1614--Adriaen Block, representing the Dutch, sails up the Connecticut River.
1633--The Dutch erect a fort, the House of (Good) Hope, on the future site of Hartford.
1633--John Oldham and others explore and trade along the Connecticut River. Plymouth Colony sends William Holmes to found a trading post at Windsor.
1634--Wethersfield founded by people from Massachusetts.
1634--First English arrive in Windsor.
1635--Fort erected at Saybrook by Lion Gardiner.
1635--Group from Dorchester, Massachusetts join Windsor settlement.
1636--Thomas Hooker and company journey from Newtown (Cambridge), Massachusetts to found Hartford.
1637--Pequot War. Captain John Mason leads colonists to decisive victory.
1638--New Haven Colony established by John Davenport and Theophilus Eaton.
1639--Fundamental Orders of Connecticut adopted by Freemen of Hartford, Wethersfield and Windsor; John Haynes chosen first Governor.
1643--Connecticut joins in forming the New England Confederation.
1646--New London founded by John Winthrop, Jr.
1650--Code of laws drawn up by Roger Ludlow and adopted by legislature.
1662--John Winthrop, Jr. obtains a charter for Connecticut.
1665--Union of New Haven and Connecticut Colonies completed.
1665--The first division of any Connecticut town--Lyme's separation from Saybrook.
1675-76--Connecticut participates in King Philip's War which was fought in Rhode Island and Massachusetts.
1687--Andros assumes rule over Connecticut; Charter Oak episode occurs.
1689--Connecticut resumes government under charter.
1701--Collegiate School authorized by General Assembly.
1708--Saybrook Platform permits churches to join regional consociations.
1717--New Haven State House erected on the Green.
1717--Collegiate School moves to New Haven; called Yale the next year.
1740--Manufacture of tinware begun at Berlin by Edward and William Pattison.
1740's--Height of religious "Great Awakening".
1745--Connecticut troops under Roger Wolcott help capture Louisburg.
1755--Connecticut Gazette of New Haven, the Colony's first newspaper, printed by James Parker at New Haven.
1763--Brick State House erected on New Haven Green.

1764--Connecticut Courant, the oldest American newspaper in continuous existence to the present, launched at Hartford by Thomas Green.
1765--Sharp opposition to Stamp Act.
1766--Governor Thomas Fitch who refused to reject the Stamp Act defeated by William Pitkin.
1767--Thomas and Samuel Green launch newspaper which after many changes becomes New Haven Journal-Courier.
1774--Connecticut officially extends jurisdiction over Susquehanna Company area in Northern Pennsylvania.
1774--Silas Deane, Eliphalet Dyer, and Roger Sherman represent Connecticut at First Continental Congress.
1775--Several thousand militia rush to Massachusetts in "Lexington Alarm."
1775--Connecticut men help plan and carry out seizure of Ft. Ticonderoga.
1775--First gun powder mill in Connecticut started in East Hartford.
1776--Samuel Huntington, Roger Sherman, William Williams and Oliver Wolcott sign the Declaration of Independence; large majority of Connecticut people under Governor Jonathan Trumbull support the Declaration.
1777--British troops under General Tryon raid Danbury.
1779--British troops under General Tryon raid New Haven, Fairfield and Norwalk.
1781--Benedict Arnold's attack upon New London and Groton involves massacre at Ft. Griswold.
1781--Washington and Rochambeau confer at Webb House in Wethersfield.
1783--Meeting of 10 Anglican clergy at Glebe House, Woodbury, leads to consecration of Bishop Samuel Seabury and beginning of Protestant Episcopal Church in United States.
1784--Tapping Reeve established the first law school in the United States in Litchfield.
1784--Earliest Connecticut cities incorporated--Hartford, Middletown, New Haven, New London and Norwich.
1784--Governor Trumbull retires from governorship.
1784--Connecticut relinquishes Westmoreland area to Pennsylvania.
1784--Act passed providing for emancipation at age of twenty-five of all Negroes born after March 1784.
1785--First Register and Manual published.
1787--Oliver Ellsworth, William Samuel Johnson and Roger Sherman serve as Connecticut's representatives at Philadelphia Constitutional Convention.
1788--Convention at Hartford approves Federal Constitution by 128-40 vote.
1789--Oliver Ellsworth and William Samuel Johnson begin service as first United States Senators from Connecticut.
1792--First turnpike road company, New London to Norwich, incorporated.
1792--First banks established at Hartford, New London and New Haven.
1793-96--Old State House, Hartford, erected; designed by Charles Bulfinch.
1795--Connecticut Western Reserve lands (now Northeastern Ohio) sold for $1,200,000 and the proceeds were used to establish the School Fund.
1795--First insurance company incorporated as the Mutual Assurance Company of the City of Norwich.
1796--Thomas Hubbard starts Courier at Norwich. In 1860 paper merges with the Morning Bulletin and continues as Norwich Bulletin to present.
1799--Eli Whitney procures his first Federal musket contract; within next decade develops a system of interchangable parts, applicable to industries.
1802--Brass industry begun at Waterbury by Abel Porter and associates.
1806--First important English dictionary in United States published by Noah Webster.
1810--Hartford Fire Insurance Company incorporated.
1812--Joseph Barber starts Columbian Register at New Haven. In 1911 combined with New Haven Register and continues as Register to present.
1812-14--War of 1812 unpopular in Connecticut; new manufactures, especially textiles, boom.
1814--Hartford Convention held in Old State House.
1815--First steamboat voyage up the Connecticut River to Hartford.
