been wholly owned and funded by Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Group.
(Econ, 9/12/09, p.87)(http://tinyurl.com/y8gtjad)
2009 Sep 5, Milwaukee police arrested Walter Ellis (49) after DNA evidence linked him to the slaying of 9 women, including 8 suspected prostitutes, dating back to 1986. On Feb 18, 2011, Ellis was convicted in the deaths of 7 women and faced a mandatory sentence of life in prison.
(SFC, 9/8/09, p.A6)(SFC, 2/19/11, p.A6)
2009 Oct 23, US regulators shut down 3 small banks in Florida and one each in Georgia, Illinois, Minnesota and Wisconsin bringing the total for the year of failed US banks to 106.
(SFC, 10/24/09, p.A6)
2009 Dec 3, Wisconsin police found the bodies of 2 women and their 2 young daughters shot to death in Madison. Police searched for Tyrone Adair (38), the father linked to the deaths of his two young daughters and their mothers. Adair was found dead of suspected suicide in his SUV on Dec 7.
(AP, 12/5/09)(SFC, 12/8/09, p.A12)
2009 Dec 9, A blizzard dumped over a foot of snow across much of the Midwest and New England. Nearly 19 inches fell in Madison, Wis., 16 inches was reported in Des Moines, Iowa. At least 16 deaths were blamed on the storm.
(SFC, 12/10/09, p.A17)
2009 Wisconsin resident Todd Bol (1956-2018) built a model of a one-room schoolhouse on a post in his front yard in Hudson, and filled it with books as a tribute to his teacher mother. This started the Little Free Library program.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Todd_Bol)(SFC, 3/24/20, p.A8)
2010 Apr 1, A US federal judge struck down a Wisconsin law that prohibits transgender inmates from receiving taxpayer funded hormone therapy to alter their appearance.
(SFC, 4/2/10, p.A7)
2010 Jul 19, Despite being rebuffed twice by the US Supreme Court, five states (Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio, Minnesota and Pennsylvania) filed suit with a lower court demanding tougher federal and municipal action to prevent Asian carp from overrunning the Great Lakes and decimating their fishing industry.
(AP, 7/19/10)
2010 Aug 18, In Wisconsin the bodies of a couple, their 13-month-old daughter, and their three dogs were found dead at their home in Superior. Matthew Magdzas (23), an Iraq war veteran, apparently shot and killed his pregnant wife and young daughter before turning the gun on himself. He left behind no clues to explain what might have prompted the bloodshed.
(AP, 8/20/10)
2010 Oct 21, The Guinness World Records confirmed that a pumpkin grown in Wisconsin is officially the world’s heaviest. Chris Stevens of New Richmond grew the 1,810.5 pound gourd. It was 85 pounds heavier than the record set in Ohio in 2009.
(SFC, 10/22/10, p.A10)
2010 Nov 2, Iowa (Terry Branstad), Kansas (Sam Brownback), Maine (Paul LePage), Michigan (Rick Snyder), New Mexico (Susana Martinez), Ohio (John Kasich), Oklahoma (Mary Fallin), Pennsylvania (Tom Corbett), Tennessee (Bill Haslam), Wisconsin (Scott Walker), Wyoming (Matt Mead) all replaced the Democratic governors with Republicans. Snyder (R) defeated Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm (D) by bragging about his managerial skills.
(Econ, 11/6/10, p.45)
2010 Nov 29, In Wisconsin sophomore Samuel Hengel (15) took 23 of his classmates and a teacher hostage in a classroom at the Marinette High School, shooting himself as police broke in. No one else was injured. Hengel died the next day.
(Reuters, 11/30/10)(SFC, 12/1/10, p.A13)
2010 Dec 2, Dominican Rep. authorities detained 18 military officials and two US pilots, Kevin Kuranz and Christopher Smith, after stopping a cocaine-laden airplane from taking off. The plane was owned by Wisconsin-based Air Cargo Carriers LLC.
(AP, 12/3/10)
2010 Dec 13, Schools in Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin and other states closed because of snow and low temperatures. Authorities worked frantically to reach motorists in snow-covered northwest Indiana who were trapped in their cars in biting temperatures.
(AP, 12/13/10)
2011 Feb 6, In Dallas, Texas, Wisconsin’s Green Bay packers won Super Bowl XLV 31-25 win over the Pittsburgh Steelers.
(AFP, 2/7/11)
2011 Jan 4, The archdiocese of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, filed for bankruptcy becoming the 8th in the US to do so. It had become besieged by lawsuits related to priests molesting boys.
(Econ, 2/12/11, p.36)
2011 Feb 17, In Wisconsin 14 Democratic lawmakers disappeared as the state Senate was about to begin debating a measure by Gov. Scott Walker that would eliminate collective bargaining for most state public employees. Protesters filled the Capitol for a 3rd day.
(SFC, 2/18/11, p.A6)
2011 Feb 24, Wisconsin state troopers were dispatched to try to find at least one of the 14 Senate Democrats who have been on the run for eight days to delay a vote on Republican Gov. Scott Walker's proposal to strip collective bargaining rights from nearly all public employees.
(AP, 2/24/11)
2011 Feb 26, In Wisconsin a crowd estimated at more than 70,000 people waved American flags, sang the national anthem and called for the defeat of a state plan to curb public sector unions that has galvanized opposition from the American labor movement.
(Reuters, 2/27/11)
2011 Mar 10, The Wisconsin Assembly stripped a bill of its spending language and passed legislation with only Republicans present taking away the collective bargaining rights of the state’s government workers.
(SFC, 3/11/11, p.A6)
2011 Mar 11, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker signed a bill taking away the collective bargaining rights of the state’s government workers.
(SFC, 3/12/11, p.A9)
2011 Mar 12, In Wisconsin tens of thousands of pro-labor protesters cheered its Democratic lawmakers and vowed to focus on future elections.
(SSFC, 3/13/11, p.A10)
2011 Mar 20, In Wisconsin suspect James Cruckson (30) opened fire on police during a standoff in Fond du Lac killing Officer Craig Birkholz (28). Cruckson was found dead from an apparently self-inflicted gunshot.
(SFC, 3/21/11, p.A7)
2011 Mar 29, Wisconsin Circuit Judge Maryann Sumi ruled that there should be no further implementation of a law taking away nearly all collective bargaining rights for public workers.
(SFC, 3/30/11, p.A5)
2011 May 13, Timmothy Pitzen (6)of Aurora, Illinois, was last seen on a security camera as he and his mom checked out of the Kalahari resort in Wisconsin. A housekeeper found the body of Amy Fry-Pitzen (42) the next morning. Police would later say she had self-inflicted cuts on her neck and wrists and a lethal dose of drugs in her system.
(SFC, 4/10/19, p.A5)
2011 May 25, The Wisconsin Act 23 established a requirement for nearly all voters to present approved photo identification to cast a ballot.
(https://docs.legis.wisconsin.gov/2011/related/acts/23)
2011 Jun 14, The Wisconsin Supreme Court reinstated Gov. Scott Walker’s plan to all but end collective bargaining for public workers.
(SFC, 6/15/11, p.A5)
2011 Jul 6, In Wisconsin the dead bodies of 3- and 4-year-old Wisconsin brothers were found in a parked car and the boyfriend of the children's mother was arrested.
(AP, 7/6/11)
2011 Aug 9, Wisconsin Republicans held onto control of the state Senate, beating back 4 Democratic challengers in a recall election despite an intense political backlash against GOP support for Gov. Walker's effort to curb public employees' union rights. Democrats captured two seats.
(AP, 8/9/11)(SFC, 8/10/11, p.A6)
2011 Oct 6, In Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Annette Morales-Rodriguez (33), who had faked a pregnancy, kidnapped Maritza Ramirez Cruz (23), killed her and cut out her full term fetus, who died in the process.
(SFC, 10/11/11, p.A6)
2011 Oct 8, In Wisconsin Scott Anderson (56) was ordained as the first US Presbyterian church gay minister at Covenant Presbyterian Church in Madison.
(AP, 10/9/11)
2011 Nov 19, Thousands of people gathered at the Wisconsin capitol to demand a recall of Republican Governor Scott Walker, whose controversial and successful drive to limit public unions last winter sparked the biggest protests in the state since the Vietnam War.
(Reuters, 11/20/11)
2011 Dec 13, The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed the lawsuit Frank v. Walker in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin seeking to block the Act 23, a voter ID law, as a violation of the US Constitution.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Wisconsin_Act_23)
2012 Jan 5, In Wisconsin a former aide close to Gov. Scott Walker and a Walker-appointee were arrested on embezzlement charges.
(SFC, 1/6/12, p.A6)
2012 Jan 14, Laura Kaeppeler (23), a beauty queen from Wisconsin, won the Miss America pageant in Las Vegas after singing opera and strutting in a white bikini and black beaded evening gown.
(AP, 1/14/12)
2012 Jan 17, In Wisconsin opponents of Gov. Scott Walker submitted 1 million signatures for his recall, far exceeding the 540,208 needed.
(SFC, 1/18/12, p.A7)
2012 Apr 3, Mitt Romney swept Republican primaries in Maryland (47%), Wisconsin (42%) and Washington, DC (70%).
(SFC, 4/4/12, p.A6)
2012 May 31, In Wisconsin Darius Simmons (13), a black boy, was shot dead by his white neighbor John Henry Spooner (75) after having stolen four guns from Spooner. On July 17, 2013, a jury found Spooner guilty of first-degree murder.
(SFC, 7/18/13, p.A7)
2012 Jun 5, Wisconsin Gov .Scott Walker won his recall rematch with Tom Barrett, the Democratic mayor of Milwaukee, by a larger margin than in 2010. Walker became only the third governor to face a recall election—and the first to survive one—since the Progressives came up with this drastic remedy for bad governance more than a century ago.
(SFC, 6/6/12, p.A13)
2012 Aug 5, A gunman opened fire in a Sikh temple in Oak Creek, Wis., and killed six people. He was identified as Army veteran Wade Michael Page (40). Page, a self-described member of the “Hammerskins Nation" of skinheads, died after shooting himself in the head during an exchange of gunfire with a wounded police officer outside the temple.
(AFP, 8/6/12)(SFC, 8/7/12, p.A4)(SFC, 8/9/12, p.A12)
2012 Aug 11, Mitt Romney announced he's selected Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin as his vice presidential running mate.
(SSFC, 8/12/12, p.A7)
2012 Sep 14, A Wisconsin judge struck down nearly all of the 2011 state law championed by Gov. Scott Walker that effectively ended collective bargaining rights for most public workers.
(AP, 9/15/12)
2012 Oct 21, A shooting at a spa near a Brookfield, Wis., mall left 3 women dead and four others wounded in a scene of domestic violence. The suspected gunman, Radcliffe Haughton (45), of Brown Deer, Wis., was found dead inside the spa.
(AP, 10/21/12)(SFC, 10/22/12, p.A5)
2013 Mar 2, In Kentucky a tractor trailer plowed into an SUV killing 6 of 8 people, members of an extended family from Marion, Wis.
(SFC, 2/4/13, p.A4)
2013 May, Dominion Power shut down a nuclear plant in Wisconsin, that was licensed for another 20 years, due to the fall in the price of natural gas from increasing shale gas.
(Econ, 6/1/13, p.26)
2013 Oct 26, Wisconsin’s Milwaukee-based Garden-Fresh Foods recalled 50 more tons of chicken and ham products over concern of possible listeria contamination. The company first recalled 9 tons of food on Sep 25.
(SSFC, 10/27/13, p.A8)
2014 Feb 23, In Wisconsin three men broke into a Madison home looking for money, found a couple lying in bed and assaulted the woman, who was six months pregnant. Efemia A. Neumaier told the assailants they'd find at least $1,500 in cash in the home of the man she was seeing, but that the men broke into the wrong home. Michon A. Thomas, Eric D. Bass and Kristopher J. Hughes all faced robbery and sexual assault charges.
(AP, 3/12/14)
2014 Apr 10, US wildlife agencies in Michigan and Wisconsin said they have confirmed diagnoses of white-nose syndrome in tested bats. The fungal disease has killed millions on North American bats since 2006 and has now been detected in half of the US.
(SFC, 4/11/14, p.A6)
2014 Apr 29, A federal judge struck down Wisconsin’s voter ID law declaring that it imposes an unfair burden on poor and minority voters.
(SFC, 4/30/14, p.A6)
2014 Apr 30, In Milwaukee Dontre Hamilton (31), a mentally ill man, died after he was shot 14 times by police Officer Christopher Manney following a scuffle. Manney was fired in October.
(www.tumblr.com/search/dontre%20hamilton)(SFC, 10/17/14, p.A8)
2014 May 31, In Waukesha, Wisconsin, Anissa Weier (12) and Morgan Geyser (12) stabbed their friend Peyton Leutner (12) nineteen times in a park following a slumber party in Waukesha to please “Slender Man," a demon-like creature they learned about on creepypasta.wikia.com. On Aug 1 a judge ruled that one of the girls is mentally incompetent and can’t stand trial. On March 13 a judge ruled that both girls must stand trial as adults. On Aug 21, 2017, Weier pleaded guilty. On Sep 15 a jury determined that Weier was mentally ill at the time of the attack. Geyser also planned to plead guilty and receive treatment for mental illness.
(SFC, 6/3/14, p.A6)(SFC, 8/2/14, p.A4)(SFC, 3/22/17, p.A5)(SSFC, 9/17/17 p.A15)(SFC, 9/30/17, p.A6)
2014 Jun 6, In Wisconsin gay couples began getting married after a federal judge struck down the state’s same-sex marriage ban.
(SFC, 6/7/14, p.A4)
2014 Jun 13, A federal judge in Madison, Wis., issued an order postponing her decision striking down Wisconsin’s ban on same-sex marriage as unconstitutional, pending the outcome of an expected appeal. More than 550 same-sex couples in the state cited her June 6 decision in order to get married over the past seven days.
(CSM, 6/13/14)
2014 Jun 26, In Wisconsin Steven Zelich (52), a former police officer, was charged with two counts of hiding a corpse. He was suspected of in the deaths of two women whose bodies were stuffed into suitcases and discarded on a rural highway.
(SFC, 6/27/14, p.A6)
2014 Jul 31, The Wisconsin Supreme Court upheld Act 10, the 2011 law that effectively ended collective bargaining for most public workers.
(AP, 7/31/14)
2014 Oct 6, The US Supreme Court denied review of cases in five states that had limited marriage to opposite sex couples. This in effect granted equal marriage rights to gays and lesbians in Indiana, Oklahoma, Utah, Virginia and Wisconsin.
(SFC, 10/7/14, p.A1)
2015 Feb 6, In Wisconsin Sureshbhai Patel (57) from India was slammed to the ground by a police officer after a caller said a "skinny black guy" with a toboggan hat was walking in the neighborhood and peering into garages. One of the officers restrained Patel by pulling his arms behind his back and then slammed him face-first into the ground less than 90 seconds after the confrontation began. Officer Eric Parker was arrested and is being fired.
(AP, 2/14/15)
2015 Mar 6, Wisconsin police fatally shot as Anthony "Tony" Robinson (19), an apparently unarmed African-American, prompting dozens of people to protest at the site of the killing. Robinson, tripping on mushrooms, had already attacked several people. Authorities said Robinson had assaulted Officer Mat Kenny (45) in an apartment. In 2017 a federal civil rights lawsuit awarded Robinson’s family $3.35 million.
(Reuters, 3/7/15)(SSFC, 3/8/15, p.A9)(SFC, 5/14/15, p.A7)(SFC, 2/24/17, p.A6)
2015 Mar 9, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker signed into law a measure that prohibits requiring a worker to pay union dues.
(SFC, 3/10/15, p.A6)
2015 Mar 24, In Wisconsin police officer Trevor Casper began pursuing a vehicle matching the description of the car of a suspect who was wanted in a bank robbery in Fond du Lac Fond du Lac. A gun battle ensued leaving both the trooper and the suspect dead.
(Reuters, 3/25/15)
2015 May 3, In Wisconsin Sergio Daniel Valencia del Toro (27), who had just been in a fight with his girlfriend, armed himself with two guns, cycled to a scenic bridge and opened fire, killing a father and his daughter along with another man before taking his own life on the Trestle Trail bridge in Menasha.
(Reuters, 5/5/15)
2015 Jul 2, Aides of Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker said he is joining the Republican presidential race.
(SFC, 7/3/15, p.A7)
2015 Jul 13, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (47) became the 15th prominent Republican to join the US presidential race.
(SFC, 7/14/15, p.A7)
2015 Aug 4, The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Milwaukee said it will pay $21 million top more than 300 victims of clergy abuse in a settlement that would end a four-year bankruptcy proceeding.
(SFC, 8/5/15, p.A6)
2015 Oct 5, Pres. Obama declared new marine sanctuaries off of Wisconsin’s Lake Michigan and the tidal waters of Maryland.
(SFC, 10/6/15, p.A6)
2015 Oct 13, In Wisconsin a Milwaukee state court jury ordered Badger Guns to pay $5.73 million after the store was found liable for negligence in the 2009 shooting of two local police officers.
(SFC, 10/15/15, p.A14)
2015 Oct 16, A US jury ordered Apple Inc to pay the University of Wisconsin-Madison's patent licensing arm more than $234 million in damages for incorporating its microchip technology into some of the company's iPhones and iPads without permission. Apple had faced up to $862 million in damages after a US jury found the iPhone maker used technology owned by the University of Wisconsin-Madison's licensing arm without permission.
(http://tinyurl.com/otut73f)
2015 Oct 30, Paul Ryan (45) of Wisconsin was sworn in as the 54th speaker of the US House of Representatives.
(SFC, 10/30/15, p.A6)
2015 Nov 23, A panel of the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago ruled 2-1 that a Wisconsin law requiring that abortion providers have admitting privileges at a local hospital, is unconstitutional.
(CSM, 11/24/15)
2016 Apr 5, In Wisconsin Ted Cruz beat Republican front-runner Donald Trump soundly, winning most of the state’s delegates and raising the probability of a contested GOP convention in July. Upstart senator Bernie Sanders also beat Democrat frontrunner Hillary Clinton, bolstering his claim to be a viable alternative standard-bearer to the former secretary of state and first lady.
(AFP, 4/6/16)
2016 Apr 8, Wisconsin’s right to work law, championed by Gov. Scott Walker, was struck down as violating the state constitution.
(SFC, 4/9/16, p.A5)
2016 Apr 23, In Wisconsin a police officer fatally shot Jakob Wagner (18) after Wagner shot and wounded two students outside a high school prom in Antigo.
(SFC, 4/25/16, p.A5)
2016 Jun 30, In Italy Wisconsin student Beau Solomon (19) disappeared in Rome a day after arriving there. On July 4 police discovered his body in the Tiber river in Rome. A suspect identified as Massimo Galioto (40), who lived in an encampment under a bridge near where Solomon was last seen, was soon arrested and accused of pushing Solomon in the river after a fight.
(AP, 7/4/16)(AP, 7/5/16)(AP, 5/8/18)
2016 Jul 17, In Wisconsin a domestic violence suspect opened fire on a Milwaukee police officer who was sitting in his squad car early today, seriously wounding him before fleeing and apparently killing himself shortly afterward. The suspect, a 20-year-old man from the suburb of West Allis, had two felonies on his arrest record.
(AP, 7/18/16)
2016 Aug 13, Milwaukee police shot and killed Sylville Smith (23) after he failed to drop a gun. An angry crowd of at least 200 people took to the streets, torching at least six businesses, including a gas station and auto parts store. Looting continued into the next night as police in riot gear moved in on the Sherman Park neighborhood. On Dec 15 police Officer Dominique Heaggan-Brown, who is also black, was charged with murder.
(AFP, 8/15/16)(SFC, 12/16/16, p.A10)
2016 Nov 8, In the US presidential election Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin all swung for Donald Trump with margins of one percent or less. Wisconsin’s voter ID law impacted an unknown number of eligible voters as Trump defeated Clinton by roughly 22,000 votes.
(Econ, 11/19/16, p.25)(SFC, 5/9/17, p.A4)
2016 Nov 24, It was reported that the former Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein has raised the necessary $1.1 million to request a vote recount in Wisconsin. Donald Trump also won by a slim margin in Pennsylvania, where a recount filing fee costs $500,000, due on November 28. The filing fee in Michigan, where Trump has a razor-thin lead in unofficial results so far, is $600,000 due by November 30.
(AFP, 11/24/16)
2017 Feb 18, Clyde Stubblefield (73), a former drummer for James Brown, died in Madison, Wis. His short solo on Brown’s 1970 single “Funky Drummer" was sampled on more than 1,000 songs and served as the backbeat on for countless hip-hop tracks.
(SFC, 2/20/17, p.C4)
2017 Mar 22, In northern Wisconsin a domestic dispute at a bank escalated into shootings at three locations. A police officer and two bank employees and an attorney were shot and killed. Suspect Nengmy Vang was in custody. Attorney Sarah Quirt Sann was his wife’s divorce lawyer. On April 1 Vang died of his wounds.
(SFC, 3/23/17, p.A8)(SFC, 3/24/17, p.A8)(SFC, 3/25/17, p.A5)(SSFC, 4/2/17, p.A5)
2017 Apr 14, In Wisconsin Joseph Allen Jakubowski (32), accused of stealing an arsenal of weapons and sending an antigovernment manifesto to the White House, was arrested near Readstown.
(SFC, 4/15/17, p.A7)
2017 Apr 18, President Donald Trump visited Wisconsin and signed an order, dubbed "Buy American, Hire American," aimed at curbing abuses in the H-1B visa program used by technology companies that rely on high-skilled foreign workers. The EU later argued that more stringent "Buy American" policies were likely to increase costs and delays, with no net benefit in job creation.
(AP, 4/18/17)(SFC, 4/19/17, p.A1)(AP, 10/17/17)
2017 May 16, In the central US storms that stretched from Texas to the Great Lakes spawned 29 twisters that killed two people in Oklahoma and Wisconsin.
(SFC, 5/18/17, p.A4)
2017 May 31, In Wisconsin the Didion Milling Plant exploded in Cambria leaving two people dead and at least one person missing at the corn mill.
