Fur Traders Descending the Missouri by Missouri painter George Caleb Bingham
Missouri Timeline History
1682: Explorer, Sieur de La Salle, Robert Cavalier, traveled the
Mississippi River, claiming the valley for France. He named the region
"Louisiana" in honor of King Louis XIV

1700: Jesuit missionaries established the first white settlement. The
Mission of St. Francis Xavier erected near the site where St. Louis would
eventually be built

1724: Fort Orleans built on the north bank of the Missouri River

1762: Spain gained control of the Louisiana Territory in the Treaty of
Fontainebleau

1764: City of St. Louis founded by Pierre Laclede Liguest and Rene
Auguste Chouteau

1769: City of St. Charles established by Louis Blanchette as a trading
post

1770: The Spanish government officially assumed control of the Territory
of Louisiana

1793: Louis Lorimer received trading privileges and the authority to
establish a post at Cape Girardeau

1796: Daniel Morgan Boone moved to Missouri and built a cabin at Femme
Osage Creek

1800 Napoleon Bonaparte forced Spain to return the territory west of the
Mississippi to France

1803: Louisiana Purchase occurs

1804: The Lewis and Clark Expedition started out from St. Louis

1805: The Territory of Louisiana established with its seat of government
in St. Louis

1808: The first newspaper, the Missouri Gazette, began publication in
St. Louis

1808: Fort Osage established on the Missouri River

1811: The New Madrid earthquake occurred, the worst in US history

1812: A portion of the Territory of Louisiana became the Territory of
Missouri; the first general assembly of the Territory of Missouri met and the
five original counties were organized: Cape Girardeau, New Madrid, St. Charles,
St. Louis, and Ste. Genevieve

1817: The steamboat Zebulon M. Pike reached St. Louis; the first
steamboat to navigate the Mississippi River above the mouth of the Ohio River

1818: The U.S. House of Representatives presented the first petition to
Congress requesting statehood

1820: Missouri's first Constitution adopted; first state elections held
and Alexander McNair was elected the first governor and the first General
Assembly met in St. Louis

1821: President James Monroe admitted Missouri as the 24th state; the
state capitol was temporarily located in St. Charles

1826: Jefferson City designated Missouri's state capitol

1835: Writer Samuel L. Clemens Mark Twain: born in Florida, Missouri

1837: President Martin Van Buren issued a proclamation which completed
the annexation of the Platte Purchase area to Missouri

1837: Missouri's first capitol in Jefferson City destroyed by fire

1838: Governor Lilburn Boggs issued the "Extermination Order" against
Mormons living in Missouri, demanding that members of the Mormon church leave
the state

1839: The University of Missouri founded

1847: St. Louis connected to the East by telegraph

1849: A cholera epidemic struck St. Louis - over 4000 people died

1854: President Franklin Pierce signed the Kansas-Nebraska Act, allowing
the notion of "popular sovereignty" in determining if a territory would be a
slave state or a free state

1857: The Dred Scott decision handed down by U.S. Chief Justice Roger B.
Taney; the case originated in St. Louis. Scott was allowed to sue for his
freedom from slavery based on the fact that he had previously lived in a free
territory

1860: The Pony Express started its first run from St. Joseph to
Sacramento, California

1861: The Battle of Wilson's Creek resulted in a Union retreat and
southwestern Missouri was left in Confederate hands; President Abraham Lincoln
revoked John Fremont's emancipation proclamation for Missouri

1862: A three day battle at Pea Ridge ended the Confederate military
control in Missouri

1865: Slavery abolished

1873: Susan Blow opened the first public kindergarten in the United
States in St. Louis

1875: A grasshopper plague in Missouri caused an estimated $15 million
worth of damages

1882: Jesse James killed by Bob Ford in St. Joseph

1901: First State Fair opened at Sedalia

1911: State Capitol building completely destroyed by fire after being
struck by lightning

1919: Missouri became the eleventh state to ratify the Nineteenth
Amendment granting suffrage to women

1920: Marie Byrum became the first woman to vote in Missouri history

1922: Mellcene T. Smith and Sarah Lucille Turner became the first women
elected to the Missouri state legislature

1927: Charles Lindbergh landed the "Spirit of St. Louis" in Paris

1931: Bagnell Dam completed, forming the Lake of the Ozarks

1945: U.S. Vice President Harry S. Truman became President upon the
death of Franklin Delano Roosevelt

1946: Winston Churchill delivered his "Iron Curtain" speech on the
Westminster College campus in Fulton

1948: Harry S. Truman elected U.S. President

1965: The Gateway Arch Jefferson National Expansion Memorial:
was completed in St. Louis

1968: Race riots occurred in Kansas City after the death of Dr. Martin
Luther King, Jr.

1992: Missouri voters approved riverboat gambling on the Mississippi and
Missouri Rivers

1993: The Great Flood of 1993 devastated parts of Missouri and the
Midwest

1995: Scientists, archeologists and descendants gathered in Kearney to
dig up Jesse James' grave.

1996: Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher delivered a major
address at Westminster College in Fulton

2000: Governor Mel Carnahan, his son and a campaign advisor died in a
airplane crash just outside of St. Louis

2001: John Ashcroft became U.S. Attorney General
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