In 2010, Delaware had the largest percentage of students attending private schools of places within the United States. As of 2011update, the Delaware Department of Education had authorized the founding of 25 charter schools in the state, one of them being all-girls. Delaware was the origin of Belton v. Gebhart (1952), one of the four cases which were combined into Brown v. Board of Education, the Supreme Court of the United States decision that led to the end of officially segregated public schools. At the time, state law prohibited money raised from white taxpayers from being used to support the state’s schools for black children.
Army Corps of Engineers, and the Delaware Memorial Bridge, which is under the bi-state Delaware River and Bay Authority. Delaware has about 875 bridges, 95 percent of which are under the supervision of DelDOT. DE 404 is another primary east–west highway connecting the Chesapeake Bay Bridge in Maryland with the Delaware beaches. There are also several state highways that cross the state of Delaware; a few of them include DE 1, DE 9, and DE 404. Interstate 295 (I-295) is a bypass of Philadelphia which begins south of Wilmington.
- The Delaware General Assembly consists of a House of Representatives with 41 members and a Senate with 21 members.
- Generally, those who did not relocate out of the state of Delaware were baptized, became Christian and were grouped together with other persons of color in official records and in the minds of their non-Native American neighbors.citation needed
- The dominant factor in Delaware’s political shift has been the strong Democratic trend in heavily urbanized New Castle County, home to 55% of Delaware’s population.
- The Delmarva Central Railroad connects with the Maryland and Delaware Railroad, which serves local customers in Sussex County.
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Other general aviation airports in Delaware include Summit Airport near Middletown, Delaware Airpark near Cheswold, and Delaware Coastal Airport near Georgetown. Atlantic City International Airport (ACY), Newark Liberty International Airport (EWR), and Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport (DCA) are also within a 100-mile (160 km) radius of New Castle County. Therefore, Delaware commercial airline passengers most frequently use Philadelphia International Airport (PHL), Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport (BWI) and Washington Dulles International Airport (IAD) for domestic and international transit. Delaware is centrally situated in the Northeast megalopolis region of cities along I-95.
- So does the Pocomoke River, which drains the Cypress Swamp, or so-called “Burnt Swamp,” in the extreme south of Delaware, athwart the Maryland line.
- The fourth grade students at Joseph M. McVey Elementary School, as part of teacher Paul Sedacca’s lessons on persuasive writing, suggested that the grey fox be designated as Delaware’s official state wildlife animal.
- The rest of the state comprises the northeastern corner of the Delmarva Peninsula, which Delaware shares with Maryland and Virginia (hence its name).
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Delaware officially ratified the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments on February 12, 1901, decades after they had already come into force. While most Delaware citizens who fought in the war served in the regiments of the state, some served in companies on the Confederate side in Maryland and Virginia Regiments. Delaware voted against secession on January 3, 1861, and so remained in the Union.
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In 2020, Delaware native (and Barack Obama’s former vice president and running mate) Joe Biden headed the Democratic ticket; he carried his home state by just shy of 19% en route to a national 4.5% win. Delaware’s bellwether status came to an end when Delaware voted for Al Gore in 2000 by 13%. During the second half of the 20th century, Delaware was a bellwether state, voting for the winner of every presidential election from 1952 through 1996. After a relatively brief adherence to the Democratic Solid South following the US Civil War, Delaware became a Republican-leaning state from 1896 through 1948, voting for losing Republicans Charles Evans Hughes in 1916, Herbert Hoover in 1932, and Thomas Dewey in 1948.
Constitution, and Delaware was the first state to ratify it on December 7, 1787. The state contributed troops, including the Delaware Regiment and the “Blue Hen Chicks,” but saw only one Revolutionary War battle in 1777, at the Battle of Cooch’s Bridge. Delaware’s location along the Atlantic coast made it a strategic asset for trade and military operations during the war. The war ended with Dutch control, but the English seized the territory in 1664, incorporating it into the English colony of New York.
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Business and occupational license tax rates range from 0.096% to 1.92%, depending on the category of business activity. The state does, however, impose a tax on the gross receipts of most businesses. In 2011 Delaware passed legislation placing a 15 business day time limit on addressing freedom-of-information requests, to either what is the traditional produce information or an explanation of why such information would take longer than this time to produce. In a 2020 study, Delaware was ranked as the 18th hardest state for citizens to vote in.
The proportion of blacks constituting the city’s population rose from 15% in 1950 to over 50% by 1980. Delaware suffered less during the Great Depression than other states, but the depression spurred further migration from the rural south to urban areas. Additionally, the company invested heavily in the expansion of public schools in the state and colleges such as the University of Delaware in the 1910s and 1920s.
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As Delaware has no franchises in the major American professional sports leagues, many Delawareans follow either Philadelphia or Baltimore teams. In June 2018, Delaware became the first U.S. state to legalize sports betting following the Supreme Court ruling to overturn the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act of 1992 (PASPA). For instance, the casino at Delaware Park Racetrack provided more than $100 million to the state in 2010.