1817--Federalists defeated by reformers in political revolution.
1817--Thomas Gallaudet found school for the deaf in Hartford.
1817--Hartford Times founded by Frederick D. Bolles and John M. Niles.
1818--New Constitution adopted by convention in Hartford and approved by voters; ends system of established church.
1820--Captain Nathaniel Palmer of Stonington discovers the continent of Antarctica.
1822--Captain John Davis of New Haven becomes first man to set foot on the Antarctic Continent.
1823--Washington College (now Trinity) founded in Hartford.
1827--"New" State House erected in New Haven; Ithiel Town, architect.
1828--Farmington Canal opened.
1831--Wesleyan University founded in Middletown.
1831--Mutual Insurance Company of Hartford founded.
1832--First Connecticut railroad incorporated as the Boston, Norwich and New London.
1835--Revolver patented by Colt.
1835--Music Vale Seminary, first American music school, founded at Salem by Oramel Whittlesey.
1838--Railroad completed between New Haven and Hartford.
1839-41--The Amistad affair.

1840's and 1850's--Peak of whaling from Connecticut ports and especially from New London.
1842--Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, first public art museum, established.
1843--Charles Goodyear develops vulcanizing process for rubber.
1843--Civil rights of Jews protected through act guaranteeing equal privileges with Christians in forming religious societies.
1844--Dr. Horace Wells uses anesthesia at Hartford.
1846--Connecticut Mutual Life Insurance Company, the first life insurance company, chartered in Connecticut.
1847--First American agricultural experiment station--at Yale.
1848--Slavery abolished in Connecticut.
1849--First teachers' college founded at New Britain (now Central Connecticut State University).
1851--Phoenix Mutual Life Insurance Company started (under another name) in Hartford.
1853--Aetna Life Insurance Company started in Hartford.
1860--Lincoln speaks in several Connecticut cities.
1861-65--Approximately 55,000 men serve in Union Army; William Buckingham wartime governor.
1864--Travelers Insurance issues its first policy.
1865--Connecticut General Life Insurance Company founded.
1868--Land at Groton given by Connecticut to U.S. Navy for a naval station; in April.
1875--Hartford made sole capital city.
1877--First telephone exchange in world opened in New Haven.
1879--New Capitol building in Hartford completed; Richard Upjohn, architect.
1881--Storrs Agricultural College founded (became University of Connecticut in 1939).
1890--Disputed election causes Morgan Bulkeley to continue two extra years as governor (1891-93).
1897--Manufacture of automobiles begun by Pope Manufacturing Company of Hartford.
1900--First United States Navy submarine, Holland, constructed by Electric Boat Co.
1901--First American state law regulating automobile speeds.
1902--Constitutional Convention held; proposed new constitution defeated in a statewide referendum.
1905--General Assembly adopted public accommodations act ordering full and equal service in all places of public accommodation.
1907--The first Boy Scout Troop in Connecticut (Troop 1) was established in East Hartford.
1910--U.S. Coast Guard Academy moves to New London.
1911--Connecticut College for Women founded at New London.
1917--U.S. Navy Submarine School formally established at New London Naval Base, Groton.
1917- 18--Approximately 67,000 Connecticut men serve in World War 1.
1920--University of New Haven founded.
1927--University of Bridgeport founded.
1932--St. Joseph College founded in West Hartford.
1936--Floods cause enormous damage in Connecticut River Valley.
1938--Hurricane and floods produce heavy loss of life and property.
1938--First section of Merritt Parkway opened.
1939--First section of Wilbur Cross Parkway opened.
1941-45--Approximately 210,000 Connecticut men serve in World War II.
1943--General Assembly established Inter-Racial Commission, recognized as the nation's first statutory civil rights agency.
1944--Ringling Brothers Circus tent fire in Hartford took 168 lives.
1947--Fair Employment Practices Act adopted Outlawing job discrimination.
1950-52--Approximately 52,000 Connecticut men serve in Korean War,
1954--Nautilus, world's first atomic-Powered submarine, launched at Groton.
1955--Serious floods cause heavy damage and loss of life.
1955--Shakespeare Memorial Theater opened at Stratford.
1957--University of Hartford founded.
1957--Ground broken for first building in New Haven's Oak Street redevelopment area.
1958--129-mile Connecticut Turnpike opened.
1959--General Assembly votes to abolish county government (effective 1960); also to abolish local justice courts and establish district courts.
1960--Ground broken for first building in Hartford's Front Street redevelopment area; now known as Constitution plaza.
1961--New state circuit court system goes into effect.
1962-75--Approximately 104,000 Connecticut men and women served in the armed forces during the Vietnam War era.
1964--General Assembly creates six Congressional districts reasonably equal in population.
1965--Constitutional Convention held. New Constitution approved by voters.
1966--First elections held for reapportioned General Assembly under new Constitution.
1972--Under constitutional amendment adopted in 1970, General Assembly held first annual session since 1886.
1974--Ella Grasso, first woman elected Governor in Connecticut.
1978--Common pleas and juvenile courts become part of the superior court.
1982--Appellate Court created by Constitutional Amendment (Effective July 1, 1983.)
1990--Eunice S. Groark, first woman elected lieutenant governor in Connecticut.
2001--Reapportionment Commission creates five Congressional districts due to national population shifts identified in the 2000 census. 2005--Connecticut first state to adopt civil unions for same-sex couples without being directed to do so by a court.
2006--M. Jodi Rell becomes Connecticut's second female Governor elected in her own right.