(SFC, 6/2/17, p.A4)
2017 Jul 1, In northern Wisconsin a Cessna airplane crashed near the city of Philips killing all six people aboard.
(SFC, 7/3/17, p.A4)
2017 Jul 26, An invitation to President Donald Trump's afternoon news conference with Wisconsin officials said electronics giant Foxconn will build a liquid-crystal display panel plant in Wisconsin.
(AP, 7/26/17)
2017 Jul 26, It was reported that Wisconsin-based tech company Three Square Market will begin offering employees the implantation of RFID microchips under the skin between their thumb and index finger as of August 1. This will allow employees to perform tasks such as entering the office, and paying for food with a wave of the hand.
(SFC, 7/26/17, p.C5)
2017 Aug 2, Marcus Hutchins (23), a British cybersecurity researcher, was arrested at McCarran Int’l. Airport in Las Vegas as he prepared to fly home following a cybersecurity convention. On August 14 he faced charges in Wisconsin for committing computer fraud. Four months earlier he had identified a “kill switch" to slow the outbreak of the WannaCry virus that crippled computer worldwide. In 2019 Hutchins pleaded guilty to writing malware in 2015, before changing to a career in cybersecurity. He was sentenced to time served.
(SFC, 8/1517, p.A7)(SFC, 4/22/19, p.A7)(SFC, 7/27/19, p.A6)
2017 Aug 13, In southeastern Wisconsin three men from Illinois, believed to be gang members, were shot to death at close range during a drag racing event at the Great Lakes Dragaway in the town of Paris.
(SFC, 8/1517, p.A5)
2017 Sep 18, Gov. Scott Walker signed into law a $3 billion incentive package for Taiwan-based Foxconn Technology Group to build a flat-screen plant in southeastern Wisconsin, a deal that he calls a "huge win" for the entire state.
(AP, 9/18/17)
2017 Nov 8, In northern Wisconsin Jason Pero (14), of the Bad River Band Chippewa reservation, was shot and killed by an Ashland County sheriff’s deputy. Dispatchers had received a call about a male subject walking down a street in Odanah with a knife.
(SFC, 11/10/17, p.A6)
2017 Nov 13, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker signed off on a bill that eliminates the state’s minimum age for hunting.
(SFC, 11/14/17, p.A5)
2018 Apr 17, A Wisconsin jury convicted Cullen M. Osburn of Minneapolis of battery in the death of a student from Saudi Arabia, but acquitted him on a more serious murder charge. Osburn, angry that his girlfriend wasn't answering his phone calls, reportedly punched a stranger, Hussain Saeed Alnahdi, in the face outside a Menomonie pizzeria on Oct. 30, 2016. Alnahdi died the next day at a hospital.
(AP, 4/18/18)
2018 Apr 26, In northern Wisconsin the crash of a medical helicopter crash left three crew members dead.
(SFC, 4/28/18, p.A5)
2018 May 8, Former US Army Capt. Ernest Medina, a key figure in the 1968 My Lai massacre during the Vietnam war, died in Wisconsin.
(AP, 5/14/18)
2018 Jun 7, In Wisconsin police Officer Charles Irvine Jr. (23) was killed amd his partner injured when their car overturned on a side street while chasing a reckless driver.
(SFC, 6/9/18, p.A6)
2018 Jun 19, Taiwan-based Foxconn Technology Group said it's investing in a $30 million recycling system that will significantly reduce the amount of water drawn from Lake Michigan for its planned manufacturing complex in southeast Wisconsin.
(AP, 6/19/18)
2018 Jun 25, Wisconsin-based Harley-Davidson, up against spiraling costs from tariffs, said it will begin to shift the production of motorcycles headed for Europe from the US to factories overseas.
(AP, 6/25/18)
2018 Jun 5, In Kenosha, Wisconsin, Chrystul Kizer (17) allegedly shot Randall Volar twice in the head, set his home on fire and then stole his luxury vehicle. In 2019 she faced life in prison after admitting to killing the accused pedophile who allegedly abused her and sold her to other men for sex.
(http://tinyurl.com/yx3ehmo5)(ABC News, 12/18/19)
2018 Jul 25, Milwaukee police Officer Michael Michalski (52) was killed during an exchange of gunfire as police searched for a man suspected of drug dealing. The lone suspect was arrested after he rna out of bullets and surrendered.
(SFC, 7/27/18, p.A5)
2018 Sep 19, In Wisconsin a heavily armed man opened fire on co-workers at the WTS Paradigm software company. He wounded three people before being fatally shot by police in Middletown.
(SFC, 9/20/18, p.A5)
2018 Oct 15, In Wisconsin Jake Patterson gunned down James and Denise Closs, dragged away their daughter Jayme Closs (13), and held her under a bed in his remote cabin for 88 days before she made a daring escape. An Amber Alert was issued for Jayme Closs after deputies found her parents dead in Barron. Jayme was found safe on Jan. 10 in the small town of Gordon and suspect In March, 2019, Patterson (21) pleaded guilty to two counts of intentional homicide and one count of kidnapping. On May 24 Patterson was sentenced to life in prison.
(SFC, 10/16/18, p.A6)(SFC, 1/11/19, p.A5)(SFC, 1/15/19, p.A4)(SFC, 5/25/19, p.A6)(AP, 12/20/19)
2018 Nov 3, In Wisconsin three Girl Scouts and an adult were killed while collecting trash on a rural highway. A pickup truck veered off the road and hit them and sped away. Driver Colton Treu (21) of Chippewa Falls surrendered later. Treu was accused of inhaling chemical vapors before the crash and faced homicide charges. On March 11, 2020, Treu was sentenced to 54 years in prison.
(SFC, 11/5/18, p.A5)(SFC, 11/7/18, p.A4)(NBC News, 3/12/20)
2018 Dec 14, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker signed a sweeping package of Republican-written legislation that restricts early voting and weakens the incoming Democratic governor and attormey general.
(SFC, 12/15/18, p.A8)
2018 Dec 23, In Slovenia human remains were found near a popular hiking place at Iski Vintgar gorge. They were later confirmed as those of a Jonathan Luskin of Wisconsin, who was reported missing to Slovenian authorities on July 25.
(AP, 12/29/18)
2019 Jan 17, A US federal judge struck down early-voting restrictions enacted by Wisconsin Republicans in a lame-duck legislative session last year.
(SFC, 1/18/19, p.A5)
2019 Jan 30, US governors in Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin declared emergencies as bitter cold due to a split polar vortex caused temperature drops to as low as minus 57 degrees. More than 2,600 flights to and from regional airports were cancelled.
(SFC, 1/31/19, p.A7)
2019 Jan 30, Taiwan-based Foxconn Technology Group said it is shifting the focus of its planned Wisconsin campus away from blue-collar manufacturing to a research hub, while insisting it remains committed to creating 13,000 jobs as promised.
(AP, 1/30/19)
2019 Mar 21, A Wisconsin circuit court judge blocked Republicans' contentious lame-duck laws limiting the powers of new Democratic Gov. Tom Evers.
(SFC, 3/22/19, p.A5)
2019 Mar 27, In Wisconsin the 3rd District Court of Appeals reinstated laws passed during the 2018 lame-duck legislative session that weaken powers of the Democratic governor and attorney general.
(SFC, 3/28/19, p.A6)
2019 Apr 14, In Wisconsin a boy (17) was arrested after he fatally shot his grandparents in Grand Chute. The teen said he also planned to cause harm at his Neenah High School.
(SFC, 4/16/19, p.A5)
2019 Apr 23, Manuel Franco of West Allis, Wisconsin, stepped forward to claim a $768 million Powerball prize.
(SFC, 4/24/19, p.A5)
2019 Jun 24, Milwaukee Bucks star forward Giannis Antetokounmpo (24) of Greece was named the NBA's Most Valuable Player for the 2018-19 regular season.
(AFP, 6/24/19)
2019 Jul 28, In Wisconsin shootings at two homes left five people dead, including the suspected shooter, and two others injured. Ritchie German Jr. wounded Teng Vang and Mai Chang Vang before taking his own life late today. German shot his way into the Vang home in Lake Hallie after killing his mother, Bridget German (66), his brother, Douglas German (32), and his nephew, Calvin Harris (8), at their home in Lafayette.
(AP, 7/29/19)(AP, 8/1/19)
2019 Jul 30, Authorities who had been searching a Missouri farm for two missing Wisconsin brothers found human remains there, more than a week after the pair disappeared during a trip for their livestock business. The farm was operated by Garland Nelson, who is accused of tampering with a vehicle that authorities say was rented by Nicholas Diemel (35), and his brother, Justin Diemel (24).
(AP, 7/31/19)
2019 Sep 19, In Wisconsin a woman driving with her two children was struck by a bullet and killed during a gun fight in Milwaukee.
(SFC, 9/21/19, p.A5)
2019 Oct 15, A jury in Wisconsin awarded $450,000 to the father of a boy killed in the 2012 Sandy Hook school shooting after he filed a defamation lawsuit against conspiracy theorist writers who claimed the Dec. 14, 2012, massacre in Connecticut never happened. James Fetzer, a retired University of Minnesota Duluth professor now living in Wisconsin, and Mike Palacek co-wrote a book, "Nobody Died at Sandy Hook," in which they claimed the Sandy Hook shooting never took place but was instead an event staged by the federal government as part of an Obama administration effort to enact tighter gun restrictions.
(AP, 10/16/19)
2019 Nov 1, In Wisconsin Clifton Blackwell threw acid on Mahud Villalaz, a Latino man, who suffered 2nd degree burns. In 2020 Blackwell (61) was pronounced competent to stand trial for reckless injury in a hate crime.
(http://tinyurl.com/y6p9wosp)(SFC, 1/7/20, p.A5)
2019 Dec 13, A Wisconsin judge ordered that the registration of up to 234,000 voters be tossed out because they may have moved, a victory for conservatives that could make it more difficult for people to vote next year in the key swing state.
(AP, 12/14/19)
2020 Jan 10, Wisconsin political activist Jeremy Ryan (31), accused of trying to buy a lethal dose of a radioactive substance online, pleaded guilty to one count of receiving a nuclear material. His attorneys said he had cancer and intended to use the material to kill himself.
(AP, 1/10/20)
2020 Jan 14, A Wisconsin appeals court put on hold an order to immediately remove up to 209,000 names from the state's voter registration polls.
(SFC, 1/15/20, p.A5)
2020 Jan 14, President Trump used part of his campaign rally in Milwaukee to defend his decision to authorize an airstrike that killed Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani. Trump has alleged that Soleimani was plotting "imminent attacks" against the US, but has offered no evidence.
(The Week, 1/14/20)
2020 Jan 27, Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers signed an executive order creating what he promised would be a non-partisan commission to draw new legislative maps for next year for the Legislature to consider.
(SFC, 1/28/20, p.A7)
2020 Feb 2, In Wisconsin Black police Officer Joseph Mensah fatally shot Black teenager Alvin Cole (17) outside a suburban Milwaukee mall. In October a prosecutor said the officer would not be charged because he had reasonable belief that deadly force was necessary.
(AP, 10/7/20)
2020 Feb 16, In Wisconsin the bodies of a woman (26) and her two young daughters were found in a Milwaukee garage more than a week after they were reported missing. The bodies were found after police interviewed the woman's boyfriend (25), who had been arrested in Tennessee on a fugitive from justice warrant.
(AP, 2/17/20)
2020 Feb 26, In Wisconsin Anthony Ferril (51), a Molson Coors Beverage Co employee, shot ande killed five co-workers before taking his own life at the company's beer-brewing complex in Milwaukee.
(Reuters, 2/27/20)(SFC, 2/28/20, p.A6)
2020 Mar 10, In Wisconsin Adam Roth of Waukesha stabbed four of his family members, two of them fatally. In December Roth (36) was found not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect in the attack.
(https://tinyurl.com/y8gzsp5k)(AP, 12/15/20)
2020 Mar 23, Governors of Michigan, Massachusetts, West Virginia and Wisconsin implemented stay-at-home policies. Worldwide cases of coronavirus top 372,000 and 16,000 dead.
(Bloomberg, 3/23/20)
2020 Mar 25, Miami, Wisconsin, Vermont joined a growing list of places where residents must stay home. At least 23 states have enacted policies to close nonessential businesses in an effort to slow the spread of novel coronavirus on US soil.
(Good Morning America, 3/25/20)
2020 Mar 29, A major storm moving through the central US brought at least 17 reported tornadoes overnight with eight in Iowa, three in Arkansas, one in Missouri, four in Illinois and one in Wisconsin. In Arkansas six people were hurt in the college town of Jonesboro.
(Good Morning America, 3/29/20)(SFC, 3/30/20, p.A4)
2020 Mar 30, Wisconsin police arrested Sagal Hussein (25). The body of her young son was found in a duffel bag in her car apparently months after he died.
(SFC, 5/2/20, p.A3)
2020 Mar 31, In Wisconsin a jogger found the bodies of Dr. Beth Potter (52) and her husband Rovin Carre (57) near the arboretum of the Univ. of Wisconsin. Suspect Khari Sanford (18) was arrested on April 3. Police soon arrested a 2nd suspect, Ali'jah Larrue (18).
(SFC, 4/7/20, p.A3)
2020 Apr 5, Nine Wisconsin mayors, including those representing the state's five largest cities, urged the state's top public health official to postpone the April 7 primary election due to the coronavirus pandemic.
(Reuters, 4/6/20)(NY Times, 4/7/20)
2020 Apr 6, Wisconsin’s Supreme Court overruled Gov. Tony Evers' (D) last-minute order to stop in-person voting for April 7. The US Supreme Court ruled against an attempt by Wisconsin Democrats to extend the deadline for absentee voting.
(Econ, 4/11/20, p.8)
2020 Apr 7, Wisconsin voters lined up to cast ballots across the state, ignoring a stay-at-home order in the midst of a pandemic to participate in the state's presidential primary election. Voters in the state's Democratic primary endorsed Joe Biden. Voters also elected Democrat Judge Jill Karofsky to the state's Supreme Court.
(AP, 4/7/20)(SFC, 4/15/20, p.A3)
2020 Apr 16, Governors in seven US Midwest states said they will work in close coordination to reopen the economy in their regions. The governors for Michigan, Ohio, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Illinois, Indiana and Kentucky have formed a partnership to work together on restarting the economies in their states, they said in a statement.
(Reuters, 4/17/20)
2020 Apr 21, Milwaukee's top public health officials said that at least seven people appear to have been infected with the COVID-19 coronavirus during activities associated with Wisconsin's April 7 election.
(The Week, 4/22/20)
2020 Apr 24, A rally outside Wisconsin's capitol building in Madison drew hundreds of protesters who demanded Democratic Governor Tony Evers reopen the state even as it reported its largest single day jump of new coronavirus cases.
(Reuters, 4/25/20)
2020 Apr 26, JBS USA announced that the JBS packerland plant in Greenbay, Wisconsin, would be temporarily closed. At least 189 COVID-19 infections had been linked to the plant.
(SFC, 4/28/20, p.A5)
2020 Apr 27, Wisconsin police found five people shot to death inside a Milwaukee home and arrested the man (43) who dialed 911 to report the slayings.
(AP, 4/27/20)
2020 Apr 30, It was reported that the US Fish and Wildlife Service is offering a $1,000 reward for information that leads to the arrest of someone who is poisoning pets and wildlife in northern Wisconsin. Ongoing poisonings in Florence, Forest and Marinette counties have been investigated for about a year. 7 pet dogs have died so far along with coyotes, weasels and wolves.
(AP, 4/30/20)
2020 May 13, The Wisconsin Supreme Court struck down Gov. Tony Evers’ stay-at-home restrictions. The ruling means the state is essentially reopened ahead of the May 26 expiration date of Evers’ order, lifting caps on the size of gatherings, allowing people to travel as they please and allowing shuttered businesses to reopen.
(AP, 5/14/20)
2020 May 31, In Wisconsin hundreds of volunteers gathered early today in downtown Madison to clean up damage from a night of violence that included setting a police squad car on fire, looting and breaking windows at dozens of stores and an art museum. 15 people were arrested after a second night of violence erupted late today in Madison, with police firing tear gas as protesters again threw rocks and damaged store downtown stores following an afternoon peaceful protest over the death of George Floyd.
(AP, 5/31/20)(AP, 6/1/20)
2020 Jun 18, School board members in Wisconsin’s largest school district voted to cut ties with police officers who patrol outside its schools.
(AP, 6/18/20)
2020 Jun 23, Turmoil unfolded late today outside the Wisconsin State Capitol in Madison as protesters allegedly attacked a state senator, smashed windows and toppled two historic statues.
(Good Morning America, 6/24/20)
2020 Jun 24, Wisconsin Gov. Tom Evers activated the National Guard to protect state properties following a night of violence in Madison.
(SFC, 6/25/20, p.A6)
2020 Jul 9, The conservative-controlled Wisconsin Supreme Court upheld Republican-authored lame-duck laws that stripped power from the incoming Democratic attorney general just before he took office in 2019.
(SFC, 7/10/20, p.A8)
2020 Jul 29, The US Justice Department said it would send dozens of law enforcement officers to Cleveland, Milwaukee and Detroit to fight violent crime, expanding the deployment of federal agents to major cities under a program promoted by President Donald Trump.
(Reuters, 7/29/20)
2020 Jul 30, Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers issued a statewide mask mandate amid a spike in coronavirus cases, setting up a conflict with Republican legislative leaders and some conservatives who oppose such a requirement and successfully sued to kill the governor's "safer at home" order.
(AP, 7/30/20)
2020 Aug 10, A rare storm packing 100 mph winds and with power similar to an inland hurricane swept across the Midwest, blowing over trees, flipping vehicles, causing widespread property damage and leaving hundreds of thousands without power as it moved through Chicago and into Indiana and Michigan. The storm known as a derecho lasted several hours as it tore from eastern Nebraska across Iowa and parts of Wisconsin and Illinois. Iowa state's agriculture department later estimated that the severe windstorm destroyed or seriously damaged more than 57 million bushels of commercial grain storage capacity in Iowa and a similar amount on farms.
(AP, 8/10/20)(Reuters, 8/18/20)
2020 Aug 23, In Wisconsin a video posted on social media appeared to show police officers shoot at Jacob Blake (29), a Black man, seven times in the back as he leaned into a vehicle. Protesters soon gathered and marchers headed to the Kenosha County Public Safety Building, which houses the police and county sheriff's departments. Blake had surgery and was paralyzed from the waist down. Video later showed that Blake was armed with a knife. In 2021 federal prosecutors said they would not file charges against Officer Rusten Sheskey.
(AP, 8/24/20)(Insider, 8/24/20)(SSFC, 10/10/21, p.A13)
2020 Aug 24, In Wisconsin police officers deployed tear gas early today to disperse hundreds of people who took to the streets following a police shooting in Kenosha that also drew a harsh rebuke from the governor after a video posted on social media appeared to show officers shoot at Jacob Blake, a Black man, seven times in the back as he leaned into a vehicle. Protesters set several Kenosha businesses on fire early this morning. The father of Jacob Blake says his son was left paralyzed from the waist down. Wisconsin's governor called out the National Guard.
(AP, 8/24/20)(NY Times, 8/25/20)(AP, 8/25/20)(Reuters, 8/25/20)
2020 Aug 25, In Wisconsin two people were killed and another was injured late today as shots were fired during a third night of protests in Kenosha over the shooting of Jacob Blake. Gov. Tony Evers (D) declared a state of emergency.
(AP, 8/26/20)
2020 Aug 26, Wisconsin authorities arrested Kyle Rittenhouse, a 17-year-old white Illinois resident, and charged him with first-degree intentional homicide in the shooting of two protesters on August 25. Police said Rittenhouse shot three people, killing two and injuring one.
(Yahoo News, 8/27/20)
2020 Aug 28, Mark Zuckerberg said Facebook should have taken down the page and event listing promoting a militia group that called for armed citizens to defend Kenosha, Wisconsin, amid ongoing protests there. The event, titled: "Armed Citizens to Protect Our Lives and Property," and the page, "Kenosha Guard," were removed after two people were killed in a shooting there on August 25.
(Business Insider, 8/28/20)
2020 Aug 29, In Wisconsin family members of Jacob Blake, a Black man who was paralyzed after a Kenosha police officer shot him in the back, led a march and rally to call for an end to police violence. A crowd of about 1,000 demonstrators gathered outside a courthouse in Kenosha to denounce police violence and share messages of change.
(AP, 8/29/20)
2020 Aug 30, Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers (D) urged President Trump to "reconsider" his plan to visit the city of Kenosha as protests continue over the shooting of Jacob Blake, a Black man, by a white police officer.
(The Week, 8/31/20)
2020 Sep 1, Pres. Trump traveled to Kenosha, Wis., to offer support for law enforcement and to tour shops damaged by rioting. During the visit, Trump did not mention the name of Jacob Blake, an unarmed Black man shot by the police last week, nor did the president speak with his family.
(NY Times, 9/2/20)
2020 Sep 16, Hmong American Ee Lee (36) was found brutally beaten in Washington Park, Milwaukee. Lee died three days later. A group of five to seven people were caught on film at the location where the struggle happened. Other cameras captured two groups of people — totaling 11 individuals — leaving the park on bicycles after the attack.
(NextShark, 1/14/20)
2020 Sep 17, US President Donald Trump announced a new round of pandemic assistance to farmers of about $13 billion at a campaign rally in Wisconsin late today, delivering aid to an important sector in a crucial battleground state.
(Reuters, 9/17/20)
2020 Sep 22, Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers declared a new public health emergency and extended a face mask mandate into November to fight a coronavirus flareup in his state, as the number of people who have died across the United States since the pandemic began passed 200,000.
(Reuters, 9/23/20)
2020 Sep 25, Wisconsin, one of the states where coronavirus cases are rising the fastest, reported 2,629 new infections, surpassing its previous record set a week earlier.
(Reuters, 9/25/20)
2020 Sep 26, Minnesota, Montana, South Dakota, and Wisconsin all reported record one-day increases in coronavirus cases, as COVID-19 infections continued to surge in the Midwest and rose nationally for the second straight week.
(The Week, 9/27/20)
2020 Sep 27, A federal appeals court temporarily blocked a six-day extension for counting absentee ballots in the battleground state of Wisconsin ordered by a lower court to accommodate an expected historic surge in voting by mail due to the coronavirus crisis. For now ballots are due by 8 p.m. on Election Day, a provisional win for Republicans and President Trump. On Sept. 29 the appeals court upheld the six-day extension.
