1634—Ships The Ark and Maryland Dove arrive at St. Mary's City, Md.
1638-1655—Delaware is part of New Sweden
1681—William Penn establishes the Colony of Pennsylvania
1694—Annapolis becomes capital of Colonial Maryland
1702—British colonies of East and West Jersey unite
1729—Baltimore established and named for Lord Baltimore
1763—Mason-Dixon Line dividing north and south drawn, starting in Delaware with the state split
1787—Delaware becomes first state to ratify the Constitution
1774—First Continental Congress convenes in Philadelphia
1776—Women granted the right to vote by the New Jersey state constitution (they lose it in 1807)
1790—Trenton becomes the capital of New Jersey
1791—Benjamin Banneker, an early African-American publisher, publishes an almanac
1803—First refrigerator invented by Baltimore's Thomas Moore
1825—Erie Canal opens
1828—Baltimore and Ohio Railroad builds the first railway
1863—Bloodiest battle of the Civil War is fought at Gettysburg, Pa.
1869—"Pickle King" H.J. Heinz founds his famous condiment company in Sharpsburg, Pa.
1876—US Centennial Exhibition at Philadelphia introduces the telephone
1886—Statue of Liberty dedicated in New York Harbor
1889ר,000 people lose their lives during the Johnstown, Pa., flood
1892—Ellis Island opens
1904—Downtown Baltimore destroyed by fire
1905—Milton Hershey begins mass-production of milk chocolate in Pennsylvania
1915—Frank Sinatra born in New Jersey
1919-1933—Maryland refuses to follow Prohibition law
1920—KDKA in Pittsburgh airs world's first scheduled radio broadcast
1933—The first drive-in movie theater opens in Camden, NJ
1937—D.W.H. Carothers of Dupont Co. invents nylon
1939—Frank Perdue joins the family poultry business in Salisbury, Md., where he'll introduce scientific methods to raising chickens
1980—Harbor Place becomes a new tourism destination in Baltimore