| 1507: | Western Hemisphere first called America |
| 1513: | Vasco Nuñez de Balboa crosses Panama to discover the Pacific Ocean |
1540  42: |
Francisco Vásquez de Coronado explores the interior Southwest |
| 1541 42: |
Hernando de Soto travels through Arkansas and Oklahoma |
| 1598: | Juan de Oñate plants settlements in northern New Mexico |
| 1607: | Frontier settlements in Jamestown, Virginia |
| 1609 10: |
Founding of Santa Fe, New Mexico |
| 1620 21: |
Pilgrims organize Plymouth, Massachusetts |
| 1630: | Boston, Massachusetts, is settled by the Puritans |
| 1673: | Père Jacques Marquette and Louis Joliet explore the Great Lakes and Mississippi Valley |
| 1680: | Pueblo Revolt, the Indians drive the Spaniards out of New Mexico |
| 1692: | Don Diego de Vargas begins successful reconquest of New Mexico |
| 1706: | Founding of Albuquerque, New Mexico |
| 1734: | Birth of Daniel Boone (1734 1820), first frontier literary hero |
| 1763: | Treaty of Paris ends French and Indian War and cedes French Canada and trans-Appalachian West to England; Louisiana given to France |
| 1769 70ff: |
Spanish establish missions from San Diego to the Bay Area |
| 1783: | Treaty of Paris ends American Revolution and extends U.S. borders to the Mississippi River |
| 1803: | Louisiana Purchase from France doubles the size of the nation |
| 1804-06: | Lewis and Clark expedition, first major exploration into the recently acquired area of the Louisiana Purchase |
| 1805-07: | Zebulon M. Pike explores the Mississippi and Colorado and New Mexico |
| 1812-15: | War of 1812 pushes the British from most of the frontier |
| 1818: | Convention of 1818 fixes the U.S.-Canadian border west to the Rockies |
| 1819, 1821: | Transcontinental (Adams-Onís) Treaty provides boundary for Texas, Nevada, and California |
| 1819 20: |
Major Stephen H. Long explores the Southwest |
| 1820: | Missouri Compromise attempts to solve the growing slavery controversy |
| 1821: | Mexico wins independence from Spain and assumes control of the Southwest Hudson's Bay Company absorbs its major British competitor, the North-West Company Beginning of the Santa Fe Trail |
| 1822: | Jedediah Smith (1799 1831) makes first of many western explorations |
| 1820s-30s: | Halcyon years of the American fur trade and mountain man era in the Rockies and the Southwest |
| 1830: | Organization of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints; publication of Book of Mormon |
| 1835 36: |
Texas Revolution and establishment of Republic of Texas (1835 45) |
| 1842: | John Charles Frémont makes first of several western explorations |
| 1843: | First major groups travel the Oregon Trail to the Pacific Northwest |
| 1845: | Annexation of Texas as a state Journalist John L. O'Sullivan writes about Manifest Destiny |
| 1846: | Oregon Country is divided at 49° between U.S. and England (Canada) |
| 1846-47: | Mormons leave Nauvoo, Illinois, travel along the Mormon Trail, and begin to settle in the Salt Lake valley |
| 1846-48: | Americans fight and win the Mexican-American War and thereby wrest control of the Southwest from Mexico |
| 1848: | Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo promises to respect Mexican rights in recently captured areas but fails to do so |
| 1848-49: | Gold is discovered in California and thousands flood west to the mines |
| 1850: | California becomes the first far-western state Compromise of 1850 tries to solve boundary and slave controversies in the Southwest |
| 1851: | Ft. Laramie Treaty, major attempt to make peace with Plains Indians |
| 1853: | Gadsden Purchase completes present border between U.S. and Mexico Beginning of the bloody struggle over slavery in Kansas and Nebraska |
| 1854: | Kansas-Nebraska reignites national slavery controversy |
| 1856: | "Bleeding Kansas" results from the struggle over the extension of slavery |
| 1857-58: | The Utah or Mormon "war" |
| 1857: | Mountain Meadows Massacre Establishment of the Overland Mail Company to carry mail to the West Coast |
| 1858: | Completion of the first stagecoach and mail service from Missouri to California |
| 1858 59: |
Gold discoveries lead to rushes to Nevada and Colorado |
| 1859: | Oregon becomes a state |
| 1859 60: |
Mining rushes to Nevada, Colorado, and Idaho |
