San Francisco's population swells after a carpenter named John Marshall discovers gold in northern California. Originally a village, Yerba Buena, with 400 inhabitants, it becomes a city of 35,000 people.

The Civil War ends when Confederate general Robert E. Lee surrenders to Union commander Ulysses S. Grant. Masses of soldiers demobilize, many of whom will soon move west.

Joshua Norton, a bankrupted Gold Rush merchant who has gone mad, declares himself Norton I, Emperor of the United States, and begins issuing decrees. San Franciscans tolerate and even coddle him. He is the first to call publicly for the construction of bridges across the San Francisco Bay.

Joseph Baermann Strauss, the future chief engineer of the Golden Gate Bridge, is born in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Amadeo Peter Giannini, who will one day head the Bank of America and finance the Golden Gate Bridge, is born in San Jose, California.

Three years after completing the transcontinental railroad connecting California to the East coast, entrepreneur Charles Crocker presents plans and cost estimates for a bridge spanning the Golden Gate, where San Francisco Bay meets the Pacific Ocean.

Future bridge designer and theorist Leon Moisseiff is born in Latvia. He will emigrate to New York at age 19.

The engineer who will one day calculate forces and ensure the Golden Gate Bridge is structurally sound, Charles Ellis, is born in Parkman, Maine.

San Francisco is devastated by a destructive earthquake: over 28,000 buildings are destroyed and two-thirds of the city's population -- about a quarter-million people -- become homeless.

Future baseball great Joe DiMaggio is born to Sicilian immigrant parents in the Bay Area. His father, Giuseppe, is a bay fisherman, and the family soon relocates to the city's hub of Italian immigrant life, North Beach.

The Panama Pacific International Exposition opens in San Francisco, celebrating (a year late) the completion of the Panama Canal. Shipping times between the east and west coasts of the United States are cut significantly.

More than four decades after Crocker's call for a bridge, James H. Wilkins, a structural engineer and a newspaper editor for the San Francisco Call Bulletin, proposes the first serious design for spanning the Golden Gate. He campaigns for a bridge, catching the attention of San Francisco City Engineer Michael M. O'Shaughnessy. O'Shaughnessy consults engineers about feasibility and cost. The majority speculate that a bridge will cost over $100 million -- yet Joseph Strauss, who has designed nearly 400 spans, claims it can be built for only $25 to $30 million.

President Woodrow Wilson asks Congress to formally declare war. World War I, the bloodiest conflict yet known, will end a year and a half later, on November 11, 1918.

The deadliest strain of influenza America has ever known comes to San Francisco. Residents don surgical masks and endure the outbreak, which infects over 23,000 citizens -- including young Ansel Adams -- and kills 3500.

To act on the growing public interest in the bridge project awakened by Wilkins' columns, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors asks Congress to authorize a federal survey of the Golden Gate channel.

City officials ask city engineer O'Shaughnessy to explore the possibility of building a bridge that crosses the Golden Gate.

At the city engineer's request, the U.S.S. Natoma sounds the Golden Gate channel.

O'Shaughnessy receives the Natoma's survey data. He sends it to three nationally-known engineers: Joseph Strauss in Chicago; Francis C. McMath, president of the Canadian Bridge and Iron Company in Detroit; and Gustav Lindenthal, the man who engineered the 1,000-foot Hell Gate Arch over New York's East River in 1916.

O'Shaughnessy considers the engineers' proposals. Lindenthal has estimated a minimum cost of $56 million -- disqualifying himself. McMath never officially responds. Joseph Strauss, unaware that two other engineers have been contacted as well, submits preliminary sketches to O'Shaugnessy with a cost estimate of $27 million.

O'Shaughnessy, Strauss and Edward Rainey, a mayoral aide, propose the creation of a special political entity for the Golden Gate Bridge project. They believe a special district is necessary to manage financing, design and construction of the bridge, and in order for all counties that may be affected to have a voice in the proceedings.

