page_title: Baltimore
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Baltimore / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Identification of subject of photo needed. A black and white photograph, looks like ruined buildings.
context_page_description: Baltimore is the biggest city in the U.S. state of Maryland. In 2010 it had about 620,961 people living there. It is not in any county, so it is called an independent city. It is next to the Chesapeake Bay and used to be an important port for trade by ships. There is still some shipping but the Inner Harbor is now mostly famous for shopping and restaurants, and also for the National Aquarium and other museums.
  Baltimore is home to the Ravens and Orioles, both professional sports teams. Its main newspaper is the Baltimore Sun. There is a place for horse races in the city called Pimlico. There are many colleges and universities in Baltimore, like Johns Hopkins University.
  The city was made in 1729 and is named after the British Lord Baltimore who started the colony of Maryland. The mayor of this city is Stephanie Rawlings-Blake. She is the second woman to be the mayor of Baltimore, the first was Sheila Dixon. Many governors of Maryland were mayor of Baltimore first. One famous thing that happened in Baltimore was in the War of 1812, when the British attacked the city and Francis Scott Key wrote a song about it called "The Star-Spangled Banner".
context_section_description: 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 $150 million of damage (US$ 4,183 million in 2020.)
caption: After the Great Baltimore Fire of 1904, a lot of the city was destroyed. This is a view of downtown looking west from Pratt and Gay Streets.
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