Arizona history

In 1821, Mexico won its independence from Spain after a decade of war.

Michigan, the Wolverine State, joined the union in 1837.

Spurred in part by the annexation of Texas into the United States in 1845, the war concludes with the United States agreeing to pay $15 million for more than a half-million square miles of Mexican territory, including most of present-day Arizona.

Until the Mexican-American War (1846–48) only a few Americans—explorers, soldiers, trappers, sheep drivers—visited Arizona.

Following the Gadsden Purchase in 1853, when Mexico sold Arizona’s southernmost region to the United States, only a few scattered and isolated Mexican American ranches remained, all of them located near the Mexican border.

The era of large-scale mining in Arizona began in 1858 when Jacob Snively found gold in Gila City, east of Yuma.

In 1860, Southern California had cleared all legal hurdles for secession from the rest of California and was waiting reorganization as a new US territory, which never materialized.

Colorado, which joined the union as the 38th state in 1876, is America’s eighth-largest state in terms of landmass.

Wyoming became the 44th state to join the union in 1890.

The observatory was founded in 1894 by Bostonian Percival Lowell.

1896: Castle Hot Springs opens

Residents of the Valley, led by Dwight Heard and a few other prominent citizens, unite to form the association in 1903.

Completion of Roosevelt Dam in 1911 and other dams and canals ensured a steady supply of water for agriculture and hydroelectricity to power the growing community while reducing the risks of devastating floods.

After Arizona achieved statehood in 1912, it soon began to tout itself as the place of the “five Cs”: copper, cattle, cotton, citrus, and climate.

In 1913, the San Marcos resort opened in Chandler.

When the United States joins the Allies in 1917, Phoenix native Frank Luke Jr. enlists, later becoming the first airman to win the nation's Medal of Honor.

The unveiling of the Chicago-to-Los Angeles highway in 1926 marked a major turning point in Western expansion and economic development.

Many other resorts followed to build the state's tourism industry, including the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Arizona Biltmore in 1929.

The Hoover Dam, the United States Reclamation Services project to control the Colorado River, opens in 1936.

In 1939, Adam and Gust Goettl opened a business specializing in evaporative cooling.

The blossom grows on the Saguaro Cactus, which can reach more than 50 feet tall and live for over 200 years.Navajo Indians from Arizona were enlisted to transmit secret communications for the United States Marines after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor in 1941.

Two Japanese internment camps are established in Arizona in 1942.

In 1946, Arizona began to enforce right-to-work laws, which allowed workers to decide whether or not to join or financially support a union.

In 1948, the high tech industry began in Arizona, with Motorola building one of the first plants in Phoenix.

Phoenix elects its first Hispanic councilman, Adam Diaz, in 1952.

1956: Park Central, Arizona's first mall

1960: Sun City founded

In 1962, United States Senator Barry Goldwater receives the GOP nod for president, the first Arizonan to win a party nomination for the nation's chief executive.

Republican Senator Barry Goldwater, a native of Arizona, ran for the presidency in 1964, with William Edward Miller as his running mate.

The holiday had been first proposed in 1972 by former state senators Cloves Campbell.

As an elder statesman in the Republican Party, Goldwater in 1974 urges Richard Nixon to resign the presidency after the Watergate scandal.

Conservative Republican Margaret Hance in 1975 becomes the first female mayor of Phoenix, the largest American city with a woman in charge.

Sandra Day O'Connor, who grew up on a southern Arizona ranch, in 1981 becomes the first woman appointed to the United States Supreme Court.

The nation's largest nuclear-power producer, the Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station, starts producing electricity in 1985.

In 1988, Evan Mecham, the Governor of Arizona, was impeached.

1989: Savings and loans collapse

Five years after the decision, authorization was given for the construction of the Central Arizona Project, which was not completed until 1991 .

The area's water supply was further guaranteed by 1994 completion of the Central Arizona Project, which delivers Colorado River water into central and Southern Arizona.

Mofford's successor as governor, Fife Symington, resigned in 1997 after conviction of bank fraud.

In 1999, he pleaded guilty to a more limited set of wire-fraud and bankruptcy-fraud counts.

By 2000 BC, the modern plant communities of Arizona had been established and a modern climate prevailed.

The Rodeo-Chediski Fire began on June 18, 2002, and was not controlled until July 7.

Beginning in 2007, tens of thousands of Arizonans lost their homes, values fell by half in many cases, construction jobs dried up and local banks failed.

In 2008, Arizona senator John McCain won the Republican nomination for United States President, ultimately losing to the Democratic ticket of Barack Obama and Joe Biden.

It was the worst forest fire in Arizona's recorded history until June 14, 2011 when the Wallow Fire surpassed Rodeo-Chediski as the largest fire in Arizona history.

The renamed US Airways completed a long-sought merger with American Airlines and moved its headquarters to Fort Worth in 2013.