Strauss adds Charles Ellis, professor of structural and bridge engineering at the University of Illinois, to his staff. Ellis's job is to draw up the new plans.

Almost a year and a half after receiving Strauss's blueprints, O'Shaughnessy makes his calculations public.

Franklin Pierce Doyle, a banker in Sonoma County, calls a meeting of representatives from twenty-one counties. The group creates the "Association of Bridging the Gate." Their first task is to ask the state legislature for permission to create a legal district.

The California legislature passes the Golden Gate Bridge and Highway District Act of California. The association is empowered to create a district and assume powers of taxation, eminent domain, and control over bridge and roadway construction and maintenance.

As the owner of the land on both sides of the Golden Gate, the federal War Department is the only entity that can authorize construction. The department also has jurisdiction over all harbor construction that might affect shipping traffic or military logistics. San Francisco and Marin counties make a joint application for a permit to build the bridge.

War Department officials meet to discuss two issues: whether the bridge will hinder navigation, and whether adequate financing is available.

In an atmosphere of overwhelming support for the bridge project, Secretary of War John W. Weeks issues a temporary permit.

The association of counties forms the Golden Gate Bridge and Highway District to finance, design, and construct the bridge. The District consists of San Francisco, Marin, Sonoma, Del Norte and parts of Mendocino and Napa counties.

Joseph B. Strauss is chosen as the bridge's chief engineer. Leon S. Moisseiff, O. H. Amman and Charles Derleth, Jr. are named consulting engineers.

Swayed by Moisseiff and Ellis' calculations -- and projected savings in cost and construction time -- Strauss abandons his initial plan to build a cantilever-suspension bridge and decides on an all-suspension bridge.

The stock market crashes. Banks fail one after another, people are forced to close their businesses, and the Great Depression begins, as more than 15 million Americans -- a quarter of the work force -- become unemployed.

Strauss submits a formal report to the bridge's directors, accounting for changes including the conversion to an all-suspension bridge.

After overseeing test boring in San Francisco, Charles Ellis returns to Chicago to start the preliminary design and estimate. Working twelve to fourteen hours a day, and consulting via telegram with Moisseiff in New York, Ellis personally computes dozens of factors, and completes the overall design in four months. At a meeting in June, Ellis' design will be reviewed by the three consultants.

Strauss hires a local architect, Irving Morrow, to design an architectural treatment for the bridge. Morrow will later be recognized for his aesthetic contributions: the Golden Gate Bridge's distinctive Art Deco lines, burnt red-orange hue, and the structure's dramatic lighting.

The War Department issues a final permit for the construction of a 4,200-foot main span, with a vertical clearance of 220 feet at midspan and a 210-foot clearance at the sidespans.

Joseph Strauss submits his final plan to the District's board of directors, two months behind schedule. At 285 pages, it is intended to be comprehensive.

As the country endures the Great Depression, the bridge's board proposes that voters underwrite the major construction of the Golden Gate Bridge.

Voters from the six counties of the District agree to a $35 million bond issue, using their homes, farms and business properties as collateral, in order to support the construction of the Golden Gate Bridge. The vote is 145,657 in favor and 46,954 against.

Strauss directs Ellis to begin the thousands of detail calculations involving suspension ropes, decks, floor beams, highway track, cables, towers, and more. Ellis writes the specifications for all ten bridge construction contracts, covering everything from cable wire to suspender ropes to concrete for the anchorages.

Strauss badgers Ellis to finish his work. Ellis responds by asking for Strauss' cooperation and patience in arriving at reliable mathematical expressions for the safe design of the bridge.

Strauss' impatience with Ellis comes to a head. Strauss instructs Ellis to go on vacation immediately.

Ellis leaves the Strauss Engineering Corporation offices for what will turn out to be the last time. Three days before his scheduled return, Ellis receives a letter from Strauss telling him not to return. Ellis will be replaced by Clifford Paine, the firm's managing engineer. All mention of Ellis is removed from bridge materials.

The District awards contracts totaling $23,843,905 for the construction of the Golden Gate Bridge.

