248
 Rome celebrates its 1,000th anniversary 		1271
Marco Polo journeys to China to open trade routes between Europe and the Orient. 		1492
 Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain finance the voyage of 41-year old Italian Christopher Columbus to find new trading routes to India. He ends up discovering the Bahamas and Cuba.

1541

Hernando de Soto discovers the Mississippi River. 1681
 		Charles II, King of England, grants territory for the establishment of Pennsylvania to William Penn, a 37-year-old English Quaker. 1755
 French and Indian War begins. Ends in 1763. 		1764
 		Mozart, 8 years old, writes his first symphony. 1775
 		Revolutionary War begins.
Ends in 1783.
8,000 BC
 Last glacier recedes from western PA and southwestern NY, combining three separate and distinct "little Alleghenies" into one river; reshapes the configuration of the Monongahela and Ohio Rivers as well. 		200
 The Aquanushioni, later known to the French as the Iroquois, also known as the Six Nations, maintain a long-established lodge in Punxsutawney. 		200
The above pie-chart shows 100 percent of the original forest remaining in the Allegheny Watershed. 		1669
 LaSalle, French trapper and explorer, is the first European to discover and write of the Ohio River. He calls it "Belle Riviere," or Beautiful River. 		1749
 		Capt. Celoron de Blainville, dispatched by the Governor-General of New France (Canada), takes possession of the Ohio River Valley by travelling the rivers and burying engraved lead plates that claim French ownership of the territory. The fist plate was buried along the Conewango River south of Lake Chatauqua. Others were buried along the Allegheny and Ohio Rivers. 1754
 		British Major George Washington, 21, travels to Fort LeBoeuf (now Waterford) with a message from the English Governor of Virgina demanding that the French leave the Ohio Valley. On the return trip, Washington and his guide, Cristopher Gist, nearly die when their raft breaks up in the icy Allegheny River. Excerpt from Washington's own journal. 1760
At the confluence of the Allegheny and the Monongahela Rivers, Fort Pitt, a large, ambitious fort, is built near the burnt ruins of Fort Duquesne last occupied by (defeated) French. 		1762
Wingenund, Munsee Indian prophet, draws a map on sugar maple bark that shows the three rivers, Fort Pitt, the settlement of "Pittsboro," the extent of British Occupation, and the Munsee Turtle of Creation. 		1780
 		Gradual Abolition Act orders owners to free all slaves born after March 1, 1780, within 28 years. In western PA, enforcement was delayed until the 1783 settlement of a 30-year-long boundary dispute with Virginia. In 1783, 795 slaves were registered in Westmoreland County; in 1790, 128 slaves. Slave holdings in Allegheny County decreased from 79 in 1800 to 0 by 1840. 1787
 Pennsylvania declares statehood, December 12. 		1787
 University of Pittsburgh, then called "Pittsburgh Academy," is founded in a log cabin. 		1791
Whiskey Rebellion started in Berlin, PA, at the headwaters of Stoney Creek, when the federal government imposed a tax on the chief export of the time: whiskey. Illustration shows tax official being tarred and feathered by Insurrectionists (farmers) after their peaceful petitions against excess taxation failed.