Mid-Atlantic Timeline

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