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Philadelphia

largest city in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and seat of Philadelphia County

50 dated entries naming Philadelphia, drawn from 39 separate years between 2300 BCE and 1986 CE. Nothing here is written by us: each line is the sentence a Wikipedia year article used, and the link beside it opens the exact revision.

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23rd century BC

  • 2300 BCEc. 2300 BC – 2184 BC: The Disc of Enheduanna, from Ur (modern Muqaiyir, Iraq) is made. It is now in the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia.source

17th century

  • 1682October 27 – The city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania is founded by William Penn.source

18th century

  • 1732May 10 – Representatives of the heirs of William Penn and of Lord Baltimore, the respective owners of most of the land in the Province of Pennsylvania and the Province of Maryland set out the boundary between the two future U.S. states after a survey determines that Philadelphia is located on the Maryland side of the border. The dispute eventually leads to a lawsuit and the eventual survey by Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon to determine the Mason–Dixon line.source
  • 1736December 7 – Benjamin Franklin builds the first volunteer fire company in Philadelphia.source
  • 1737Benjamin Franklin creates the Philadelphia Police Force – the first city-paid force.source
  • 1743October 21 – Benjamin Franklin's view of a lunar eclipse from Philadelphia is spoiled by a rainstorm; several days later, he learns that residents of Boston received the same storm hours after the eclipse, demonstrating that weather moves from west to east.source
  • 1748August 26 – The first Lutheran Church body in America is founded at a conference in Philadelphia, organized by German-born evangelist Henry Muhlenberg and attended by pastors of orthodox and pious Lutheran communities. The two groups agree to create a common liturgy to govern public worship.source
  • 1751January 7 – The University of Pennsylvania, conceived 12 years earlier by Benjamin Franklin and its other trustees to provide non-denominational higher education "to train young people for leadership in business, government and public service". rather than for the ministry, holds its first classes as "The Academy and Charitable School in the Province of Pennsylvania" in Philadelphia.source
  • 1751May 11 – The Pennsylvania Hospital, first hospital in the American colonies, is chartered in Philadelphia by the Pennsylvania legislature, which grants the right to Benjamin Franklin and to Dr. Thomas Bond.source
  • 1752February 10 – Pennsylvania Hospital, the first hospital in the United States, and the first to offer medical treatment to the mentally ill, admits its first patients at a temporary location in Philadelphia.source
  • 1754August 17 – Pennsylvania becomes the first of the British colonies to address Benjamin Franklin's Albany Plan for an inter-colonial union. With Franklin absent from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania's House of Representatives votes against to not consider the Plan at all, and to not refer it to the next legislative session for debate.source
  • 1759January 11 – In Philadelphia, the first American life insurance company is incorporated.source
  • 1766February 20 – The Pennsylvania Gazette reports that a British sloop off Wilmington, North Carolina, has seized a sloop sailing from Philadelphia, and another sailing from Saint Christopher, on the charge of carrying official documents without stamps. In response, local residents threaten to burn a Royal Man-of-War attempting to deliver stamps to Wilmington, forcing the ship to return to the mouth of the Cape Fear River.source
  • 1774October 26 – The first Continental Congress adjourns in Philadelphia.source
  • 1774September 5 – The First Continental Congress assembles in Philadelphia.source
  • 1777March 4 – The Fourth Continental Congress, with John Hancock as president, begins a 199 day session in Philadelphia, lasting until September 18.source
  • 1777September 26 – American Revolutionary War – British troops occupy Philadelphia; members of the Continental Congress flee to Lancaster, Pennsylvania, where they meet and hold a one day session as the Fifth Congress before fleeing again.source
  • 1779October 4 – The Fort Wilson Riot against James Wilson and others in Philadelphia takes place.source
  • 1785September 13 – Benjamin Franklin returns to Philadelphia after seven years as the U.S. Ambassador to France and prepares to take office as the new Governor of Pennsylvania.source
  • 1787A fossil bone recovered from Cretaceous strata at Woodbury, New Jersey is discussed by the American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia.source
  • 1787May 14 – In Philadelphia, delegates begin arriving for a Constitutional Convention.source
  • 1787May 25 – In Philadelphia, delegates begin to convene the Constitutional Convention, intended to amend the Articles of Confederation (however, a new United States Constitution is eventually produced). George Washington presides over the Convention.source
  • 1787September 17 – The United States Constitution is signed by the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia.source
  • 1790December 6 – The United States Congress opens its first session in the new temporary U.S. capital in Philadelphia.source
  • 1790November 27 – U.S. President George Washington and his wife, Martha Washington, arrive in the new temporary U.S. capital, Philadelphia, and take up residence at the President's House located at 524 Market Street.source
  • 1792The Insurance Company of North America (later Chubb) is founded in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.source
  • 1793August 1–November 9 – The yellow fever epidemic of 1793 hits Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; 5,000 die.source
  • 1793March 4 – George Washington is sworn in as the president of the United States in Philadelphia, for his second term.source

