Ohio Across Time

A timeline of events that occurred in what is now Ohio, or that impacted Ohio's history.

• Prehistoric Period: 13000 BC-1650 AD
  • 13000 BC-7000 BC: Paleoindian Period - Ohio's first human inhabitants
  • 8000 BC-500 BC: Ohio's Archaic Period - Most native people lived as hunters and gatherers.
  • 800 BC-1200 AD: Ohio's Woodland Period - The region's native populace increasingly relied on agriculture to sustain themselves.
  • 800 BC-100 AD: The Adena Culture thrived in Ohio.
  • 100 BC-400 AD: The Hopewell Culture built large mound complexes in Ohio, including the Newark Earthworks.
  • 1000 AD-1650 AD: Ohio's Fort Ancient Culture flourished.
  • 1000 AD-1650 AD: Ohio's Late Prehistoric Period.
• Exploration to Statehood: 1650-1803
  • 1492: Christopher Columbus rediscovered the Americas for Europeans, beginning the Colonial Period in the New World.
  • 1607: The Virginia Company established Jamestown, the first British community to survive in North America.
  • 1670: Rene Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, a French explorer and the first European in the Ohio Country, discovered the Ohio River.
  • 1748: The Ohio Company formed in Virginia to settle the Ohio River Valley.
  • 1754-1763: French and Indian War
    • France ceded all rights to the Ohio Country in the Treaty of Paris of 1763.
  • 1768: Treaty of Fort Stanwix - Iroquois ceded all lands south and east of the Ohio River to the British.
  • 1774: Lord Dunmore's War
  • 1775-1783: The American Revolution
    • 1775: Hostilities began with battles of Lexington and Concord in Massachussetts.
    • 1776: Declaration of Independence. American colonies declared their independence from England.
    • 1781: Final major battle fought at Yorktown, Virginia
  • 1782: Gnadenhutten Massacre. Pennsylvania militia killed Christian Indians near Tuscarawas River.
  • 1782: Colonel William Crawford burned at the stake in retaliation for the Gnadenhutten Massacre.
  • 1783: Treaty of Paris officially ended the American Revolution. England recognized American independence and ceded all lands in the Ohio Country.
  • 1785: Land Ordinance of 1785 established methods for surveying and dividing land in the Ohio Country.
  • 1786: Ohio Company of Associates formed in Massachusetts to sell land in what is now southeast Ohio.
  • 1787: Confederation Congress appointed Arthur St. Clair as first governor of the Northwest Territory.
  • 1787: United States Constitution drafted.
  • 1787: Congress enacted the Northwest Ordinance, establishing the Northwest Territory, which included modern-day Ohio.
  • 1788: Marietta, the Northwest Territory's and Ohio's first permanent white settlement, founded.
  • 1790-1794: Ohio Indian Wars
    • 1790 - Harmar's Defeat
    • 1791 - St. Clair's Defeat
    • 1794 - Battle of Fallen Timbers
  • 1795: Treaty of Greeneville signed, essentially ending the Ohio Indian Wars.
  • 1800: Chillicothe became the capitol of the Northwest Territory.
  • 1802: Enabling Act set the stage for Congress to admit Ohio to the Union.
  • 1802: Constitutional Convention met at Chillicothe to draft Ohio's first constitution.
  • 1802: Thomas Worthington presented Ohio constitution to Congress for approval.
• Early Statehood: 1803-1846
  • 1803: President Jefferson signed legislation making Ohio the seventeenth state of the Union.
  • 1804: Ohio General Assembly chartered Ohio University.
  • 1812: City of Columbus founded and named as new state capitol.
  • 1812-1814: The War of 1812
    • 1813: British failure at both Sieges of Fort Meigs prevented them from driving their forces deeper into Ohio.
  • 1813: Under the command of Oliver Hazard Perry, the American fleet defeated the British fleet at the Battle of Lake Erie, cutting off British supply lines and forcing them to abandon Fort Detroit.
  • 1815: Ohio University held first commencement.
  • 1816: State government relocated to Columbus.
  • 1825: Work on the National Road and the canal system in Ohio began.
  • 1833: Oberlin College, the first coeducational college in the United States founded.
  • 1833: The Ohio and Erie Canal completed.
  • 1835: Boundary dispute between Michigan and Ohio led to the Toledo War.
  • 1840: Ohioan William Henry Harrison elected the 9th President of the United States.
  • 1842: Treaty with the Wyandots (1842). The Wyandots, Ohio's last Indian tribe, agreed to relinquish all claims to land within the state.
  • 1845: The Miami and Erie Canal completed.
  • 1846-1848: Mexican War
  • 1850: The first Ohio State Fair held in Cincinnati.
  • 1850: Ohio's second Constitutional Convention held in Chillicothe.
  • 1851: The Ohio Constitution of 1851 adopted.
  • 1852: Publication of Uncle Tom's Cabin, written by in Ohio by Harriet Beecher Stowe, increased tensions between the North and the South.
• American Civil War: 1860-1865
  • 1860: Abraham Lincoln elected president.
  • 1861: The Ohio Statehouse completed.
  • 1862: President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation.
  • 1863: Following a six-week siege, Confederate forces surrendered Vicksburg to Federal troops led by Ohioan Ulysses S. Grant.
  • 1863: Morgan's Raid. Confederate Brigadier General John Hunt Morgan led troops on a daring raid across southern Ohio.
  • 1863: Battle of Buffington Island,the only Civil War battle fought on Ohio soil.