(The Week, 9/28/20)(SFC, 9/30/20, p.A4)
2020 Sep 30, In Wisconsin a record number of people with COVID-19 were hospitalized. Of those 737 patients, 205 were in intensive care, with spikes in cases in northern parts of the state driving up the numbers. The state also reported its highest single-day number of deaths — 27 — raising the toll to 1,327.
(AP, 9/30/20)
2020 Oct 1, Wisconsin registered a record increase in new COVID-19 cases. Governor Tony Evers issued an emergency order easing licensing rules in a bid to bolster the number of healthcare workers able to deal with the mounting crisis.
(Reuters, 10/2/20)
2020 Oct 2, Wisconsin Republicans, who control the Legislature, filed a court motion in support of a lawsuit seeking to repeal a mask mandate under Gov. Tony Evers, a Democrat.
(AP, 10/3/20)
2020 Oct 8, A US federal appeals court blocked a decision in Wisconsin to extend the deadline for counting as many as 2 million absentee ballots by six days.
(SFC, 10/9/20, p.A5)
2020 Oct 19, A Wisconsin judge reimposed an order from Gov. Tony Evers’ administration limiting the number of people who can gather in bars, restaurants and other indoor venues to 25% of capacity.
(AP, 10/19/20)
2020 Oct 22, Hackers reportedly stole $2.3 million from the Wisconsin Republican Party's account that was being used to help reelect President Donald Trump in the key battleground state. The attack began as a phishing attempt and no data appeared to have been stolen.
(AP, 10/29/20)
2020 Oct 26, The US Supreme Court refused to revive a trial court ruling that would have extended Wisconsin’s deadline for receiving absentee ballots to six days after the election. The vote was 5 to 3, with the court’s more conservative justices in the majority.
(NY Times, 10/27/20)
2020 Oct 30, Kyle Rittenhouse, the 17-year-old Illinois resident charged in the shooting death of two protesters, was extradited in Wisconsin where the crimes took place.
(SFC, 10/31/20, p.A4)
2020 Nov 6, It was reported that more than 14,000 farmed minks have died in recent weeks in Utah and Wisconsin after contracting COVID-19.
(SFC, 11/6/20, p.A7)
2020 Nov 6, Wisconsin police arrested Nathanael Benton (23), suspected of shooting two police officers earlier in the day in Waukesha County. Benton was also wanted in Fargo, North Dakota, for attempted murder.
(SFC, 11/7/20, p.A4)
2020 Nov 18, President Donald Trump's campaign said it has paid $3 million for a recount of two heavily Democratic Wisconsin counties, saying that they were the sight of the “worst irregularities" although no evidence of wrongdoing has been presented and state elections officials have said there was none.
(AP, 11/18/20)
2020 Nov 20, Kyle Rittenhouse, the teenager charged with fatally shooting two men and wounding a third at a demonstration in Kenosha, Wisconsin, was released on a $2 million bond.
(Reuters, 11/20/20)
2020 Nov 21, Election officials in Wisconsin’s largest county accused observers for President Donald Trump of seeking to obstruct a recount of the presidential results, in some instances by objecting to every ballot tabulators pulled to count.
(AP, 11/21/20)
2020 Nov 27, President-elect Joe Biden picked up 257 votes in Wisconsin's Milwaukee County after the Trump campaign demanded a recount there. President Trump also picked up 125 votes, giving Biden a net gain of 132.
(The Week, 11/28/20)
2020 Nov 30, Arizona and Wisconsin certified their presidential election results in favor of Joe Biden, even as President Donald Trump's legal team continued to dispute the results.
(AP, 11/30/20)
2020 Dec 1, The Trump campaign said it filed a petition challenging Wisconsin's results in the 2020 presidential election with the state's Supreme Court.
(Reuters, 12/1/20)
2020 Dec 4, Courts in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, and Wisconsin ruled against President Trump and his allies in several lawsuits seeking to overturn the results of the presidential election.
(The Week, 12/5/20)
2020 Dec 8, A Wisconsin fighter pilot died after a plane crashed during a training flight in Michigan's Upper Peninsula.
(SFC, 12/11/20, p.A6)
2020 Dec 14, Wisconsin Republicans met at the state Capitol, the same day as 10 Democratic electors awarded their votes to Biden, who carried the battleground state by just under 21,000 votes. They forwarded their votes for Trump to the National Archives, arguing that they were trying to preserve Trump's legal options in case a court overturned Biden's win.
(AP, 6/21/22)
2020 Dec 29, President Donald Trump's campaign asked the US Supreme Court to take its failed lawsuit challenging election results in swing state Wisconsin. Trump lost the state to Democrat Joe Biden by about 21,000 votes.
(AP, 12/29/20)
2020 Dec 30, In Wisconsin the Aurora Medical System said that 500 doses of a coronavirus vaccine, that had to be discarded after they were left unrefrigerated, appeared to have been deliberately spoiled by an employee. Licensed pharmacist Steven Brandenburg was arrested the next day on suspicion of sabotaging more than 500 doses of the vaccine. Brandenburg later said he believed the shots would mutate people's DNA. In 2021 Brandenburg was sentenced to three years in prison.
(SFC, 12/31/20, p.A3)(SFC, 1/6/21, p.A5)(SFC, 6/10/21, p.A5)
2021 Jan 5, A Wisconsin prosecutor said that police officers involved in the Aug. 23 Kenosha, Wisconsin, shooting that left Jacob Blake paralyzed will not face charges.
(AP, 1/5/21)
2021 Feb 4, Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers issued a new statewide mask order, an hour after the Republican controlled Legislature voted to repeal his previous mandate.
(SFC, 2/5/21, p.A6)
2021 Feb 4, Dezman Ellis (17) was arrested in Des Moines, Iowa, for the Jan. 31 fatal shooting at a shopping mall in Wisconsin. Ellis was extradited to Wisconsin the next day.
(AP, 2/6/21)
2021 Mar 31, The Wisconsin Supreme Court struck down Gov. Tony Evers' statewide mask mandate ruling 4-3 that he had exceeded his authority.
(SFC, 4/11/21, p.A8)
2021 Apr 14, The Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled that the administration of Gov. Tony Evers does not have the authority to issue capacity limits on bars, restaurants and other businesses without the approval of the Legislature.
(SFC, 4/15/21, p.A4)
2021 Apr 18, In Wisconsin a suspect reportedly was asked to leave a bar in Kenosha and returned with a gun, firing shots inside and outside the tavern, killing three people. A suspect was soon arrested.
(AP, 4/19/21)
2021 Apr 19, Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers and Taiwan-based Foxconn Technology Group, the world's largest electronics maker, announced a new deal with reduced tax breaks for a scaled back manufacturing facility.
(AP, 4/19/21)
2021 May 1, In Wisconsin Bruce Pofahl (62) opened fire at a restaurant in the Oneida Casino in Green Bay killing two people and wounding another. Police respponding to the scene fatally shot Pofahl, who had been fired from the restaurant.
(SFC, 5/3/21, p.A6)(SFC, 5/4/21, p.A3)
2021 Jun 20, Richard A. Balsimo (34) of St. Paul, was reported missing by his family. On Aug. 16 Jacob C. Johnson (35) of Superior, Wis., was charged in Cook County District Court with second-degree intentional murder in connection with the death of Balsimo. Johnson was charged with firing the gunshots that killed Balsimo, whose body was then dismembered and dropped into the waters of Lake Superior off the northernmost reaches of Minnesota's shoreline.
(Minneapolis Star Tribune, 8/17/21)
2021 Jul 5, University of Wisconsin scientists said as many as one-third of the state's gray wolves likely died at the hands of humans in the months after the federal government in January announced it was ending legal protections.
(AP, 7/5/21)
2021 Jul 9, The Wisconsin diocese of La Crosse said Bishop William Patrick Callahan has removed Rev. James Altman as pastor of St. James the Less for a series of divisive remarks about politics and the pandemic. Altman has said Catholics cannot be Democrats and has criticized COVID-19 vaccination efforts as "Nazi-esque controls'.
(SSFC, 7/11/21, p.A10)
2021 Jul 20, The Milwaukee Bucks beat the Phoenix Suns to win their first NBA championship in 50 years.
(NY Times, 7/21/21)
2021 Jul 31, Wisconsin elections officials deactivated 174,307 voter registrations because the voters hadn't cast a ballot in four years and didn't respond to a mailing.
(AP, 8/4/21)
2021 Aug 1, In Wisconsin the annual, week-long EAA AirVenture jamboree wrapped up in Oshkosh with a record attendance. It was reported that United Airlines plans to hire 350 pilots this year, 1,500 by 2022 and 3,000 by 2023.
(Reuters, 8/1/21)
2021 Aug 10, Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers vetoed six voting restriction bills passed by the state's Republican-controlled legislature, blocking the latest Republican effort to limit access to the polls in a politically divided state.
(Reuters, 8/10/21)
2021 Aug 11, The state of Wisconsin authorized the killing of 300 wolves as part of a hunt this fall, far exceeding the recommendations of its own biologists for the once-protected species and drawing criticism from conservationists.
(NY Times, 8/12/21)
2021 Aug 16, It was reported that Cardinal Raymond Burke, one of the Catholic Church's most outspoken conservatives and a vaccine skeptic, has COVID-19 and his staff said he is breathing through a ventilator in Wisconsin.
(AP, 8/16/21)
2021 Aug 20, Wisconsin began a $100 incentive for more people to get vaccinated. Gov. Tony Evers later extended the offer, due to end until Sept. 6., until Sept. 19.
(SSFC, 9/5/21, p.A6)
2021 Nov 19, A Wisconsin jury acquitted teenager Kyle Rittenhouse (18) of murder in the fatal shooting of two men during racial justice protests marred by arson, rioting and looting on Aug. 25, 2020 in Kenosha. The decision that re-ignited fierce debate about gun rights and the boundaries of self defense in the United States.
(Reuters, 11/19/21)
2021 Nov 21, In Wisconsin at least five people were killed and 40 others wounded after a car plowed into a holiday parade in Waukesha, a Milwaukee suburb. One person was in custody. Darrell Edward Brooks Jr (39) was taken into custody after a red Ford Escape SUV drove into the parade. Days later a boy (8) became the 6th victim.
(NY Times, 11/22/21)(The Independent, 11/22/21)(NY Times, 11/23/21)
2022 Jan 23, In Wisconsin five people were found dead from gunshot wounds in a Milwaukee home in a case that left police without a suspect and pleading for help from the public. A 6th body was found the next day.
(Reuters, 1/23/22)(AP, 1/24/22)
2022 Mar 23, The US Supreme Court allowed the use of a map configuring Wisconsin's congressional districts for this year's elections drawn by Democratic Governor Tony Evers, giving a boost to efforts by President Joe Biden's party to retain control of the US House of Representatives.
(Reuters, 3/23/22)
2022 May 13, In Wisconsin three separate shootings in downtown Milwaukee left 21 people injured. The shootings occurred near an entertainment district where thousands of fans had been watching as the Bucks lost Game Six of the Eastern Conference Basketball semi-finals.
(Reuters, 5/14/22)
2022 Jun 14, Joel Whitburn, music historian, died at home in Menomonee Falls. Wis. He published hundreds of books crusial to DJs, publicists and chart nerds.
(SSFC, 6/26/22, p.F8)
2022 Jul 8, A divided Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled 4-3 that the use of ballot drop boxes, which increased substantially across the country during the COVID-19 pandemic, is illegal under state law. Justice Rebecca Bradley said state law does not permit drop boxes anywhere other than election clerk offices and only state lawmakers may make new policy stating otherwise — not the Wisconsin Elections Commission, which issued guidance to clerks allowing them.
(Reuters, 7/8/22)(https://tinyurl.com/jvwkunxd)
2022 Aug 9, Voters in Connecticut, Minnesota, Vermont and Wisconsin picked candidates for the US Congress and other offices in primaries.
(Reuters, 8/9/22)
2022 Aug 9, In Wisconsin Republican construction magnate and abortion foe Tim Michels won a primary election will face Democratic Governor Tony Evers.
(Reuters, 8/9/22)
2022 Aug 29, Foreign Minister Melanie Joly said Canada has invoked a 1977 pipeline treaty with the United States for the second time in less than a year, in this case to prevent a shutdown of Enbridge Inc's Line 5 pipeline in Wisconsin.
(Reuters, 8/29/22)
2022 Oct 21, In Wisconsin six people were confirmed dead in a predawn apartment fire in suburban Milwaukee. Authorities opened a criminal investigation for any clues that the blaze may have been deliberately set.
(Reuters, 10/21/22)
2022 Oct 26, Darrell Brooks (40) of Wisconsin was found guilty of murder and other charges for killing six people and injuring dozens of others when he drove his SUV into a Christmas parade near Milwaukee last year.
(Reuters, 10/26/22)
2022 Nov 8, Democrat Tony Evers was re-elected as Wisconsin governor, defeating Republican Tim Michels.
(Bloomberg, 11/9/22)
2022 Nov 9, CNN and NBC projected that GOP Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin has won a third term, defeating Democrat Mandela Barnes and handing Republicans a chance to take control of the 50-50 Senate.
(Bloomberg, 11/9/22)
2022 Nov 16, Darrell Brooks (40) of Wisconsin, convicted of killing six people and injuring dozens more when he drove through a Christmas parade near Milwaukee last year, was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
(Reuters, 11/16/22)
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Facts: https://www.50states.com/wisconsi.htm
Roadside America: https://www.roadsideamerica.com/location/wi
450 Million A 650- to 700-foot meteorite crashed into the earth at speeds up to 67,500 mph. The impact dislodged rocks and created a massive hole in a 4-mile area called Rock Elm about 70 miles east of Minneapolis, Wisc.
(AP, 4/26/04)
12kBCE Southeast Wisconsin was free of ice by this time.
(Arch, 7/02, p.54)
11.5k-10.2kBCE A site near Kenosha, Wisc., indicates human butchery of wooly mammoths during this period.
(Arch, 7/02, p.50)
c1000 Dan Arnold, an amateur archeologist, found Indian charcoal drawings in a cave near La Crosse in 1998 that dated back at least 1000 years. The site was not revealed to the public until 2000 to allow official documentation.
(SFC, 11/21/00, p.A2)
1634 French explorer Jean Nicolet, looking for Cathay, traveled the western shores of Lake Michigan and landed on Wisconsin soil.
(www.wisconsinhistory.org/museum/exhibits/framed/landfall.asp)(Econ, 6/27/09, p.38)
1799 Feb 9, The USS Constellation captured the French frigate Insurgente off the coast of Wisconsin.
(HN, 2/9/97)
1814 Jul 18, The British captured Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin.
(MC, 7/18/02)
1832 Aug 2, Some 1,300 Illinois militia under General Henry Atkinson massacred Sauk Indian men, women and children who were followers of Black Hawk at the Bad Axe River in Wisconsin. Black Hawk himself finally surrendered three weeks later, bringing the Black Hawk War to an end.
(HN, 8/2/98)(MC, 8/2/02)
1835 Solomon Laurent Juneau, a fur trader, laid out the eastern part of Milwaukee and became the first president of the village in 1837. Juneau was born in Montreal and in 1818 settled on the site of Milwaukee and established a trading business. Juneau, who became a U.S. citizen in 1831, was elected the city‘s first mayor in 1846.
(HNQ, 2/6/00)
1836 Apr 20, The Territory of Wisconsin was established by Congress.
(AP, 4/20/97)(HN, 4/20/98)
1836 Jul 4, The territorial government of Wisconsin was established.
(IB, Internet, 12/7/98)
1848 May 29, Wisconsin became the 30th state of the union.
(AP, 5/29/97)(HN, 5/29/98)
1853 Aug 21, Henry Wellcome (d.1936) was born in Wisconsin. In 1880 Henry went to London to join Silas Burroughs and set up a successful pharmaceutical firm called Burroughs, Wellcome & Co.
(www.swan.ac.uk/egypt/infosheet/Wellcome.htm)
1854 Feb 28, Some 50 slavery opponents met in Ripon, Wis., to call for creation of a new political group, which became the Republican Party. [see Mar 20, Jul 6]
(AP, 2/28/00)
1854 Mar 20, The Republican Party was founded when former members of the Whig political party met to establish a new political party that would oppose the spread of slavery into the western territories. [see Feb 28, Jul 6]
(MC, 3/20/02)
1854 Jul 6, The Republican Party was officially organized in Jackson, Michigan. The Republican Party was formed in Ripon, Wisconsin, by a group of anti-slavery politicians at the Little White Schoolhouse. [see Feb 28, Mar 20]
(Hem., 7/96, p.28)(HN, 7/6/98)
1855 Jun 14, Robert Marion "Fighting Bob" La Follette, reform movement leader, Governor of Wisconsin, U.S. Senator, Progressive Party presidential candidate, was born.
(HN, 6/14/98)
1857 Thorstein Veblen (d.1929), political economist and social critic, was born in Wisconsin to Norwegian immigrants.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R20)(SFEC, 7/11/99, BR p.4)
1858 Feb 8, A record brawl in the US House of Representatives erupted over the issue of slavery. Wisconsin Congressman John F. Potter pulled a wig off a Mississippi congressman and declared “I’ve scalped him."
(WSJ, 6/13/06, p.D6)(www.wisconsinhistory.org/odd/archives/001067.asp)
1867 Oct 11, Carlos Glidden and Samuel Soule applied for a patent on their new direct action typewriter. Christopher Latham Sholes (1819-1890), Carlos Glidden (1834-1877) and Samuel Soule had invented the typewriter in the 1860s. Charles E. Weller coined the phrase "Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of the party" to check out the first typewriter built in Milwaukee.
(ON, 12/10, p.7)(SFC, 1/29/97, Z1 p.2)(SFEC, 3/22/98, Z1 p.8)
1867 Jacob Leinenkugel, an immigrant from Bavaria, founded Leinenkugel Beer to supply the lumberjack community of Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin. In 1988 the family business agreed to be acquired by the Miller Brewing Co.
(WSJ, 9/27/08, p.A16)(http://tinyurl.com/4epavl)
1868 Apr 19, Paul P. Harris, founder of the Rotary Club, was born in Racine, Wisconsin.
(www.rotary.org/en/AboutUs/History/paulharris/Pages/Timeline.aspx)
1871 Oct 8-14, In Peshtigo, Wisc., some 1,500 people were killed in the nation’s worst forest fire, which burned across six counties and into Michigan. Fires also broke out in the Michigan communities of Holland, Manistee and Port Huron.
(WSJ, 9/13/01, p.B11)(WSJ, 8/4/04, p.B1)(SSFC, 9/4/05, p.A7)(AP, 10/8/08)
1871 P.T. Barnum (Phineas Taylor Barnum,1810-1891), US showman, founded "The Greatest Show On Earth" in Delavan, Wis. He presented General Tom Thumb and Jenny Lind (1820-1870), "The Swedish Nightingale," to the public. He also introduced 3 rings to the circus.
(WUD, 1994, p.121)(WSJ, 1/7/97, p.A19)(WUD, 1994, p.832)(AP, 6/10/07)
1873 The Racine Silver Plate Co. was founded.
(SFC,11/26/97, Z1 p.7)
1877 Joseph S. Hartmann opened a luggage business in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The Hartmann family ran the business until 1955. In 1959 the company moved to Lebanon, Tennessee and was later taken over by Clarion Capital Partners.
(SFC, 1/2/08, p.G3)
1878 Jul 9, H.V. Kaltenborn, newscaster (Who Said That?), was born in Milwaukee, Wisc.
(MC, 7/9/02)
1878 Harry Houdini (1874-1926), magician and escape artist born as Erik Weisz (Ehrich Weiss) in Budapest, arrived in Appleton, Wisconsin, where his father became town rabbi.
(WSJ, 3/25/04, p.A1)
1880 Mar 23, John Stevens of Neenah, Wis., patented the grain crushing mill. This mill allowed flour production to increase by 70 percent.
(HN, 3/23/98)
1881 Jul 8, Edward Berner of Two Rivers, Wisconsin, created the Sundae.
(MC, 7/8/02)
1881 George B. Mattoon founded his Mattoon Manufacturing Co. in Sheboygan, Wisconsin. From 1904 to the 1950s the company manufactured upscale furniture. The name of the company was changed to Northern Furniture following Mattoon’s death (1916), when the Reiss family took over and re-named it R-Way Furniture. The Northern Furniture brand name continued.
(SFC, 10/4/06, p.G2)
1882 The factory of the Racine Silver Plate Co. burned down. It was re-opened a year later in Rockford, Ill.
(SFC,11/26/97, Z1 p.7)
1883 Jan 10, Fire at uninsured Newhall Hotel in Milwaukee, Wisconsin killed 71. General Tom Thumb of P.T. Barnum fame escaped unhurt.
(MC, 1/10/02)
1883 Jun 11, Frank O. King, "Gasoline Alley" cartoonist, was born in Cashton, Wisc.
(SC, 6/11/02)
1885 Joseph Steinwand created Colby cheese and named it after the township where his father built northern Clark County’s first cheese factory. In 2021 a bipartisan bill heard by the Wisconsin state Assembly committee aimed to make it the state's official cheese.
(AP, 7/7/21)
1887 Nov. 15, Georgia O'Keefe (d.1986), American painter, was born in Wisconsin.
(WUD, 1994, p.1002)(HFA, '96, p.42)(SFC, 7/16/97, p.E3)
1888 In Wisconsin the Theresa diamond, weighing 21.5 carats, was found on or near the Green Lake Moraine near Kohlsville, Washington county.
(http://wgnhs.uwex.edu/minerals/diamond/)
1890-1900 Black River Falls was plagued by a series of suicides, murders, financial ruin and bizarre eruptions of violence. These events were described in the 1973 book “Wisconsin Death Trip" by Michael Lesy. In 2000 a documentary film was completed based on the book and this period.
(SFC, 1/2/02, p.D1)
1892 Kiel Manufacturing Co. was founded in Kiel, Wis. The name was changed to Kiel Furniture in 1907. In 1935 a manager bought the company and changed the name to A.A. Laun Furniture Co. and continued operations.
