Oct. 25, 2005: While visiting the Paris suburb of Argenteuil to speak about eliminating crime in that neighborhood, Sarkozy is pelted with stones and bottles.

Oct. 27, 2005: Two teenagers, aged 15 and 17, are electrocuted in the suburb of Clichy-sous-Bois after running from a checkpoint and allegedly being chased by police. A third youth receives serious burns but survives. Blaming the deaths on the police, riots begin. After local youths hear of the deaths, they begin rioting. 23 cars are burned and several buildings vandalized. Riot police are deployed and pelted with stones and bottles.

Oct. 28, 2005: In Clichy-sous-Bois, four hundred youths hurl Molotov cocktails, stones, injuring 23 police. Police respond by firing rubber bullets into the crowd. On this day 29 cars are set on fire and 13 people detained.

Oct. 29, 2005: During the day, 500 people in Clichy-sous-Bois hold a silent march in honor of the two teenagers who were electrocuted. That night, the riots resume. 20 cars are set on fire and 9 people are detained by police.

Oct. 30, 2005: In Clichy-sous-Bois, six police officers are injured, 8 vehicles are set on fire, and 11 people are arrested. A mosque is hit with a teargas grenade, incensing the Muslim community in the suburb and fueling the riots. French officials do not acknowledge that police fired the grenade, saying it could have been anyone.

Oct. 31, 2005: Sarkozy vows to stop the riots. He asks to meet with the families of the electrocuted teens, but they refuse. The brother of one of the victims, Siyakah Traore, says calls Sarkozy "very, very incompetent. He asks to speak to Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin instead. On this day 68 cars are set on fire and 19 people are arrested.

Nov. 1, 2005: Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin meets with the families of the dead teenagers. On this day, 180 cars are set on fire and 34 people are arrested.

Nov. 2, 2005: A spokesperson for President Chirac says: "Tempers must calm down. The law must be applied in a spirit of dialogue and respect. A lack of dialogue and an escalation of disrespectful behaviour would lead to a dangerous situation. Zones without law cannot exist in the republic." On this day, the riots spread to 22 suburbs surrounding Paris. In the suburb of Sevran, youths stop a bus. All of the passengers are able to escape except one: a 56-year-old handicapped woman. A youth pours gasoline on her and sets her on fire, causing her third degree burns to 20% of her body. He then throws a Molotov cocktail onto the bus.

Nov. 3, 2005: The rioting spreads to other French cities, including Rouen, Bordeaux, Marseille, and Strasbourg.

Nov. 4, 2005: French officials open a criminal investigation into the deaths of the two teenagers. Prime Minister Villepin

Nov. 5, 2005: 1,295 cars are burned throughout France. 349 people are arrested.

Nov. 6, 2005: President Chirac addresses the public about the riots for the first time. Speaking from the steps of the Elysee Palace after an emergency meeting of the national security council, he says that an "absolute priority is to reestablish security and public order ... The law should have the final say, and the republic is determined to be stronger than those who want to spread violence and fear. Those people will be apprehended, judged and punished."

Nov. 7, 2005: Overnight between the 6th and the 7th, the violence spreads into Paris' 17th arrondissement, with six cars being set on fire in the area that stretches from Montmartre in the west to the Arc de Triomphe.

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Latest news on the Paris riots:
Rage of French Youth Is a Fight for Recognition
Chirac Speaks Out on Rioting

1903: The community is incorporated as Hollywood. Wilcox, a prohibitionist, bans the sale of alcohol in the community except by pharmacists.

1910: Hollywood officially becomes a part of Los Angeles in order to benefit from the water and sewage systems.

1911: David Horsley purchases the Blondeau Tavern on Sunset Boulevard and turns it into the Nestor Film Company, Hollywood's first film studio.

1914: The first feature-length film, The Squaw Man, is released. Its creators - Samuel Goldwyn, Cecil B. DeMille, and Jesse Lasky - made the film in a barn a block away from what is now the corner of Hollywood and Vine.

1917: The Charlie Chaplin Studios are built just south of Sunset.

1923: The Hollywood sign, which originally reads "Hollywoodland," is put up. It is an advertisement for a Hollywood Hills housing development. After the advertisement is over, the sign remains and is negelected.

May 18, 1927: Grauman's Chinese Theatre has its Grand Opening in Hollywood. The film shown that evening is Cecil B. DeMille's The King of Kings. A riot breaks out as onlookers try to see the stars entering the theater for the premiere.

May 19, 1927: Grauman's Chinese Theatre opens to the public.

May 16, 1929: The first Academy Awards ceremony and banquet takes place in the Blossom Room of the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel.

1949: The Hollywood Chamber of Commerce takes charge of the Hollywood signing, removing the "land" and repairing the letters that now spell, simply, "Hollywood."

1956: The now-landmark Capitol Records building is erected on Vine Street.

1958: The Hollywood Walk of Fame is created.