| 1860 61: |
Pony Express crosses the West |
| 1861: | Completion of first telegraph connecting the East and West |
| 1861 65: |
Civil War has large impact on the West although few battles take place west of the Mississippi |
| 1862: | Homestead Act provides inexpensive land for western pioneers Morrill or Land Grant Act sets aside lands for colleges of agricultural or mechanical arts Pacific Railroad Act helps pave the way for transcontinental railway with generous land grants to the Union Pacific and Central Pacific railroads |
| 1864: | Sand Creek Massacre in which John Chivington and the Colorado Volunteers destroy a band of Cheyennes |
| 1865 67: |
Continued battles with the western Sioux |
| 1867: | The purchase of Alaska The Dominion of Canada is established |
| 1868: | Founding of University of California, Berkeley The Overland Monthly begins publication |
| 1869: | First transcontinental railroad joins at Promontory Point, Utah |
| 1872: | Establishment of Yellowstone National Park, world's first national park |
| 1874: | Barbed wire fence patented |
| 1876: | Battle of the Little Bighorn  Custer's Last Stand (June 25) |
| 1877: | Retreat of Chief Joseph and the Nez Perce Black Exodusters migrate to Kansas |
| 1878: | Timber and Stone Act, a land grant for western pioneers |
| 1879: | Publication of Henry George's reformist study Progress and Poverty |
| 1881: | Helen Hunt Jackson's expose of Indian reforms and conditions, A Century of Dishonor |
| 1882 83: |
Transcontinental railroads completed to southern California and Pacific Northwest |
| 1885 87: |
Severe winters in Rockies and Plains destroy thousands of cattle and many ranchers |
| 1886: | Capture of Geronimo ends major wars with Indians |
| 1887: | Dawes Severalty (General Allotment) Act attempts to Americanize Indians through outright gifts of land |
| 1889: | Beginning of Oklahoma land booms |
| 1889 91: |
Ghost Dance and Battle of Wounded Knee end armed conflicts with Indians |
| 1890: | Woodruff Manifesto proclaims end of Mormon polygamy U.S. Census Bureau announces the closing of the frontier |
| 1891: | The Populist Party is established |
| 1892: | Sierra Club founded |
| 1893: | Severe national depression sweeps through the West Completion of the Great Northern Railroad from Minnesota to the Pacific Northwest Frederick Jackson Turner delivers his key essay "The Significance of the Frontier in American History" |
| 1896: | William McKinley defeats William Jennings Bryan for the presidency and much of the Populist movement disappears |
| 1897 98: |
Last major gold rush to the Yukon and Alaska |
| 1898: | Sunset Magazine begins as regional West Coast journal Spanish-American War includes the famous Rough Riders, who were mostly westerners |
| 1900ff: | Carmel, California, and Taos-Santa Fe, New Mexico, begin as no- table artistic-literary colonies |
| 1902: | Oregon institutes initiative and referendum laws |
| 1903: | Great Train Robbery, first Western film; produced in New Jersey |
| 1904: | A. P. Giannini establishes Bank of Italy in San Francisco, which becomes the Bank of America in 1930 |
| 1905: | Establishment of Industrial Workers of the World, radical labor union |
| 1906: | San Francisco earthquake and fire San Francisco segregates oriental children |
| 1907: | Publication of Spirit of American Government, J. Allen Smith's progressive treatise |
| 1907 08: |
"Gentlemen's Agreement" notes place restrictions on Japanese immigration |
| 1909 10: |
Milwaukee Road and Western Pacific, last of the transcontinental railroads, completed to the Pacific |
| 1910: | Election of Hiram Johnson, Progressive governor of California The Pinchot-Ballinger controversy over conservation policy |
| 1910ff: | Hollywood becomes major location for the production of films |
| 1912: | Hiram Johnson runs unsuccessfully with Theodore Roosevelt as vice- presidential candidate of the Progressive Party |
| 1914: | William S. Hart stars in his first major Western film Completion of the Panama Canal, a new route to the West Coast |
| 1914, 1916: | U.S. invasions of Mexico |
| 1914 15: |
Founding of the Non-Partisan League, socialistic political group in the Rockies and northern Plains |
| 1915: | Death of IWW hero, Joe Hill, by firing squad, on a murder charge |
