1782: First written reference to Standing Peachtree, the Creek Indian village that was the root of all our Peachtrees.

1814: Peachtree Road is built to connect a fort near Hog Mountain (in what was soon to become Gwinnett County) with one at Standing Peachtree.

1821: Creek Indians cede the site of Atlanta to Georgia; the family of George Washington Collier soon builds a home in the woods north of the future city.

1837: Atlanta is founded as a railroad junction named Terminus. The first trains don't arrive for five years.

1838: Henry Irby builds a store and tavern on Peachtree Road and calls the settlement Irbyville. After someone shoots a buck and puts the trophy head on a pole, everyone calls the area Buck's Head.

1843: Terminus becomes Marthasville. The city is renamed for former Gov. Wilson Lumpkin's youngest daughter, Martha.

1845: The town's name is changed again, this time to Atlanta.

1864: Let the burning begin. The Union Army's Atlanta campaign begins in northwest Georgia in May. After the fall of Jonesboro on Sept. 1, the Confederate army evacuates Atlanta.

1868: Atlanta replaces Milledgeville as the state capital.

1886: John S. Pemberton concocts a soft drink named Coca-Cola.

1886: "We have raised a brave and beautiful city," says Henry W. Grady, managing editor of The Atlanta Constitution, in an address about "The New South" in New York City.

1895: The Cotton States Exposition includes a speech by Booker T. Washington that later becomes known as the Atlanta Compromise.

1905: Alonzo F. Herndon, one of Atlanta's earliest black businessmen, founds the Atlanta Life Insurance Co.

1906: Atlanta's worst race riot breaks out at Five Points, and two dozen die.

1917: A huge fire destroys the northeast section of Atlanta, burning almost 3,400 buildings and leaving 10,000 people homeless.

1922: Running on a campaign promise to "clean up Duluth and rid it of demon rum," Alice Harrell Strickland becomes Georgia's first female mayor.

1923: Robert Woodruff, 33, becomes president of the Coca-Cola Co. Over the course of his lifetime, Woodruff donates hundreds of millions of dollars to a variety of metro Atlanta organizations, including the city of Atlanta, Emory University and the Atlanta University Center.

1936: The novel "Gone With the Wind" makes Atlanta author Margaret Mitchell a very famous woman.

1936: The nation's first federally funded low-income housing project, Techwood Homes, opens in the city. President Franklin D. Roosevelt gives the keynote speech.

1939: "Gone With the Wind" has its world premiere at the Loew's Grand Theatre. "Rhett Butler at Five Points!" shouts the Constitution headline about the parade of the stars down Peachtree.

1941: Delta Air Lines, founded in Monroe, La., in 1928, moves its headquarters to Atlanta.

1946: 119 die as the "fireproof" Winecoff Hotel burns, still the deadliest hotel fire in U.S. history.

1946: The Communicable Disease Center opens in downtown Atlanta. Later renamed the Centers for Disease Control (and eventually the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) to reflect its mission, the CDC takes on polio and eradicates smallpox.

1952: Atlanta annexes Buckhead, the last major expansion of its city limits.

1959: Peachtree City is incorporated in Fayette County, and the Peachtree name starts spreading on the Southside.

1959: Atlanta celebrates "M Day" as the metro population hits 1 million. The Chamber of Commerce designates a recent arrival from Cincinnati "Mr. Million" and showers him with gifts.

1961: Ivan Allen Jr. is elected mayor of Atlanta. His progressive approach to race relations helps make Atlanta the premier Southern city.

1961: The Merchandise Mart opens. It is the first of many buildings architect and developer John Portman will build in downtown, leading a resurgence of the area.

1964: The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., born on Atlanta's Auburn Avenue, wins the Nobel Peace Prize.

1966: Play ball! The Atlanta Braves and the Atlanta Falcons arrive.

1968: After her husband's assassination, Coretta Scott King founds the Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change.

1970: The Peachtree Road Race is run for the first time. It is now the world's largest 10K race.

1971: Technology Park/Atlanta, actually in Gwinnett County's Peachtree Corners, opens as the metro area's first high-tech corridor.

1972: The Confederate Memorial Carving on Stone Mountain, started in 1923, is finally finished.

1973: Maynard Jackson is elected first black mayor of Atlanta and the first black mayor of a major Southern city.

1974: Hank Aaron hits home run No. 715, beating Babe Ruth's record.

1976: Jimmy Carter becomes the first Georgian to be elected president of the United States.

1980: The new terminal opens at William B. Hartsfield Atlanta International Airport.

1980: A police task force assigned to solve the killings of more than a dozen young black men and boys -- "the missing and murdered children" -- gets to work. In 1982, after Wayne Williams is found guilty of two of the killings, the books are closed on most of the other killings.

1980: Ted Turner's CNN goes on the air, changing TV news reporting.

1984: Robert Benham of Cartersville becomes the first African-American elected to a statewide office in Georgia when he wins a seat on the Georgia Supreme Court. Benham will later serve as chief justice of the Georgia Supreme Court.

1988: Atlanta hosts the Democratic National Convention. Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton underwhelms the crowd with his rambling speech nominating Michael Dukakis for president.

1988: Willie B., the most famous resident of Zoo Atlanta, is brought outside to live in a rain forest habitat with other apes after more than 20 years spent isolated in a cage.

The habitat remains Willie B.'s home until his death in 2000 at age 41.

1990: It's Atlanta! The International Olympic Committee announces that the 1996 Olympic Games will be held in Atlanta.

1991: Metro Atlanta hits 3 million; no festivities this time.

1992: Cynthia McKinney is elected Georgia's first black congresswoman.

1992: Georgia Supreme Court Justice Leah Sears-Collins becomes the first woman and the youngest person ever elected to the state's highest court.

1995: World Champs! After losing in two previous appearances, the Braves finally win the World Series.

1996: Atlanta hosts the Olympic Games. The Fountain of Rings in Centennial Olympic Park, partially funded by the sale of commemorative bricks, brings Atlantans back downtown.

1998: Atlanta's Hartsfield airport surpasses Chicago's O'Hare in 1998 to become the world's busiest airport in number of passengers handled, a ranking it still holds today.

2001: Release of 2000 census information shows metro Atlanta's population at 4.1 million.

2002: Shirley Franklin is sworn in as Atlanta's first female mayor (and 58th overall).

2003: Sonny Perdue becomes the first Republican governor of Georgia in 130 years.

2003: Former Atlanta Mayor Maynard Jackson dies at age 65. Former Mayor Ivan Allen Jr. dies at 92.