1960: The first star is placed on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. The celebrity honored is Joanne Woodward.

1968: Grauman’s Chinese Theatre is declared a historical and cultural landmark.

2001: The Kodak Theatre opens on Hollywood Blvd in the location of the old Hollywood Hotel.

2002: A group of Hollywood residents campaign for secession from Los Angeles.

Nov. 2002: The secession referendums go on the ballot during the November election. To succeed, there needs to be a majority of voters not just from Hollywood, but the whole of Los Angeles. The referendums are not voted in.

Sept. 4, 1781: Settlers from the San Gabriel Mission found the city as El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles del Río de Porciúncula (The Village of Our Lady the Queen of the Angels of the Porciuncula River).

April 4, 1850: The City of Los Angeles is incorporated. The population at this time is 1,610.

1850: A California state law decrees: "No black or mulatto person, or Indian, shall be permitted to give evidence in favor of, or against, any white person. Every person who shall have one-eighth part or more of Negro blood shall be deemed a mulatto and every person who shall have one-half of Indian blood shall be deemed Indian."

1853: Jack Whaling, the city's second City Marshal, is murdered. A bounty hunter takes his murderer's life. These events bring about the formation of "The Los Angeles Rangers," volunteer policemen who help the County Sheriff and Marshal. The Rangers wear a white ribbon with the words (in both English and Spanish) "City Police - Authorized by the Council of Los Angeles." There is no jail in the city, so prisoners are chained to logs in the jail yard. This is the beginning of the Los Angeles Police Department.

1854: Mayor Stephen C. Foster resigns in order to lead a mob that removes a prisoner from jail and hangs him. Despite his actions, Foster is reelected the position of Mayor.

1857: Sheriff James Barton is assassinated. Eleven of the suspects are hanged. Vigilantes "take care of" the real assassin.

1860s: French settlers in Los Angeles become frightened by the level of violence in the city and ask the French government to help. The French deploy troops in Los Angeles for an unknown period of time.

1869: The city police department becomes official, with six officers being paid a salary. The City Marshal is the head of the police. He also serves as dog catcher and tax collector.

1870s: By this time the population is approximately 5,614. There are 110 saloons and 175 other businesses.

1871: People running gambling and prostitution businesses are required to pay licensing fees.

Oct. 1871: 19 Chinese are hung by a mob. Because Chinese are denied protection under the law, the mob had no reason to be gentle. Desite this, eight members of the lynch mob are arrested and sentenced to San Quentin for 2-6 years.

1873: All eight members of the lynch mob that hung 19 Chinese are released from San Quentin.

1876: Southern Pacific completes its railroad line to Los Angeles.

1877: William Mulholland, an Irish immigrant, rides into Los Angeles on horseback. He had just come from San Francisco. He later says of his first impression of the Los Angeles River: "The Los Angeles River was a beautiful, limpid little stream, with willows on its banks ... It was so attractive to me that it at once became something about which my whole scheme of life was woven, I loved it so much."

1877: Olvera Street is given its name, after the first county judge, Augustin Olvera.

Dec. 4, 1881: The Los Angeles Daily Times is published for the first time. It soon goes bankrupt and is taken over by the Mirror Company. Harrison Gray Otis is named editor and makes the paper a success.

1884: Harrison Gray Otis buys out the Los Angeles Daily Times from the Mirror Company and forms the Times-Mirror Company.

1892: Oil is discovered in Los Angeles.

1900: Harvey Wilcox, a transplant from Kansas, buys 160 acres of land west of Los Angeles in order to found a conservative community. His wife Daeida meets a woman on a train who speaks of her summer home called Hollywood. She convinces her husband to name their new community Hollywood.

1903: The community is incorporated as Hollywood. Wilcox, a prohibitionist, bans the sale of alcohol in the community except by pharmacists.

1909: Santa Monica pier opens.

1910: Hollywood officially becomes a part of Los Angeles in order to benefit from the water and sewage systems.

Oct. 1, 1910: Two union organizers blow up the offices of the Los Angeles Times and the home of Times owner Harrison Gray Otis. 21 people lose their lives. The two union organizers are defended by attorney Clarence Darrow but they plead guilty despite many people's belief that they have been framed.

1911: David Horsley purchases the Blondeau Tavern on Sunset Boulevard and turns it into the Nestor Film Company, Hollywood's first film studio.

1914: The first feature-length film, The Squaw Man, is released. Its creators - Samuel Goldwyn, Cecil B. DeMille, and Jesse Lasky - made the film in a barn a block away from what is now the corner of Hollywood and Vine.

1913: Construction of the first Los Angeles Aqueduct is completed.

Nov. 5, 1913: William Mulholland presents the water from the aqueduct to Los Angeles residents. He says: "There it is: take it."