(SFC, 7/6/05, p.G3)
1894 Sep, A major fire in Wisconsin burned several million acres.
(SFC, 10/30/03, p.A15)
1895 In Wisconsin Frank Grove, James Clark, J. Howard Jenkins and George Jones co-founded OshKosh B’Gosh.
(SSFC, 8/20/06, p.M4)
1900 Jun 11, Belle Boyd (b.1844), former Confederate spy, died in Wisconsin. Her 1865 autobiography was titled “Belle Boyd in Camp and Prison." In 1944 Louis Sigaud authored “Belle Boyd: Confederate Spy."
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belle_Boyd)(http://tinyurl.com/27holn6)(ON, 4/10, p.3)
1901 Jan 28, Byron Bancroft Johnson announced that the American League would play the 1901 baseball season as a major league and would not renew its membership in the National Agreement. The new league would include Baltimore and Washington, DC, recently abandoned by the National League. The league would also invade 4 cities where National League teams existed: Boston, Cleveland, Detroit and Philadelphia. The 8 charter teams included: the Baltimore Orioles, Boston Americans, Chicago White Stockings, Cleveland Blues, Detroit Tigers, Milwaukee Brewers, Philadelphia Athletics, and Washington Senators.
(ON, 6/09, p.11)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_League)
1901 After the 1901 baseball season the Milwaukee Brewers were moved to St. Louis, Mo.
(ON, 6/09, p.11)
1903 Aug 14, John Ringling North, circus director (Ringling Bros), was born in Baraboo, Wisc.
(MC, 8/14/02)
1903 William Harley and the 3 Davidson brothers: Arthur (20), Walter and William (21), started out in a Milwaukee basement to produce their first motorized bike. In 1999 Brock Yates published "Outlaw Machine: Harley-Davidson and the Search for the American Soul."
(WSJ, 5/28/99, p.W6)(NW, 7/22/02, p.60)
1904 Feb 16, George Keenan, U.S. diplomat, was born in Milwaukee. He became a historian and proposed the policy of “containment" for dealing with the Soviet Union.
(HN, 2/16/99)
1905 Sep 25, Red Smith, sportscaster and columnist, was born in Green Bay Wisc.
(MC, 9/25/01)
1907 Oct 11, The freighter Cyprus foundered during a storm on Lake Superior, while on its second voyage hauling iron ore from Superior, Wis., to Buffalo, NY. All but one of the Cyprus' 23 crew members died. The 420-foot shipwreck was found in 2007, 8 miles north of Deer Park, Mich., where a single survivor had reached shore. The ship was built in Lorain, Ohio, and launched on Aug. 17, 1907.
(AP, 9/10/07)
1907 Oct 22, The five Ringling brothers of Baraboo, Wisconsin, bought out Barnum & Bailey Circus to form the Greatest Show on Earth.
(HN, 10/22/98)(SFC, 3/6/15, p.A10)
1908 Mar 13, Walter Annenberg (d.2002), publisher (Triangle-TV Guide), Ambassador to GB, was born in Milwaukee, the 6th of 9 children.
(SFC, 10/2/02, p.A2)(AP, 3/13/08)
1908 May 31, Actor Don Ameche was born in Kenosha, Wis.
(AP, 5/31/08)
1908 Nov 14, Senator Joseph McCarthy, anti-Communist Senator from Wisconsin who gave the name “McCarthyism" to his communist witch-hunts, was born. In 1999 William F. Buckley Jr. published "The Redhunter," a historical novel about Joe McCarthy.
(HN, 11/14/98)(WSJ, 7/22/99, p.A24)
1908 Dec 29, A patent was granted for a 4-wheel automobile brake in Clintonville, Wisc.
(MC, 12/29/01)
1911 Jul 31, George Liberace, violinist (Liberace Show), was born in Menasha, Wisc.
(MC, 7/31/02)
1912 Oct 14, Theodore Roosevelt, former president and the Bull Moose Party candidate, was shot at close range by anarchist William Schrenk while greeting the public in front of the Hotel Gilpatrick in Milwaukee while campaigning for the presidency. He was saved by the papers in his breast pocket and still managed to give a 90 minute address in Milwaukee after requesting his audience to be quiet because “there is a bullet in my body." Schrenk was captured and uttered the now famous words "any man looking for a third term ought to be shot."
(WSJ, 8/5/96, p.A10)(AP, 10/14/97)(WSJ, 8/5/96, p.A10)(HN, 10/14/98)
1912 Nov 4, Arizona and Kansas granted women the right to vote. Wisconsin voted against suffrage for women.
(HN, 11/5/98)(http://library.wisc.edu/etext/WIReader/WER0124-12.html)
1914 Aug 15, Mamah Borthwick Cheney, the mistress of Frank Lloyd Wright, was axed to death along with her 2 children and 4 others by a crazed servant at Wright’s rural Taliesin home. Wright restored the house, which was set aflame in the rampage. The house was ravaged by fire again in 1925 and again restored by Wright.
(SFEC, 11/8/98, DB p.48)(Econ, 3/5/11, p.92)(http://tinyurl.com/4w943ss)
1915 May 6, Orson Welles (d.1985), actor, director, and writer, was born in Kenosha, Wisc. He is famous for his movie Citizen Kane (1941).
(HN, 5/6/99)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orson_Welles)
1916 The Four Wheel Drive Auto Co. of Clintonville, Wis., got a boost from WW I demand for its trucks.
(WSJ, 9/16/05, p.W12)
1917 Nov 24, In Wisconsin a large black powder bomb exploded at a Milwaukee police station killing 9 officers and a female civilian. It had been discovered by a social worker, next to an evangelical church. It was suspected at the time that the bomb had been placed outside the church by anarchists, particularly by adherents of Luigi Galleani.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milwaukee_Police_Department)(SFC, 11/22/14, p.C4)
1919 May 16, Liberace (d.1987), pianist, was born in a Milwaukee suburb as Wladziu Valentino Liberace. At 17 he debuted with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. He later averaged an income of $5 million for over 35 years.
(SSFM, 4/29/01, p.22)
1919 Jun 10, Wisconsin became the first state to ratify the 19th amendment granting national suffrage to women.
(www.wisconsinhistory.org/turningpoints/tp-032/)
1919 The first owner of the Green Bay Packers, Indian Packing Company, paid an unofficial purchase price of $500 to supply Curly Lambeau with uniforms and equipment. In turn, Lambeau and team manager George Calhoun called the club "Packers."
(www.packers.com)
1921 Aug 27, J.E. Clair of Acme Packing Co. of Green Bay was granted an NFL franchise.
(MC, 8/27/02)
1921 Oct 23, Green Bay Packers played their 1st NFL game. They won 7-6 over Minneapolis.
(MC, 10/23/01)
1922 Aug 21, Curly Lambeau and Green Bay Football Club were granted an NFL franchise.
(SC, 8/21/02)
1923 The Villa Terrace Decorative Arts Museum in Milwaukee was designed in the style of a 16th century Italian villa.
(SSFC, 4/3/05, p.E11)
1924 Oct 1, William Rehnquist was born in Milwaukee. He served as Supreme Court Justice (1972-86) and US Chief Justice (1987- ).
(USAT, 1/7/99, p.2A)(MC, 10/1/01)
1927 Nov 22, 1st snowmobile patent was granted to Carl Eliason in Sayner, Wisc.
(MC, 11/22/01)
1927 John Hammes (1895-1953), a Wisconsin architect, invented the sink-connected garbage disposal. In 1938 he started the InSinkErator company, which later became a part of Emerson Electric Corp.
(WSJ, 2/26/08, p.B1)(http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_gx5202/is_1995/ai_n19122482)
1928 Frank Lloyd Wright announced that he would establish his own school of architecture. He took in 60 students for $300 in tuition plus voluntary labor at his Taliesin homestead in Spring Green, Wisconsin. In 2006 Roger Friedland authored “The Fellowship," an account of Wright and his students.
(WSJ, 8/25/06, p.W5)
1929 Keil Furniture of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, advertised a radio table with an Atwater Kent screen-grid radio for $179.
(SFC, 2/13/08, p.G8)
1930s The Depression era "Eau Claire" system set milk prices according to the distance from Eau Claire, Wisconsin, to ensure that every region of the country maintained a local supply of fresh milk.
(SFC, 11/17/99, p.A12)
1932 Jan, Wisconsin became the first state to provide unemployment benefits.
(http://dwd.wisconsin.gov/dwd/publications/ui/ucb3006.pdf)(Econ, 2/26/11, p.31)
1933 A Wisconsin milk strike began as a series of strikes conducted by a cooperative group of dairy farmers in an attempt to raise the price of milk paid to producers during the Great Depression. Three main strike periods occurred in 100933, with length of time and level of violence increased during each one.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1933_Wisconsin_milk_strike)
1934 A postcard of a man in bikini shorts inspired a Wisconsin-based Cooper’s Inc. designer to invent Jockey Shorts, the first pair of briefs.
(SSFC, 11/29/09, p.N6)
1935 Jan 26, Bob Uecker, catcher, actor, was born in Milwaukee, Wisc.
(MC, 1/26/02)
1935 Feb 2, A lie detector was 1st used in court at Portage, Wisc.
(MC, 2/2/02)
1935 Jun 11, Gene Wilder, actor (Young Frankenstein, Silver Streak), was born in Milwaukee.
(SC, 6/11/02)
1937 John Steuart Curry, American painter, began his work “Wisconsin Landscape," and completed it in 1938.
(SFC, 6/13/98, p.E1)
1938 Jul 21, Les Aspin, (Rep-D-Wisc, 1971-93), Minister of Defense (1993-94), was born.
(MC, 7/21/02)
1939 Jan 19, Ernest Hausen of Wisconsin set a chicken-plucking record of 4.4 sec.
(MC, 1/19/02)
1940 Nov 17, The Green Bay Packers became the 1st NFL team to travel by plane.
(MC, 11/17/01)
1942 Dec, Dr. Ira Baldwin (1896-1999), plant bacteriologist at the Univ. of Wisconsin, was selected to head US biological warfare.
(AH, 6/03, p.46)
1948 Two Milwaukee lawyers founded Manpower after they failed to find extra administrative help for an urgent legal brief. By 2009 the company had over 4,000 offices in 82 countries.
(Econ, 1/6/07, p.57)(Econ, 12/12/09, p.74)
1950 Mar 11, Jerry Zucker, film director and TV producer, was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
(www.imdb.com/name/nm0958387/)
1950s-60s Harry Harlow (1905-1981) conducted psychology experiments on baby rhesus monkeys at the Univ. of Wisconsin. In 2003 Deborah Blum authored “Love at Goon Park: Harry Harlow and the Science of Affection."
(NYTBR, 2/2/03, p.19)
1951 Jul 4, The "Capital Times" in Madison, Wisconsin, reported that one of its reporters was turned down by 99 out of 100 people he asked to sign a petition made up of quotations from the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights. Many said the petition was subversive.
(IB, Internet, 12/7/98)
1953 Mar 18, The Braves baseball team announced that they were moving from Boston to Milwaukee.
(HN, 3/18/98)
1954 Mar 11, The U.S. Army charged that Wisconsin Sen. Joseph R. McCarthy and his subcommittee's chief counsel, Roy Cohn, had exerted pressure to obtain favored treatment for Pvt. G. David Schine, a former consultant to the subcommittee.
(AP, 3/11/98)
1954 Dec 2, The US Senate voted 67-22 to censure Sen. Joseph R. McCarthy, R-Wis., for "conduct that tends to bring the Senate into dishonor and disrepute." This followed the McCarthy investigation of the Army. Roy Cohn was McCarthy’s aide and Joseph Welch was the attorney for the army. Army general counsel John G. Adams (d.2003) later authored "Without Precedent: The story of the Death of McCarthyism." In 1999 Arthur Herman published "Joseph McCarthy," a reexamination of McCarthy's accusations.
(NYT, 12/3/54, p.1)(WSJ, 8/5/96, p.A10)(AP, 12/2/97)(WSJ, 12/6/99, p.A32)(SFC, 6/28/03, p.A1)
1954 US Congress voted to withdraw support to Wisconsin Indians guaranteed in 1854. The Menomonee (people of the wild rice) Chiefs Oshkosh and Keshena met with federal Indian agents in Keshena Falls, Wisconsin, in 1854 and agreed to retain only 275,000 acres from their original 9 1/2 million acres. As part of the settlement the chiefs and their followers were promised eternal government protection.
(NG, Aug., 1974, p.235)
1955 The Old Milwaukee brand was first brewered by the Joseph Schlitz Brewing Company of Wisconsin. It was the first beer brand launched exclusively as a “popular" beer.
(www.oldmilwaukee.com/ourbeer_main.htm)(http://tinyurl.com/rvxp4)
1955 The Hearst Corp. acquired WISN-TV, Milwaukee.
(SFC, 8/7/99, p.A9)
1957 May 2, Sen. Joseph R. McCarthy (48), the controversial Republican from Wisconsin, died at Bethesda Naval Hospital in Maryland. McCarthy drank himself to death.
(AP, 5/2/97)(WSJ, 2/9/00, p.A26)
1957 Oct 10, The Milwaukee Braves won the World Series, defeating the New York Yankees in Game 7, 5-0.
(AP, 10/10/07)
1957 William Proxmire (1915-2005), Wisconsin Democrat, won a special election to fill the seat of US Sen. Joseph R. McCarthy. Proxmire served until 1989.
(SFC, 12/16/05, p.A4)
1957 All 30,000 high school graduating students were given questionnaires with questions on family background, and educational and occupational aspirations. Dr. William H. Sewell found them in the early 1960s and used them with colleagues for the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study.
(SFC, 7/14/01, p.C2)
1957-1974 Edward Gein, a handyman in Plainfield, Wis., liked to dig up fresh graves, cut the skin off corpses, wear the skin on his own body and dance in the moonlight. He was picked up in this year and evidence showed that he’d been collecting body parts for years. He had skulls on bedposts, a human heart in a saucepan, and a lady out in his barn dressed like a deer. The 1974 film “Texas Chainsaw Massacre" was based on his story. It starred Gunnar Hansen as Leatherface and was directed by Tobe Hooper and was first shown in San Francisco. The film was narrated by John Larroquette.
(SFC, 5/18/96, p.E-4)(WSJ, 10/31/97, p.A1)
1959 Sep 27, Beth Heiden, 3000m speed skater (Olympic-bronze-1980), was born in Madison, Wisc.
(MC, 9/27/01)
1959 Wisconsin became the 1st US state to enact a comprehensive collective bargaining law.
(SFC, 2/17/11, p.A8)
1962 Gaylord Nelson (1916-2005), defeated Republican Sen. Alexander Wiley to win his 1st term as US Senator form Wisconsin. Nelson was defeated in 1980.
(SFC, 7/4/05, p.A2)
1962 Kohl’s discount department store was founded in Wisconsin. The company went public in 1992 and by 2009 it counted 1,059 stores nationwide, including 121 in California.
(SFC, 8/5/09, p.C1)
1962 Edwin Traisman (1915-2007), food researcher for McDonald’s, patented a method for preparing frozen French fried potatoes. In 1968 his associate Ken Strong patented a method for quick frying cut potatoes before freezing along with a short steam blanch to preserve sugars and other flavors. Traisman was instrumental in the development of Cheese Whiz for Kraft Foods and had bought the first McDonald’s franchise in Madison, Wis., in the late 1950s.
(SFC, 6/9/07, p.B6)
1964 Jan 22, World's largest cheese (15,723 kg) was manufactured in Wisconsin.
(MC, 1/22/02)
1964 Mammoth bones were discovered at the Schaefer farm near Kenosha, Wisc. Butcher marks indicated human activity. Other bones were found as early as 1935.
(Arch, 7/02, p.51)
1967 Jan 15, The first Super Bowl was played as the Green Bay Packers of the National Football League defeated the Kansas City Chiefs of the American Football League, 35-10 in Los Angeles. The matchup was officially called the AFL-NFL World Championship Game.
(WSJ, 1/28/97, p.A16)(AP, 1/15/98)
1967 Jul 30, There was a race riot in Milwaukee and 4 people were killed.
(MC, 7/30/02)
1967 Oct 18, A protest in Madison, Wisc., against recruiting by Dow Chemical, the maker of napalm and Agent Orange, turned violent. In 2003 David Maraniss authored "They Marched Into Sunlight: War and Peace, Vietnam and America." It centered on an Oct 17 battle in Vietnam and the Wisconsin protest.
(Econ, 11/22/03, p.82)(SSFC, 12/28/03, p.M3)
1967 Dec 10, Singer Otis Redding (26) and 6 others died in the crash of his private plane in Lake Monona, Wisconsin. He had recently recorded “Sittin’ on the Dock of the Bay," which became a big hit in 1968.
(SFC, 4/25/06, p.B5)(AP, 12/10/07)
1967-1968 Dr. William H. Sewell (d.2001 at 91), sociologist, served as the chancellor of the Univ. of Wisconsin.
(SFC, 7/14/01, p.C2)
1968 Jan 14, The Green Bay Packers under Vince Lombardi, after winning its third consecutive NFL championship, won the 2nd Super Bowl Football game over the Oakland Raiders. This was Lombardi's last game as coach of the Packers. The game drew the first $3 million gate in football history. In 1999 David Maraniss authored "When Pride Still Mattered: A Life of Vince Lombardi."
(WSJ, 1/28/97, p.A16)(SFEC, 1/9/00, BR p.5)(Superbowl.com)
1968 Jan 28, Vince Lombardi resigned as coach of Wisconsin’s Green Bay Packers, two weeks after winning Super Bowl II. He remained as general manager. On Feb 1 Phil Bengtson was named coach of the Packers.
(www.packers.com/history/chronology/)(www.nfl.com/history/chronology/1961-1970)
1968 Apr 2, Senator Eugene McCarthy won the Democratic primaries in Wisconsin. In 2004 Dominic Sandbrook authored "Eugene McCarthy: The Rise and Fall of Postwar American Liberalism."
(http://news.minnesota.publicradio.org/features/2005/06/15_newsroom_mccarthytimeline/)(SSFC, 4/11/04, p.M6)
1968 In Grand Chute, Wis., a night watchman was killed during a robbery at a car dealership. In 2005 police in Appleton, Wis., arrested Robert Mitchell (75) for the murder.
(SFC, 11/19/05, p.A3)
1970 Apr 22, The first Earth Day and Earth Week was celebrated and millions protested pollution on Earth and their concern for the environment. The event was organized by a 33-member committee in Philadelphia. Wisconsin Senator Gaylord Nelson suggested Earth Day as a means to focus national attention on ecological issues. Gaylord selected Pete McCloskey as co-chairman. Organizers later identified 12 anti-environment members of the US House and Senate, 7 of whom soon lost their seats.
(AP, 4/22/97)(WSJ, 5/12/99, p.A23)(SSFC, 4/18/04, p.E3)(http://www.nelsonearthday.net/)
1970 Jun 2, Har Gobind Khorana (1922-1993), Indian-American chemist at the Univ. of Wisconsin, announced the synthesis of the 1st artificial gene.
(www.super70s.com/Super70s/Timeline/1970/)(www.answers.com/topic/har-gobind-khorana)
1970 Aug 24, A bomb planted by anti-war extremists exploded at the University of Wisconsin's Army Math Research Center in Madison, killing 33-year-old researcher Robert Fassnacht. On Sep 2 the FBI began a nationwide hunt for Dwight Armstrong (19), Karleton Armstrong (22), David S. Fine (18), and Leo F. Burt (22). Dwight Armstrong (1951-2010), the last to be caught, was arrested in Toronto in April, 1977.
(AP, 8/24/97)(SSFC, 6/27/10, p.C9)
1970 Sep 3, Vince Lombardi (57), one of Fordham University‘s stalwart linemen known as the "Seven Blocks of Granite" during his college days, succumbed to cancer in Washington, D.C. He had recently coached the Washington Redskins to their first winning season in 14 years. Lombardi had previously coached the Green Bay Packers to five NFL championships and victories in the first two Super Bowls. He went to the Washington Redskins in 1969 as head coach, general manager, and part owner. The team wound up with a 7-5-2 record for the season. In 1999 David Maraniss authored "When Pride Still Mattered: A Life of Vince Lombardi."
(AP, 9/3/97)(WSJ, 10/7/99, p.A28)
1970 Dec 31, Lorine Niedecker (b.1903), died. She was a Wisconsin-born objectivist-influenced poet.
(SFEC, 4/23/00, BR p.6)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorine_Niedecker)
1970 George L. Mosse (1918-1999), a Univ. of Wisconsin historian, published "Germans and Jews: The Right, the Left, and the Search for a 'Third Force' in Pre-Nazi Germany."
(SFEC, 1/31/99, p.D8)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Mosse)
1970 The Seattle Pilots baseball team after one season moved to Milwaukee and became the Brewers.
(WSJ, 4/7/99, p.B1)
1972 May 13, Milwaukee Brewers beat Minn. Twins, 4-3, in 22 innings. The game had started the evening of May 12.
(www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/MIN/MIN197205120.shtml)
1975 Mar, US Sen. William Proxmire (1915-2005), Wisconsin Democrat, started his monthly Golden Fleece Awards to highlight examples of government waste. The 1st award went to the National Science Foundation for squandering $84,000 to try to find out why people fall in love.
(SFC, 12/16/05, p.A4)(www.taxpayer.net/awards/goldenfleece/1975-1980.htm)
1976 Jul 9, In Wisconsin Ellen Matheys (24) and David Schuldes (25) were fatally shot in McClintock Park in Silver Cliff. In early 2020 a judge ruled that Raymand Vannieuwenhoven (83), a man charged with the killing, is not mentally competent to stand trial. DNA from evidence from the assault was eventually used to tie him to the crime scene. In November, 2020, a judge ruled that Vannieuwenhoven is competent to stand trial. In 2021 he was convicted and sentenced to consecutive life sentences.
(https://tinyurl.com/weq98zj)(SFC, 3/28/20, p.A3)(SFC, 11/6/20, p.A6)(Fox News, 8/27/21)
1976 Dec 1, Konerak Sinthasomphone, Jeffrey Dahmer's victim, was born in Milwaukee, Wisc.
(MC, 12/1/01)
1978 William Steiger, congressman from Wisconsin, led a drive to reduce the capital gains tax rate from nearly 50% to 28%. In 1999 this was credited by Brian S. Wesbury in "The New Era of Wealth" as one of the factors that contributed to the economic boom of the 1990s.
