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Portal:Michigan

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The Michigan Portal

The flag of Michigan
Location of Michigan within the United States

Michigan (/ˈmɪʃɪɡən/ MISH-ig-ən) is a state in the Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest region of the United States. It borders Wisconsin to the northwest in the Upper Peninsula, and Indiana and Ohio to the south in the Lower Peninsula; it is also connected by Lakes Superior, Michigan, Huron, and Erie to Minnesota and Illinois, and the Canadian province of Ontario. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of 96,716 sq mi (250,490 km2), Michigan is the 10th-largest state by population, the 11th-largest by area, and the largest by area east of the Mississippi River. Its capital is Lansing, and its largest city is Detroit. Metro Detroit is among the nation's most populous and largest metropolitan economies. The name derives from a gallicized variant of the original Ojibwe word ᒥᓯᑲᒥ (mishigami), meaning "large water" or "large lake".

Michigan consists of two peninsulas. The Lower Peninsula resembles the shape of a mitten, and comprises a majority of the state's land area. The Upper Peninsula (often called "the U.P.") is separated from the Lower Peninsula by the Straits of Mackinac, a five-mile (8 km) channel that joins Lake Huron to Lake Michigan. The Mackinac Bridge connects the peninsulas. Michigan has the longest freshwater coastline of any political subdivision in the United States, being bordered by four of the five Great Lakes and Lake St. Clair. It also has 64,980 inland lakes and ponds. Michigan has the second-most water area of any state, behind only Alaska.

The area was first occupied by a succession of Native American tribes over thousands of years. In the 17th century, French explorers claimed it as part of the New France colony, when it was largely inhabited by Indigenous peoples. French and Canadian traders and settlers, Métis, and others migrated to the area, settling largely along the waterways. After France's defeat in the French and Indian War in 1762, the region came under British rule. Britain ceded the territory to the newly independent United States after its defeat in the American Revolutionary War. The area was part of the larger Northwest Territory until 1800, when western Michigan became part of the Indiana Territory. Michigan Territory was formed in 1805, but some of the northern border with Canada was not agreed upon until after the War of 1812. Michigan was admitted into the Union in 1837 as the 26th state, a free one. It soon became an important center of industry and trade in the Great Lakes region, attracting immigrants in the late 19th and early 20th centuries from many European countries. Immigrants from Finland, Macedonia, and the Netherlands were especially numerous. Migration from Appalachia and of Black Southerners as part of the Great Migration increased in the 1930s, with many settling in Metro Detroit.

Although Michigan has developed a diverse economy, in the early 20th century it became widely known as the center of the U.S. automotive industry, which developed as a major national economic force. It is home to the country's three major automobile companies (whose headquarters are all in Metro Detroit). Once exploited for logging and mining, today the sparsely populated Upper Peninsula is important for tourism because of its abundance of natural resources. The Lower Peninsula is a center of manufacturing, forestry, agriculture, services, and high-tech industry. (Full article...)

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The Duke–Michigan men's basketball rivalry is a college basketball rivalry between the Duke Blue Devils men's basketball team of Duke University and Michigan Wolverines men's basketball team of the University of Michigan. The two teams played annual, regularly scheduled contests between 1963 and 1970 and between 1989 and 2002. They also scheduled meetings in 2007 and 2008 and had a 2013 ACC–Big Ten Challenge contest as the most recent meeting. In addition, the teams have had five unscheduled meetings in tournaments, three of which were in the NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament including the 1992 National Championship Game. Two of the five tournament meetings occurred in 2011.

In March 2011, the rivalry was refueled by media commentary related to the ESPN Films documentary entitled The Fab Five. The latest meeting between the teams occurred in the 2013 ACC–Big Ten Challenge, a game on December 3, which Duke won, 79–69. (Full article...)
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The Soldiers and Sailors Monument in Campus Martius
The Soldiers and Sailors Monument in Campus Martius
Credit: Mikerussell

Campus Martius Park is a re-established park in downtown Detroit, Michigan. After the fire of 1805, Campus Martius (from the Latin for Field of Mars, where Roman heroes walked) was the focal point of judge Augustus Woodward's plans to rebuild the city.

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The 1890 Michigan Wolverines football team was an American football team that represented the University of Michigan in the 1890 college football season. The team compiled a 4–1 record and outscored its opponents by a combined score of 129 to 36. The team's sole loss was to Cornell in the final game of the season.

The team had no coach, and its captain was William C. Malley. George P. Codd, who later served as the Mayor of Detroit and in the United States Congress, was the team's manager. George Jewett, who played at the fullback and halfback positions, was the team's leading scorer with 50 points on 11 touchdowns (four points each) and three kicks for goal from touchdown (two points each). Jewett was also the first African American to play football at Michigan. (Full article...)
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Morris for the Michigan Wolverines in 2010

Darius Aaron Morris (January 3, 1991 – May 2, 2024) was an American professional basketball player. Morris was selected as the 41st pick in the 2011 NBA draft by the Los Angeles Lakers and played the point guard position. He also played for the Brooklyn Nets, Philadelphia 76ers, Los Angeles Clippers and Memphis Grizzlies of the NBA as well as the Los Angeles D-Fenders and Rio Grande Valley Vipers of the NBA D-League. He also played overseas in China, Russia and France.

Morris spent two seasons playing college basketball with the Michigan Wolverines. While playing for the 2010–11 team, he was the Big Ten assists leader and set the Michigan single-season assist record (since broken by Trey Burke). He earned third team All-Big Ten honors his sophomore season. (Full article...)

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