1916: Police Chief Clarence E. Snively starts what is called the "Anti-Cigarette Clinic" in order to dissuade juvelines from smoking. Snively says: "... the use of cigarettes by children is a great cause of delinquency. The nicotine poison which enters the body ... has a tendency to make weak bodies, weak intellects and weak morals."

1917: The Charlie Chaplin Studios are built just south of Sunset.

1918: The 1918 Spanish Flu takes the lives of many Los Angeleans.

1920s: During Prohibition, Los Angeles is host to all manner of criminals because of its corrupt government and relaxed atmosphere.

1922: The famous carousel on the Santa Monica pier opens.

1923: The Hollywood sign, which originally reads "Hollywoodland," is put up. It is an advertisement for a Hollywood Hills housing development. After the advertisement is over, the sign remains and is negelected.

May 18, 1927: Grauman's Chinese Theatre has its Grand Opening in Hollywood. The film shown that evening is Cecil B. DeMille's The King of Kings. A riot breaks out as onlookers try to see the stars entering the theater for the premiere.

May 19, 1927: Grauman's Chinese Theatre opens to the public.

May 16, 1929: The first Academy Awards ceremony and banquet takes place in the Blossom Room of the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel.

1929: Wyatt Earp dies of chronic cystitis in Los Angeles at the age of 80.

1930: Olvera Street is converted to a Mexican marketplace by Christine Sterling.

1932: Los Angeles hosts the Summer Olympics.

1935: William Mulholland dies.

1940: The Los Angeles aqueduct system is extended to bring water from the Mono Basin.

1941: With the city growing, more water is needed. The Colorado River Aqueduct is completed and brings its first water to the city.

Feb. 19, 1942: In enforcement of Executive Order 9066 decreeing that all Japanese Americans and Japanese nationals be evacuated from the West Coast, U.S. soldiers empty Little Tokyo and deport all Japanese Americans out of the city.

May 1943: The Venice Riots break out after soldiers claim a soldier has been stabbed on the beachfront by the pachucos (young Mexican Americans wearing zoot suits). Approximately 500 sailors and civilians begin attacking young Mexican Americans as they exit a dance at the Aragon Ballroom. Police arrive and arrest the Mexican Americans "for their own protection."

May 31, 1943: A group of twelve sailors and soldiers fight with a group of Mexican American boys. One sailor, Seaman Second Class Joe Dacy Coleman, U.S.N., is seriously injured

June 3, 1943: A group of about 50 sailors goes down to downtown Los Angeles to avenge Coleman's injuries. They beat up everyone wearing a zoot suit. The riots are thus dubbed the "Zoot Suit Riots." Police arrest hundreds of Mexican American men and only nine sailors.

June 4, 1943: The sailors continue to cause mayhem in downtown Los Angeles. They commandeer taxis to drive around looking for men in zoot suits, but by this point they are attacking young Mexican Americans no matter what they are wearing.

June 5, 1943: The riots continue.

June 6, 1943: The riots spread to East L.A.

June 7, 1943: Soldiers from as far away as San Diego travel to Los Angeles to take part in the riots. The rioting grows even more violent and spreads into the community of Watts.

June 8, 1943: The riot is contained after the military forbids all U.S. servicemen from venturing into downtown Los Angeles. The Los Angeles City Council bands Mexican Americans from wearing zoot suits in public. The punishment for doing so is 50 days in jail.

June 16, 1943: Eleanor Roosevelt writes in her column: "The question goes deeper than just suits. It is a racial protest. I have been worried for a long time about the Mexican racial situation. It is a problem with roots going a long way back, and we do not always face these problems as we should."

June 18, 1943: Eleanor Roosevelt is criticized in the Los Angeles papers for inciting racial discord. One paper even accuses her of having communist sympathies.

1947: The first Los Angeles TV station, KTLA, goes on the air.

1949: The Hollywood Chamber of Commerce takes charge of the Hollywood signing, removing the "land" and repairing the letters that now spell, simply, "Hollywood."

Early 1950s: Charles Bukowski works for the United States Post Office in Los Angeles on and off until 1969. On finally deciding to quit, he writes in a letter at the time: "I have one of two choices--stay in the post office and go crazy ... or stay out here and play at writer and starve. I have decided to starve."

1956: The now-landmark Capitol Records building is erected on Vine Street.

1958: The Hollywood Walk of Fame is created.

1960: The first star is placed on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. The celebrity honored is Joanne Woodward.

Aug. 11, 1965: The Watts riots begin after a California Highway Patrol officer pulls over Marquette Frye, an African American who had reportedly been driving erratically. The officer questions Frye and his brother. Meanwhile, a crowd gathers around them, including Frye's mother. A struggle ensues and police hit the two Frye brothers with their batons. This outraged the crowd. The police arrested the three Frye family members and drove away. This is when chaos breaks loose as the outraged onlookers begin rioting. The riots last for five more days. 34 people die and the damages total over $200 million.