(WSJ, 12/22/99, p.A16)
1979 Aug 14, In northern Wisconsin Rob Pfiel (27) was killed by a shotgun blast to the back of his head. 2 months earlier Rusk County sheriff’s deputies killed his 3 dogs because they had gotten loose. Rusk County DA Robert Rogers (d.1984), his wife Cherie Barnard, and 3 brothers were later accused of plotting to kill Pfiel, who had threatened to get even. In 2005 police arrested 2 of the Rogers’ brothers for Pfiel’s murder as well as Barnard.
(SFC, 8/4/05, p.B1)(SFC, 10/17/05, p.A1)
1979 Sep 16, In Wisconsin the Madison Press Connection published a detailed explanation of how to build a hydrogen bomb in an article written by Charles Hansen (1947-2003) of Mountain View, Ca. In 1988 Hansen published "U.S. Nuclear Weapons: The Secret History."
(SFC, 9/17/04, p.F4)(http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/News/HansenRetrospective.html)
1979 Dec 26, Robert Ben Madison (14) founded the virtual Kingdom of Talossa in his Milwaukee, Wisc., bedroom and migrated it to the Internet in 1996.
(Econ, 12/24/05, p.85)(www.wired.com/wired/archive/8.03/kingdoms_pr.html)
1980 Mar 11, Marilyn McIntyre (18) was beaten stabbed and strangled to death at her home in Columbus, Wis. In 2009 Curtis Forbes, a friend of her husband, was charged with 1st degree murder based on DNA evidence.
(SFC, 3/31/09, p.A6)(www.nbc15.com/home/headlines/11251061.html)
1981 Jan 18, Wendy O. Williams (1949-1998), lead singer for the punk band the Plasmatics, was arrested in Milwaukee for on-stage obscenity.
(http://tinyurl.com/3dsq4g)
1981 The Univ. of Wisconsin began a multivolume History of Cartography. In 2004 editor David A. Woodward, British-born geographer, died at age 61.
(SFC, 9/1/04, p.B7)
1982 Jun 10, The Jos. Schlitz Brewing Company and the Old Milwaukee brand was acquired by Stroh Brewing Company of Detroit. The Old Milwaukee brand was first brewered by the Joseph Schlitz Brewing Company.
(http://tinyurl.com/rvxp4)
1983 Eugene Von Bruenchenhein (b.1910), commercial bakery worker, died In Milwaukee, Wis. He was also a prolific artist but never exhibited any of his work.
(NYT, 10/8/04, p.B35)
1985 Mar 1, Herb Kohl (b.1935), Milwaukee businessman and later US Senator (1988), purchased the Milwaukee Bucks basketball team.
(www.nba.com/bucks/history/history.html)
1985 Sep 6, All 31 people aboard a Midwest Express Airlines DC-9 were killed when the Atlanta-bound jetliner crashed just after takeoff from Milwaukee's Mitchell Field.
(WSJ, 6/14/96, p.A15)(AP, 9/6/05)
1985 Pleasant Rowland, a textbook publishing executive, founded The American Girl company in Madison, Wis. The company started with 3 dolls, each one set in a specific moment in American history. Mattel bought the company for $700 million in 1998.
(WSJ, 12/30/06, p.A1)
1988 Apr 5 Gov. Michael S. Dukakis won a solid victory in Wisconsin's Democratic presidential primary while, on the Republican side, Vice President George Bush overwhelmed his opposition.
(AP, 5/5/97)
1988 The Bradley Center in Milwaukee, home to the NBA Bucks, indoor soccer, minor league hockey and Marquette Univ. basketball, was completed for $90 million.
(SFC, 5/21/01, p.A3)
1989 May 29, The first Weedstock Festival, a pro-marijuana event, was held on Memorial Day in Wisconsin. Steve Wessing worked the event as a stage manager.
(SFC, 5/27/97, p.A12)(www.facebook.com/groups/460746184020328/)
1990 Milwaukee, Wisconsin, pioneered a school voucher program.
(Econ, 2/14/15, p.23)
1990 The Russian city of Dubna began a sister-city relationship with La Crosse, Wisconsin.
(http://tinyurl.com/mrtq7n9)(SFC, 12/31/00, p.B5)
1991 Mar 30, In Milwaukee, Wisc., serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer killed and dismembered Konerak Sinthasomphone (b.1976).
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffrey_Dahmer)
1991 Jul 22, Police in Milwaukee arrested serial killer Jeffrey L. Dahmer. He was murdered while in prison in 1994.
(AP, 7/22/97)(SFC, 5/29/96, A4)
1991 Wisconsin introduced wild turkeys in Marathon County and sold licenses to hunt them. The birds took a taste to the local ginseng crops and wrought havoc. In the early 1900s 4 Fromm brothers had begun cultivating Ginseng in Wisconsin and it became much appreciated by Chinese users. In the 1990s Canada, having acquired Wisconsin ginseng seeds, began competing and sold seeds to China causing ginseng prices to plummet to about $15 per pound.
(WSJ, 3/8/06, p.A1)
1992 Feb 17, Serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer was sentenced in Milwaukee to life in prison. He was beaten to death in prison in November 1994.
(AP, 2/17/98)
1992 After hearing about his cutting-edge research on the brain and emotions through mutual friends, the Dalai Lama invited Richard Davidson, a University of Wisconsin-Madison neuroscientist, to his home in India to pose a question: Scientists often study depression, anxiety and fear, but why not devote your work to the causes of positive human qualities like happiness and compassion? In 2010 the Dalai Lama marked the opening of the Center for Investigating Healthy Minds at the university's Waisman Center.
(AP, 5/14/10)
1993 Mar, Drinking water in Milwaukee became contaminated with the cryptosporidium bacterium and more than 100 people died and some 400,000 got sick.
(SFC, 6/26/96, p.A6)(SFC, 6/24/98, Z1 p.5)(SFC, 8/1/98, p.A11)
1893 Pickard China was established in Edgerton, Wisconsin, by Wilder Austin Pickard, and moved to Chicago in 1897. For some forty years the Pickard China Studio, as the firm was then known, was a decorating company specializing in hand painted art pieces, dessert and tea sets.
(www.pickardchina.com/About_us.htm)
1994 Nov 28, Jeffrey Dahmer (b. May 21, 1960), a serial killer who sexually abused, tortured, and cannibalized murder victims during the 1980's, was clubbed to death in prison by a fellow inmate while cleaning a prison toilet. He was serving several life terms for the killing of 17 young men and boys over a 13-year rampage of necrophilia and dismemberment.
(SFC, 5/29/96, A4)(AP, 11/28/97)(DT internet 11/28/97)
1995 Aug 3, Gov. Tommy Thompson announced an end to welfare offices in the state at the site of a new jobs center in Racine.
(SFC, 9/1/97, p.A3)
1997 May 26, In Ferryville the 8th annual Weedstock Festival, a pro-marijuana event, had 3,500 people with 60 arrests.
(SFC, 5/27/97, p.A3)
1997 Dec 19, In Milwaukee a postal clerk, Anthony J. De Culit, shot and killed his supervisor, a co-worker and wounded another and then killed himself.
(SFC,12/20/97, p.A3)
1998 Apr 19, In Madison Salim Amara doused a fellow passenger on a city bus with gasoline and ignited a fire burning himself and others severely.
(SFC, 4/21/98, p.A9)
1998 May 14, Abortion clinics across the state closed as a sweeping ban against “partial birth" abortions went into effect following last month’s bill signed by Gov. Tommy Thompson.
(SFC, 5/15/98, p.A3)
1998 May 20, Abortion clinics resumed first-trimester abortions after being assured that the new state law did not impact the first trimester operations.
(SFC, 5/21/98, p.A6)
1998 Jun 10, The Wisconsin Supreme court ruled that taxpayer could be used to send poor children to private religious schools.
(SFC, 6/11/98, p.A3)
1998 Sep 23, In Milwaukee Sammy Sosa hit homers 64 and 65 against the Brewers.
(SFC, 9/24/98, p.A18)
1998 Nov 6, Scientists reported the successful culture of human stem cells in research financed by Geron Corp. James Thomson of the Univ. of Wisconsin first isolated stem cells from human embryos. Science published this research in an article titled "Embryonic Stem Cell Lines Derived from Human Blastocysts."
(SFC, 11/6/98, p.A1,A18)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Thomson_%28cell_biologist%29) (Econ, 1/28/12, p.77)
1998 Nov 10, A heavy snow storm hit the northern Midwest. Minnesota, Wisconsin and the Dakotas suffered loss of power, heavy snow and violent winds.
(SFC, 11/11/98, p.A3)
1998 Rep. Tammy Baldwin, Democrat, was elected as the 1st openly gay woman in Congress.
(SFC, 6/23/00, p.A26)
1998 Dr. James Thomson, Univ. of Wisconsin research biologist, announced that he had successfully grown human embryonic stem cells in a privately funded research lab.
(WSJ, 8/23/01, p.A18)
1998 Rev. Lawrence Murphy (d.1998), who had worked at the former St. John's School for the Deaf in St. Francis, Wisconsin (1950-1975), died. In July 1996, Milwaukee Archbishop Rembert G. Weakland sent a letter to the Vatican seeking advice on how to proceed with charges of sexual molestation by Murphy on as many as 200 deaf students. Cardinal Ratzinger, who led the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith from 1981 until 2005, when he was elected pope, did not respond. The case was made public in 2010.
(AP, 3/25/10)
1999 Mar 25, Six people were killed and 8 injured when a speeding van loaded with young salespeople rolled over near Janesville. Jeremy Holmes (20), the driver, was later sentenced to 7 years in prison.
(SFC, 3/26/99, p.A4)(SFC, 6/12/99, p.A2)
1999 Wisconsin dairy farmers began a cow-sharing program in order to send owners unpasteurized milk. Sale of unpastuerized milk was illegal in Wisconsin and 21 other states.
(WSJ, 9/11/03, p.A1)
2000 Jan 1, In the Rose Bowl Wisconsin beat Stanford 17-9.
(SFEC, 1/2/00, p.A1)
2000 Jan 6, Many state rebate checks, sent as a postcard from Gov. Tommy Thompson as part of a relief package in the 1999-2001 budget, were mistaken by recipients as junk mail and discarded.
(SFC, 1/7/00, p.A3)
2000 Jul 28, Brianna Kriefall (3) of South Milwaukee died from E. coli poisoning. 21 people were reported sickened from E. coli after eating at a Sizzler restaurant.
(SFC, 7/29/00, p.A5)
2000 Nov 7, Wisconsin voters supported Al Gore by a margin of some 5,700 votes.
(Econ, 7/24/04, p.30)(Econ, 9/13/08, p.39)
2000 Dec 1, Milwaukee Mayor John Norquist (51) announced that he had had a 5-year affair with staff aid, Marilyn Figueroa (41).
(SFC, 12/27/00, p.A3)
2001 Apr, Part of the new $121 million extension of the Milwaukee Art Museum, designed by Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava, opened. The rest of the Quadracci Pavilion was set to open in September.
(WSJ, 2/14/00, p.B12)(SSFC, 4/3/05, p.E11)
2001 Jun 19, A tornado struck in Siren and 3 people were killed.
(SFC, 6/20/01, p.A5)
2001 Sep 5, The new Kenosha Public Museum opened.
(Arch, 7/02, p.54)
2001 Sep 6, Scott Stoll (38) and Dennis Snader (36) set off from San Francisco on a bicycle journey that aimed to cover 24,901.55 miles, equal to the circumference of the Earth. After 3+ years Stoll completed 25,752 miles across North and South America, Europe, Asia, Australia and Africa. Stoll ended his adventure on the southern tip of South Africa on October 24, 2004. The Milwaukee native returned to Waukesha where he grew up and his parents still live.
(SSFC, 2/26/06, p.F3)(www.theargonauts.com)
2001 Tommy Thompson joined the Bush administration as Sec. for Health and Human Services. Scott McCallum served as governor.
(WSJ, 8/23/01, p.A18)
2001 Wisconsin hunters killed 446,000 deer and generated over $1 billion in economic activity. Brain tests of white-tailed deer showed that about 3% were infected with chronic wasting disease (CWD).
(WSJ, 5/24/02, p.A1)
2002 Feb 24, Leo Ornstein (b.1893), Russian-born Futurist composer, died in Green Bay, Wisc. In 1918 Frederick H. Martens authored “Leo Ornstein: The Man, His Ideas, His Work." In 1990 Ornstein composed his last work: the Eighth Piano Sonata.
(SFC, 3/8/02, p.A31)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leo_Ornstein)
2002 Mar 26, In Ixonia a bus carrying residents of a retirement home collided with a delivery van on Hwy 16 and 4 people were killed.
(SFC, 3/27/02, p.A5)
2002 May 24, Pope John Paul accepted the resignation of Rembert Weakland (75), archbishop of Milwaukee. Weakland admitted to a $450,000 settlement in 1998 to Paul Marcoux (53) for an alleged sexual assault in 1979.
(SFC, 5/25/02, p.A3)
2002 Jul 9, To the boos of disappointed fans, the All-Star game in Milwaukee finished in a 7-7 tie after 11 innings when both teams ran out of pitchers.
(AP, 7/9/03)
2002 Jul 15, A Canadian National freight train derailed and caught fire near Allenton, Wisc., and 34 of 107 cars jumped the tracks.
(SFC, 7/16/02, p.A4)
2002 Sep 2, In Ladysmith a tornado injured 43 and cut a swath 14 blocks long by 4 wide.
(WSJ, 9/4/02, p.A1)
2002 Sep 29, In Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Charlie Young Jr. (36) was beaten to death by a mob of youths after he punched and knocked out the tooth of a 14-year-old who hit him with an egg.
(ADN, 10/8/02, p.A4)
2002 Oct 11, In Wisconsin 10 people were killed in a crash on I-43 that involved over 2 dozen vehicles north of Milwaukee.
(SFC, 10/12/02, p.A4)
2003 Jan 6, Jim Doyle was sworn in as Wisconsin’s 44th governor.
(www.wisgov.state.wi.us)
2003 Aug 30, Harley-Davidson celebrated its 100th anniversary in Milwaukee with a parade of 10,000 motorcycles. Some 250,000 bikers packed the roads around Milwaukee for a 3-day celebration.
(AP, 9/1/03)
2003 Wisconsin consumers filed a record 28,225 bankruptcy petitions, 12% higher than 2002.
(USAT, 1/20/04, p.12A)
2003 Robert Posser (81) of Turtle Lake, Wisconsin, died. He left behind his collection of over 750,000 old telephones.
(WSJ, 10/10/05, p.A1)
2004 Jan 2, Marvin Pratt was sworn in as acting mayor of Milwaukee following the resignation of 4-term Mayor John Norquist due to a sex scandal.
(Econ, 1/10/04, p.25)
2004 Jan, La Gloria English School opened on Isla Mujeres, Mexico. Maggie and Tom Washa of Wisconsin opened the school to help the local Mayan children.
(SSFC, 9/25/05, E5)
2004 Feb 17, In Wisconsin John Kerry won the primary with about 40 percent of the vote while Edwards finished a close second with 34 percent. Dean, who had banked his future on a strong showing, drew just 18 percent.
(AP, 2/18/04)(SFC, 2/18/04, p.A1)
2004 Apr 8, Milwaukee residents elected former white Rep. Tom Barrett as mayor over acting Mayor Marvin Pratt. The city's population of 50% white, 37% black and 12% Hispanic voted along racial lines.
(SFC, 4/9/04, p.A2)
2004 May 19, Flooding from storms hit Wisconsin. On June 19 Pres. Bush granted federal disaster recognition to 12 counties.
(SSFC, 6/20/04, p.A3)
2004 Nov 2, John Kerry carried Wisconsin by 11,400 votes.
(Econ, 9/13/08, p.39)
2004 Nov 21, A trespassing deer hunter in northern Wisconsin opened fire on other hunters when they asked him to leave, killing 5 and wounding 3. Another hunter died the next day. Police arrested Chai Soua Vang, a Hmong man of St. Paul Minn., for killing 6 hunters. In 2005 Vang (36) was convicted of 1st degree murder and sentenced to 6 life terms.
(AP, 11/22/04)(WSJ, 11/23/04, p.A1)(SFC, 11/9/05, p.A3)
2005 Mar 12, In Brookfield, Wisconsin, Terry Ratzmann (44) opened fire with a handgun during an evangelical church service at a suburban Milwaukee hotel, killing 7 people before taking his own life.
(AP, 3/13/05)(SFC, 3/14/05, p.A1)
2005 Apr 11, Some 12,000 Wisconsin citizens took part in an advisory poll on shooting free-roaming domestic cats. 57% voted to allow shooting them. An advisory committee dropped the issue May 13 following an outcry from animal rights groups.
(Econ, 4/16/05, p.27)(SFC, 5/14/05, p.A2)
2005 Jul 3, Gaylord Nelson (b.1916), former Wisconsin governor (1959-1963) and US senator (1963-1981), died. He founded Earth Day (1970), and helped spawn the modern environmental movement. Nelson was at the center of legislation that resulted in the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act (1968), the Clean Air Act (1970), and passage of the Endangered Species Act.
(AP, 7/3/05)(SFC, 7/4/05, p.A2)(http://www.nelsonearthday.net/)
2005 Jul, The new Milwaukee Public Market was set to open.
(SSFC, 4/3/05, p.E11)
2005 Oct 16, In Wisconsin a bus carrying Chippewa Falls High School students home from a band competition collided with a semi truck, killing five passengers near Osseo.
(AP, 10/16/05)
2005 Oct 30, In Madison, Wisconsin, police used pepper spray to break up rowdy Halloween celebrations. Over 400 arrests were made mostly for alcohol-related offenses.
(SFC, 10/31/05, p.A3)
2006 Mar 12-2006 Mar 13, Swarms of tornadoes killed at least 10 people across the Midwest states of Indiana, Missouri, Oklahoma, Arkansas, South Dakota, Minnesota and Wisconsin. It caused so much damage in Springfield, Ill., that the mayor compared it to the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
(AP, 3/13/06)
2006 May 19, The NRA opened its annual convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Wayne LaPierre, executive VP, signed copies of his new book: “the Global War on Your Guns: Inside the UN Plan to destroy the Bill of Rights."
(Econ, 5/27/06, p.28)
2006 Aug 24, Deadly storms swept across the northern Plains, bringing tornadoes that ripped roofs off houses and hail that smashed car windshields. One man was killed when a tornado hit his home in Minnesota, and in Wisconsin, lightning apparently killed a dozen cows and struck a woman as she left a supermarket.
(AP, 8/25/06)
2006 Sep 14, US federal health officials said an outbreak a deadly strain of E. coli (0157:H7) had left at least one person dead in Wisconsin over 100 others sick and warned consumers not to eat bagged fresh spinach. The outbreak in 8 states soon extended to 25. The number sickened rose to at least 190. Most of the spinach crop at this time of the year comes from California. A special effort was under way in the Salinas Valley of California, a major leafy-vegetable growing region, to look for any possible source of contamination there. The outbreak was traced to California’s Natural Selection Foods of San Juan Bautista, which recalled all suspect products. This was the same deadly strain that in 1982 had sickened at least 47 people in Oregon and Michigan who ate McDonald’s burgers. A surveillance system setup after a 1993 outbreak at the Jack-in-the-Box fast food chain helped single out spinach as the likely source of this outbreak. A 2nd death on Sep 20, a 2-year-old boy in Idaho, was attributed to the spinach E. coli. A 3rd death in late August, a woman (84) in Nebraska, was also attributed to the spinach E. coli. On Sep 29 the FDA cleared spinach from California’s Monterey, San Benito and Santa Clara counties.
(SFC, 9/23/06, p.A9)(WSJ, 9/25/06, p.A4)(SFC, 9/30/06, p.A5)(SFC, 10/7/06, p.A6)
2006 Sep 14, In Green Bay, Wisc., police arrested two 17-year-olds, suspected of plotting a shooting spree at East High School. William C. Cornell and Shawn R. Sturtz were arrested for suspicion of conspiracy to commit first-degree intentional homicide and conspiracy to commit arson. Police found homemade bombs and weapons at their homes.
(http://kutv.com/topstories/topstories_story_258075847.html)
2006 Sep 29, In Cazenovia, Wisconsin, Eric Hainstock (15) walked into Weston High School with a shotgun. The principal confronted him in a corridor and was shot and killed. Hainstock was taken into custody and all the children were reported safe.
(AP, 9/29/06)(Econ, 10/7/06, p.38)
2006 Oct 20, US federal authorities arrested Jake Brahm, a 20-year-old Wisconsin grocery store clerk, for making a hoax threat that said seven football stadiums across the nation would be targeted by terrorists with radiological "dirty bombs" this weekend.
(AP, 10/20/06)(SFC, 10/21/06, p.A5)
2006 Dec 6, In Wisconsin a propane gas leak led to a huge explosion in a west side Milwaukee industrial area, killing three people at the Falk Corp. transmission parts plant. 46 others were injured.
(SFC, 12/7/06, p.A3)
2006 The US Navy planned to launch 2 versions of its new Littoral Combat Ships (LCS), currently under construction in Wisconsin and Alabama.
(SFC, 6/16/06, p.A24)
2007 Jan 6, The body of Cha Vang (30), a Hmong man, was found hidden under a log in a Wisconsin wild life refuge. Vang had been shot and stabbed 5 times. On Nov 28 James Nichols (29) was sentenced to 69 years in prison for Vang’s murder.
(SFC, 11/29/07, p.A3)
2007 Feb 24, In Arkansas tornado winds injured 40 people and damaged dozens of homes and businesses. The Midwest storm system was blamed for 8 traffic deaths, 7 in Wisconsin and one in Kansas.
(SFC, 2/26/07, p.A4)
2007 Apr 1, Tommy Thompson, former Wisconsin governor (GOP), announced that he is running for president.
(SFC, 4/2/07, p.A4)
2007 Jun 4, A small plane from Milwaukee carrying a six-member organ transplant team and their cargo of donor organs to Michigan crashed in Lake Michigan with no survivors.
