Dateline

3000 B.C. First evidence of stable farming settlements in region.

A.D. 700 Earliest evidence of Anasazi presence.

1540 Francisco Vasquez de Coronado marches to Cibola in search of a Native American "city of gold."

1542 Coronado returns to New Spain, declaring his mission a failure.

1610 Immigration to New Mexico increases; Don Pedro de Peralta establishes Santa Fe as capital.

1680 Pueblo Indians revolt against Spanish.

1692 Spanish recapture Santa Fe.

1706 Albuquerque established.

1739 First French traders enter Santa Fe.

1779 Cuerno Verde, leader of rebellious Comanche tribes, falls to Spanish forces.

1786 Comanches and Utes sign treaty with Spanish.

1821 Mexico gains independence from Spain.

1828 Kit Carson, the legendary frontiersman, arrives in Taos.

1846 Mexican War breaks out; Gen. Stephen Kearney takes possession of New Mexico for United States.

1847 Revolt in Taos against U.S. control; newly appointed governor Charles Bent killed.

1848 Under provisions of Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, Mexico officially cedes New Mexico to United States.

1861 Victorious Confederate general proclaims all of New Mexico south of the 34th parallel the new, Confederate territory of Arizona.

1862 Confederates routed from New Mexico.

1864 Navajos relocated to Bosque Redondo Reservation.

1868 Navajos return to their homeland.

1878-81 Lincoln County War erupts; comes to epitomize the lawlessness and violence of the Wild West.

1879 Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railroad routes main line through Las Vegas, Albuquerque, El Paso, and Deming, where connection is made with California's Southern Pacific line.

1881 Legendary outlaw Billy the Kid killed by Pat Garrett.

1886 Apache chief Geronimo captured; signals end of New Mexico's Indian wars.

1898 Painters Ernest Blumenschein and Bert Phillips settle in Taos.

1912 New Mexico becomes the 47th state.

1914 Blumenschein and Phillips form Taos Society of Artists; Taos becomes a major center of influence in mid-century American art and letters.

1916 Construction of Elephant Butte Dam brings irrigation to southern New Mexican farms.

1924 Native Americans granted full U.S. citizenship.

1943 Los Alamos National Laboratory built; "Manhattan Project" scientists spend 2 years in complete seclusion developing nuclear weapons.

1945 First atomic bomb exploded at Trinity Site.

1947 Reports of a flying saucer crash near Roswell make national headlines, despite U.S. Air Force's denials that it has occurred.

1972 Pioneer balloonist Sid Cutter establishes Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta.

1981 The Very Large Array, the world's most powerful radio telescope, begins observations of distant galaxies from the desert, west of Socorro.

1982 U.S. space shuttle Columbia lands at Holloman Air Force Base, near White Sands National Monument.

1984 New Mexico's last remaining section of famed Route 66, near San Jon, is abandoned.

1990 New Mexico's last uranium mine, near Grants, closes.

1994 Under pressure from Congress, U.S. Air Force reopens investigation of the 1947 flying saucer crash reports, concluding that the debris found was likely from tests of a secret Cold War spy balloon; UFO believers allege a cover-up.

1999 The Waste Isolation Pilot Project, the nation's first deep-geologic repository for permanent disposal of radioactive waste, receives its first shipment.