19,000 BC — Ice sheets cover the area of the northern United States
10,000 BC — Last ice age ends, world warms up
AD 1541 — Hernando de Soto and his men are the first Europeans to see the Mississippi River
1673 — Father Jacques Marquette and Louis Joliet explore the river as far as present-day Arkansas
1682 — René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle journeys all the way down the river to the Gulf of Mexico
1803 — France sells the Louisiana Territory to the United States
1807 — Robert Fulton invents the steamboat
1811 — The steamboat New Orleans travels from Pittsburgh to New Orleans
1859 — Samuel Clemens—the real name of author Mark Twain—becomes a fully licensed steamboat pilot
1863 — Union troops win the Battle of Vicksburg during the Civil War and gain control of the Mississippi River
1927 — Greenville, Mississippi, is underwater due to the Great Flood of 1927
1928 — US government passes the Flood Control Act of 1928
1970 — Environmental Protection Agency is established
2002 — Martin Strel swims the length of the river
2005 — Hurricane Katrina devastates New Orleans and the Mississippi Gulf Coast