(AP, 6/5/07)
2007 Jun 4, In Portage, Wisconsin, Tammie Garlin was killed. Felicia Garlin (15) and Michaela Clerc (20) had kicked her, then later that day carried her into the bathroom, where Clerc dropped her head on the floor. A roving band of suspected identity thieves buried her in the backyard and locked her bloody and beaten 11-year-old son in an upstairs closet. Authorities reached the house on June 14.
(AP, 6/21/07)
2007 Jun 7, Severe thunderstorms spawned tornadoes, produced baseball-size hail and dropped more than 6 inches of rain across the Upper Midwest, killing a swimmer in Illinois. Four people in Wisconsin were injured, none seriously. A northern Wisconsin resort was demolished by one of at least five tornadoes that swept across the state.
(AP, 6/8/07)
2007 Jun 9, In Delavan, Wisconsin, a shooting inside a home killed six people including twin baby boys. A 1-year-old daughter was found wounded in a nearby vehicle. Place later said Ambrosio Analco committed the murder and suicide.
(AP, 6/10/07)(SFC, 6/14/07, p.A3)
2007 Jun, A team from the Univ. of Wisconsin claimed to have developed a biofuel, called 2,5-dimethlyfuran, with a 40% higher energy density than ethanol.
(Econ, 6/23/07, p.89)
2007 Aug 12, Tommy Thompson, former governor of Wisconsin, said he was dropping out of the Republican presidential campaign following his 6th place finish in Iowa’s straw poll.
(SFC, 8/13/07, p.A2)
2007 Aug 22, The death toll across the Upper Midwest and from the remnants of Tropical Storm Erin that swept Texas, Oklahoma and Missouri over the past week rose to at least 26. Three people were electrocuted by lightning at a bus stop in Madison, Wis.
(AP, 8/23/07)
2007 Oct 7, In Crandon, Wisconsin, Tyler Peterson (20), an off-duty sheriff's deputy, killed six young people and critically wounded another, before he was shot to death, during a homecoming weekend gathering. Relatives of the victims said the rampage may have been fueled by a romantic dispute.
(AP, 10/8/07)
2007 Dec 16, Street and highway crews were at work trying to clear roads across the Great Lakes states into New England as a storm blamed for three deaths spread a hazardous mix of snow, sleet and freezing rain. The storm was blamed for at least 10 deaths including 4 in Indiana, 2 in Michigan and Wisconsin, one in Pennsylvania and one in Nova Scotia.
(AP, 12/16/07)(SFC, 12/18/07, p.A19)
2007 Dec 18, John Morgridge, the retired chairman of Cisco Systems, and his wife Tashia, both graduates from the Univ. of Wisconsin, announced that they are donating $175 million to help low-income Wisconsin students attend any of the state’s public colleges and universities. Morgridge’s fortune was estimated at $2.1 billion.
(SFC, 12/19/07, p.C2)
2007 Dec 21, Ken Hendricks (b.1941), creator of ABC Supply (1982), one of the largest US roofing supply companies (1982), died. He used his wealth in part to rebuild his home town of Beloit, Wisconsin.
(WSJ, 12/29/07, p.A7)
2007 Dec 23, High wind and ice coated power lines blacked out tens of thousands of people in the Midwest. The storm was blamed for at least 22 deaths. At least 8 people in Minnesota, 5 in Wisconsin, 3 each in Indiana and Wyoming and one each in Michigan, Texas and Kansas were killed in traffic accidents.
(AP, 12/23/07)(WSJ, 12/24/07, p.A1)(SFC, 12/25/07, p.A11)
2008 Jan 7, Tornadoes were reported or suspected in southwest Missouri, southeastern Wisconsin, Arkansas, Illinois and Oklahoma. Two people were killed in Missouri.
(AP, 1/8/08)
2008 Feb 19, Barack Obama won Wisconsin (58%) and Hawaii (76%) adding to a primary season winning streak that now totals 10. This put Hillary Rodham Clinton into a virtual must-win scenario in Democratic contests coming early next month in Texas and Ohio.
(AP, 2/20/08)(SFC, 2/21/08, p.A10)
2008 Mar 4, Gary Gygax (b.1938), co-creator of the role-playing Dungeons & Dragons game, died in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. Gygax and David Arneson founded Tactical Studies Rules (TSR) and published D&D in 1974. In 1997 TSR was sold to Wizards of the Coast.
(WSJ, 3/8/08, p.A7)(Econ, 3/15/08, p.102)
2008 Mar 23, In Wisconsin Madeline Neumann (11) died of complication from diabetes after her parents prayed in lieu of seeking medical help. Both parents were charged with reckless homicide.
(SSFC, 7/26/09, p.A12)(www.religionnewsblog.com/21316/madeline-kara-neuman)
2008 May 10, In Wisconsin a medical helicopter crashed killing a surgeon, nurse and pilot.
(SFC, 5/12/08, p.A3)
2008 Jun 8, Wicked weekend storms pounded the US from the Midwest to the East Coast, forcing hundreds of people to flee flooded communities, spawning tornadoes that tore up houses and killing at least eight people in Indiana (1), Michigan (6), Connecticut (1). Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle declared a state of emergency in 29 counties and President Bush declared a major disaster in 29 Indiana counties, freeing up aid. Iowa Gov. Chet Culver declared an emergency in nearly a third of the state's 99 counties.
(AP, 6/8/08)
2008 Jul 4, In Milwaukee, Wisconsin, early morning gunfire killed 2 men and 2 women on the city’s north side.
(SFC, 7/4/08, p.A4)
2008 Jul 31, In Wisconsin a gunman opened fire on a group of young adults from Michigan killing 3, aged 17-19, along the Menominee riverbank in the town of Niagara. The next day police arrested Scott J. Johnson (38). He had a raped a woman near the same site the evening before the murders. In 2009 Johnson was sentenced to life in prison without parole.
(AP, 8/2/08)(SFC, 5/22/09, p.A6)
2008 Oct 3, The Great Lakes Governors (Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin) applauded President George W. Bush for signing a joint resolution of Congress providing consent to the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence River Basin Water Resources Compact. It barred new diversions beyond the Great Lakes Basin.
(www.cglg.org/projects/water/CompactConsent.asp)(Econ, 5/22/10, p.36)
2008 Dec 16, Melvin S. Cohen (b.1918), longtime chairman of Wisconsin-based National Presto Industries, died.
(WSJ, 12/27/08, p.A7)
2008 Dec 31, SF ended the year with 98 homicides. In Milwaukee, Wisc., the total number of homicides dropped 32%, from 105 in 2007 to 71 in 2008, the lowest number since 1985. Detroit had 344 slayings, a 13% drop from the 396 in 2007; Philadelphia's 332 killings were a 15% drop from the 392 in 2007; and the 234 homicides in Baltimore were 17% less than the 392 the year before. Cleveland recorded 102 homicides in 2008, down from a 13-year high of 134 in 2007. Homicides in New York rose 5.2%, to 522 from 496 the year before. Slayings in Los Angeles were down to 376 in 2008 compared to 400 the prior year. Preliminary data in Chicago showed 508 homicides were reported in 2008, the first time the city had more than 500 murders since 2003 and about 15% more than the 442 homicides reported in 2007. Washington, D.C., ended 2008 with 186 homicides, up from 181 in 2007.
(SFC, 1/2/09, p.1)(AP, 1/3/09)
2008 The new Harley-Davidson Museum was scheduled to open in Milwaukee.
(SSFC, 4/3/05, p.E11)
2009 Mar 16, Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle said the state will use "Live like you mean it" to promote the state as a tourism and business destination, replacing the slogan "Life's So Good."
(AP, 3/18/09)
2009 Mar 19, Josias Kumpf (83), a former Nazi concentration-camp guard, was deported from Wisconsin to Austria, despite objections from his lawyer that the guard was simply present at the Trawniki Labor Camp in Poland but committed no acts of persecution [see Nov 3, 1943].
(AP, 3/20/09)
2009 Apr 30, In Wisconsin Shane Kettner (36) was arrested in Nelsonville for killing his estranged girlfriend and 2 of their children.
(SFC, 5/5/09, p.A7)
2009 May 4, Wolves in parts of the northern Rockies and the Great Lakes region come off the endangered species list, opening them to public hunts in some states for the first time in decades. States such as Idaho and Montana planned to resume hunting the animals this fall, but no hunting has been proposed in the Great Lakes region. About 300 wolves in Wyoming will remain on the list because the US Fish and Wildlife Service rejected the state's plan for a "predator zone" where wolves could be shot on sight. An estimated 4,000 wolves lived in Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota.
(AP, 5/4/09)
2009 May 18, In Guatemala Rev. Lawrence Rosebaugh (74) of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, was shot and killed by masked gunmen who stopped a car carrying him and four other missionaries to a meeting in Playa Grande. He had put an international spotlight on human rights abuses in Brazil in 1977.
(AP, 5/19/09)
2009 Jul 28, At the EAA AirVenture air show in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, Aabar Investments, an Abu Dhabi-based sovereign wealth fund, and Virgin Galactic signed a strategic partnership in which Aabar would take a 32% stake in Virgin Galactic for $280 million. To date Virgin Galactic has been wholly owned and funded by Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Group.
(Econ, 9/12/09, p.87)(http://tinyurl.com/y8gtjad)
2009 Sep 5, Milwaukee police arrested Walter Ellis (49) after DNA evidence linked him to the slaying of 9 women, including 8 suspected prostitutes, dating back to 1986. On Feb 18, 2011, Ellis was convicted in the deaths of 7 women and faced a mandatory sentence of life in prison.
(SFC, 9/8/09, p.A6)(SFC, 2/19/11, p.A6)
2009 Oct 23, US regulators shut down 3 small banks in Florida and one each in Georgia, Illinois, Minnesota and Wisconsin bringing the total for the year of failed US banks to 106.
(SFC, 10/24/09, p.A6)
2009 Dec 3, Wisconsin police found the bodies of 2 women and their 2 young daughters shot to death in Madison. Police searched for Tyrone Adair (38), the father linked to the deaths of his two young daughters and their mothers. Adair was found dead of suspected suicide in his SUV on Dec 7.
(AP, 12/5/09)(SFC, 12/8/09, p.A12)
2009 Dec 9, A blizzard dumped over a foot of snow across much of the Midwest and New England. Nearly 19 inches fell in Madison, Wis., 16 inches was reported in Des Moines, Iowa. At least 16 deaths were blamed on the storm.
(SFC, 12/10/09, p.A17)
2009 Wisconsin resident Todd Bol (1956-2018) built a model of a one-room schoolhouse on a post in his front yard in Hudson, and filled it with books as a tribute to his teacher mother. This started the Little Free Library program.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Todd_Bol)(SFC, 3/24/20, p.A8)
2010 Apr 1, A US federal judge struck down a Wisconsin law that prohibits transgender inmates from receiving taxpayer funded hormone therapy to alter their appearance.
(SFC, 4/2/10, p.A7)
2010 Jul 19, Despite being rebuffed twice by the US Supreme Court, five states (Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio, Minnesota and Pennsylvania) filed suit with a lower court demanding tougher federal and municipal action to prevent Asian carp from overrunning the Great Lakes and decimating their fishing industry.
(AP, 7/19/10)
2010 Aug 18, In Wisconsin the bodies of a couple, their 13-month-old daughter, and their three dogs were found dead at their home in Superior. Matthew Magdzas (23), an Iraq war veteran, apparently shot and killed his pregnant wife and young daughter before turning the gun on himself. He left behind no clues to explain what might have prompted the bloodshed.
(AP, 8/20/10)
2010 Oct 21, The Guinness World Records confirmed that a pumpkin grown in Wisconsin is officially the world’s heaviest. Chris Stevens of New Richmond grew the 1,810.5 pound gourd. It was 85 pounds heavier than the record set in Ohio in 2009.
(SFC, 10/22/10, p.A10)
2010 Nov 2, Iowa (Terry Branstad), Kansas (Sam Brownback), Maine (Paul LePage), Michigan (Rick Snyder), New Mexico (Susana Martinez), Ohio (John Kasich), Oklahoma (Mary Fallin), Pennsylvania (Tom Corbett), Tennessee (Bill Haslam), Wisconsin (Scott Walker), Wyoming (Matt Mead) all replaced the Democratic governors with Republicans. Snyder (R) defeated Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm (D) by bragging about his managerial skills.
(Econ, 11/6/10, p.45)
2010 Nov 29, In Wisconsin sophomore Samuel Hengel (15) took 23 of his classmates and a teacher hostage in a classroom at the Marinette High School, shooting himself as police broke in. No one else was injured. Hengel died the next day.
(Reuters, 11/30/10)(SFC, 12/1/10, p.A13)
2010 Dec 2, Dominican Rep. authorities detained 18 military officials and two US pilots, Kevin Kuranz and Christopher Smith, after stopping a cocaine-laden airplane from taking off. The plane was owned by Wisconsin-based Air Cargo Carriers LLC.
(AP, 12/3/10)
2010 Dec 13, Schools in Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin and other states closed because of snow and low temperatures. Authorities worked frantically to reach motorists in snow-covered northwest Indiana who were trapped in their cars in biting temperatures.
(AP, 12/13/10)
2011 Feb 6, In Dallas, Texas, Wisconsin’s Green Bay packers won Super Bowl XLV 31-25 win over the Pittsburgh Steelers.
(AFP, 2/7/11)
2011 Jan 4, The archdiocese of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, filed for bankruptcy becoming the 8th in the US to do so. It had become besieged by lawsuits related to priests molesting boys.
(Econ, 2/12/11, p.36)
2011 Feb 17, In Wisconsin 14 Democratic lawmakers disappeared as the state Senate was about to begin debating a measure by Gov. Scott Walker that would eliminate collective bargaining for most state public employees. Protesters filled the Capitol for a 3rd day.
(SFC, 2/18/11, p.A6)
2011 Feb 24, Wisconsin state troopers were dispatched to try to find at least one of the 14 Senate Democrats who have been on the run for eight days to delay a vote on Republican Gov. Scott Walker's proposal to strip collective bargaining rights from nearly all public employees.
(AP, 2/24/11)
2011 Feb 26, In Wisconsin a crowd estimated at more than 70,000 people waved American flags, sang the national anthem and called for the defeat of a state plan to curb public sector unions that has galvanized opposition from the American labor movement.
(Reuters, 2/27/11)
2011 Mar 10, The Wisconsin Assembly stripped a bill of its spending language and passed legislation with only Republicans present taking away the collective bargaining rights of the state’s government workers.
(SFC, 3/11/11, p.A6)
2011 Mar 11, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker signed a bill taking away the collective bargaining rights of the state’s government workers.
(SFC, 3/12/11, p.A9)
2011 Mar 12, In Wisconsin tens of thousands of pro-labor protesters cheered its Democratic lawmakers and vowed to focus on future elections.
(SSFC, 3/13/11, p.A10)
2011 Mar 20, In Wisconsin suspect James Cruckson (30) opened fire on police during a standoff in Fond du Lac killing Officer Craig Birkholz (28). Cruckson was found dead from an apparently self-inflicted gunshot.
(SFC, 3/21/11, p.A7)
2011 Mar 29, Wisconsin Circuit Judge Maryann Sumi ruled that there should be no further implementation of a law taking away nearly all collective bargaining rights for public workers.
(SFC, 3/30/11, p.A5)
2011 May 13, Timmothy Pitzen (6)of Aurora, Illinois, was last seen on a security camera as he and his mom checked out of the Kalahari resort in Wisconsin. A housekeeper found the body of Amy Fry-Pitzen (42) the next morning. Police would later say she had self-inflicted cuts on her neck and wrists and a lethal dose of drugs in her system.
(SFC, 4/10/19, p.A5)
2011 May 25, The Wisconsin Act 23 established a requirement for nearly all voters to present approved photo identification to cast a ballot.
(https://docs.legis.wisconsin.gov/2011/related/acts/23)
2011 Jun 14, The Wisconsin Supreme Court reinstated Gov. Scott Walker’s plan to all but end collective bargaining for public workers.
(SFC, 6/15/11, p.A5)
2011 Jul 6, In Wisconsin the dead bodies of 3- and 4-year-old Wisconsin brothers were found in a parked car and the boyfriend of the children's mother was arrested.
(AP, 7/6/11)
2011 Aug 9, Wisconsin Republicans held onto control of the state Senate, beating back 4 Democratic challengers in a recall election despite an intense political backlash against GOP support for Gov. Walker's effort to curb public employees' union rights. Democrats captured two seats.
(AP, 8/9/11)(SFC, 8/10/11, p.A6)
2011 Oct 6, In Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Annette Morales-Rodriguez (33), who had faked a pregnancy, kidnapped Maritza Ramirez Cruz (23), killed her and cut out her full term fetus, who died in the process.
(SFC, 10/11/11, p.A6)
2011 Oct 8, In Wisconsin Scott Anderson (56) was ordained as the first US Presbyterian church gay minister at Covenant Presbyterian Church in Madison.
(AP, 10/9/11)
2011 Nov 19, Thousands of people gathered at the Wisconsin capitol to demand a recall of Republican Governor Scott Walker, whose controversial and successful drive to limit public unions last winter sparked the biggest protests in the state since the Vietnam War.
(Reuters, 11/20/11)
2011 Dec 13, The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed the lawsuit Frank v. Walker in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin seeking to block the Act 23, a voter ID law, as a violation of the US Constitution.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Wisconsin_Act_23)
2012 Jan 5, In Wisconsin a former aide close to Gov. Scott Walker and a Walker-appointee were arrested on embezzlement charges.
(SFC, 1/6/12, p.A6)
2012 Jan 14, Laura Kaeppeler (23), a beauty queen from Wisconsin, won the Miss America pageant in Las Vegas after singing opera and strutting in a white bikini and black beaded evening gown.
(AP, 1/14/12)
2012 Jan 17, In Wisconsin opponents of Gov. Scott Walker submitted 1 million signatures for his recall, far exceeding the 540,208 needed.
(SFC, 1/18/12, p.A7)
2012 Apr 3, Mitt Romney swept Republican primaries in Maryland (47%), Wisconsin (42%) and Washington, DC (70%).
(SFC, 4/4/12, p.A6)
2012 May 31, In Wisconsin Darius Simmons (13), a black boy, was shot dead by his white neighbor John Henry Spooner (75) after having stolen four guns from Spooner. On July 17, 2013, a jury found Spooner guilty of first-degree murder.
(SFC, 7/18/13, p.A7)
2012 Jun 5, Wisconsin Gov .Scott Walker won his recall rematch with Tom Barrett, the Democratic mayor of Milwaukee, by a larger margin than in 2010. Walker became only the third governor to face a recall election—and the first to survive one—since the Progressives came up with this drastic remedy for bad governance more than a century ago.
(SFC, 6/6/12, p.A13)
2012 Aug 5, A gunman opened fire in a Sikh temple in Oak Creek, Wis., and killed six people. He was identified as Army veteran Wade Michael Page (40). Page, a self-described member of the “Hammerskins Nation" of skinheads, died after shooting himself in the head during an exchange of gunfire with a wounded police officer outside the temple.
(AFP, 8/6/12)(SFC, 8/7/12, p.A4)(SFC, 8/9/12, p.A12)
2012 Aug 11, Mitt Romney announced he's selected Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin as his vice presidential running mate.
(SSFC, 8/12/12, p.A7)
2012 Sep 14, A Wisconsin judge struck down nearly all of the 2011 state law championed by Gov. Scott Walker that effectively ended collective bargaining rights for most public workers.
(AP, 9/15/12)
2012 Oct 21, A shooting at a spa near a Brookfield, Wis., mall left 3 women dead and four others wounded in a scene of domestic violence. The suspected gunman, Radcliffe Haughton (45), of Brown Deer, Wis., was found dead inside the spa.
(AP, 10/21/12)(SFC, 10/22/12, p.A5)
2013 Mar 2, In Kentucky a tractor trailer plowed into an SUV killing 6 of 8 people, members of an extended family from Marion, Wis.
(SFC, 2/4/13, p.A4)
2013 May, Dominion Power shut down a nuclear plant in Wisconsin, that was licensed for another 20 years, due to the fall in the price of natural gas from increasing shale gas.
(Econ, 6/1/13, p.26)
2013 Oct 26, Wisconsin’s Milwaukee-based Garden-Fresh Foods recalled 50 more tons of chicken and ham products over concern of possible listeria contamination. The company first recalled 9 tons of food on Sep 25.
(SSFC, 10/27/13, p.A8)
2014 Feb 23, In Wisconsin three men broke into a Madison home looking for money, found a couple lying in bed and assaulted the woman, who was six months pregnant. Efemia A. Neumaier told the assailants they'd find at least $1,500 in cash in the home of the man she was seeing, but that the men broke into the wrong home. Michon A. Thomas, Eric D. Bass and Kristopher J. Hughes all faced robbery and sexual assault charges.
(AP, 3/12/14)
2014 Apr 10, US wildlife agencies in Michigan and Wisconsin said they have confirmed diagnoses of white-nose syndrome in tested bats. The fungal disease has killed millions on North American bats since 2006 and has now been detected in half of the US.
(SFC, 4/11/14, p.A6)
2014 Apr 29, A federal judge struck down Wisconsin’s voter ID law declaring that it imposes an unfair burden on poor and minority voters.
(SFC, 4/30/14, p.A6)
2014 Apr 30, In Milwaukee Dontre Hamilton (31), a mentally ill man, died after he was shot 14 times by police Officer Christopher Manney following a scuffle. Manney was fired in October.
(www.tumblr.com/search/dontre%20hamilton)(SFC, 10/17/14, p.A8)
2014 May 31, In Waukesha, Wisconsin, Anissa Weier (12) and Morgan Geyser (12) stabbed their friend Peyton Leutner (12) nineteen times in a park following a slumber party in Waukesha to please “Slender Man," a demon-like creature they learned about on creepypasta.wikia.com. On Aug 1 a judge ruled that one of the girls is mentally incompetent and can’t stand trial. On March 13 a judge ruled that both girls must stand trial as adults. On Aug 21, 2017, Weier pleaded guilty. On Sep 15 a jury determined that Weier was mentally ill at the time of the attack. Geyser also planned to plead guilty and receive treatment for mental illness.
(SFC, 6/3/14, p.A6)(SFC, 8/2/14, p.A4)(SFC, 3/22/17, p.A5)(SSFC, 9/17/17 p.A15)(SFC, 9/30/17, p.A6)
2014 Jun 6, In Wisconsin gay couples began getting married after a federal judge struck down the state’s same-sex marriage ban.
