A SHORT HISTORY OF PHILADELPHIA

PHILADELPHIA BEFORE AND DURING THE ORIGIN OF ICE CREAM

YEAR	SUBJECT AREA(S)	EVENT(S)
Before 1600	SOCIETAL	The ancesters of the Lenni Lenapi, the inhabitants of this region at the time of the first European settlers, most likely came from Asia, via the Bering Strait, about 10,000 years ago. They spoke an Algonquin dialect. The term "Lenni Lenapi" which literally means "common people," also carries with it the meanings of "Original people," "Men among men," and "Men of our kind." Other Algonquin speaking tribes referred to the Lenni Lenapi with the venerable description of "Grandfathers."
1609	ECONOMIC/SOCIETAL	Henry Hudson briefly explores a body of water and names it Zuydt (South) River.
1610	ECONOMIC/SOCIETAL	Sir Samuel Argall explores the same bay and names it after the 12th Lord De la Warr, which comes to be known as Delaware, the name ultimately given to a river, a colony, and the Lenni Lenapi tribe.
1620s and 1630s	ECONOMIC/SOCIETAL	The Dutch make several futile attempts to settle in the Delaware Valley. Part of their problems arose from the Delawares not understanding the concept of private land ownership.
1638	ECONOMIC/SOCIETAL	Peter Minuit, working for the Swedes, settled in what is today Wilmington.
1640s	ECONOMIC/SOCIETAL	The Swedes settle in several localities throughout the region, including Tinicum and Cobbs Creek, Upland/Chester, and Kingsessing.
1650s and 1660s	ECONOMIC/MILITARY	Control of the land changes hands several times between the Dutch and the Swedes.
1663 - 1665	SOCIETAL	Quakers from Radnorshire, Wales settle in what is now Radnor, PA
1664	ECONOMIC/MILITARY	The British, under Charles II, claim the area, and send Warships to the area to protect its interest.
1681	SOCIETAL	The Quaker William Penn receives a charter from the crown for a colony on the Delaware River. The original city was laid out like a grid, from the Delaware to the Schuylkill Rivers, and from Cedar Street (now South Street) to Vine Street. Penn sells 40,000 acres to Welsh Quakers, which eventually form the townships of Radnor, Haverford, and Lower Merion.
1680s	SOCIETAL	Many early Philadelphians, including Thomas Wynne, the City's First doctor, live in caves. Within fifty years, the city becomes predominantly brick.
1682 - 1684	ECONOMIC/POLITICAL	Penn offers Delawares (Leni Lenapi) wampum and other gifts (totalling about 1000 pounds) to extinguish their claim to the land in Bucks, Chester, and Philadelphia Counties. Contrary to the Benjamin West painting, there was no single treaty at Shackamaxon (an English corruption of Sachemexon, or "Place of the chiefs")
1683	SOCIETAL	Dutch speaking Quakers establish a settlement in present day Germantown.
1700	SOCIETAL	Philadelphia has about 2000 residents
1700s	SOCIETAL	Smaller numbers of French, Italians, and Swiss enter the area. A small Jewish population also migrate to the area.
Early 1700s	SOCIETAL	The first Delawares travel into the Ohio River Valley. The Iroquois "Six Nations" begin to exert their authority over the Delawares.
Late 1700s	SOCIETAL	An aristocracy composed of Quaker and former Quaker families is developing in the City.
1701	SOCIETAL	Penn's Frame of Government, which gives full legislative power to an Assembly, becomes a model for the future U.S. Constitution.
1701 - 1751	BIOGRAPHICAL	William Penn's secretary, James Logan, administers the colonies while Penn, and later his sons, are Proprietors. In addition to the skill with which he performs his duties, he is the first of the Renaissance type men who live and work in Philadelphia. He is a polyglot, a scientist, and a mathematician. He becomes rich through the trade of fur, British securities, and real estate. This latter source of wealth is at times obtained through unscrupulous activities (see the Walking Purchase). His Stenton estate in Germantown has the largest library in America at that time.
