Historical Timeline - City of Atlanta

Seal of the City of Atlanta
Seal of the City of Atlanta
 
before 1820s
1762 Standing Peachtree, Native American trading post first mentioned
1820
1821 Creek Indians cede land that is now Metro Atlanta
1822 Decatur founded
1830
1830 Whitehall Tavern built at today's West End
1836 Western and Atlantic Railroad approved
1839 John Thrasher builds settlement at terminus
1840
1842 Incorporated as Marthasville;
Georgia Railroad arrives from Augusta
1846 Macon & Western RR connects Atlanta with port of Savannah
1847 Atlanta incorporated
1850
pop. 2,572
1850 Oakland Cemetery founded
1851 W&A RR connects Atlanta to The Midwest
1854 Atlanta & La Grange RR connects Atlanta towards the southwest; Atlanta becomes rail hub for entire South
1860
pop. 9,554
1861-1865 American Civil War
1864 Civil War Atlanta Campaign, burning of Atlanta
1865 Civil War ends; slaves freed;
Atlanta University, 1st Atlanta black college, founded
1870
pop. 21,879
1871 Horse-drawn streetcars appear, enabling city expansion
1880
pop. 37,409
1880 Atlanta surpasses Savannah as Georgia's largest city
1881 International Cotton Exposition
1885 Georgia Tech founded
1886 Atlanta goes "dry";
Coca-Cola first sold;
Henry Grady's "New South" speech in New York
1887 Piedmont Exposition;
Inman Park, first garden suburb, founded;
Coca-Cola invents the coupon
1889 First electric streetcars enable further expansion of city;
State Capitol building opens
1890
pop. 65,533
1895 Cotton States Expo; Booker T. Washington gives "Atlanta Compromise" Speech
1900
pop. 89,872 - metro 419,375
1906 Atlanta Race Riot kills 27;
Black businesses move to Sweet Auburn and west side
1910
pop. 154,839 - metro 522,442
1910 Restaurants segregated; other Jim Crow laws follow
1913 Leo Frank lynching;
Georgia Tech starts "evening college", now Georgia State
1914 Coca-Cola president Asa Griggs Candler donates land for Emory University campus in Druid Hills
1917 Great Atlanta fire
1920
pop. 200,616 - metro 622,283
1923 Spring Street Viaduct opens, downtown rises above train tracks
1930
pop. 270,366 - metro 715,391
1936 William B. Hartsfield elected mayor;
Techwood Homes built, first public housing in US
1939 Gone with the Wind premiere draws 300,000 to streets
1940s
1946 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) founded
1949 Last streetcar line converted to trolleybus
1950
pop. 331,314 - metro 997,666
1950 Transit strike, Atlanta Transit Co. takes over transit from Georgia Railway and Power
1952 Buckhead annexed
1958 Racist terrorists bomb "The Temple", believing Jews support black Civil Rights
1959 Trolleybuses, buses, public library desegregated;
Lenox Square mall opens
Metro population hits 1 million
1960
pop. 487,455 - metro 1,312,474
1960 Civil Rights sit-ins at Rich's, lunch counters
1961 Ivan Allen, Jr. becomes mayor;
Public schools begin token desegregation;
Rich's desegregates restaurant;
John Portman opens Merchandise Mart, kicking off transformation of downtown
1962 106 Atlanta art patrons die in Paris air crash
1963 Trolleybuses converted en masse to buses
1968 Martin Luther King, Jr. assassinated
1969 Perimeter freeway opens
1970
pop. 496,973 - metro 1,763,626
1973 Maynard Jackson becomes first black mayor
1979 MARTA opens first rail rapid transit line;
Child murders begin
1980
pop. 425,022 - metro 2,233,324
1980 CNN launches, Turner empire takes off
1982 Andrew Young becomes mayor
1988 Democratic Convention
1990
pop. 394,017 - metro 2,959,950
1992 Bank of America Plaza completed, tallest US building outside of NYC and Chicago
1996 Summer Olympics
2000
pop. 416,474 - metro 4,112,198
2005 Airport becomes world's busiest;
BeltLine plan adopted, adding 40% to city's green space
2008 Delta becomes world's largest airline;
Downtown tornadoes
2010
pop. 420,003 - metro (CSA) 5,729,304
2011 Atlanta first US city to demolish all public housing projects

This information is available thanks to Wikipedia's History of Atlanta, which we have permission to redistribute.