(SFC, 6/7/14, p.A4)
2014 Jun 13, A federal judge in Madison, Wis., issued an order postponing her decision striking down Wisconsin’s ban on same-sex marriage as unconstitutional, pending the outcome of an expected appeal. More than 550 same-sex couples in the state cited her June 6 decision in order to get married over the past seven days.
(CSM, 6/13/14)
2014 Jun 26, In Wisconsin Steven Zelich (52), a former police officer, was charged with two counts of hiding a corpse. He was suspected of in the deaths of two women whose bodies were stuffed into suitcases and discarded on a rural highway.
(SFC, 6/27/14, p.A6)
2014 Jul 31, The Wisconsin Supreme Court upheld Act 10, the 2011 law that effectively ended collective bargaining for most public workers.
(AP, 7/31/14)
2014 Oct 6, The US Supreme Court denied review of cases in five states that had limited marriage to opposite sex couples. This in effect granted equal marriage rights to gays and lesbians in Indiana, Oklahoma, Utah, Virginia and Wisconsin.
(SFC, 10/7/14, p.A1)
2015 Feb 6, In Wisconsin Sureshbhai Patel (57) from India was slammed to the ground by a police officer after a caller said a "skinny black guy" with a toboggan hat was walking in the neighborhood and peering into garages. One of the officers restrained Patel by pulling his arms behind his back and then slammed him face-first into the ground less than 90 seconds after the confrontation began. Officer Eric Parker was arrested and is being fired.
(AP, 2/14/15)
2015 Mar 6, Wisconsin police fatally shot as Anthony "Tony" Robinson (19), an apparently unarmed African-American, prompting dozens of people to protest at the site of the killing. Robinson, tripping on mushrooms, had already attacked several people. Authorities said Robinson had assaulted Officer Mat Kenny (45) in an apartment. In 2017 a federal civil rights lawsuit awarded Robinson’s family $3.35 million.
(Reuters, 3/7/15)(SSFC, 3/8/15, p.A9)(SFC, 5/14/15, p.A7)(SFC, 2/24/17, p.A6)
2015 Mar 9, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker signed into law a measure that prohibits requiring a worker to pay union dues.
(SFC, 3/10/15, p.A6)
2015 Mar 24, In Wisconsin police officer Trevor Casper began pursuing a vehicle matching the description of the car of a suspect who was wanted in a bank robbery in Fond du Lac Fond du Lac. A gun battle ensued leaving both the trooper and the suspect dead.
(Reuters, 3/25/15)
2015 May 3, In Wisconsin Sergio Daniel Valencia del Toro (27), who had just been in a fight with his girlfriend, armed himself with two guns, cycled to a scenic bridge and opened fire, killing a father and his daughter along with another man before taking his own life on the Trestle Trail bridge in Menasha.
(Reuters, 5/5/15)
2015 Jul 2, Aides of Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker said he is joining the Republican presidential race.
(SFC, 7/3/15, p.A7)
2015 Jul 13, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (47) became the 15th prominent Republican to join the US presidential race.
(SFC, 7/14/15, p.A7)
2015 Aug 4, The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Milwaukee said it will pay $21 million top more than 300 victims of clergy abuse in a settlement that would end a four-year bankruptcy proceeding.
(SFC, 8/5/15, p.A6)
2015 Oct 5, Pres. Obama declared new marine sanctuaries off of Wisconsin’s Lake Michigan and the tidal waters of Maryland.
(SFC, 10/6/15, p.A6)
2015 Oct 13, In Wisconsin a Milwaukee state court jury ordered Badger Guns to pay $5.73 million after the store was found liable for negligence in the 2009 shooting of two local police officers.
(SFC, 10/15/15, p.A14)
2015 Oct 16, A US jury ordered Apple Inc to pay the University of Wisconsin-Madison's patent licensing arm more than $234 million in damages for incorporating its microchip technology into some of the company's iPhones and iPads without permission. Apple had faced up to $862 million in damages after a US jury found the iPhone maker used technology owned by the University of Wisconsin-Madison's licensing arm without permission.
(http://tinyurl.com/otut73f)
2015 Oct 30, Paul Ryan (45) of Wisconsin was sworn in as the 54th speaker of the US House of Representatives.
(SFC, 10/30/15, p.A6)
2015 Nov 23, A panel of the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago ruled 2-1 that a Wisconsin law requiring that abortion providers have admitting privileges at a local hospital, is unconstitutional.
(CSM, 11/24/15)
2016 Apr 5, In Wisconsin Ted Cruz beat Republican front-runner Donald Trump soundly, winning most of the state’s delegates and raising the probability of a contested GOP convention in July. Upstart senator Bernie Sanders also beat Democrat frontrunner Hillary Clinton, bolstering his claim to be a viable alternative standard-bearer to the former secretary of state and first lady.
(AFP, 4/6/16)
2016 Apr 8, Wisconsin’s right to work law, championed by Gov. Scott Walker, was struck down as violating the state constitution.
(SFC, 4/9/16, p.A5)
2016 Apr 23, In Wisconsin a police officer fatally shot Jakob Wagner (18) after Wagner shot and wounded two students outside a high school prom in Antigo.
(SFC, 4/25/16, p.A5)
2016 Jun 30, In Italy Wisconsin student Beau Solomon (19) disappeared in Rome a day after arriving there. On July 4 police discovered his body in the Tiber river in Rome. A suspect identified as Massimo Galioto (40), who lived in an encampment under a bridge near where Solomon was last seen, was soon arrested and accused of pushing Solomon in the river after a fight.
(AP, 7/4/16)(AP, 7/5/16)(AP, 5/8/18)
2016 Jul 17, In Wisconsin a domestic violence suspect opened fire on a Milwaukee police officer who was sitting in his squad car early today, seriously wounding him before fleeing and apparently killing himself shortly afterward. The suspect, a 20-year-old man from the suburb of West Allis, had two felonies on his arrest record.
(AP, 7/18/16)
2016 Aug 13, Milwaukee police shot and killed Sylville Smith (23) after he failed to drop a gun. An angry crowd of at least 200 people took to the streets, torching at least six businesses, including a gas station and auto parts store. Looting continued into the next night as police in riot gear moved in on the Sherman Park neighborhood. On Dec 15 police Officer Dominique Heaggan-Brown, who is also black, was charged with murder.
(AFP, 8/15/16)(SFC, 12/16/16, p.A10)
2016 Nov 8, In the US presidential election Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin all swung for Donald Trump with margins of one percent or less. Wisconsin’s voter ID law impacted an unknown number of eligible voters as Trump defeated Clinton by roughly 22,000 votes.
(Econ, 11/19/16, p.25)(SFC, 5/9/17, p.A4)
2016 Nov 24, It was reported that the former Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein has raised the necessary $1.1 million to request a vote recount in Wisconsin. Donald Trump also won by a slim margin in Pennsylvania, where a recount filing fee costs $500,000, due on November 28. The filing fee in Michigan, where Trump has a razor-thin lead in unofficial results so far, is $600,000 due by November 30.
(AFP, 11/24/16)
2017 Feb 18, Clyde Stubblefield (73), a former drummer for James Brown, died in Madison, Wis. His short solo on Brown’s 1970 single “Funky Drummer" was sampled on more than 1,000 songs and served as the backbeat on for countless hip-hop tracks.
(SFC, 2/20/17, p.C4)
2017 Mar 22, In northern Wisconsin a domestic dispute at a bank escalated into shootings at three locations. A police officer and two bank employees and an attorney were shot and killed. Suspect Nengmy Vang was in custody. Attorney Sarah Quirt Sann was his wife’s divorce lawyer. On April 1 Vang died of his wounds.
(SFC, 3/23/17, p.A8)(SFC, 3/24/17, p.A8)(SFC, 3/25/17, p.A5)(SSFC, 4/2/17, p.A5)
2017 Apr 14, In Wisconsin Joseph Allen Jakubowski (32), accused of stealing an arsenal of weapons and sending an antigovernment manifesto to the White House, was arrested near Readstown.
(SFC, 4/15/17, p.A7)
2017 Apr 18, President Donald Trump visited Wisconsin and signed an order, dubbed "Buy American, Hire American," aimed at curbing abuses in the H-1B visa program used by technology companies that rely on high-skilled foreign workers. The EU later argued that more stringent "Buy American" policies were likely to increase costs and delays, with no net benefit in job creation.
(AP, 4/18/17)(SFC, 4/19/17, p.A1)(AP, 10/17/17)
2017 May 16, In the central US storms that stretched from Texas to the Great Lakes spawned 29 twisters that killed two people in Oklahoma and Wisconsin.
(SFC, 5/18/17, p.A4)
2017 May 31, In Wisconsin the Didion Milling Plant exploded in Cambria leaving two people dead and at least one person missing at the corn mill.
(SFC, 6/2/17, p.A4)
2017 Jul 1, In northern Wisconsin a Cessna airplane crashed near the city of Philips killing all six people aboard.
(SFC, 7/3/17, p.A4)
2017 Jul 26, An invitation to President Donald Trump's afternoon news conference with Wisconsin officials said electronics giant Foxconn will build a liquid-crystal display panel plant in Wisconsin.
(AP, 7/26/17)
2017 Jul 26, It was reported that Wisconsin-based tech company Three Square Market will begin offering employees the implantation of RFID microchips under the skin between their thumb and index finger as of August 1. This will allow employees to perform tasks such as entering the office, and paying for food with a wave of the hand.
(SFC, 7/26/17, p.C5)
2017 Aug 2, Marcus Hutchins (23), a British cybersecurity researcher, was arrested at McCarran Int’l. Airport in Las Vegas as he prepared to fly home following a cybersecurity convention. On August 14 he faced charges in Wisconsin for committing computer fraud. Four months earlier he had identified a “kill switch" to slow the outbreak of the WannaCry virus that crippled computer worldwide. In 2019 Hutchins pleaded guilty to writing malware in 2015, before changing to a career in cybersecurity. He was sentenced to time served.
(SFC, 8/1517, p.A7)(SFC, 4/22/19, p.A7)(SFC, 7/27/19, p.A6)
2017 Aug 13, In southeastern Wisconsin three men from Illinois, believed to be gang members, were shot to death at close range during a drag racing event at the Great Lakes Dragaway in the town of Paris.
(SFC, 8/1517, p.A5)
2017 Sep 18, Gov. Scott Walker signed into law a $3 billion incentive package for Taiwan-based Foxconn Technology Group to build a flat-screen plant in southeastern Wisconsin, a deal that he calls a "huge win" for the entire state.
(AP, 9/18/17)
2017 Nov 8, In northern Wisconsin Jason Pero (14), of the Bad River Band Chippewa reservation, was shot and killed by an Ashland County sheriff’s deputy. Dispatchers had received a call about a male subject walking down a street in Odanah with a knife.
(SFC, 11/10/17, p.A6)
2017 Nov 13, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker signed off on a bill that eliminates the state’s minimum age for hunting.
(SFC, 11/14/17, p.A5)
2018 Apr 17, A Wisconsin jury convicted Cullen M. Osburn of Minneapolis of battery in the death of a student from Saudi Arabia, but acquitted him on a more serious murder charge. Osburn, angry that his girlfriend wasn't answering his phone calls, reportedly punched a stranger, Hussain Saeed Alnahdi, in the face outside a Menomonie pizzeria on Oct. 30, 2016. Alnahdi died the next day at a hospital.
(AP, 4/18/18)
2018 Apr 26, In northern Wisconsin the crash of a medical helicopter crash left three crew members dead.
(SFC, 4/28/18, p.A5)
2018 May 8, Former US Army Capt. Ernest Medina, a key figure in the 1968 My Lai massacre during the Vietnam war, died in Wisconsin.
(AP, 5/14/18)
2018 Jun 7, In Wisconsin police Officer Charles Irvine Jr. (23) was killed amd his partner injured when their car overturned on a side street while chasing a reckless driver.
(SFC, 6/9/18, p.A6)
2018 Jun 19, Taiwan-based Foxconn Technology Group said it's investing in a $30 million recycling system that will significantly reduce the amount of water drawn from Lake Michigan for its planned manufacturing complex in southeast Wisconsin.
(AP, 6/19/18)
2018 Jun 25, Wisconsin-based Harley-Davidson, up against spiraling costs from tariffs, said it will begin to shift the production of motorcycles headed for Europe from the US to factories overseas.
(AP, 6/25/18)
2018 Jun 5, In Kenosha, Wisconsin, Chrystul Kizer (17) allegedly shot Randall Volar twice in the head, set his home on fire and then stole his luxury vehicle. In 2019 she faced life in prison after admitting to killing the accused pedophile who allegedly abused her and sold her to other men for sex.
(http://tinyurl.com/yx3ehmo5)(ABC News, 12/18/19)
2018 Jul 25, Milwaukee police Officer Michael Michalski (52) was killed during an exchange of gunfire as police searched for a man suspected of drug dealing. The lone suspect was arrested after he rna out of bullets and surrendered.
(SFC, 7/27/18, p.A5)
2018 Sep 19, In Wisconsin a heavily armed man opened fire on co-workers at the WTS Paradigm software company. He wounded three people before being fatally shot by police in Middletown.
(SFC, 9/20/18, p.A5)
2018 Oct 15, In Wisconsin Jake Patterson gunned down James and Denise Closs, dragged away their daughter Jayme Closs (13), and held her under a bed in his remote cabin for 88 days before she made a daring escape. An Amber Alert was issued for Jayme Closs after deputies found her parents dead in Barron. Jayme was found safe on Jan. 10 in the small town of Gordon and suspect In March, 2019, Patterson (21) pleaded guilty to two counts of intentional homicide and one count of kidnapping. On May 24 Patterson was sentenced to life in prison.
(SFC, 10/16/18, p.A6)(SFC, 1/11/19, p.A5)(SFC, 1/15/19, p.A4)(SFC, 5/25/19, p.A6)(AP, 12/20/19)
2018 Nov 3, In Wisconsin three Girl Scouts and an adult were killed while collecting trash on a rural highway. A pickup truck veered off the road and hit them and sped away. Driver Colton Treu (21) of Chippewa Falls surrendered later. Treu was accused of inhaling chemical vapors before the crash and faced homicide charges. On March 11, 2020, Treu was sentenced to 54 years in prison.
(SFC, 11/5/18, p.A5)(SFC, 11/7/18, p.A4)(NBC News, 3/12/20)
2018 Dec 14, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker signed a sweeping package of Republican-written legislation that restricts early voting and weakens the incoming Democratic governor and attormey general.
(SFC, 12/15/18, p.A8)
2018 Dec 23, In Slovenia human remains were found near a popular hiking place at Iski Vintgar gorge. They were later confirmed as those of a Jonathan Luskin of Wisconsin, who was reported missing to Slovenian authorities on July 25.
(AP, 12/29/18)
2019 Jan 17, A US federal judge struck down early-voting restrictions enacted by Wisconsin Republicans in a lame-duck legislative session last year.
(SFC, 1/18/19, p.A5)
2019 Jan 30, US governors in Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin declared emergencies as bitter cold due to a split polar vortex caused temperature drops to as low as minus 57 degrees. More than 2,600 flights to and from regional airports were cancelled.
(SFC, 1/31/19, p.A7)
2019 Jan 30, Taiwan-based Foxconn Technology Group said it is shifting the focus of its planned Wisconsin campus away from blue-collar manufacturing to a research hub, while insisting it remains committed to creating 13,000 jobs as promised.
(AP, 1/30/19)
2019 Mar 21, A Wisconsin circuit court judge blocked Republicans' contentious lame-duck laws limiting the powers of new Democratic Gov. Tom Evers.
(SFC, 3/22/19, p.A5)
2019 Mar 27, In Wisconsin the 3rd District Court of Appeals reinstated laws passed during the 2018 lame-duck legislative session that weaken powers of the Democratic governor and attorney general.
(SFC, 3/28/19, p.A6)
2019 Apr 14, In Wisconsin a boy (17) was arrested after he fatally shot his grandparents in Grand Chute. The teen said he also planned to cause harm at his Neenah High School.
(SFC, 4/16/19, p.A5)
2019 Apr 23, Manuel Franco of West Allis, Wisconsin, stepped forward to claim a $768 million Powerball prize.
(SFC, 4/24/19, p.A5)
2019 Jun 24, Milwaukee Bucks star forward Giannis Antetokounmpo (24) of Greece was named the NBA's Most Valuable Player for the 2018-19 regular season.
(AFP, 6/24/19)
2019 Jul 28, In Wisconsin shootings at two homes left five people dead, including the suspected shooter, and two others injured. Ritchie German Jr. wounded Teng Vang and Mai Chang Vang before taking his own life late today. German shot his way into the Vang home in Lake Hallie after killing his mother, Bridget German (66), his brother, Douglas German (32), and his nephew, Calvin Harris (8), at their home in Lafayette.
(AP, 7/29/19)(AP, 8/1/19)
2019 Jul 30, Authorities who had been searching a Missouri farm for two missing Wisconsin brothers found human remains there, more than a week after the pair disappeared during a trip for their livestock business. The farm was operated by Garland Nelson, who is accused of tampering with a vehicle that authorities say was rented by Nicholas Diemel (35), and his brother, Justin Diemel (24).
(AP, 7/31/19)
2019 Sep 19, In Wisconsin a woman driving with her two children was struck by a bullet and killed during a gun fight in Milwaukee.
(SFC, 9/21/19, p.A5)
2019 Oct 15, A jury in Wisconsin awarded $450,000 to the father of a boy killed in the 2012 Sandy Hook school shooting after he filed a defamation lawsuit against conspiracy theorist writers who claimed the Dec. 14, 2012, massacre in Connecticut never happened. James Fetzer, a retired University of Minnesota Duluth professor now living in Wisconsin, and Mike Palacek co-wrote a book, "Nobody Died at Sandy Hook," in which they claimed the Sandy Hook shooting never took place but was instead an event staged by the federal government as part of an Obama administration effort to enact tighter gun restrictions.
(AP, 10/16/19)
2019 Nov 1, In Wisconsin Clifton Blackwell threw acid on Mahud Villalaz, a Latino man, who suffered 2nd degree burns. In 2020 Blackwell (61) was pronounced competent to stand trial for reckless injury in a hate crime.
(http://tinyurl.com/y6p9wosp)(SFC, 1/7/20, p.A5)
2019 Dec 13, A Wisconsin judge ordered that the registration of up to 234,000 voters be tossed out because they may have moved, a victory for conservatives that could make it more difficult for people to vote next year in the key swing state.
(AP, 12/14/19)
2020 Jan 10, Wisconsin political activist Jeremy Ryan (31), accused of trying to buy a lethal dose of a radioactive substance online, pleaded guilty to one count of receiving a nuclear material. His attorneys said he had cancer and intended to use the material to kill himself.
(AP, 1/10/20)
2020 Jan 14, A Wisconsin appeals court put on hold an order to immediately remove up to 209,000 names from the state's voter registration polls.
(SFC, 1/15/20, p.A5)
2020 Jan 14, President Trump used part of his campaign rally in Milwaukee to defend his decision to authorize an airstrike that killed Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani. Trump has alleged that Soleimani was plotting "imminent attacks" against the US, but has offered no evidence.
(The Week, 1/14/20)
2020 Jan 27, Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers signed an executive order creating what he promised would be a non-partisan commission to draw new legislative maps for next year for the Legislature to consider.
(SFC, 1/28/20, p.A7)
2020 Feb 2, In Wisconsin Black police Officer Joseph Mensah fatally shot Black teenager Alvin Cole (17) outside a suburban Milwaukee mall. In October a prosecutor said the officer would not be charged because he had reasonable belief that deadly force was necessary.
(AP, 10/7/20)
2020 Feb 16, In Wisconsin the bodies of a woman (26) and her two young daughters were found in a Milwaukee garage more than a week after they were reported missing. The bodies were found after police interviewed the woman's boyfriend (25), who had been arrested in Tennessee on a fugitive from justice warrant.
(AP, 2/17/20)
2020 Feb 26, In Wisconsin Anthony Ferril (51), a Molson Coors Beverage Co employee, shot ande killed five co-workers before taking his own life at the company's beer-brewing complex in Milwaukee.
(Reuters, 2/27/20)(SFC, 2/28/20, p.A6)
2020 Mar 10, In Wisconsin Adam Roth of Waukesha stabbed four of his family members, two of them fatally. In December Roth (36) was found not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect in the attack.
(https://tinyurl.com/y8gzsp5k)(AP, 12/15/20)
2020 Mar 23, Governors of Michigan, Massachusetts, West Virginia and Wisconsin implemented stay-at-home policies. Worldwide cases of coronavirus top 372,000 and 16,000 dead.
(Bloomberg, 3/23/20)
2020 Mar 25, Miami, Wisconsin, Vermont joined a growing list of places where residents must stay home. At least 23 states have enacted policies to close nonessential businesses in an effort to slow the spread of novel coronavirus on US soil.
(Good Morning America, 3/25/20)
2020 Mar 29, A major storm moving through the central US brought at least 17 reported tornadoes overnight with eight in Iowa, three in Arkansas, one in Missouri, four in Illinois and one in Wisconsin. In Arkansas six people were hurt in the college town of Jonesboro.
(Good Morning America, 3/29/20)(SFC, 3/30/20, p.A4)
2020 Mar 30, Wisconsin police arrested Sagal Hussein (25). The body of her young son was found in a duffel bag in her car apparently months after he died.
(SFC, 5/2/20, p.A3)
2020 Mar 31, In Wisconsin a jogger found the bodies of Dr. Beth Potter (52) and her husband Rovin Carre (57) near the arboretum of the Univ. of Wisconsin. Suspect Khari Sanford (18) was arrested on April 3. Police soon arrested a 2nd suspect, Ali'jah Larrue (18).
(SFC, 4/7/20, p.A3)
2020 Apr 5, Nine Wisconsin mayors, including those representing the state's five largest cities, urged the state's top public health official to postpone the April 7 primary election due to the coronavirus pandemic.
(Reuters, 4/6/20)(NY Times, 4/7/20)
2020 Apr 6, Wisconsin’s Supreme Court overruled Gov. Tony Evers' (D) last-minute order to stop in-person voting for April 7. The US Supreme Court ruled against an attempt by Wisconsin Democrats to extend the deadline for absentee voting.