1718	SOCIETAL	Penn dies, leaving his three sons to gain the Propietorship of the City.
1720s to 1740	SOCIETAL	Delawares now live mainly (1) on the Brandywine, (2) in the areas of Reading, Kutztown, Maxatawny, and (3) in the area of the Lehigh Valley, also known as the Forks.
1723 to 1788	SOCIETAL	17 year old Benjamin Franklin comes to Philadelphia. He enters the printing trade, but during the next 67 years, he makes major contributions in literature, the natural and social sciences, music, politics, and civic welfare.
1737	GEOGRAPHIC	James Logan and Thomas Penn apparently trick (and/or threaten) the Delawares into confirming a questionable deed purportedly owned by William Penn, dating back to 1686. The deed specifies an area bounded on one side that a man could walk in 1 1/2 days, starting at a fixed point at currrent day Wrightstown in Bucks County. The area is cleared and one of the three designated "walkers" traverses 60 miles, which, when manipulating the other boundaries, ends up driving the Delawares out of the Delaware Valley.
1740s	SOCIETAL	About half of the population in the colony is German speaking.
1740s	SOCIETAL	Population reaches 10000.
1740s	SOCIETAL	Large numbers of Irish, Scotch-Irish, and Scots arrive in the colonies. Presbyterians rival Quakers in population.
1751	SCIENCE	Benjamin Franklin publishes "Experiments and Observations in Electricity".
1754	SOCIETAL	"Six Nations (Iroquois speaking tribes) choose Shingas as the Delaware king of the Ohio.
1755	MILITARY	The defeat of George Washington and Edward Braddock by the French and their northern American Indian allies in Western Pennsylvania turn the Delawares (led by Shingas) against the English, and in many cases, against the Europeans in general. This revolt helps to break the yoke of the Six Nations around the Delaware. The French Indian War also has a direct bearing on Philadelphia because the State Government resides there.
1755	EDUCATION	The University of Pennsylvania, (originally called the College, Academy, and Charitable School of Philadelphia), is given the power to grant college level degrees.
1759	MILITARY	King Beaver, a relative of Shingas signs a treaty which ends the first round of the Delaware's revolt against the English.
1760s	SOCIETAL	Population reaches 25000.
1764	MILITARY	Displaced Moravian Delawares who come to Philadelphia are the targets of the "Paxton Boys", a group of white settlers from the western Pennsylvania frontiers. Benjamin Franklin leads a group of citizens to Germantown, which prevents an attack.
1765	GOVERNMENT	The British Stamp Act taxes almost all printed materials, placing additional stress on the Colonies' economic relations with England.
1765	MILITARY	The Delawares sign a final peace treaty with Sir William Johnson, ending a renewed round of fighting that began when the Ottawa, Pontiac, under advice from the Delawares, joined various tribes in a war against the English.
1765	SOCIETAL	The 170 Moravian Delawares that were protected in Philadelphia go to Friedenshutten, a Moravian community on the Susquehanna, near Wyalusing.
1767	GOVERNMENT	The British Townshend Revenue Acts tax glass, lead, painters' colors, paper, and tea.
1770	RELIGIOUS	Religious groups represented in the City at this point are Anglicans, Baptists, Catholics, German Reform, Jews, Methodists, Presbyterians, and Quakers, .
1773	SOCIETAL	Walnut Street Prison is built.
1773	GOVERNMENT	Although the Tea Act has the effect of selling British teas in the colony below current prices, the colonists fear monopolization of the tea trade in America.
1774	GOVERNMENT	Delegates of the First Continental Congress meet in Philadelphia. Congress votes to boycott British trade until the British change their policies toward the colonists.
1775	GOVERNMENT	Delegates of the Second Continental Congress meet in Philadelphia. Congress drafts the "Olive Branch Petition" declaring loyalty to the Crown, which the king refuses to read. Congress then turns its work to independence of the colonies from the crown.