Aug. 20, 1965: The cover of Time magazine shows pictures of the riots and reads "The Los Angeles Riot."

1968: Grauman’s Chinese Theatre is declared a historical and cultural landmark.

June 6, 1968: Robert Kennedy is assassinated at the Ambassador Hotel.

1971: The 6.4 San Fernando earthquake takes 58 lives. 80,000 people evacuate their homes after a dam nearly breaks. Total damages are $511 million.

1974: In an interview, Charles Bukowski says: "You live in a town all your life, and you get to know every street corner. You've got the layout of the whole land. You have a picture of where you are ... Since I was raised in L.A., I've always had the geographical and spiritual feeling of being here. I've had time to learn this city. I can't see any other place than L.A."

1974: J. Paul Getty opens the Getty Museum in Malibu. It is a re-creation of the Villa of the Papyri at Herculaneum, Italy.

1984: Los Angeles hosts the Summer Olympic Gamess.

Oct. 1, 1987: The 6.1 Whittier Earthquake shakes Los Angeles. Eight people die. Damage is extensive throughout the Los Angeles Basin and the San Gabriel Valley.

1992: Riots break out after the verdict in the Rodney King case is read out.

Jan. 7, 1994: The 6.7 Northridge earthquake. 57 people lose their lives and nearly 2,000 are injured. It causes widespread damage throughout the Los Angeles area and is the most costly earthquake in U.S. history.

June 12, 1994: O.J. Simpson's ex wife, Nicole Brown, and her friend Ronald Goldman are murdered in Brentwood.

June 17, 1994: O.J. Simpson, a suspect in the double murder, is supposed to turn himeself in at 11 a.m. He doesn't show up and an all-points bulletin is issued for his arrest. Simpson's friend Robert Kardashian reads a statement from Simpson: "First everyone understand I had nothing to do with Nicole's murder ... Don't feel sorry for me. I've had a great life." Believing this to be a suicide note, the search for Simpson intensifies. Finally at 6:45 pm, Simpson's white Ford Bronco is spotted going north on the 405. The infamous slow-speed chase ensues. Simpson surrenders later that evening.

June 20, 1994: Simpson has his first court arraignment and pleads "not guilty."

July 22, 1994: In his second court appearance, Simpson pleads: "absolutely 100% not guilty."

Jan 29, 1995: The O.J. Simpson trial begins.

June 15, 1995: Assistant prosecutor Christopher Darden asks Simpson to put on the leather glove that was found at the scene of the crime. The glove is too tight for Simpson and he struggles to get it on. This brings on the famous comment by defense attorney Johnny Cochran: "If it doesn't fit, you must acquit."

Oct. 3, 1995: The jury deliberates for only three hours and brings a verdict of "not guilty" for Simpson.

Dec. 16, 1997: The Getty Center, the new home of the Getty Museum, opens in Brentwood. The original Getty Museum is renamed the Getty Villa and remains closed for renovations.

Oct. 2003: The supermarket strike begins. 97% of the members of the United Food and Commercial Workers in southern and central California vote to strike over health care benefits at Vons supermarket. Hours later, Ralphs and Albertson's supermarket chains lock out their employees. The strike lasts until Feb. 2004.

Oct. 30, 2005: The board of the J. Paul Getty Trust forms a committee to investigate claims that its museum purchased stolen art and that its chief executive spent tax-exempt funds.

Nov. 28, 1851: The first store in the area is opened by Charles Terry.

March 31, 1852: David "Doc" Maynard arrives in the area. He names the city after his friend, Chief Sealth or Chief Seattle, the leader of the Duwamish and Suquamish tribes.

April 1852: The Denny Party relocates their settlement to Elliott Bay.

Dec. 22, 1852: King County is incorporated.

May 23, 1853: Arthur Denny, Carson Boren, and Dr. David S. Maynard file the first plats for the Town of Seattle. They establish the still existent street grid for Pioneer Square and downtown Seattle.

Jan. 26, 1856: The Battle of Seattle occurs between Seattle settlers and native Indians who do not want to be relocated elsewhere.

1862: Asa Shinn Mercer becomes the University of Washington's first teacher and acting president.

Dec. 10, 1863: Seattle first newspaper, The Gazette, is first published. It eventually becomes the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

June 7, 1866: Chief Sealth dies.

June 6, 1889: The Nordhoff family opens The Bon Marché department store.

July 11, 1870: The city's first mayor, Henry Atkins, is elected.

1889: The Great Seattle Fire destroys the business district but causes no deaths.

1901: Nordstrom is founded as a shoestore called Wallin & Nordstrom in Seattle.

Aug. 17, 1907: Pike Place Market opens.

Aug. 28, 1907: United Parcel Service (UPS) is founded as American Messenger by James Casey Claude Ryan.

1909: The Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition is held.

Nov. 8, 1910: Women are granted the right to vote in Washington State.

