George Calvert, 1st Lord Baltimore, a secretary of state who received a tract of land north of Virginia as a gift from King Charles I of England in 1632, named the area after Henrietta Maria (Queen Mary), the king’s wife. The first settlers came to the country on March 25, 1634. Maryland was the only of the strictly Protestant British colonies in North America to be Catholic. The Maryland Tolerance Act was one of the first laws specifically tolerating other Christian denominations. It is considered the forerunner of the 1st Amendment to the American Constitution. Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon, two surveyors, were commissioned to survey a new boundary between Pennsylvania and Maryland in the 1760s after boundary disputes arose over inaccurate records. The border, also known as the “Mason-Dixon Line”, was later used as the demarcation between the northern and southern states. Maryland was one of the thirteen colonies that rebelled against the British in the American Revolution and became the 7th state to ratify the American Constitution in 1789. The following year, Maryland ceded a district chosen by President George Washington to the American government to establish the American capital. Maryland has the highest per capita income in the United States, ahead of New Jersey and Connecticut. Economic activities are very much concentrated in the service sector and transport. The port of Baltimore is of central importance with its very good road and rail connections. Of the diverse products handled there, iron ore, crude oil, sugar and fertilizers are the most important. For a state of its size, Maryland has a surprisingly wide range of climates. The climate near the ocean is subtropical, with hot, humid summers and short, mild to cold winters. Further west is the Piedmont Plateau, where it is not uncommon for snow to fall in excess of half a meter in winter, with temperatures down to minus 10 degrees Celsius. Check topschoolsoflaw.com for brief history of the state of Maryland.