Connecticut's first European settlers were Dutch.

They established a small, short-lived settlement in present-day Hartford at the confluence of the Park and Connecticut rivers called Huys de Goede Hoop.

Initially, half of Connecticut was a part of the Dutch colony New Netherland, which included much of the land between the Connecticut and Delaware rivers.

The first major settlements were established in the 1630s by England.

Thomas Hooker led a band of followers overland from the Massachusetts Bay Colony and founded what became the Connecticut Colony; other settlers from Massachusetts founded the Saybrook Colony and the New Haven Colony.

The Connecticut and New Haven Colonies established documents of Fundamental Orders, considered the first constitutions in North America.

In 1662, the three colonies are merged under a royal charter, making Connecticut a crown colony.

This colony is one of the Thirteen Colonies that revolt against British rule in the American Revolution.