Sept. 19, 1913: Frances Farmer is born in Seattle.

July 15, 1916: William E. Boeing founds the Boeing company in Seattle.

1918: The 1918 Spanish Flu takes 1,600 lives in Seattle.

1919: There is a general strike.

1920: Eddie Bauer is founded.

April 21, 1942: Japanese Americans in Seattle are ordered to evacuate the city. During WW II more than 12,000 Japanese Americans from the Seattle area are held in detention centers.

Nov. 27, 1942: Jimi Hendrix is born in Seattle.

April 13, 1949: Seattle is hit by a 7.1 magnitude earthquake. Seven lose their lives and the damage to the city is devastating.

July 9, 1949: Seattle-Tacoma International Airport opens.

Jan. 21, 1953: Paul Allen, co-founder of Microsoft, is born in Seattle.

Oct. 28, 1955: Bill Gates is born in Seattle.

April 21, 1962: The World's Fair opens. The Space Needle and the Monorail were built for the occasion.

Oct. 13, 1967: The Seattle Supersonics play their first game.

Feb. 9, 1969: The Boeing 747 makes its first test flight.

1971: The first Starbucks opens in Seattle.

May 20, 1977: The Seattle Aquarium opens its doors.

1979: Microsoft Corporation moves headquarters from Albuquerque, New Mexico to Seattle.

May 18, 1980: Mount St. Helens, located 96 miles south of Seattle, erupts. It is the most catastropic volcano eruption in United States history. 57 people lose their lives.

Sept. 15, 1983: The flagship Costco discount warehouse is opened in Seattle.

Early 1990s: Grunge music becomes popular. Bands from Seattle and the Pacific Northwest such as Nirvana, Alice in Chains, and Soundgarden, redefine rock music in the 1990s.

1990: The Goodwill Games are held.

1999: The WTO Meeting is held. Street protests cause chaos.

Feb. 28, 2001: A 6.8 quake, named the Nisqually Earthquake, occurs.

Sept. 4, 2001: Boeing moves its headquarters to Chicago.

52 B.C.: The Romans arrive in Paris. Julius Caesar holds an assembly in the city. They call the Gallic tribe that occupies the area the "Parisii." The Romans call the city Lutetia, a Latinized version of the Celtic name, Loukteih.

52 B.C.: Soon after Caesar leaves, The Parisii revolt against the Romans. Labienus, Caesar's lieutenant, defeats them.

250: St. Denis, Bishop of the Parisii people, is beheaded by the Romans in the area of Paris that is now Montmartre. Legend has it that he picks up his head after it is chopped off and walks several miles preaching a sermon. This is why St. Denis is always depicted headless, with his head in his hands.

280: The Barbarians destroy the city.

360: The city is renamed "Paris."

451: Attila the Hun heads toward Paris. A young nun named Geneviève encourages the Parisians to pray and stand firm. Attila and his legions of Huns avoid Paris and are defeated at Châlons. Geneviève is hailed as the city's savior and is later named the patron saint of Paris. She is also sainted and is now known as Saint Geneviève.

496: Clovis, king of the Merovingian Franks, becomes the first of the pagan barbarians to adopt Catholicism.

508: Clovis defeats the Visigoths and pushes them out of what is now France. He makes Paris the capital and settles there.

511: Clovis the Frank commissions the building of the cathedral of St. Etienne on the Île.

511: Saint Geneviève dies.

800s: Invading Vikings force the Parisians to construct a fortress on the Île de la Cité.

March 28, 845: The Vikings sack Paris. They collect a large ransom in exchange for leaving.

938: Hugh Capet, the eldest son of Hugh the Great, is born in Paris.

March 27, 972: Hugh Capet's son, Robert II, is born.

July 3, 987: Hugh Capet, count of Paris, is crowned King of France and becomes the first of the Capetian line of kings.

Oct. 24, 996: Hugh Capet dies in Paris and is succeeded by his son, Robert II.

1215: The University of Paris is founded.

1220: King Philippe-Auguste builds a square château-fort to protect the western side of the city. This château is developed and expanded by subsequent kings over the next 600 years and later becomes the Louvre.

1300s: The Black Death strikes the city.

1337: The Hundred Years War begins.

1400s: Urban revolts drive the royal court to abandon the city for almost 100 years.

1563: Construction is begun on the section of the Louvre known as the Tuileries Palace.

1643: King Louis XIV, the Sun King, begins his reign. He moves the royal residence from Paris to Versailles.

1673: The last of the Gothic portions of the Louvre are removed.

Nov. 21, 1694: Voltaire is born in Paris.

1715: King Louis XIV dies.

June 2, 1740: The Marquis de Sade is born in the Condé palace in Paris.

May 30, 1778: Voltaire dies in Paris. He is denied burial on church ground because of his previous criticism of the church.

1784: The Marquis de Sade, imprisoned previously in Vincennes, is transferred to the Bastille in Paris.

