The following are important dates and events in the history of Indiana. These events affected political boundaries, record keeping, and family movements.

1700–1735	The French established three outposts along the Wabash-Maumee trade route: one at the present site of Fort Wayne, one near present-day Lafayette, and the largest and most important at Vincennes.
1763	The British took possession of the area and discouraged settlers, but the few hundred Frenchmen who were already there were permitted to remain, and Americans began filtering in.
1784	Clarksville, (on the north bank of the Ohio River, opposite Louisville, Kentucky), became the first authorized American settlement in Indiana.
1787	The United States government established the Northwest Territory to open the land to Revolutionary War veterans and other settlers. See the information at the end of this section for The Territorial Papers of the United States
1790	Knox County was created, with Vincennes as the seat of government.
1800–1809	The Indiana Territory was established in 1800. The Michigan Territory was detached in 1805, and the Illinois Territory was set off in 1809.
1811	The last major battle with the Indians was fought at Tippecanoe. By 1815 there was no effective Indian opposition to settlement in Indiana.
1816	Indiana became a state.
1816–1835	A dispute on the border between northern Indiana and southern Michigan was settled in 1835.
1830s–1850s	New roads, canals, and railroads hastened settlement in central Indiana. The National Road reached Indianapolis in 1834. The Wabash and Erie Canal reached Terre Haute in 1850 and was completed to Evansville in 1853. Major railroad building was underway in the 1850s.
1840s–1910s	Germans, Irish, Scandinavians, Mennonites, and Poles came to rural Indiana for good, inexpensive farmland.
1861–1865	Indiana remained loyal to the Union during the Civil War and contributed about 224,000 federal troops, although the southern heritage of some communities caused trouble. Former slaves coming north began to settle in Indiana.
1882	Studebaker wagon factory began to attract foreign workers to South Bend.
1890s	Oil and gas development in Indiana increased the shift away from rural agriculture toward an urban industrial economy.
1900	The glass industry near Muncie started to attract thousands of skilled Walloon glass workers from Belgium.
1904	Studebaker began manufacturing electric automobiles and recruiting more foreign laborers to South Bend.
1906	U.S. Steel built large mills. Many eastern Europeans came to the new mill town of Gary.
1930s	The Great Depression slowed the immigration of foreigners.