1776	GOVERNMENT	The Declaration of the Thirteen United States of America, which is adopted by the convention, marks the formal declaration of independence of the colonies and the beginning of war with England.
1777	MILITARY	The Battle of Brandywine (September 11) ends with the British creating a beachhead in Pennsylvania,
1777	MILITARY	(September 26) The British march into Philadelphia. (Ocotober 4) Washington stages a battle in Germantown which the Americans lose, but helps to convince the French to support the patriots' cause.
1777	MILITARY	Americans establish a blockade at Fort Mifflin and Fort Mercer on both sides of the Delaware which inhibits British delivering goods to its soldiers.
1777 - 1778	MILITARY	Washington's irregulars winter in Valley Forge. They emerge as a professional army.
1778	MILITARY	Control of Philadelphia returns to the Americans.
1781	MILITARY	American militiamen bludgeon and scalp 90 Moravian Delaware adults and children, execution style, to avenge American deaths by hostile tribes.
1787	GOVERNMENT	The Constitutional Convention meets in Philadelphia to adopt a common Federal law for the United States of America.
1790	GOVERNMENT	The Federal Capital moves to Philadelphia from New York.
1791	ECONOMIC	The First Bank of the United States receives a Federal charter and in December, occupies Carpenter's Hall.
1792	SOCIETAL	Moravian Delawares, found a mission named Schonfeldt (fairfield) in Ontario, Canada.
1793	MEDICINE	The summer and fall of 1793 sees an epidemic of yellow fever that claims the lives of 5,000 people out of a population of 45,000 people.
1795	SOCIETAL/MILITARY	The Greenville Treaty, concluding yet another war by the Delawares in confederacy with other tribes, moves the Delawares out of the Ohio Valley and into Indiana territory.
1799	GOVERNMENT	The State Government moves to Lancaster before settling in Harrisburg.

PHILADELPHIA DURING THE GREAT AGE OF AFRICAN AMERICAN CATERERS

YEAR	SUBJECT AREA(S)	EVENT(S)
1800	GOVERNMENT	The Federal Government moves to Washington.
1810	ECONOMIC	The First Bank of the United States fails to have its Federal charter renewed
1816	ECONOMIC	The Second Bank of the United States receives a Federal charter. It is built on Chestnut Street between 4th & 5th Streets
1818	SOCIETAL/GOVERNMENTAL	By bribing Delaware chiefs to sign a treaty, The U.S. government forces the Delawares out of Indiana and Ohio, across the Mississippi and into Missouri.
1818	EDUCATION	The Assembly passes an act that establishes the "First School District" out of the city and the county of Philadelphia.
1819 - 1824	ARCHITECTURE	William Strickland's Second Bank of the United States is built on Chestnut Streets between 4th & 5th Streets.
1820	SOCIETAL	Population reaches 63,713
1823	ECONOMIC	Nicholas Biddle assumes the helm of the 2nd Bank of the U.S. A renaissance man in the spirit of Franklin, he helps to give the bank a vibrancy while maintaining the financial health of the institution.
1825	EDUCATION/MEDICINE	Thomas Jefferson University (originally called the Jefferson Medical College) is founded.
1828	ARTS/SCIENCES	PA Horticultural Society founded.
1829	SOCIETY	Eastern State Penitentiary Completed
1829	JOURNALISM	The Philadelphia Inquirer (originally called the Pennsylvania Inquirer) is founded.
1829	GOVERNMENTAL/SOCIETAL	The U.S. government and the Delawares negotiate a new treaty, which moves the Delawares into Kansas.