July 31, 1784: Writer Denis Diderot dies of emphysema in Paris and is buried in the the Eglise Saint-Roch.

July 2, 1789: The Marquis de Sade shouts from his cell in the Bastille: "They are killing the prisoners here!" It causes a small riot.

July 4, 1789: Sade is transferred to an insane asylum at Charenton-Saint-Maurice just outside of Paris.

July 13, 1789: A mob of Parisians storms the Bastille.

July 14, 1789: The Bastille surrenders to the citizens and the French Revolution has begun.

1792: The monarchy falls and the First Republic is proclaimed.

1793: Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette are guillotined. The Louvre becomes a public museum.

1794: Robespierre and the members of the revolutionary tribunal are guillotined.

1799: Napoléon enters Paris. Wishing to replicate the imperial style of ancient Rome, he orders the triumphal arches of the Carrousel and the Etoile, and the Vendôme Column.

Dec. 2, 1804: In the Cathedral of Notre Dame, having snatched the crown from the pope and put it on his own head, Napoléon declares himself Emperor and his wife Josephine Empress of the French.

June 18, 1815: Napoléon's army is defeated by Wellington at Waterloo.

June 22, 1815: Napoléon abdicates June 22 and is exiled to St-Helena in the south Atlantic. The Bourbons are briefly restored to the throne of France.

1830: Adolphe Thiers' journal "Le National" helps to bring about the July Revolution. Charles X is overthrown and replaced by Louis-Philippe, the Citizen King.

1832: A cholera epidemic kills 19,000 people.

1833: The Obelisk of Luxor arrives in Paris. A gift from the Viceroy of Egypt, Mohammed Ali Pasha, it is a 3300-year old stone needle that bears hieroglyphics telling the story of Ramses II. It is put at the Place de Concorde in the spot where the statue of Louis XV was before the Revolution.

1848: Barricades erected during 3-day civil strife mark another revolution and the proclamation of the Second Republic. France has its first legislative assembly. Prince Louis Napoléon Bonaparte wins the presidency by 5 million votes.

1852: The castle that later becomes the Louvre is completed and is now one of the world's largest palaces, after 600 years of development and expansion.

1863: The revolutionary impressionist exhibit at the Salon des Refusés, featuring works by Edouard Manet, Claude Monet, and Paul Cézanne.

1870: The Franco-Prussian war ends with a siege of Paris.

1871: The Paris Commune, a revolutionary Socialist government, takes over the city. They burn The Tuileries Palace and pull down Napoleon's column. The French Army under General MacMahon suppressses the Commune and 20,000 people die.

1875: Construction of the Opéra Garnier is completed.

1878: The International Exposition is held in Paris.

1884: Emile Nouguier and Maurice Koechlin conceive of the idea for a tall tower in Paris.

Sept. 18, 1884: Eiffel registers a patent "for a new configuration allowing the construction of metal supports and pylons capable of exceeding a height of 300 metres".

1885: Victor Hugo dies in Paris.

Feb. 14, 1887: Soon after construction on the Eiffel Tower has begun, an article entitled "Protest against the Tower of Monsieur Eiffel" appears in the Le Temps newspaper. It is addressed to Monsieur Alphand, the World's Fair's director of works. It is signed by Guy de Maupassant, Alexandre Dumas, Jr., Charles Gounod, William Bouguereau, Charles Garnier, and others. It reads in part: "We come, we writers, painters, sculptors, architects, lovers of the beauty of Paris which was until now intact, to protest with all our strength and all our indignation, in the name of the underestimated taste of the French, in the name of French art and history under threat, against the erection in the very heart of our capital, of the useless and monstrous Eiffel Tower, which popular ill-feeling, so often an arbiter of good sense and justice, has already christened the Tower of Babel."

Feb. 14, 1887: In the same day's paper, Eiffel responds to the critics in an interview. He says: "For my part I believe that the Tower will possess its own beauty. Are we to believe that because one is an engineer, one is not preoccupied by beauty in one's constructions, or that one does not seek to create elegance as well as solidity and durability? Is it not true that the very conditions which give strength also conform to the hidden rules of harmony?"

1887-1889: During the period of construction, the Eiffel Tower is referred to by artists and intellectuals as: "this truly tragic street lamp," "this belfry skeleton," "this high and skinny pyramid of iron ladders," "a half-built factory pipe, a carcass waiting to be fished out with freestone or brick."

1889: The World's Fair is held in Paris. The Eiffel Tower receives two million visitors and is held in awe as the world's tallest building.

1900: Paris hosts the 1900 Summer Olympics. The first Métro line opens, running from Porte de Vincennes to Porte Maillot.

1902: James Joyce moves to Paris.

1914-1918: WWI brings 2 million American soldiers to France. Paris is saved from the Germans by the Battle of the Marne.

