Illinois Timeline
100 BC-500 AD The Hopewell Indians flourished in the Illinois region.
1673 Louis Joliet and Jacques Marquette became the first Europeans to enter the Illinois region. The named it Illinois after the Illini Indians.
1680 Ten Iroquois Indians attacked the Illinois Indians and killed many tribesmen.
1699 The first permanent settlement in Illinois was founded by some French priests in Cahokia.
1703 Kaskaskai was founded by Jesuit priests.
1717 Illinois became a part of the Louisiana Colony.
1717 John Law, a Scottish financial promoter in Paris, arranged for settlers to go to the Illinois region.
1720 Fort de Chartres, the French fort, was completed.
1763 After the French and Indian War , the British won the control of France's North America empire.
1769 Pontiac, the Chief of the Ottawa Indian chief, was killed by the Illinois Indians. After the attack most of the Illinois Indians moved to the Oklahoma region.
1778 George Rogers Clark lead a army that captured Kaskaskia and Cahokia from the British. The are was then made into a county from Virginia.
1784 Virginia gave the Illinois region to the national government.
1787 Illinois became a part of the Northwest Territory.
1787 James Smith, a Protestant Preacher (Baptist), arrived in Illinois. He was the first known Protestant in the area.
1793 Joseph Lillard, a Methodist preacher, came to the state.
1800 The Illinois region was made a part of the Indiana Territory by Congress.
1800 By this year only a few Indians remained. They had been killed by warfare and exposure to European diseases.
1809 The Illinois territory was made by Congress. It included Illinois and Wisconsin. Kaskaskia became the capital of the territory.
August 1812 During the War of 1812, the Indians sided with the British. They attacked Fort Dearborn. More than half of the settlers there were killed in the attack.
3 December 1818 Illinois became a state. Shadrach became the first governor.
1819 Vandalia was established by the state legislature as the future capital.
1820 Vandalia became the capital.
1832 The United States Army defeated the Sauk and Fox Indians in the Black Hawk War.
1836 Many Irish immigrants came to Illinois to work on the Illinois and Michigan Canal
1837 Springfield was chosen as the new capital by the state legislature.
1848 The Illinois and Michigan Canal was completed.
1856 The Illinois Central Railroad completed a line from Cairo to Dunleith which ran approximately 700 miles. At the time it was the world's largest single railroad.
1858 Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas held several; debates as they campaigned for the U.S. Senate. The debates brought nationwide attention to the state. Douglas won the election.
1860 Abraham Lincoln was elected as the President of the United States.
1871 In Chicago a huge fire destroyed much of the city.
1886 A riot occurred at Chicago's Haymarket Square when someone threw a bomb into a meeting organized by anarchists. They were trying to protest police tactics against striking workers.
1892 Under the leadership of Governor John P. Altgeld, new laws that dealt with factory inspection were enforced and a state board to help settle strikes was established.
1893 In Chicago the World's Columbian Exposition took place.
1900 The Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal were completed. They helped the Chicago River to flow backward to prevent waste from entering Lake Michigan.
1908 A race riot occurred in Springfield. It lead to the development of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).
1911 Illinois became the first state to pass a state-wide law that established payments from public funds to poor parents to care for their children.
1917 A race riot occurred in East St. Louis. It brought nationwide attention to Illinois.
1917 When the United States entered World War I, Illinois became one of four states to furnish men for an entire Army division.
1919 Chicago had a race riot.
1920s Al Capone ran a $60 Million-a-year illegal liquor making ring. As a result of his gang and others, gang warfare broke out in Chicago.
March 1925 A tornado hit the area near Murphysboro killing 606 people.
1930 The Adler Planetarium opened in Chicago. It became the first planetarium in the Western Hemisphere.
1932 A special session of the legislature was called to help establish funds for unemployment relief.
1933 The Illinois Waterway was opened.
1937 New oil fields were discovered in southeastern Illinois bringing a huge economic boom to the area.
1933-1934 The Century of Progress Exposition was held in Chicago.
1942 Enrico Fermi and other scientists at the University of Chicago made major advances in the development of the atomic bomb.
1956 A nuclear reactor for industrial research was built at the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago.
1960 Chicago had become the nation's largest steel producer.
1964 An amendment went into effect for the Illinois constitution. It established three kinds of courts, supreme, appellate, and circuit.
1970 The current constitution of Illinois was adopted.
1971 The new constitution went into effect.
1972 The Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory was completed near Batavia. It is one of the world's leading centers for the study of the atom.
1973 A state lottery was adopted to help raise revenue for education and other services.
1980s-1990s Illinois experience growth in high-technological industries.
2000 Governor George Ryan declared a temporary halt on the death penalty, because 13 people in Illinois had been sentenced to die, but were later found to have been wrongfully convicted. Ryan called for a review of the system.
April 2002 Th review was finished of the capital punishment system. Ryan said that halt would remain in effect, until he could examine the report.
Works Cited
Theodore J. Karamanski and William D. Walters, Jr. "Illinois." Worldbookonline.com.
Edmunds, R. David. "Illinois Indians." Worldbookonline.com.
Snow, Dean. "Mound Builders." Worldbookonline.com.