1830	ECONOMIC	William Cramp establishes the Cramp Shipbuilding Company, later called William Cramp and Sons.
1831	ECONOMIC	Baldwin Locomotive Works is founded in North Philadelphia.
1834	RECREATION	Rowing clubs begin to hold regattas.
1834	EDUCATION	The Free School law creates tax supported public schools throughout the State.
1838	EDUCATION	Central High School, the first of its kind in the country, opens.
1838	SOCIETY	African Americans are denied the right to vote, under Pennsylvania's Constitution.

THE GOLDEN AGE OF PHILADELPHIA ICE CREAM

YEAR	SUBJECT AREA(S)	EVENT(S)
1840	">SOCIETAL	Population reaches 93,652.
1840	ECONOMIC	Henry Disston founds the Keystone Saw Works in Tacony, eventually employing 2,500 workers.
1840	SOCIETAL	Southwark, the area bounded by South Street, Sixth Street, Federal Street, and the Delaware River, has an unusual number of fire companies and gangs. Often, they are undistinguishable from each other, with rival companies intentionally setting fires in order to descend upon another company as it tries to extinguish the fires. These activities strengthen the county consolidation movement and underscore the need for a professional police force.
1840s	SOCIETAL	Southwark, the area bounded by South Street, Sixth Street, Federal Street, and the Delaware River, has an unusual number of fire companies and gangs. Often, they are undistinguishable from each other, with rival companies intentionally setting fires in order to descend upon another company as it tries to extinguish the fires. These activities strengthen the county consolidation movement and underscore the need for a professional police force.
1841	ECONOMIC	The 2nd Bank of the United State's opposition by Andrew Jackson brings about its final demise.
1841	SOCIETAL/ECONOMICS	The City forms a monopoly - The Gas Trust - which creates a system of political favoritism that lasts for years
1844	ETHNIC/RELIGIOUS	A dispute about the type of Bible used in the city's public schools begins the Nativist (anti-Catholic) riots. These riots are ultimately responsible for (1) the incorporation of Philadelphia county into Philadelphia city, and (2) a strong Archdiocesan Catholic School System in the City.
1846	ECONOMIC	The Pennsylvania Railroad is incorporated.
1847	JOURNALISM	The Philadelphia Evening Bulletin (originally called Cummings' Evening Telegrphic Bulletin) is founded.
1847	MEDICINE	The American Medical Association is organized in Philadelphia.
1849	EDUCATION	The legislature allows Central High School the right to confer baccalaureates.
1850	SOCIETAL	Population reaches 121,376.
1850s	ECONOMICS	Philadelphia has more textile factories than anywhere else in the world.
1851	EDUCATION/MEDICINE	The Medical College of Pennsylvania (originally called the Female Medical College) is founded
1854	GOVERNMENTAL/SOCIETAL	Philadelphia county is consolidated into Philadelphia city.
1854	SOCIETAL	State requires separate schools for Blacks in districts with 20 or more blacks.
1854	SOCIETAL	Robert Conrad oversees the first professional police department in the city.

ICE CREAM - MODERNITY AND BEYOND

YEAR	SUBJECT AREA(S)	EVENT(S)
1860	BASEBALL	The Philadelphia Athletics are founded.
1860	SOCIETAL	With the incorporation of Philadelphia County into Philadelphia City, Philadelphia's population climbs 565,529
1860s Late	ECONOMIC	Peter A.B. Widener and William Elkins Lukins form the Philadelphia Rapid Transit Company, which buys up other lines, and eventually becomes the only transit company within the city. This Company will eventually be named Philadelphia Transportation Company.
1860s Late	SOCIETAL	The old Philadelphia aristoracy begins to give way to the nouveau riche that supported the Republican cause during the Civil War.
1860s Late	ECONOMIC	John B. Stetson founds Stetson Hats, which will eventually employ 5,400 workers in North Philadelphia.
1865 on	SOCIETAL	Cheap mortgages and land expansion allows more Philadelphians to own homes than anywhere else in the country.
1867	SOCIETAL	Streetcars are desegregated.
1867	GOVERNMENTAL/SOCIETAL	An agreement is reached by the U.S. government, the Cherokee nation, and the Delawares toward moving the Delawares into Oklahoma, and making them official Cherokee citizens.