1918: American Prohibition begins, leading many American intellectuals and writers to move to Paris.

Nov. 9, 1918: Writer Guillaume Apollinaire dies at his apartment in Paris of influenza during the 1918 Spanish Flu Epidemic.

1919: The Treaty of Versailles is signed with France attempting to exact reparations from Germany.

1920: The Unknown Soldier is buried at the Arc de Triomphe.

1921: Ernest Hemingway and his wife Hadley Richardson move to Paris.

1922: James Joyce's Ulysses is published by Sylvia Beach, owner of the Paris bookstore Shakespeare and Company.

May 18, 1922: Proust and Joyce meet for the first time in Paris.

Nov. 8, 1922: Proust dies. James Joyce attends his funeral.

1924: Paris hosts the 1924 Summer Olympics.

1928: Hemingway leaves Paris.

1937: The International Exhibition is held in Paris.

Early 1940: James Joyce and his family flee Paris in fear of the advancing German army.

June 1940: Paris falls to German occupying forces.

1840: Napoléon's body moves through Paris during his funeral procession.

1944: The Allies land at Normandy beach. Hitler orders General von Choltitz to destroy Paris.

Aug. 24, 1944: General von Choltitz surrenders and Paris is finally free from the Germans. General Leclerc enters the city.

Aug. 26, 1944: General Charles de Gaulle enters Paris.

1946: France adopts a new constitution and French women win the right to vote.

1958: Charles de Gaulle is elected president.

1960s: The Tour Montparnasse (Montparnasse Tower), a modern skyscraper, is constructed, causing many to complain that it ruins the skyline created by Haussman.

1962: Algeria regains independence. Approximately 700,000 French colonists from Algeria return to France. The population of Paris grows instantly to 1.2 million.

1964: Hemingway's memoirs of his years in Paris, A Moveable Feast, are published posthumously.

May 1968: "Les évènements de Mai 1968" ("The Events of May 1968") occur, with 9 million works going on strike, student demonstrations, and the resignation of president Charles De Gaulle.

1969: Georges Pompidou is elected president.

1977: The first mayor of Paris since 1871 is elected. The architecturally controversial Centre Pompidou is inaugurated in the old Beaubourg neighborhood.

1981: France's first socialist president, François Mitterrand, is elected.

1986: The Orsay Museum and the Cité des Sciences at La Villette open.

1988: François Mitterrand is reelected.

1992: Disneyland Paris opens in the suburbs of Paris.

1995: Jacques Chirac becomes president of France.

1999: A small square in Paris near the Bibliothèque Nationale in the 13th arrondissement is named after James Joyce.

Oct. 29, 2004: Ailing Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat arrives in Paris for medical treatment.

Nov. 11, 2004: Arafat dies in Paris.

May 29, 2005: French voters reject the European Union's proposed constitution.

July 25, 2005: American Lance Armstrong wins his sixth Tour de France.

Oct. 19, 2005: Nicolas Sarkozy, France's interior minister, declares a "war without mercy" on violence in Parisian suburbs.

Oct. 25, 2005: While visiting the Paris suburb of Argenteuil to speak about eliminated crime in that neighborhood, Sarkozy is pelted with stones and bottles.

Oct. 27, 2005: Two teenagers, aged 15 and 17, are electrocuted in the suburb of Clichy-sous-Bois after running from a checkpoint and allegedly being chased by police. A third youth receives serious burns but survives. Blaming the deaths on the police, riots begin. After local youths hear of the deaths, they begin rioting. 23 cars are burned and several buildings vandalized. Riot police are deployed and pelted with stones and bottles.

Oct. 28, 2005: In Clichy-sous-Bois, four hundred youths hurl Molotov cocktails, stones, injuring 23 police. Police respond by firing rubber bullets into the crowd. On this day 29 cars are set on fire and 13 people detained.

Oct. 29, 2005: During the day, 500 people in Clichy-sous-Bois hold a silent march in honor of the two teenagers who were electrocuted. That night, the riots resume. 20 cars are set on fire and 9 people are detained by police.

Oct. 30, 2005: In Clichy-sous-Bois, six police officers are injured, 8 vehicles are set on fire, and 11 people are arrested. A mosque is hit with a teargas grenade, incensing the Muslim community in the suburb and fueling the riots. French officials do not acknowledge that police fired the grenade, saying it could have been anyone.

Oct. 31, 2005: Sarkozy vows to stop the riots. He asks to meet with the families of the electrocuted teens, but they refuse. The brother of one of the victims, Siyakah Traore, says calls Sarkozy "very, very incompetent. He asks to speak to Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin instead. On this day 68 cars are set on fire and 19 people are arrested.

Nov. 1, 2005: Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin meets with the families of the dead teenagers. On this day, 180 cars are set on fire and 34 people are arrested.

