Baltimore - geography.

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The Lillie Carroll Jackson Museum honors the civil rights leader who was president of Baltimore’s National Association for the Advancement of ColoredPeople (NAACP) chapter from 1935 to 1970.

Also of note are the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and the Baltimore Opera Company. VII HISTORY Before European settlement, the site of Baltimore was inhabited by a Native American people known as the Susquehannock.

The area was explored by English soldier JohnSmith in 1608 and was settled in 1661.

In 1729 the town was founded and named for the barons Baltimore, the British founders of the Maryland Colony.

Established as atobacco port, the town rapidly developed into a flour-milling and shipbuilding center, with a flourishing trade with Europe and the Caribbean.

In 1777, while Philadelphia wasoccupied by the British during the American Revolution, the Continental Congress met in Baltimore.

It was incorporated as a city in 1797.

During the War of 1812 the Britishmade an attempt to eliminate privateers operating out of Baltimore.

The ensuing battle in 1814, centered around Fort McHenry, inspired American lawyer and poet FrancisScott Key to write “The Star-Spangled Banner.” A second phase of growth began in 1828, when America’s first railroad, the Baltimore and Ohio, was built to compete for the western trade created by New York’s ErieCanal.

At the start of the American Civil War (1861-1865), though Maryland did not secede from the Union, the city’s Southern sympathies provoked riots and led to itsoccupation by Union troops. Heavy industrial development began in 1897 with the opening of the Sparrows Point steel mill.

In 1904 a fire destroyed most of the downtown section, which was soonrebuilt.

Both World War I (1914-1918) and World War II (1939-1945) promoted great industrial growth, especially in steel works and oil refining, which led to adiversification of the economy. Following the war, many middle-class whites left Baltimore for the surrounding suburbs.

During the 1950 and 1960s the city was the site of civil rights demonstrations forintegration in schools and public places.

In 1968, after the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., Baltimore was the site of race riots.

By the mid-1970s the city had ablack majority, and Clarence Burns became the city’s first black major in 1987. In the 1970s and 1980s people continued to move to the suburbs.

From 1960 to 1980 the city’s population dropped by 16 percent.

In response, the city startedredevelopment projects to revitalize areas such as the Inner Harbor.

The Inner Harbor became home to Harborplace, an area of shops and restaurants, in 1980 and to theNational Aquarium the following year.

In 1992 the Oriole Park at Camden Yards, where the Baltimore Orioles professional baseball team plays, opened in downtownBaltimore. Contributed By:Fredric Arnold RitterMicrosoft ® Encarta ® 2009. © 1993-2008 Microsoft Corporation.

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