1870	SOCIETAL	The City's population reaches 674,022
1870	GOVERNMENTAL	The Fifteenth Amendment goes into effect, allowing African Americans the right to vote. The first test of the new law causes riots in the City.
1870 - 1900	SOCIETAL	The City's Italian population increases from 300 to 18,000. Many seek better economic conditions.
1871	BASEBALL	The Athletics win the championship of the National Association of Professional Baseball Players.
1872	EDUCATION	The University of Pennsylvania relocates to West Philadelphia.
1874	GOVERNMENTAL	The Philadelphia House of Correction is built, mainly for persons committing petty crimes.
1875	EDUCATION	There are 108,631 students, 182 schools, and about 1900 teachers in the Philadelphia schools.
1876	EDUCATION	Overcrowding forces many students away from schools. Teachers are threatened by a 10% pay cut, that is reversed due to strong support in the press.
1876	ECONOMIC/GOVERNMENTAL/RECREATION	Philadelphia hosts a Centennial exposition. This World's Fair promotes the age of science and the machine and exemplifies America's dominance in these areas. Germany. in particular, is influenced deeply by the exposition.
1876 - 1896	SOCIETAL	African American population grows from 25,000 to 40,000.
1877	ART	The Philadelphia Museum of Art is founded.
1880	SOCIETAL	The City's population reaches 847,170
1880 - 1900	SOCIETAL	A sizable number of Polish and Hungarian immigrants come to Philadelphia.
1880s	ECONOMIC	Affordable housing, comparatively high wages, good working conditions, and superior worker benefits cause less worker strife in Philadelphia than in other large cities.
1880s	SOCIETAL	The City's Jewish population increases 9-fold due to pogroms in Eastern Europe. Many Settle in the river wards south of Spruce Street, displacing many African Americans.
1880s	POPULATION	Less than 1% of the population is Quaker.
1880s	ECONOMIC	Textile and garment workers join socialist unions.
1883	BASEBALL	The Philadelphia Phillies begin play in Philadelphia.
1883	EDUCATION	A central school board is formed in 1883.
1887	SOCIETAL	The Jewish Exponent is founded.
1887	GOVERNMENTAL	Edwin Fitler is elected mayor. A good mayor in otherwise corrupt times.
1888	EDUCATION	Temple University, intended as a "Workingman's University" is chartered by Russell Conwell, the minister of the Grace Baptist Church.
1890	SOCIETAL	The City's population reaches 1,046,964
1890	ECONOMIC	Knights of Labor organize brewers, cigar workers, and trolley car conductors in the city
1891	GOVERNMENTAL	Edwin Stuart is elected mayor. Another good mayor in otherwise corrupt times
1891	EDUCATION	The Free Library is founded in 1891 through donations from George Pepper, Andrew Carnegie, and Peter Widener. William Pepper, the legendary provost of the University of Pennsylvania provides leadership there in its early years.
1891 - 1892	EDUCATION	Drexel University is founded by Anthony J. Drexel to provide a technical education to young working class people, regardless, of gender.
1891- 1892	EDUCATION	Bryn Mawr is founded by Joseph W. Taylor as a women's college that would serve as a complement to Haverford College and would promote women's rights.
1893	SOCIETAL	There are 212 miles of trolley tracks in the city
1895	ECONOMIC	Strike by railway conductors against Philadelphia Rapid Transit Company during Christmas earns strikers slightly higher wages and the limitation of the workday to 12 hours.
1896	SOCIETAL	W.E.B. DuBois’ The Philadelphia Negro is published.
1896	SOCIETAL	The Octavia Hill Association is founded to provide housing and to lobby for legislation that would address the housing needs of indigent Philadelphians.
1896	ECONOMIC	Frederick Taylor, the founder of Scientific School of Management, is one of the few employers to hire African Americans to work alongside white workers.