Nov. 2, 2005: A spokesperson for President Chirac says: "Tempers must calm down. The law must be applied in a spirit of dialogue and respect. A lack of dialogue and an escalation of disrespectful behaviour would lead to a dangerous situation. Zones without law cannot exist in the republic." On this day, the riots spread to 22 suburbs surrounding Paris. In the suburb of Sevran, youths stop a bus. All of the passengers are able to escape except one: a 56-year-old handicapped woman. A youth pours gasoline on her and sets her on fire, causing her third degree burns to 20% of her body. He then throws a Molotov cocktail onto the bus.

Nov. 3, 2005: The rioting spreads to other French cities, including Rouen, Bordeaux, Marseille, and Strasbourg.

Nov. 4, 2005: French officials open a criminal investigation into the deaths of the two teenagers. Prime Minister Villepin

Nov. 5, 2005: 1,295 cars are burned throughout France. 349 people are arrested.

Nov. 6, 2005: President Chirac addresses the public about the riots for the first time. Speaking from the steps of the Elysee Palace after an emergency meeting of the national security council, he says that an "absolute priority is to reestablish security and public order ... The law should have the final say, and the republic is determined to be stronger than those who want to spread violence and fear. Those people will be apprehended, judged and punished."

Nov. 7, 2005: Overnight between the 6th and the 7th, the violence spreads into Paris' 17th arrondissement, with six cars being set on fire in the area that stretches from Montmartre in the west to the Arc de Triomphe.

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Latest news on the Paris riots:
Rage of French Youth Is a Fight for Recognition
Chirac Speaks Out on Rioting

Mardi Gras Day, 1699: French Canadian Pierre D'Iberville establishes a camp called Point du Mardi Gras (Mardi Gras Point) 60 miles below the present-day New Orleans.

1718: The city of New Orleans is founded by the French as La Nouvelle-Orléans. It is named for Philip II, Duke of Orléans, the king of France at the time.

1722: New Orleans becomes the capital of French Louisiana, replacing Biloxi.

1724: Jews are officially forbidden to enter New Orleans. Despite this, many Jews are able to enter by not admitting to being Jewish.

1762: France cedes New Orleans to Spain under the Treaty of Fontainebleau.

1788: The Great Fire destroys many of the French-built structures in the original French Quarter of the city.

1795: A second fire destroys much of the remaining French architecture. The Spanish rebuild using Spanish colonial architecture.

1795: The United States is granted "Right of Deposit" in New Orleans, allowing them to use the city's port facilities.

1801: Louisiana reverts back to French control after Napoleon regains the territory under a treaty agreement with Spain.

1803: Napoleon sells the Louisiana territory to the United States in the Louisiana Purchase.

1812: The War of 1812 brings British forces who try to conquer New Orleans.

Jan. 8, 1815: The British are defeated by Andrew Jackson and his army in the Battle of New Orleans.

1830s: The population of New Orleans doubles.

1840: The population is approximately 102,000, making it the fourth largest city in the United States at the time.

1849: Loses its status as the capital of Louisiana to

1853: During the Great Scourge of 1853, almost 10,000 New Orleans citizens die from yellow fever.

1865: Once again becomes the capital of Louisiana.

1872: The official Mardi Gras colors - purple, green, and gold - are chosen by the King of Carnival, Rex. Purple stands for justice, green for faith, and gold for power.

1880: Loses its status as the capital of Louisiana to

1884: New Orleans hosts the 1884 World's Fair, The World Cotton Centennial.

1910s: A. Baldwin Wood, an engineer and investory, oversees his plan to drain the city and install large pumps to drain rainwater from the canals into Lake Pontchartrain. The drainage allows the city to expand.

1920s: The old cast-iron balconies are removed from Canal Street in an attempt to modernize the city.

1960s: The Canal Streetcar Line is replaced with buses.

1984: New Orleans hosts its second World's Fair, the Louisiana World Exposition.

1990s: Streetcars are restored to a section of Canal Street.

Dec. 14, 1996: The Bright Field freightliner/bulk cargo vessel crashes into the Riverwalk mall and hotel complex on Poydras Street Wharf, injuring 116 people, and destroying 15 shops and 456 hotel rooms.

Jan. 6, 1997: The freightliner is finally removed from the crash site.

April 2004: Contruction to restore the entire Canal Street streetcar line is completed.

Aug. 27, 2005: Mayor Ray Nagin calls for a voluntary evacuation of New Orleans

Aug. 28, 2005: Hurricane Katrina reaches a Category 5 intensity.

Sept. 24, 2005: Hurricane Rita makes landfall in Texas. The eastern bands of the storm cause flooding in already-devastated New Orleans.

Aug. 29, 2005: Hurricane Katrina makes landfall on the Gulf Coast, with the eye hitting just east of New Orleans.

Oct. 5, 2005: Mayor Ray Nagin holds a press conference to announce that, due to the financial crisis caused by Katrina, 3,000 city employees will lose their jobs.