1. On September 3, 1854, the first issue of the Milwaukee Daily Sentinel was published. The newspaper would eventually become the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, which is still in circulation today.

2. Wisconsin became the first state to grant women the right to vote in school board elections on September 3, 1869.

3. The first electric streetcar in Madison began operation on September 3, 1890. The streetcar was powered by an overhead wire and could reach speeds of up to 12 miles per hour.

4. On September 3, 1969, Governor Warren P. Knowles signed a bill legalizing abortion in Wisconsin. The state was one of the first to decriminalize the procedure.

5. In 1979, the first Great Lakes Shipwreck Festival was held in Milwaukee on September 3. The event celebrates the history of diving and shipwrecks in the Great Lakes region and has become an annual tradition.