1541 Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto is the first European to visit Tennessee.
1682 La Salle claimed Tennessee for France and constructed Fort Prud’homme.
1714 Fort Lick is established near where Nashville will one day be located.
1756 Fort Loudon was established by Sout Carolina.
1763 The British take control from the French after the French and Indian War.
1784 The State of Franklin is established. It will come to an end in 1788.
1796 Tennessee was admitted to the Union as the 16th state.
1815 Andrew Jackson leads Tennessee troops to victory in the Battle of New Orleans.
1826 Nashville is made the capital.
1828 Andrew Jackson is elected President of the United States.
1843 Nashville became the capital of Tennessee.
1844 James K. Polk from Tennessee is elected President of the United States.
1861 Tennessee is the last of the southern states to secede from the Union and join the Confederacy.
1862 General Grant captured Fort Henry and Fort Donelson.
1863 Union forces are victorious at the Battle of Chattanooga this opened the way to Atlanta.
1864 Fort Pillow was captured by Confederate forces, many of its defenders were killed after surrendering.
1866 Tennessee is readmitted as a state in the Union.
1925 John Scopes is found guilty of teaching evolution.
1926 The Great Smoky National Park was established.
1933 The Tennessee Valley Authority was created by an act of Congress.
1933 The first hydroelectric dam is built by the Tennessee Valley Authority.
1940 President Franklin Roosevelt dedicates the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
1942 Work was begun at Oak Ridge to develop an atomic bomb.
1968 Reverend Martin Luther King was assassinated in Memphis.