Late 1800s	SOCIETAL	Pennsylvania Railroad is responsible for the Main Line, the railroad line cutting through some of the original Welsh communities of Merion, Narberth, Wynnewood, Haverford, and Bryn Mawr.
1883	JOURNALISM	Ladies Home Journal founded by Cyrus H.K. Curtis.
1897	JOURNALISM	Cyris H.K. Curtis buys the Saturday Evening Post.
Late 1800s	SOCIETAL	Henry Houston, a railroad magnate, develops holdings in Chestnut Hill.
Late 1800s	ECONOMIC	Pennsylvania Railroad is the largest corporation in the country.
Late 1800s	SOCIETAL	With government programs for the poor virtually non-existent, religious groups and politicians take responsibility for providing food, clothing, and shelter.
Late 1800s	ECONOMIC	Philadelphia becomes a major publishing city. Peterson's Saturday Evening Post and the Lippincott Company are examples of the elite publishing houses in the city at that time.
Late 1800s	ECONOMIC	The diversity of industries, such as beer, brooms, candies, cigars, cigarettes, ice cream, and pharmaceuticals, shipbuilding and railroad manufacturing mollifies the effects of severe economic downturns in the city.
Late 1800s to Early 1900s	GOVERNMENTAL	There is inadequate water and sewer lines as well as road repair, due to corruption.
1900	MUSIC	The Philadelphia Orchestra is established.
1900	SOCIETAL	The City's population reaches 1,293,647
1900s Early	GEOGRAPHIC	The city still consists of neighborhoods that appear to be like separate villages.
1900s Early	GEOGRAPHIC	The area of Philadelphia is the largest of any other city in U.S.
1901	SOCIETAL	The City sponsors its first Mummers' Parade, a tradition with its roots in Europe and its American roots most probably in the Swedes' celebration of the Christmas and New Years holiday in Tinicum and Kingsessing.
1902	LITERATURE	Owen Wistar's "The Virginian" is published.
1902	BASEBALL	The Athletics win the American League pennant.
1903	SOCIETAL	The commentator Lincoln Steffens writes that "Other American cities, no matter how bad their Condition may be, all point with scorn to Philadelphia as worse..."
1903	ECONOMIC	100,000 garment workers strike, 10,000 of whom are children. Although the strike fails, it highlights the horrors of child labor.
1905	EDUCATION	The Public School Reorganization Act frees the school system from the wards and the ward leaders.
1905	BASEBALL	The Athletics win the American League pennant.
1905	EDUCATION	There are almost as many parochial and private schools in the city as there are public schools.
1910	BASEBALL	The Athletics win the World Series.
1911	BASEBALL	The Athletics win the World Series.
1911	GOVERNMENTAL	Rudolph Blankenburg becomes mayor and ushers in four years of reform. At the end of his term, Philadelphia reverts back to machine politics.
1912	MUSIC	Leopold Stokowski assumes the baton for the Philadelphia Orchestra.
1913	BASEBALL	The Athletics win the World Series.
1914	BASEBALL	The Athletics win the American League pennant.
1915	BASEBALL	The Phillies win the National League pennant
1915	MUSIC	Billie Holliday is born at Philadelphia General Hospital on April 7.
1925	LITERATURE	George Kelly wins a Pulitzer Prize for his play, "Craig's Wife."
1925	ARCHETECTURE	The Benjamin Franklin Parkway, emulating the Champs d'Elysses in Paris is completed.
1926	BASKETBALL	Philadelphia Warriors is founded as an expansion team of the American Basketball Association, Organized the previous year.
