| Important Dates in
Louisiana  1541
Hernando de Soto led a
group of Spanish explorers into the region in search of
gold.
1683 French explorer Robert Cavelier, Sieur de la Salle, claimed the entire Mississippi Valley for
France and named it Louisiana in honor of Louis
XIV, the king of France.
1699 Louisiana became a French royal
colony.
1702 Fort Louis de la
Mobile, near the site of present-day Mobile, Alabama, was
established as the capital of Louisiana.
1712 Louisiana became a proprietary
colony under the control of Antoine Crozat, a merchant.
1714 Louis Juchereau de St. Denis, a
trader, established Natchitoches on the banks of the Red
River; it became the first permanent town in Louisiana.
1718 Jean Baptiste le Moyne, Sieur de
Bienville, Governor of Louisiana, began building New
Orleans.
1722 New Orleans became the capital of
Louisiana.
1762 France ceded the Isle of
Orleans, which included New Orleans, and the area of
Louisiana west of the Mississippi River to Spain.
1794 The first newspaper in Louisiana --
Le Moniteur de la Louisiane -- was established
at New Orleans by Louis Duclot.
1795 Étienne de Boré discovered a new
way to granulate sugar, and started the sugar business in
Louisiana.
1800 Spain ceded
Louisiana back to France.
May 2, 1803 The United States purchased the Lousiana
Territory.
1803 Louisiana's first English-language
newspaper -- the New Orleans Union -- was
established.
1804 Congress divided Louisiana into two
territories -- Orleans, covering about the same area as
the present state, and Louisiana, encompassing the rest
of the region.
1810 American settlers in Spanish
Florida revolted against Spain and established the
Republic of West Florida, which included part of what is
now eastern Louisiana.
1812 The steamboat New Orleans
completed the first steam-powered trip down the
Mississippi, from Pittsburgh to New Orleans.
April 30, 1812
Louisiana was admitted to the Union as the 18th state.
January 8, 1815 Andrew Jackson
defeated the British in the Battle of New Orleans with a
small army of frontiersmen and pirates.
1829 The Pontchartrain Railroad began
operating, making it the first railroad west of the
Allegheny Mountains.
1830 The state capital was moved to
Donaldsville.
1831 The state capital was moved back to
New Orleans.
1850 The state capital was moved to
Baton Rouge.
January 26, 1861
Louisiana seceded from the Union.
March 21, 1861 Louisiana joined the Conferate States of America.
May 1, 1862 Union General Benjamin F.
Butler captured New Orleans without a fight.
June 25, 1868
Louisiana was readmitted to the Union.
1877 Reconstruction ended in Louisiana.
1879 James B. Eads deepened the mouth of
the Mississippi River so that large ocean ships could
reach New Orleans.
1882 Baton Rouge replaced New Orleans as
the state capital.
1901 Oil was
discovered near Jennings and White Castle.
1916 Natural gas was discovered near
Monroe.
1922 Louisiana's first radio stations --
WWL in New Orleans and KEEL in Shreveport -- began
broadcasting.
1928 Huey P. Long was elected Governor.
1935 Governor Huey Long was assassinated
at the State Capitol.
1948 The first television station in the
state -- WDSU-TV in New Orleans -- began broadcasting.
1950 The graduate
school at Louisiana State University became integrated.
1956 The Lake Pontchartrain Causeway was opened.
At 29 miles in length, it is the world's longest bridge.
1960 Public elementary schools in
Lousiana were integrated.
1961 The National Aeronautics and Space
Administration (NASA) selected the Michoud Ordnance Plant
in New Orleans to produce Saturn rocket boosters.
1963 The Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet,
a 76-mile short cut from New Orleans to the sea, opened.
1975 The Superdome opened in New
Orleans.
Hernando
de Soto
Robert Cavelier, Sieur de la Salle
Lousiana Purchase
Conferate States of America
Saturn Rocket
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