| 1916: | Congress authorizes the establishment of a National Park Service Jeanette Rankin, Montana Congresswoman, first woman elected to Congress |
| 1917 18: |
U.S. involvement in World War I brings great socioeconomic changes to the West |
| 1918: | Noted U.S. cultural figure, Mabel Dodge (Luhan), arrives in New Mexico |
| 1919 20: |
Western senators Hiram Johnson and William E. Borah lead successful fight against Treaty of Paris and League of Nations |
| 1919: | Seattle General Strike (February 6 11) attacked by conservatives as evidence of communist infiltration in the Far West |
| 1920: | Nineteenth Amendment ratified, giving vote to women |
| 1920s: | Los Angeles becomes the automobile-driving capital of the U.S. Airplane manufacturing begins on the West Coast Rapid development of dude ranches in the West |
| 1922: | Oregon becomes major stronghold of the Ku Klux Klan Aimee Semple McPherson builds Angelus Temple in Los Angeles First one-day, coast-to-coast air flight |
| 1923 |
Teapot Dome oil scandal |
| 1924 |
McNary-Haugen Bill to aid farmers first defeated in Congress and then twice vetoed by President Calvin Coolidge |
| 1928: | First sound motion pictures Herbert Hoover, first western president, elected |
| 1929: | Great Depression strikes the West |
| 1930s: | The West experiences the Depression, Dust Bowl, and New Deal |
| 1931: | Walter Prescott Webb, The Great Plains, major historical reinterpretation of the West Gambling is legalized in Nevada |
| 1933ff: | New Deal and its policies profoundly transform the West |
| 1934: | Indian Reorganization (Wheeler-Howard) Act revises the Dawes Act of 1887 and places more emphasis on Indian self-identification Taylor Grazing Act authorizes policies for open-range grazing Upton Sinclair loses as Democratic finalist for the governorship of California (End Poverty in California campaign) |
| 1935: | Franklin D. Roosevelt dedicates Boulder (Hoover) Dam |
| 1935 |
Federal arts, guides, and theatre projects under the Works Progress Administration |
| 1939: | Release of Stagecoach, the classic John Ford John Wayne Western film |
| 1941: | Japanese attack Pearl Harbor and U.S. joins World War II |
| 1941 45: |
Economic and social disruptions of World War II transform the West |
| 1942 43: |
Racial conflicts in Sleepy Lagoon Case and zoot suit riots |
| 1942 44: |
Internment of Japanese-Americans in detention camps in the interior West Henry J. Kaiser builds giant wartime plants in coastal states |
| 1943: | First Los Angeles smog |
| 1945: | First atomic bomb exploded in New Mexico United Nations charter written in San Francisco |
| 1940 |
Beats and North Beach area involved in the San Francisco Renaissance |
| 1948: | Beginning of uranium rushes to the Southwest |
| 1950 |
Far West becomes jumping off place for Americans involved in the Korean War |
| 1952: | General Dwight D. Eisenhower, westerner, is elected president (1953 61) |
| 1958: | Alaska admitted to statehood |
| 1959: | Hawaii becomes the fiftieth state |
| 1960: | Los Angeles third largest U.S. city (population 2,479,015) behind New York and Chicago |
| 1962: | California surpasses New York as the most populous state César Chávez organizes the National Farm Workers Association |
| 1963: | President John F. Kennedy is assassinated and Texan Lyndon B. Johnson becomes president (1963 69) |
| 1964: | Two westerners, Lyndon B. Johnson and Barry Goldwater, compete for the presidency Congress enacts the Wilderness Act, creating a National Wilderness Preservation system |
| 1965: | Watts riots in Los Angeles |
| 1968: | Californian Richard Nixon wins the presidency (1969 74) |
| 1969: | Indians seize and hold Alcatraz as protest against government policies |
| 1970: | Organization of the National Indian Youth Council |
| 1973: | Confrontation between Indians and government officials at Wounded Knee, South Dakota |
| 1977 |
Decline and fall of Rev. James Jones and the People's Temple |
| 1978: | California voters uphold Proposition 13, limiting local taxation measures |
| 1980: | "Boat people" and other Southeast Asians move into western U.S. Los Angeles remains third largest city behind New York and Chicago Ronald Reagan, former cowboy movie star and California governor, elected to the White House |
