In 1706, the colony of Maryland's General Assembly created the Port of Baltimore at Locust Point. It was built for tobacco trading. The Town of Baltimore was founded on July 30, 1729. It was named after Cecilius Calvert, the British Lord Baltimore. Calvert was the first Proprietary Governor of the Province of Maryland. Baltimore grew quickly in the 1700s as a granary (place for storing cereals and grains) for the sugar plantations in the Caribbean.
Baltimore was important in the time leading up to the American Revolution. Leaders like Jonathan Plowman Jr. got the city to refuse to pay taxes to Britain. Merchants (people who buy and sell things) signed agreements to not trade with Britain. The Second Continental Congress met in the Henry Fite House from December 1776 to February 1777. This made Baltimore the capitol of the United States during this time. In 1796, after the war, the Town of Baltimore, nearby Jonestown, and an area called Fells Point were incorporated as the City of Baltimore. (This means that these areas all merged and became the City of Baltimore.) The city was a part of Baltimore County until 1851. It then became an independent city.
During the War of 1812, the Battle of Baltimore happened in the city. The British attacked Baltimore on the night of September 13, 1814. This was right after they burned Washington D.C.. United States soldiers from Fort McHenry defended the Inner Harbor. Francis Scott Key watched the battle from a British ship in the harbor. He wrote the poem "The Star-Spangled Banner" about the attack. Later, "The Star-Spangled Banner" became the official National Anthem of the United States.
After the war, the number of people who lived in the city grew quickly. The National Road (now part of U.S. Route 40) and the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (B&O) connected the city with big markets in the Midwest. This made Baltimore a very important shipping and manufacturing center. Baltimore was nicknamed "the Monumental City" by President John Quincy Adams in 1827. During an event, Adams gave a toast and said: "Baltimore: the Monumental City – [m]ay the days of her safety be as prosperous and happy, as the days of her dangers have been trying and triumphant." In 1835, the Baltimore bank riots happened. These were one of the worst riots of the antebellum South. (The "antebellum" period is the time right before the American Civil War.)
During the American Civil War, Maryland did not secede from the Union. (That is, Maryland stayed a part of the Union and did not join the Confederacy.) When Union soldiers marched through the city at the start of the war, some people attacked the soldiers. This started the Baltimore riot of 1861. Four soldiers and 12 civilians were killed. After the riot, Union soldiers occupied (stayed in) Baltimore. During the war, Maryland was governed directly by the federal government and the state government did not have any power. This was to keep the state from seceding (leaving the Union). After the war ended in April 1865, Maryland began governing itself again.
During the 1870s there was an economic depression called the "Panic of 1873." After the Panic, the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad company decided to pay its workers less. This caused the Great Railroad Strike of 1877. These strikes stopped train service in Cumberland in western Maryland. On July 20, 1877, the Maryland Governor, John Lee Carroll, ordered the Maryland Army National Guard to stop the strikes. People who supported the railroad workers attacked the national guard soldiers. Soldiers from the 6th Regiment fired their guns at the crowd. 10 people were killed, and 25 people were hurt. This started a riot. Trains were damaged and parts of Camden Station were burned. US Army soldiers came to Baltimore to protect the railroad and end the strike. The riot and strike ended on July 21–22, 1877.
The Great Baltimore Fire started on February 7, 1904. It burned for 30 hours and destroyed 1,500 buildings. More than 70 blocks of downtown burned to the ground. The fire caused about $150 million of damage (US$ million in 2021.)
The city grew bigger by annexing (absorbing) suburbs from nearby counties. The last suburb was added in 1918. The city added parts of Baltimore County and Anne Arundel County. In 1948, the state constitution was amended (changed). It now required a special vote by citizens before an area could be added to the city. This stopped the expansion (growth) of the city.
In 1950, the city was 23.8% black. By 1970, it was 46.4% black. After Martin Luther King, Jr. was murdered in Memphis, Tennessee on April 4, 1968, the Baltimore riot of 1968 started. It lasted until April 12, 1968. The riot cost the city about $10 million (US$ million in 2021). During the riot, 11,000 Maryland National Guard soldiers and US Army soldiers tried to protect the city. It is possible to see some effects of the riots today. Parts of North Avenue, Howard Street, Gay Street, and Pennsylvania Avenue are barren, empty, and not taken care of.
During the 1970s, Baltimore's downtown area, called the "Inner Harbor," was run down and neglected. It was full of empty and abandoned warehouses. The city began trying to redevelop the area. The Baltimore Convention Center was opened in 1979. Harborplace, a shopping and restaurant area, opened in 1980. The National Aquarium in Baltimore (Maryland's largest tourist destination) and the Baltimore Museum of Industry opened in 1981. In 1992, the Baltimore Orioles baseball team moved from Memorial Stadium to Oriole Park at Camden Yards near the harbor. Six years later the Baltimore Ravens football team moved into M&T Bank Stadium next to Camden Yards.
The National Register of Historic Places lists 280 historical properties in Baltimore city.
Baltimore is in north-central Maryland. It is on the Patapsco River, close to where it empties into the Chesapeake Bay. It is on the fall line between the Piedmont Plateau and the Atlantic Coastal Plain. (The "fall line" is a phrase in geology that means that this is a place where two different kinds of earth meet.) The fall line splits Baltimore into a "lower city" and "upper city."
At the harbor, the city is at sea level. The highest point is near Pimlico in the northwest. There the elevation is .
According to the 2010 census, the city has a total area of . This is of land and of water. The total area of Baltimore City is 12.07% water.
Baltimore is in the humid subtropical climate zone ("Cfa".) This is according to the Köppen climate classification
July is usually the hottest month of the year. The average temperature in July is . Summer is usually very humid. The highest temperature on record is in 1936.
January is the coldest month of the year. Sometimes wind from the subtropics brings springlike weather during winter. At night, winds from the Arctic make temperatures drop into the teens (in Fahrenheit; less than -7 °C.) Some nights the temperature drops to the single digits (less than -12 °C.) The coldest temperature on record is from 1934.
Downtown Baltimore and the parts of the city that are on the coast are usually warmer than other parts of Baltimore. This is because of the urban heat island effect. Also the Chesapeake Bay acts to moderate the effects of temperature. This means that the water helps keep the temperature from changing greatly.
Baltimore gets a lot of rain during the whole year. There is no "rainy season" or "dry season." This is normal in most cities on the East Coast of the United States. Every month, about of precipitation (rain, snow, sleet, etc.) falls in Baltimore. The total rainfall yearly average is around . There are usually about 105 sunny days in a year. There are lots of rain showers and thunderstorms during spring, summer, and fall. In the winter, there are longer but lighter rain showers, and less sunshine and more clouds. It sometimes snows in the winter. The average snowfall is .