(Econ, 4/11/20, p.8)
2020 Apr 7, Wisconsin voters lined up to cast ballots across the state, ignoring a stay-at-home order in the midst of a pandemic to participate in the state's presidential primary election. Voters in the state's Democratic primary endorsed Joe Biden. Voters also elected Democrat Judge Jill Karofsky to the state's Supreme Court.
(AP, 4/7/20)(SFC, 4/15/20, p.A3)
2020 Apr 16, Governors in seven US Midwest states said they will work in close coordination to reopen the economy in their regions. The governors for Michigan, Ohio, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Illinois, Indiana and Kentucky have formed a partnership to work together on restarting the economies in their states, they said in a statement.
(Reuters, 4/17/20)
2020 Apr 21, Milwaukee's top public health officials said that at least seven people appear to have been infected with the COVID-19 coronavirus during activities associated with Wisconsin's April 7 election.
(The Week, 4/22/20)
2020 Apr 24, A rally outside Wisconsin's capitol building in Madison drew hundreds of protesters who demanded Democratic Governor Tony Evers reopen the state even as it reported its largest single day jump of new coronavirus cases.
(Reuters, 4/25/20)
2020 Apr 26, JBS USA announced that the JBS packerland plant in Greenbay, Wisconsin, would be temporarily closed. At least 189 COVID-19 infections had been linked to the plant.
(SFC, 4/28/20, p.A5)
2020 Apr 27, Wisconsin police found five people shot to death inside a Milwaukee home and arrested the man (43) who dialed 911 to report the slayings.
(AP, 4/27/20)
2020 Apr 30, It was reported that the US Fish and Wildlife Service is offering a $1,000 reward for information that leads to the arrest of someone who is poisoning pets and wildlife in northern Wisconsin. Ongoing poisonings in Florence, Forest and Marinette counties have been investigated for about a year. 7 pet dogs have died so far along with coyotes, weasels and wolves.
(AP, 4/30/20)
2020 May 13, The Wisconsin Supreme Court struck down Gov. Tony Evers’ stay-at-home restrictions. The ruling means the state is essentially reopened ahead of the May 26 expiration date of Evers’ order, lifting caps on the size of gatherings, allowing people to travel as they please and allowing shuttered businesses to reopen.
(AP, 5/14/20)
2020 May 31, In Wisconsin hundreds of volunteers gathered early today in downtown Madison to clean up damage from a night of violence that included setting a police squad car on fire, looting and breaking windows at dozens of stores and an art museum. 15 people were arrested after a second night of violence erupted late today in Madison, with police firing tear gas as protesters again threw rocks and damaged store downtown stores following an afternoon peaceful protest over the death of George Floyd.
(AP, 5/31/20)(AP, 6/1/20)
2020 Jun 18, School board members in Wisconsin’s largest school district voted to cut ties with police officers who patrol outside its schools.
(AP, 6/18/20)
2020 Jun 23, Turmoil unfolded late today outside the Wisconsin State Capitol in Madison as protesters allegedly attacked a state senator, smashed windows and toppled two historic statues.
(Good Morning America, 6/24/20)
2020 Jun 24, Wisconsin Gov. Tom Evers activated the National Guard to protect state properties following a night of violence in Madison.
(SFC, 6/25/20, p.A6)
2020 Jul 9, The conservative-controlled Wisconsin Supreme Court upheld Republican-authored lame-duck laws that stripped power from the incoming Democratic attorney general just before he took office in 2019.
(SFC, 7/10/20, p.A8)
2020 Jul 29, The US Justice Department said it would send dozens of law enforcement officers to Cleveland, Milwaukee and Detroit to fight violent crime, expanding the deployment of federal agents to major cities under a program promoted by President Donald Trump.
(Reuters, 7/29/20)
2020 Jul 30, Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers issued a statewide mask mandate amid a spike in coronavirus cases, setting up a conflict with Republican legislative leaders and some conservatives who oppose such a requirement and successfully sued to kill the governor's "safer at home" order.
(AP, 7/30/20)
2020 Aug 10, A rare storm packing 100 mph winds and with power similar to an inland hurricane swept across the Midwest, blowing over trees, flipping vehicles, causing widespread property damage and leaving hundreds of thousands without power as it moved through Chicago and into Indiana and Michigan. The storm known as a derecho lasted several hours as it tore from eastern Nebraska across Iowa and parts of Wisconsin and Illinois. Iowa state's agriculture department later estimated that the severe windstorm destroyed or seriously damaged more than 57 million bushels of commercial grain storage capacity in Iowa and a similar amount on farms.
(AP, 8/10/20)(Reuters, 8/18/20)
2020 Aug 23, In Wisconsin a video posted on social media appeared to show police officers shoot at Jacob Blake (29), a Black man, seven times in the back as he leaned into a vehicle. Protesters soon gathered and marchers headed to the Kenosha County Public Safety Building, which houses the police and county sheriff's departments. Blake had surgery and was paralyzed from the waist down. Video later showed that Blake was armed with a knife. In 2021 federal prosecutors said they would not file charges against Officer Rusten Sheskey.
(AP, 8/24/20)(Insider, 8/24/20)(SSFC, 10/10/21, p.A13)
2020 Aug 24, In Wisconsin police officers deployed tear gas early today to disperse hundreds of people who took to the streets following a police shooting in Kenosha that also drew a harsh rebuke from the governor after a video posted on social media appeared to show officers shoot at Jacob Blake, a Black man, seven times in the back as he leaned into a vehicle. Protesters set several Kenosha businesses on fire early this morning. The father of Jacob Blake says his son was left paralyzed from the waist down. Wisconsin's governor called out the National Guard.
(AP, 8/24/20)(NY Times, 8/25/20)(AP, 8/25/20)(Reuters, 8/25/20)
2020 Aug 25, In Wisconsin two people were killed and another was injured late today as shots were fired during a third night of protests in Kenosha over the shooting of Jacob Blake. Gov. Tony Evers (D) declared a state of emergency.
(AP, 8/26/20)
2020 Aug 26, Wisconsin authorities arrested Kyle Rittenhouse, a 17-year-old white Illinois resident, and charged him with first-degree intentional homicide in the shooting of two protesters on August 25. Police said Rittenhouse shot three people, killing two and injuring one.
(Yahoo News, 8/27/20)
2020 Aug 28, Mark Zuckerberg said Facebook should have taken down the page and event listing promoting a militia group that called for armed citizens to defend Kenosha, Wisconsin, amid ongoing protests there. The event, titled: "Armed Citizens to Protect Our Lives and Property," and the page, "Kenosha Guard," were removed after two people were killed in a shooting there on August 25.
(Business Insider, 8/28/20)
2020 Aug 29, In Wisconsin family members of Jacob Blake, a Black man who was paralyzed after a Kenosha police officer shot him in the back, led a march and rally to call for an end to police violence. A crowd of about 1,000 demonstrators gathered outside a courthouse in Kenosha to denounce police violence and share messages of change.
(AP, 8/29/20)
2020 Aug 30, Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers (D) urged President Trump to "reconsider" his plan to visit the city of Kenosha as protests continue over the shooting of Jacob Blake, a Black man, by a white police officer.
(The Week, 8/31/20)
2020 Sep 1, Pres. Trump traveled to Kenosha, Wis., to offer support for law enforcement and to tour shops damaged by rioting. During the visit, Trump did not mention the name of Jacob Blake, an unarmed Black man shot by the police last week, nor did the president speak with his family.
(NY Times, 9/2/20)
2020 Sep 16, Hmong American Ee Lee (36) was found brutally beaten in Washington Park, Milwaukee. Lee died three days later. A group of five to seven people were caught on film at the location where the struggle happened. Other cameras captured two groups of people — totaling 11 individuals — leaving the park on bicycles after the attack.
(NextShark, 1/14/20)
2020 Sep 17, US President Donald Trump announced a new round of pandemic assistance to farmers of about $13 billion at a campaign rally in Wisconsin late today, delivering aid to an important sector in a crucial battleground state.
(Reuters, 9/17/20)
2020 Sep 22, Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers declared a new public health emergency and extended a face mask mandate into November to fight a coronavirus flareup in his state, as the number of people who have died across the United States since the pandemic began passed 200,000.
(Reuters, 9/23/20)
2020 Sep 25, Wisconsin, one of the states where coronavirus cases are rising the fastest, reported 2,629 new infections, surpassing its previous record set a week earlier.
(Reuters, 9/25/20)
2020 Sep 26, Minnesota, Montana, South Dakota, and Wisconsin all reported record one-day increases in coronavirus cases, as COVID-19 infections continued to surge in the Midwest and rose nationally for the second straight week.
(The Week, 9/27/20)
2020 Sep 27, A federal appeals court temporarily blocked a six-day extension for counting absentee ballots in the battleground state of Wisconsin ordered by a lower court to accommodate an expected historic surge in voting by mail due to the coronavirus crisis. For now ballots are due by 8 p.m. on Election Day, a provisional win for Republicans and President Trump. On Sept. 29 the appeals court upheld the six-day extension.
(The Week, 9/28/20)(SFC, 9/30/20, p.A4)
2020 Sep 30, In Wisconsin a record number of people with COVID-19 were hospitalized. Of those 737 patients, 205 were in intensive care, with spikes in cases in northern parts of the state driving up the numbers. The state also reported its highest single-day number of deaths — 27 — raising the toll to 1,327.
(AP, 9/30/20)
2020 Oct 1, Wisconsin registered a record increase in new COVID-19 cases. Governor Tony Evers issued an emergency order easing licensing rules in a bid to bolster the number of healthcare workers able to deal with the mounting crisis.
(Reuters, 10/2/20)
2020 Oct 2, Wisconsin Republicans, who control the Legislature, filed a court motion in support of a lawsuit seeking to repeal a mask mandate under Gov. Tony Evers, a Democrat.
(AP, 10/3/20)
2020 Oct 8, A US federal appeals court blocked a decision in Wisconsin to extend the deadline for counting as many as 2 million absentee ballots by six days.
(SFC, 10/9/20, p.A5)
2020 Oct 19, A Wisconsin judge reimposed an order from Gov. Tony Evers’ administration limiting the number of people who can gather in bars, restaurants and other indoor venues to 25% of capacity.
(AP, 10/19/20)
2020 Oct 22, Hackers reportedly stole $2.3 million from the Wisconsin Republican Party's account that was being used to help reelect President Donald Trump in the key battleground state. The attack began as a phishing attempt and no data appeared to have been stolen.
(AP, 10/29/20)
2020 Oct 26, The US Supreme Court refused to revive a trial court ruling that would have extended Wisconsin’s deadline for receiving absentee ballots to six days after the election. The vote was 5 to 3, with the court’s more conservative justices in the majority.
(NY Times, 10/27/20)
2020 Oct 30, Kyle Rittenhouse, the 17-year-old Illinois resident charged in the shooting death of two protesters, was extradited in Wisconsin where the crimes took place.
(SFC, 10/31/20, p.A4)
2020 Nov 6, It was reported that more than 14,000 farmed minks have died in recent weeks in Utah and Wisconsin after contracting COVID-19.
(SFC, 11/6/20, p.A7)
2020 Nov 6, Wisconsin police arrested Nathanael Benton (23), suspected of shooting two police officers earlier in the day in Waukesha County. Benton was also wanted in Fargo, North Dakota, for attempted murder.
(SFC, 11/7/20, p.A4)
2020 Nov 18, President Donald Trump's campaign said it has paid $3 million for a recount of two heavily Democratic Wisconsin counties, saying that they were the sight of the “worst irregularities" although no evidence of wrongdoing has been presented and state elections officials have said there was none.
(AP, 11/18/20)
2020 Nov 20, Kyle Rittenhouse, the teenager charged with fatally shooting two men and wounding a third at a demonstration in Kenosha, Wisconsin, was released on a $2 million bond.
(Reuters, 11/20/20)
2020 Nov 21, Election officials in Wisconsin’s largest county accused observers for President Donald Trump of seeking to obstruct a recount of the presidential results, in some instances by objecting to every ballot tabulators pulled to count.
(AP, 11/21/20)
2020 Nov 27, President-elect Joe Biden picked up 257 votes in Wisconsin's Milwaukee County after the Trump campaign demanded a recount there. President Trump also picked up 125 votes, giving Biden a net gain of 132.
(The Week, 11/28/20)
2020 Nov 30, Arizona and Wisconsin certified their presidential election results in favor of Joe Biden, even as President Donald Trump's legal team continued to dispute the results.
(AP, 11/30/20)
2020 Dec 1, The Trump campaign said it filed a petition challenging Wisconsin's results in the 2020 presidential election with the state's Supreme Court.
(Reuters, 12/1/20)
2020 Dec 4, Courts in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, and Wisconsin ruled against President Trump and his allies in several lawsuits seeking to overturn the results of the presidential election.
(The Week, 12/5/20)
2020 Dec 8, A Wisconsin fighter pilot died after a plane crashed during a training flight in Michigan's Upper Peninsula.
(SFC, 12/11/20, p.A6)
2020 Dec 14, Wisconsin Republicans met at the state Capitol, the same day as 10 Democratic electors awarded their votes to Biden, who carried the battleground state by just under 21,000 votes. They forwarded their votes for Trump to the National Archives, arguing that they were trying to preserve Trump's legal options in case a court overturned Biden's win.
(AP, 6/21/22)
2020 Dec 29, President Donald Trump's campaign asked the US Supreme Court to take its failed lawsuit challenging election results in swing state Wisconsin. Trump lost the state to Democrat Joe Biden by about 21,000 votes.
(AP, 12/29/20)
2020 Dec 30, In Wisconsin the Aurora Medical System said that 500 doses of a coronavirus vaccine, that had to be discarded after they were left unrefrigerated, appeared to have been deliberately spoiled by an employee. Licensed pharmacist Steven Brandenburg was arrested the next day on suspicion of sabotaging more than 500 doses of the vaccine. Brandenburg later said he believed the shots would mutate people's DNA. In 2021 Brandenburg was sentenced to three years in prison.
(SFC, 12/31/20, p.A3)(SFC, 1/6/21, p.A5)(SFC, 6/10/21, p.A5)
2021 Jan 5, A Wisconsin prosecutor said that police officers involved in the Aug. 23 Kenosha, Wisconsin, shooting that left Jacob Blake paralyzed will not face charges.
(AP, 1/5/21)
2021 Feb 4, Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers issued a new statewide mask order, an hour after the Republican controlled Legislature voted to repeal his previous mandate.
(SFC, 2/5/21, p.A6)
2021 Feb 4, Dezman Ellis (17) was arrested in Des Moines, Iowa, for the Jan. 31 fatal shooting at a shopping mall in Wisconsin. Ellis was extradited to Wisconsin the next day.
(AP, 2/6/21)
2021 Mar 31, The Wisconsin Supreme Court struck down Gov. Tony Evers' statewide mask mandate ruling 4-3 that he had exceeded his authority.
(SFC, 4/11/21, p.A8)
2021 Apr 14, The Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled that the administration of Gov. Tony Evers does not have the authority to issue capacity limits on bars, restaurants and other businesses without the approval of the Legislature.
(SFC, 4/15/21, p.A4)
2021 Apr 18, In Wisconsin a suspect reportedly was asked to leave a bar in Kenosha and returned with a gun, firing shots inside and outside the tavern, killing three people. A suspect was soon arrested.
(AP, 4/19/21)
2021 Apr 19, Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers and Taiwan-based Foxconn Technology Group, the world's largest electronics maker, announced a new deal with reduced tax breaks for a scaled back manufacturing facility.
(AP, 4/19/21)
2021 May 1, In Wisconsin Bruce Pofahl (62) opened fire at a restaurant in the Oneida Casino in Green Bay killing two people and wounding another. Police respponding to the scene fatally shot Pofahl, who had been fired from the restaurant.
(SFC, 5/3/21, p.A6)(SFC, 5/4/21, p.A3)
2021 Jun 20, Richard A. Balsimo (34) of St. Paul, was reported missing by his family. On Aug. 16 Jacob C. Johnson (35) of Superior, Wis., was charged in Cook County District Court with second-degree intentional murder in connection with the death of Balsimo. Johnson was charged with firing the gunshots that killed Balsimo, whose body was then dismembered and dropped into the waters of Lake Superior off the northernmost reaches of Minnesota's shoreline.
(Minneapolis Star Tribune, 8/17/21)
2021 Jul 5, University of Wisconsin scientists said as many as one-third of the state's gray wolves likely died at the hands of humans in the months after the federal government in January announced it was ending legal protections.
(AP, 7/5/21)
2021 Jul 9, The Wisconsin diocese of La Crosse said Bishop William Patrick Callahan has removed Rev. James Altman as pastor of St. James the Less for a series of divisive remarks about politics and the pandemic. Altman has said Catholics cannot be Democrats and has criticized COVID-19 vaccination efforts as "Nazi-esque controls'.
(SSFC, 7/11/21, p.A10)
2021 Jul 20, The Milwaukee Bucks beat the Phoenix Suns to win their first NBA championship in 50 years.
(NY Times, 7/21/21)
2021 Jul 31, Wisconsin elections officials deactivated 174,307 voter registrations because the voters hadn't cast a ballot in four years and didn't respond to a mailing.
(AP, 8/4/21)
2021 Aug 1, In Wisconsin the annual, week-long EAA AirVenture jamboree wrapped up in Oshkosh with a record attendance. It was reported that United Airlines plans to hire 350 pilots this year, 1,500 by 2022 and 3,000 by 2023.
(Reuters, 8/1/21)
2021 Aug 10, Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers vetoed six voting restriction bills passed by the state's Republican-controlled legislature, blocking the latest Republican effort to limit access to the polls in a politically divided state.
(Reuters, 8/10/21)
2021 Aug 11, The state of Wisconsin authorized the killing of 300 wolves as part of a hunt this fall, far exceeding the recommendations of its own biologists for the once-protected species and drawing criticism from conservationists.
(NY Times, 8/12/21)
2021 Aug 16, It was reported that Cardinal Raymond Burke, one of the Catholic Church's most outspoken conservatives and a vaccine skeptic, has COVID-19 and his staff said he is breathing through a ventilator in Wisconsin.
(AP, 8/16/21)
2021 Aug 20, Wisconsin began a $100 incentive for more people to get vaccinated. Gov. Tony Evers later extended the offer, due to end until Sept. 6., until Sept. 19.
(SSFC, 9/5/21, p.A6)
2021 Nov 19, A Wisconsin jury acquitted teenager Kyle Rittenhouse (18) of murder in the fatal shooting of two men during racial justice protests marred by arson, rioting and looting on Aug. 25, 2020 in Kenosha. The decision that re-ignited fierce debate about gun rights and the boundaries of self defense in the United States.
(Reuters, 11/19/21)
2021 Nov 21, In Wisconsin at least five people were killed and 40 others wounded after a car plowed into a holiday parade in Waukesha, a Milwaukee suburb. One person was in custody. Darrell Edward Brooks Jr (39) was taken into custody after a red Ford Escape SUV drove into the parade. Days later a boy (8) became the 6th victim.
(NY Times, 11/22/21)(The Independent, 11/22/21)(NY Times, 11/23/21)
2022 Jan 23, In Wisconsin five people were found dead from gunshot wounds in a Milwaukee home in a case that left police without a suspect and pleading for help from the public. A 6th body was found the next day.
(Reuters, 1/23/22)(AP, 1/24/22)
2022 Mar 23, The US Supreme Court allowed the use of a map configuring Wisconsin's congressional districts for this year's elections drawn by Democratic Governor Tony Evers, giving a boost to efforts by President Joe Biden's party to retain control of the US House of Representatives.
(Reuters, 3/23/22)
2022 May 13, In Wisconsin three separate shootings in downtown Milwaukee left 21 people injured. The shootings occurred near an entertainment district where thousands of fans had been watching as the Bucks lost Game Six of the Eastern Conference Basketball semi-finals.
(Reuters, 5/14/22)
2022 Jun 14, Joel Whitburn, music historian, died at home in Menomonee Falls. Wis. He published hundreds of books crusial to DJs, publicists and chart nerds.
(SSFC, 6/26/22, p.F8)
2022 Jul 8, A divided Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled 4-3 that the use of ballot drop boxes, which increased substantially across the country during the COVID-19 pandemic, is illegal under state law. Justice Rebecca Bradley said state law does not permit drop boxes anywhere other than election clerk offices and only state lawmakers may make new policy stating otherwise — not the Wisconsin Elections Commission, which issued guidance to clerks allowing them.
(Reuters, 7/8/22)(https://tinyurl.com/jvwkunxd)
2022 Aug 9, Voters in Connecticut, Minnesota, Vermont and Wisconsin picked candidates for the US Congress and other offices in primaries.
(Reuters, 8/9/22)
2022 Aug 9, In Wisconsin Republican construction magnate and abortion foe Tim Michels won a primary election will face Democratic Governor Tony Evers.
(Reuters, 8/9/22)
2022 Aug 29, Foreign Minister Melanie Joly said Canada has invoked a 1977 pipeline treaty with the United States for the second time in less than a year, in this case to prevent a shutdown of Enbridge Inc's Line 5 pipeline in Wisconsin.
(Reuters, 8/29/22)
2022 Oct 21, In Wisconsin six people were confirmed dead in a predawn apartment fire in suburban Milwaukee. Authorities opened a criminal investigation for any clues that the blaze may have been deliberately set.
(Reuters, 10/21/22)
2022 Oct 26, Darrell Brooks (40) of Wisconsin was found guilty of murder and other charges for killing six people and injuring dozens of others when he drove his SUV into a Christmas parade near Milwaukee last year.
(Reuters, 10/26/22)
2022 Nov 8, Democrat Tony Evers was re-elected as Wisconsin governor, defeating Republican Tim Michels.
(Bloomberg, 11/9/22)
2022 Nov 9, CNN and NBC projected that GOP Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin has won a third term, defeating Democrat Mandela Barnes and handing Republicans a chance to take control of the 50-50 Senate.
(Bloomberg, 11/9/22)
2022 Nov 16, Darrell Brooks (40) of Wisconsin, convicted of killing six people and injuring dozens more when he drove through a Christmas parade near Milwaukee last year, was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
(Reuters, 11/16/22)
Go to http://www.timelinesdb.com
Subject = Wisconsin
End of file.
