Connecticut

Founded in 1636 by Puritans who followed Thomas Hooker out of Massachusetts, Connecticut adopted the Fundamental Orders of 1639 — often called the first written constitution in the Western tradition, and the source of the state's nickname.

At the Constitutional Convention, Connecticut's Roger Sherman brokered the Great Compromise that balanced large and small states between the House and Senate. The colony ratified the federal Constitution in January 1788 as the fifth state.