1927	ARCHETECTURE	The Philadelphia Art Museum opens its Benjamin Franklin Parkway home to the public.
1929	MUSIC	Jazz saxophonist and composer Benny Golson is born on January 25.
1930	SOCIETAL	The City's population reaches 1,950,961
1933	FOOTBALL	The Philadelphia Eagles are founded
1938	MUSIC	Leopold Stokowski leaves the Philadelphia Orchestra. Eugene Ormandy assumes the baton.
1938	MUSIC	Jazz pianist McCoy Tyner is born on December 11.
1942	MUSIC	Jazz saxophonist Byard Lancaster is born on August 6.
1942	MUSIC	Jazz legend John Coltrane moves to Philadelphia at age 17.
1946	SCIENCE	The first large-scale fully operational electronic computer is completed at the University of Pennsylvania.
1947	BASKETBALL	The Philadelphia Warriors win the first league championship of the newly formulated National Basketball Association.
1948	FOOTBALL	The Eagles win the league championship
1949	FOOTBALL	The Eagles win the league championship
1950	BASEBALL	The Phillies win the National League pennant
1951	GOVERNMENTAL	Voters approve a new City Charter, designed reform city government and to end political patronage.
1952	GOVERNMENTAL	Voters elect Joseph Clark as Mayor, the first Democratic mayor in nearly 100 years.
1960	SOCIETAL	The City's population reaches 2,002,512
1960	FOOTBALL	The Eagles win the league championship
1965	EDUCATION	The State passes the Philadelphia Educational Home Rule Charter, The Charter (2) gives City Council the ability to tax, allows the Mayor to appoint 9 board members from a list of recoomendations by a Citizens Panel. Mark Shedd is the first superintendent under the Charter. He begins the establishment of "alternative schools" in the city.
1967	HOCKEY	Philadelphia Flyers are one of the new teams to augment the ranks the the National Hockey League.
1967	BASKETBALL	The 76ers become the National Basketball Association champions.
1970	SOCIETAL	The City's population reaches 1,927,863.
1974	HOCKEY	The Philadelphia Flyers win the Stanley Cup.
1975	HOCKEY	The Philadelphia Flyers win the Stanley Cup.
1978	SOCIETAL	The first major confrontation with the "back to nature" group MOVE, ends with the death of a police officer and the destruction of their headquarters in Powelton Village.
1980	BASEBALL	The Phillies win the World Series.
1981	FOOTBALL	The Eagles represent the National Football Conference at the Superbowl.
1982	MUSIC	Eugene Ormandy retires and Riccardo Muti takes over the Philadelphia Orchestra.
1983	SPORTS	The Phillies win the National League pennant.
1985	SOCIETAL	The second major confrontation with the "back to nature" group MOVE, ends with a fire that destroys 62 houses and the death of 6 MOVE members and 5 MOVE children.
1994	SPORTS	The Phillies win the National League pennant.
1993	MUSIC	Wolfgang Sawallisch takes over as conductor of the Philadelphia Orchestra.
2001	MUSIC	The world class concert hall, The Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts, opens in Mid-December.
2002	MUSIC	Christoph Eschenbach becomes the music director of the Philadelphia Orchestra. Arts, opens in Mid-December.
2003	ARCHITECTURE/HISTORY	The National Constitution Center opens on July 4.
2005	FOOTBALL	The Eagles represent the National Football Conference at the Superbowl.
Mid 1950s to the Present	MUSIC	For nearly half a century, Philadelphia has been a major force in Rock music. Groups such as Lee Andrews and the Hearts and Danny and the Juniors defined Rock & Roll in the late fiftees. Soloists such as Frankie Avalon and Bobby Rydell were idolized by teenagers across the country. Dee Dee Sharp, Chubby Checker, the Dovelles, the Tymes and Patti LaBelle and the Bluebells epitomized the excitement of the music in the sixtees. In the late sixtees, the Delphonics and The Philly Sound, propounded by Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff, and characterized by such artists as the O'Jays, the Soul Survivors, the Intruders, Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes, Archie Bell and the Drells made Philadelphia an important city for soul music. In the late ninetees, the Disco Biscuits were formed in the city, which advanced the music of jam bands in the country.