San Francisco Bay Timeline of Events

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San Francisco Bay

San Francisco Bay is a shallow, productive estuary through which water draining from approximately forty percent of California, flowing in the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers from the Sierra Nevada mountains, enters the Pacific Ocean...

Timeline of Events

1849

2.28.1849

Regular steamboat service from the west to the east coast of the United States begins with the arrival of the SS ''California'' in San Francisco Bay, 4 months 22 days after leaving New York Harbor.

1933

1.5.1933

Construction of the Golden Gate Bridge begins in San Francisco Bay.

1937

12.16.1937

Theodore Cole and Ralph Roe attempt to escape from the American federal prison on Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay; neither is ever seen again.

1944

7.17.1944

Port Chicago disaster: Near the San Francisco Bay, two ships laden with ammunition for the war explode in Port Chicago, California, killing 320.

1946

5.4.1946

In San Francisco Bay, U.S. Marines from the nearby Treasure Island Navy Base stop a two-day riot at Alcatraz federal prison. Five people are killed in the riot.

1963

3.21.1963

Alcatraz, a federal penitentiary on an island in San Francisco Bay, closes.