Recent archaeological discoveries suggest the presence of human life in the area about 10,000 years ago. However, it is believed that among the first groups to explore New Hampshire were the Norsemen, or Vikings, between 985 and 1004 AD. Some believe that settlements had already been started by this time in Portsmouth and Hampton. However, very little recorded history exists from this time period. Along with other initial settlers of the state were four Algonquian-speaking native groups: the Pennacooks, the Sokokis, the Pigwackets, and the Pocumtucks. At the time of the first English settlements in 1623, there probably were about 4,000 Indians within the state. 

    There were many sightings of New Hampshire in the 1500s. Giovanni de Verrazano sighted the White Mountains in 1508. Englishman David Ingram, who explored New Hampshire in 1578, wrote an account of his visit to the mountain region. The first actual visit to New Hampshire was in 1603, when Martin Pring, an English sea captain, sailed up the Piscataqua River with the ships D iscoverer and Speedwell. Other explorers followed. Two years later, Samuel de Champlain sailed the Piscataqua Bay, landing in the modern-day town of Rye. Captain John Smith, after sailing up the same river in 1614, sent descriptions of the new area to Prince Charles, who named the area New England.

    Settlements soon developed throughout the state. David Thompson gained a grant for 6,000 acres from the Council for New England. The next year, the first permanent European settlement was formed on Odiorne’s Point in Rye. Dover was was founded the same year, and a town government and church were organized. In 1626, John Mason claimed an area which he named Strawberry Banke, later known as Portsmouth. In 1629 the original proprietors of the whole area between the Merrimack and Kennebec rivers, Sir Ferdinando Gorges and Captain John Mason, divided the area between them, Mason taking the area south of the Piscataqua. On November 9, 1629, John Mason named the entire area New Hampshire, after the English county of Hampshire. (Some sources claim that the name was actually given by Captain Smith.) The town of Exeter was founded by John Wheelwright in 1638. Later that year, a minister named Stephen Bachiler formed a fourth settlement (Hampton) which he named Winnacunet. These towns were considered a part of Massachusetts at the time.

    There were many firsts that followed soon in the history of New Hampshire. In 1642, the first New England educational act was passed. The first public school in the colony was established in 1647. Darby Fields was the first to climb Mount Washington that year. New Hampshire was growing steadily, with the founding of a plantation called Penny Cook in 1659. But trouble stood in the way of colonists, who were forced to abandon the area when King Philip’s war broke out in 1675. Durham suffered the first attack. Attacks and troubled relations with both the French and Indians continued for almost another century. 

    In 1679, New Hampshire made a giant leap towards independence, when it became recognized as a separate province from Massachusetts. Portsmouth was declared the capital and the state government consisted of a president and a council of six men. But conflict still plagued the state. In 1689, Dover was destroyed by Indians. Durham suffered a similar fate in July 1694 when over one hundred people were killed and all of the buildings were burned. At this point, in 1697, New Hampshire was briefly reunited with Massachusetts, sharing the same governors until 1741. 

    Indian conflicts carried through the next century, coming to a head during Captain Lovewell’s War. Lovewell gathered a group of forty-six men and, between the years 1722 and 1725, attempted to rid the state of its Indian settlers, but thirty-two died. In spite of the clashes it faced, New Hampshire continued to grow. Londonderry was established in 1719 by Scotch-Irish Presbyterian pastor Reverend McGregor and his congregation. This group started the linen-weaving industry, which grew and brought many people to the Merrimack Valley. From this sprung Windham, Derry, and Chester and the textile industry within the state. Manchester was settled in 1722 and Concord in 1727. Thirty-eight towns were chartered by 1732. 

    The next few decades were years of positive growth for New Hampshire. Another step in separation from Massachusetts occurred in 1741 (or 1740, depending on the source), when the official boundary between the states was settled. Benning Wentworth was soon appointed governor of New Hampshire. The first newspaper, the New Hampshire Gazette, was published in 1756. (It printed until 1961, the longest running paper in U.S. history.) By 1760, Indian wars had ended. The next year, the first regular stagecoach run in America began in New Hampshire. Forty-eight more towns had been chartered by 1775. A dispute with New York over the area west of the Connecticut River, the so-called New Hampshire Grants (present-day Vermont), was temporarily resolved in 1764. Benning Wentworth was succeeded (1767) by his nephew, John Wentworth. 

