Robert Cavelier de La Salle discovers the mouth of the Mississippi River, claims it for France and names it Louisiana.

Battle of Ackia: British and Chickasaw soldiers repel a French and Choctaw attack on the Chickasaw village of Ackia, near present-day Tupelo, Mississippi. The French, under Louisiana governor Jean Baptiste Le Moyne, Sieur de Bienville, had sought to link Louisiana with Acadia and the other northern colonies of New France.

British governor Charles Lawrence and the Nova Scotia Council order the deportation of the Acadians. Thousands of Acadians are sent to the British Colonies in America, France and England. Some later move to Louisiana, while others resettle in New Brunswick.

Antonio de Ulloa, the first Spanish governor of Louisiana, arrives in New Orleans.

Louisiana Purchase: In St. Louis, Missouri, a formal ceremony is conducted to transfer ownership of the Louisiana Territory from France to the United States.

The Territory of Orleans becomes the 18th U.S. state under the name Louisiana.

Following Louisiana's admittance as a U.S. state, the Louisiana Territory is renamed the Missouri Territory.

American Civil War: The state of Louisiana secedes from the Union.

In Louisiana, P. B. S. Pinchback becomes the first serving African-American governor of a U.S. state.

US Senator from Louisiana, Huey Long, nicknamed "Kingfish", is fatally shot in the Louisiana capitol building.

US Senator from Louisiana, Huey Long, nicknamed "Kingfish", is fatally shot in the Louisiana capitol building.

Hurricane Katrina begins to make landfall in Louisiana and Mississippi in the afternoon, and brings the most severe damage to Slidell and New Orleans.

Hurricane Katrina devastates much of the U.S. Gulf Coast from Louisiana to the Florida Panhandle, killing more than 1,836 and causing over $80 billion in damage.

Hurricane Rita makes landfall in the United States, devastating Beaumont, Texas and portions of southwestern Louisiana.