Because of Wilmington’s growth, local politicians from the city and New Castle County pressured the state government to adopt a new constitution providing the north with more representation. Delaware’s segregation was written into the state constitution, which, while providing at Article X, Section 2, that “no distinction shall be made on account of race or color”, nonetheless required that “separate schools for white and colored children shall be maintained.” Many colonial settlers came to Delaware from Maryland and Virginia, where the population had been increasing rapidly. The British remained in control of the Delaware River for much of the rest of the war, disrupting commerce and providing encouragement to an active Loyalist portion of the population, particularly in Sussex County.
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The minimum tax is $175.00, for corporations using the Authorized Shares method and a minimum tax of $400.00 for corporations using the Assumed Par Value Capital Method. Delaware’s Governor State Directory Elected Officials General Assembly Delaware Courts State Employees Cities & Towns Delaware State Code State Regulations Phone Directory Twelve-year-old Amy Nerlinger of Wilmington named the star through a contest sponsored by the Delaware Museum of Natural History in the summer of 1999. Delaware was the country’s leading producer of peaches for part of the nineteenth century, at its peak, shipping 6 million baskets to market in 1875.
Although “USA (Delaware)” ranked as the world’s most opaque jurisdiction on the Tax Justice Network’s 2009 Financial Secrecy Index, the same group’s 2011 Index ranks the U.S. fifth and does not specify Delaware. More than half of all U.S. publicly traded companies, and 63% of the Fortune 500, are incorporated in Delaware. In late 2015, DuPont announced that 1,700 employees, nearly a third of its footprint in Delaware, would be laid off in early 2016. Delaware’s agricultural output consists of poultry, nursery stock, soybeans, dairy products and corn. According to a 2020 study by Kiplinger, Delaware had the 17th most millionaires per capita in the United States; altogether, there were 25,937 such individuals.
Delaware has had a foreign sister state in Japan, named Miyagi Prefecture. Delaware is represented in rugby by the Delaware Black Foxes, a 2015 expansion club. The University of Delaware’s football team has a large following throughout the state, with the Delaware State University and Wesley College teams also enjoying a smaller degree of support. In the WNBA, the Washington Mystics enjoy a major retirement income following due to the presence of Wilmington native and University of Delaware product Elena Delle Donne.
Delaware is subdivided into three counties; from north to south they are New Castle, Kent and Sussex. Winters are modestly cool to cold in northern Delaware, and cool to mild in southern Delaware. Moderated by the Atlantic Ocean and Delaware Bay, the southern portion of the state has a milder climate and a longer growing season than the northern portion of the state. Despite its small size (roughly 100 miles (160 km) from its northernmost to southernmost points), there is significant variation in mean temperature and amount of snowfall between Sussex County and New Castle County. However, the subsequent 1897 constitution did not proportionally represent the north and continued to give the southern counties disproportionate influence. Delaware is bordered by the state of Maryland in the west and south; by Pennsylvania in the north, and by New Jersey in the east.
At the 2014 Pew Research survey, 23% of the population were irreligious; the 2020 Public Religion Research Institute’s survey determined 31% of the population were irreligious. A 2012 survey of religious attitudes in the United States found that 34% of Delaware residents considered themselves “moderately religious”, 33% “very religious”, and 33% as “non-religious”. Delaware is home to an Amish community which resides west of Dover in Kent County, consisting of nine church districts and about 1,650 people. Reflecting new immigrant populations, an Islamic mosque has been built in the Ogletown area, and a Hindu temple in Hockessin.
Two Class I railroads, Norfolk Southern and CSX, provide freight rail service in northern New Castle County. The Northeast Corridor is also served by SEPTA’s Wilmington/Newark Line, part of SEPTA Regional Rail, which serves Claymont, Wilmington, Churchmans Crossing, and Newark. Amtrak has two stations in Delaware along the Northeast Corridor; the relatively quiet Newark Rail Station in Newark, and the busier Wilmington Station in Wilmington. Among these roads, Sussex (county road) 236 is among the most problematic.
A symbol of New Castle County’s ship building industry and Delaware’s extensive coastal commerce Adapted from the Sussex County seal and signifies the agricultural vitality of Delaware It also bears the inscription around it “Great Seal of the State of Delaware” and the dates 1704, 1776 and 1787. Because of this action, Delaware became the first state in the Union, and is, therefore, accorded the first position in such national events as presidential inaugurations.
According to HUD’s 2022 Annual Homeless Assessment Report, there were an estimated 2,369 homeless people in Delaware. Wilmington is the state’s most populous city (70,635) and its economic hub. Trap Pond State Park, along with areas in other parts of Sussex County, for example, support the northernmost stands of bald components of asset cost cypress trees in North America. In the northern third of the state are found Northeastern coastal forests and mixed oak forests typical of the northeastern United States. The transitional climate of Delaware supports a wide variety of vegetation.