    In the one of the first hostile act of the American Revolution, an armed mob stormed Fort William and Mary in Portsmouth Harbor in December 1774, seized arms and powder, and distributed them among several inland towns. Wentworth fled the province on a British warship in June 1775. The following year New Hampshire adopted its own constitution and was, therefore, the first colony to become completely independent of Great Britain. In 1778, thirty-five towns of New Hampshire attempted to join the independent Republic of Vermont. However, the union never received official recognition, and it did not last long. In 1788, New Hampshire became the ninth state to ratify the U.S. Constitution, the deciding vote.

    As the thrills and horrors of the Revolutionary War subsided, all of the states, including New Hampshire, began to renew itself stronger than ever before. Luke Brooks and Francis Whitcomb made an important discovery one day in 1805 while surveying a road in Franconia Notch. While resting, they noticed the profile of a human’s head, seemingly carved into the mountain ledges. They became the first Europeans to sight New Hampshire’s most famous landmark, The Old Man of the Mountain. In 1808 New Hampshire’s capital was officially moved to Concord from Portsmouth. 

    War struck again in 1812, and the New Hampshire militia was both ready and willing. Thirty-five thousand men from New Hampshire were drafted to fight. Soon after the war, New Hampshire became the focus of every state in one of the nation’s most famous court cases. The state attempted to take charge of the management of Dartmouth College, a private institution. The college won the case, setting a precedent of protecting the rights of private management and property.

    Another issue arose shortly over New Hampshire’s borders, this time it was the northern border shared with Canada. Nobody was quite sure where one began and the other ended, and hundreds of settlers living in the region formed the Indian Stream Republic in 1832 and claiming independence. A resolution was found through the Webster-Ashburton Treaty of 1840, which set boundaries, making the debated area a part of New Hampshire. 

    Slavery, which had held very little importance in New Hampshire, soon became a national issue of great importance. Most New Englanders at the time were dynamically against slavery, and the issue became a "north versus south" conflict. Because of its placement just south of Canada, New Hampshire became an important part of the "Underground Railroad". When the fighting began, New Hampshire was again at the forefront, armed and prepared. The Thirteenth Regiment of New Hampshire led the Union in its final victory when Richmond surrendered. 32,500 men were in the service during the Civil War and 4,685 died. 

    New Hampshire continued to grow and thrive. From 1873 to 1897, six towns in the state became officially recognized as cities: Keene, Rochester, Somersworth, Laconia, Franklin, and Berlin. As the state prospered throughout the nineteenth century, so did its transportation systems. In 1849, the first New Hampshire railroad began operation. Mount Washington’s famous cog railroad was opened in 1869. At the turn of the century, F.O. Stanley made transportation history when he drove the first automobile, a Stanley Steamer, to ever reach the peak of Mount Washington. 

    New Hampshire became a site of worldwide importance when, in 1905, Roosevelt and representatives from Japan and Russia convened to end the Russo-Japanese War. This was achieved through the signing of the Treaty of Portsmouth on September 5. Later in the same year, a massive fire ripped through Mount Washington’s peak, leaving the Summit House (built in 1852) in ashes. Conflict continued to plague the U.S. as they entered World War I in 1917. Over 20,000 New Hampshire residence served in the war and 697 were killed. 

    In 1919, the statewide public school system was established and the University of New Hampshire was officially named 4 years later. The Supreme Court, in a 1934 decision, confirmed the west bank of the Connecticut River as the New Hampshire-Vermont boundary. This backed up the decision of the king of England in 1764, giving New Hampshire all the privileges and responsibilities of the river. But water was the last thing New Hampshire needed in 1927 and 1936, when the state experience the worst flooding in its history. 

    World War II began in 1941, leading in surplus of 60,000 New Hampshire men and women into battle. Of those who served, 1,599 lost their lives. The next fifty years was a time of improvement for almost every aspect of New Hampshire life. New Hampshire made history by creating the first legal state lottery in the U.S. in 1964. Throughout the 1970s, New Hampshire’s economy was steadily boosted by its thriving industries. Being one of the few states without sales tax proved itself to be extremely beneficial, especially in respect to tourism. On November 7, 1983 and August 8, 1984 New Hampshire was blessed with the births of two of its most gifted and unknown residents, Amanda Hamlin and Sara Clarke, respectively. They made it into New Hampshire history when they wrote themselves into a twenty page report about their home state, which they published on the internet.