19th century

  • 1816March 30–April 11 – In Philadelphia, the African Methodist Episcopal Church is established by Richard Allen and other African-American Methodists, the first such denomination in the U.S. completely independent of White churches.source
  • 1826February 4 – James Fenimore Cooper's novel The Last of the Mohicans is first printed, by a publisher in Philadelphia.source
  • 1837February 25 – In Philadelphia, the Institute for Colored Youth (ICY) is founded, as the first institution for the higher education of black people in the United States.source
  • 1847May 7 – In Philadelphia, the American Medical Association (AMA) is founded.source
  • 1851September 15 – Saint Joseph's University is founded in Philadelphia.source
  • 1856February 18 – The American Know Nothing Party convenes in Philadelphia to nominate their first Presidential candidate, former President Millard Fillmore.source
  • 1856July 17 – The Great Train Wreck (the worst railroad calamity in the world to date) occurs near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States.source
  • 1864June – The United States Sanitary Commission's Sanitary Fair in Philadelphia takes place.source
  • 1866Marcus Jastrow arrives in the United States to become rabbi of Congregation Rodeph Shalom in Philadelphia.source
  • 1876May 10 – The Centennial Exposition begins in Philadelphia.source
  • 1876November 10 – The Centennial Exposition ends in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.source
  • 1876October 6 – The American Library Association is founded in Philadelphia.source
  • 1891December 17 – Drexel University is inaugurated as the Drexel Institute of Art, Science and Industry in Philadelphia.source

20th century

  • 1915September 11 – The Pennsylvania Railroad begins electrified commuter rail service between Paoli and Philadelphia, using overhead AC trolley wires for power. This type of system is later used in long-distance passenger trains between New York City, Washington, D.C., and Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.source
  • 1918May 15 – The United States Post Office Department begins the world's third regular airmail service, between New York City, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C.source
  • 1940June 24 – United States politics: The Republican Party begins its national convention in Philadelphia, and nominates Wendell Willkie as its candidate for president.source
  • 1948April 19 – The American Broadcasting Company (otherwise known as ABC) begins television services, on WFIL-TV in Philadelphia (later WPVI-TV).source
  • 1959July 4 – With the admission of Alaska as the 49th U.S. state earlier in the year, the 49-star flag of the United States debuts in Philadelphia.source
  • 1972October 22 – The Oakland Athletics defeat the Cincinnati Reds four games to three to capture Major League Baseball's World Series. It is the Athletics' first championship since 1930, when the franchise was in Philadelphia.source
  • 1976July 27 – Delegates attending an American Legion convention at The Bellevue-Stratford Hotel in Philadelphia, US, begin falling ill with a form of pneumonia: this will eventually be recognised as the first outbreak of Legionnaires' disease and will end in the deaths of 29 attendees.source
  • 1985July 13 – Live Aid benefit concerts in London and Philadelphia raise over £50 million for famine relief in Ethiopia.source
  • 1986August 31 – The cargo ship Khian Sea departs from the docks of Philadelphia, carrying 14,000 tons of toxic waste. It wanders the seas for the next 16 months trying to find a place to dump its cargo. The waste is later dumped in Haiti.source

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