Baltimore Equitable Insurance Timeline

1794 – Baltimore Equitable was founded in April

1796- Our first fire loss December 4 at Light and Baltimore Streets

1797- U.S. Frigate Constellation is built in Baltimore.

1799- Construction begins at Fort McHenry, the first fort built by the U.S. government

1800- Alexander Brown establishes Alex. Brown & Sons, a private investment banking house, the oldest in Maryland and the second oldest in the U.S.

1803- The refrigerator is invented by Baltimorean Thomas Moore

1813- Davidge Hall at University of Maryland (Lombard & Greene Streets) graduates its first medical class. It is the oldest building in the U.S. used continuously for medical education.

1814- The Star Spangled Banner, originally titled "The Defense of Fort McHenry," is published in Baltimore.

1815- Construction begins on the first architectural monument erected in honor of George Washington at Mt. Vernon Place.

1817- Baltimore installs street gas lights and becomes the first city in North America with such street illumination.

1828- Enoch Pratt bequest enables city to found famed public circulating library named in his honor.

1830- Peter Cooper's Tom Thumb, the first American locomotive, is used on the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. On September 18, on a return trip to Baltimore, the Tom Thumb races a horse and loses.

1859- The first YMCA in the U.S. is built in Baltimore at Pierce and Schroeder Streets.

1860- Baltimore gets its first baseball team, the Excelsiors.

1866- Baltimore's first free, but non-circulating public library is made possible by George Peabody.

1883- Eubie Blake, famed jazz musician, is born in Baltimore.

1894- Dr. William Halsted, chief surgeon at Johns Hopkins Hospital, is credited with the introduction of rubber gloves in medical practice.

1896- Maryland becomes the first state to adopt a "shield law" for newspaper reporters which protects them from the necessity of divulging their sources.

1904- The Bromo Seltzer Tower is built shortly after the Great Flre of 1904 and becomes a city landmark. It is a copy of the Palazzo Vecchio tower in Florence, Italy.

1922- The first presidential radio broadcast is made from Baltimore by Warren G. Harding at the dedication of tbe Francis Scott Key Memorial, Fort McHenry.

1944- The original Oriole Park in Northeast Baltimore burns to the ground.

1949- Lexington Market, one of the natton's oldest markets, burns down. 1954- Major league baseball comes to Baltimore as Clarence Miles and a group of Baltimoreans purchase the St. Louis Browns franchise.

1958- The Greater Baltimore Committee presents the concept of the Charles Center to the city government -- the first stage in Baltimore's downtown renaissance.

1981- The National Aquarium in Baltimore opens and he comes a tourist landmark.

1986- The 200-year-old Baltimore daily, The News American, ceases publication.

1986- The Pride of Baltimore sinks in a storm in the Caribbean.

1988- The Pride of Baltimore II is launched following its public construction.

1989- Baltimore is ranked by Fortune magazine as the best city in the Northeast in which to do business and 5th overall in the U.S.

1992- Oriole Park at Camden Yards, a new, old- time ballpark in downtown opens to local and national acclaim.

1992- Maryland's first light rail system begins operation, with service from Timonium to Camden Yards.