Pennsylvania Timeline of Events

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Pennsylvania

The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to the east...

Timeline of Events

1681

3.4.1681

Charles II grants a land charter to William Penn for the area that will later become Pennsylvania.

1682

8.24.1682

William Penn receives the area that is now the state of Delaware, and adds it to his colony of Pennsylvania.

10.27.1682

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania is founded.

1683

6.23.1683

William Penn signs a friendship treaty with Lenni Lenape Indians in Pennsylvania.

10.6.1683

William Penn brings 13 German immigrant families to the colony of Pennsylvania, marking the first major immigration of German people to America.

1738

5.25.1738

A treaty between Pennsylvania and Maryland ends the Conojocular War with settlement of a boundary dispute and exchange of prisoners.

1754

5.28.1754

French and Indian War: in the first engagement of the war, Virginia militia under 22-year-old Lieutenant Colonel George Washington defeat a French reconnaissance party in the Battle of Jumonville Glen in what is now Fayette County in southwestern Pennsylvania.

1758

5.21.1758

Mary Campbell is abducted from her home in Pennsylvania by Lenape during the French and Indian War.

1767

10.18.1767

Mason-Dixon line, survey separating Maryland from Pennsylvania is completed.

1775

4.14.1775

The first abolition society in North America is established. The Society for the Relief of Free Negroes Unlawfully Held in Bondage is organized in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania by Benjamin Franklin and Benjamin Rush.

1776

6.15.1776

Delaware Separation Day – Delaware votes to suspend government under the British Crown and separate officially from Pennsylvania.

7.8.1776

The Declaration of Independence is read aloud in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and the Liberty Bell is rung.

1782

3.8.1782

Gnadenhütten massacre: Ninety-six Native Americans in Gnadenhutten, Ohio, who had converted to Christianity are killed by Pennsylvania militiamen in retaliation for raids carried out by other Indians.

1787

12.12.1787

Pennsylvania becomes the second state to ratify the United States Constitution five days after Delaware became the first.

1789

4.1.1789

In New York City, the United States House of Representatives holds its first ''quorum'' and elects Frederick Muhlenberg of Pennsylvania as its first House Speaker.

1817

5.15.1817

Opening of the first private mental health hospital in the United States, the Asylum for the Relief of Persons Deprived of the Use of Their Reason (now Friends Hospital) in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

1851

9.15.1851

Saint Joseph's University is founded in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

1875

9.1.1875

A murder conviction effectively forces the violent Pennsylvanian Irish anti-owner coal miners, the "Molly Maguires", to disband.

1878

12.18.1878

John Kehoe, the last of the Molly Maguires is executed in Pennsylvania.

1896

6.28.1896

An explosion in the Newton Coal Company's Twin Shaft Mine in Pittston City, Pennsylvania results in a massive cave-in that kills 58 miners.

1897

9.10.1897

Lattimer massacre: A sheriff's posse kills 20 unarmed immigrant miners in Pennsylvania, United States.

1919

9.22.1919

The steel strike of 1919, led by the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers, begins in Pennsylvania before spreading across the United States.

1927

5.17.1927

U.S. Army aviation pioneer, Major Harold Geiger, dies in the crash of his Airco DH.4 de Havilland plane at Olmstead Field, Pennsylvania.

1937

6.14.1937

Pennsylvania becomes the first (and only) state of the United States to celebrate Flag Day officially as a state holiday.

1959

1.22.1959

Knox Mine Disaster: Water breaches the River Slope Mine near Pittston City, Pennsylvania in Port Griffith; 12 miners are killed.

1985

5.31.1985

1985 United States-Canadian tornado outbreak: Forty-one tornadoes hit Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, and Ontario, leaving 76 dead.

1987

1.22.1987

Pennsylvania politician R. Budd Dwyer shoots and kills himself at a press conference on live national television, leading to debates on boundaries in journalism.

1991

2.25.1991

Gulf War: An Iraqi scud missile hits an American military barracks in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia killing 28 U.S. Army Reservists from Pennsylvania.

4.4.1991

Senator John Heinz of Pennsylvania and six others are killed when a helicopter collides with their plane over an elementary school in Merion, Pennsylvania.