  • 1864: President Lincoln promoted Ulysses S. Grant to supreme commander of all Union forces.
  • 1864: Union forces under the leadership of Ohioan William T. Sherman captured Atlanta.
  • 1864: Sherman led his troops on his "March to the Sea" from Atlanta to Savannah, Georgia.
  • 1864-1865: Ulysses S. Grant led the Army of the Potomac in pursuit of Robert E. Lee's forces during the Wilderness Campaign.
  • 1865: Robert E. Lee surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House, Virginia.
  • 1865: John Wilkes Booth assassinated President Lincoln at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C.
• Industrialization and Urbanization: 1866-1900
  • 1868: Ohioan Ulysses S. Grant elected to his first of two terms as the 18th President of the United States.
  • 1869: The Cincinnati Redstockings, the first professional baseball team, founded.
  • 1870: Originally known as the Ohio Agricultural and Mechanical College, The Ohio State University chartered by the Ohio General Assembly.
  • 1876: Ohioan Rutherford B. Hayes elected the 19th President of the United States.
  • 1876: The Ashtabula Train Disaster resulted in 83 deaths.
  • 1879: Ohioan Thomas Edison invented the electric light bulb.
  • 1880: Ohioan James A. Garfield elected the 20th President of the United States.
  • 1881: Charles Guiteau shot President Garfield, who died three months later, in Washington, D.C.
  • 1884: Cincinnati Courthouse Riot brought destruction and death to Cincinnati.
  • 1888: Ohioan Benjamin Harrison elected the 23rd President of the United States.
  • 1894: The first gasoline-powered automobile in the U.S. invented.
  • 1896: Ohioan William McKinley elected to his first of two terms as the 25th President of the United States.
• The Progressive Era: 1901-1928
  • 1901: Leon Czolgosz assassinated President McKinley in Buffalo, New York.
  • 1902: The Ohio General Assembly officially adopted Ohio's state flag.
  • 1903: Ohioans Orville and Wilbur Wright complete the first successful flight of a powered airplane.
  • 1908: Ohioan William H. Taft elected the 27th President of the United States.
  • 1908: The Collinwood School Fire, near Cleveland, killed 173 pupils, two teachers, and one firefighter.
  • 1913: The Flood of 1913 caused the death of at least 428 Ohioans and brought destruction across the state.
  • 1914-1918: World War I
    • 1917: Camp Sherman, near Chillicothe, contructed to train World War I army troops.
    • 1918: Aproximately 1,200 troops died at Camp Sherman during the Influenza Epidemic of 1918.
  • 1920: Ohioan Warren G. Harding elected the 29th President of the United States.
  • 1925: The dirigible Shenandoah crashed near Ava, Ohio, killing 14 people.
• The Great Depression and World War II: 1929-1945
  • 1929-1941: The Great Depression
  • 1930: The Ohio Penitentiary Fire killed 322 inmates.
  • 1935: Ohio's first sales tax instituted.
  • 1937: The Ohio River Flood of 1937 brought devastation to southern Ohio.
  • 1944: The East Ohio Gas Company Explosion in Cleveland killed 131 people.
  • 1941-1945: The World War II entangled the United States and Ohio.
  • 1949: The General Assembly created the Ohio Department of Natural Resources.
• The Cold War and the Civil Rights Movement: 1946-1975
  • 1950-1953: The Korean War
  • 1953: Correcting an oversight, Congress passed a resolution officially recognizing Ohio statehood and declaring Ohio's date of entry into the Union as March 1, 1803.
  • 1955: The Ohio Turnpike completed.
  • 1958: Completion of the St. Lawrence Seaway connected Ohio cities on Lake Erie to international trade opportunities.
  • 1959: The General Assembly created the Ohio Civil Rights Commission.
  • 1962: Ohioan John Glenn became the first American to orbit the earth.
  • 1963: William O. Walker became Ohio's first African-American cabinet member.
  • 1963: The Professional Football Hall of Fame opened in Canton.
  • 1964-1974: Vietnam War
  • 1967: Carl Stokes became the first African-American mayor of a major city (Cleveland).
  • 1969: Ohioan Neil Armstrong became the first person to walk on the moon.
  • 1970: Kent State Riot - Four students killed by Ohio National Guard during anti-war protests.
  • 1972: The General Assembly enacted the Ohio Income Tax.
  • 1973: Ohio voters approved the Ohio Lottery.
  • 1974: The deadly Xenia Tornado killed 33 people.
• Modern Ohio
  • 1978: The Blizzard of 1978, the worst winter storm in Ohio's history.
  • 1979: Public schools in Columbus, Dayton and Cleveland began busing pupils to eliminate segregation.
  • 1986: Astronaut Judith Resnik, of Akron, died in the Challenger space shuttle explosion.
  • 1991: In their ruling in DeRolph v. State of Ohio, the Ohio Supreme Court declared Ohio's school funding program unconstitutional.
  • 1993: The Lucasville Prison Riot resulted in the deaths of nine prisoners and one guard.
  • 1995: The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame opened in Cleveland.
  • 1995: International negotiations at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton led to the Bosnian Peace Agreement.
  • 1998: Astronaut John Glenn became the oldest man to travel into space.
  • 2001: Terrorist attacks on September 11 in New York City, NY and Washington, D.C., led to a flurry of anti-terrorist activities in Ohio and throughout the nation.
  • 2006: Ohio voters passed a statewide smoking ban in public places.