Alabama Important Dates

• 1540 DeSoto crosses Alabama; battles with Indians at Mauvila, near Choctaw Bluff.
  
• 1629 Charles I makes Carolina grant, which includes the Alabama area.
  
• 1702 Mobile was founded as a French settlement, Fort Louis de la Mobile.
  
• 1710 - 1763 The Alabama area was governed by France. The English, French, Spanish, and Americans from South Carolina and Georgia established trading posts.
  
• 1763 Alabama included in the area ceded by France to Great Britain in Treaty of Paris.
  
• 1763 - 1783 The Alabama area was governed by Great Britain.
  
• 1780 Bernardo de Galvez, governor of Spanish Louisiana, captures Mobile from the English.
  
• 1783 Great Britain cedes Alabama north of the 31st parallel to the United States; Florida, including Mobile, is ceded to Spain.
  
• 1798 Georgia abandoned claims to the area. The area north of the 31st parallel became part of the Mississippi Territory.
  
• 1803 United States claims Mobile as part of the Louisiana Purchase.
  
• 1805 Chickasaw, Cherokee, and Choctaw cede part of land claims in Alabama region to U.S.
  
• 1813 - 1814 During the War of 1812, American forces captured Mobile from the Spanish and defeated the Creek Indians. Removal of the Creeks and other Indian tribes was begun, and white settlers began flooding into the region, bringing black slaves with them.
  
• 1817 Congress created the Alabama Territory with seven counties.
  
• 1819 Alabama was admitted to the Union as a state, December 14th.
  
• 1861 Alabama seceded from the Union, January 11; Confederate government formed at Montgomery; Jefferson Davis inaugerated as Confederate president there.
  
• 1864 At the Battle of Mobile Bay on August 5, Admiral David Farragut issued his famous command, "Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead."
  
• 1868 Alabama readmitted to the Union. Nearly 100,000 men from Alabama served in the Civil War.

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