Construction begins. Workers excavate three and a quarter million cubic feet of dirt for the bridge's huge anchorages.

Workers complete the two anchorages. These colossal blocks of steel-reinforced concrete secure the main cables at each end of the bridge.

Russell B. Cone and his family arrive in San Francisco. Recruited by Strauss, Cone is appointed resident engineer. Working under Strauss and Paine, he will oversee the day-to-day construction of the bridge.

Workers complete the north pier, the foundation for the north tower, on the Marin shore. The pier extends 44 feet above the waterline.

Workers complete the north tower.

After agonizing difficulties trying to build in the middle of a turbulent ocean channel, workers -- including a team of underwater divers -- complete the south pier.

The south tower is finished.

Workers install a dizzying catwalk high above the water. Since the bridge's cables will be assembled in the air, the catwalk hangs three feet below the position of each cable.

Eleven workers lose their lives when a platform holding 13 men falls off the bridge and through the safety net. Two workers, Slim Lambert and Oscar Osberg, somehow survive the fall and the plunge into icy water. Lambert suffers a broken shoulder, a broken collar bone, broken ribs, a broken neck, a broken back and two horribly twisted ankles. Osberg is pulled alive from the water with a fractured hip, a broken leg, and massive internal injuries.

Workers finish spinning the suspension cables ahead of schedule, at a rate four times faster than expected.

The cable compression is finished.

The most dramatic safety feature in bridge-building history is introduced at the Golden Gate Bridge work site. A large net is slung under the entire bridge, at a cost of over $130,000. It hangs 60 feet below the construction workers, and ultimately saves 19 lives. Workers perform tasks more quickly and confidently, knowing the net is in place. The men who survive falls into the net call themselves the "Halfway-to-Hell Club."

The roadway steel is finished.

The first man killed in the building of the bridge is Kermit Moore, who is crushed by a support beam that falls.

Workers install a new safety net.

Workers complete the deck surface. It hangs like a massive hammock between the two towers, suspended from the cables by 254 sets of vertical suspender ropes, each positioned 50 feet apart. Despite delays, the bridge has taken only four and a half months longer to build than originally planned.

Joseph Strauss resigns from the District.

The Golden Gate Bridge opens to pedestrians for the first time. At 6am, 18,000 people are waiting to be the first to cross the bridge in some unique manner -- first on stilts, first backwards, and so on. San Francisco's week-long celebration is called "The Golden Gate Bridge Fiesta."

The bridge opens to vehicles after President Franklin Roosevelt presses a telegraph key in the White House announcing the occasion to the whole world. The bridge has opened ahead of schedule and under budget. In the first hours, 1,800 cars pass over the bridge. By midnight, 32,300 vehicles and 19,350 pedestrians have paid tolls and crossed.

Strauss suffers a heart attack.

Strauss dies at the age of sixty-eight, eleven days short of the first anniversary of his magnificent bridge's opening.

Officials dedicate a monument to Joseph Strauss at a magnificent spot below the bridge toll plaza.

Charles Ellis dies at an Evanston, Illinois hospital. Whether he ever saw the completed Golden Gate Bridge prior to his death is unknown.

Judson-Pacific Murphy of South San Francisco is awarded $3.5 million to stiffen girders underneath the bridge roadway.

A howling 69-mile-per-hour windstorm blows through the Golden Gate, shaking the bridge's steel towers. The storm is so bad that the roadway starts to ripple. When one side starts pitching 11 feet higher than the other, bridge officials close the span for the first time in its 14-year history. Casual inspection the next day shows little damage.

The first one-way toll system in the world starts on the Golden Gate Bridge. Motorists can pay a round-trip toll in one direction and cross without stopping to pay in the other direction.

All suspender ropes are replaced after inspectors find corrosion near the gusset plates at the intersection of some ropes and the floor system chords.

The last of the construction bonds is retired. Bridge tolls have financed $35 million in principal and nearly $39 million in interest.

The one billionth car crosses the bridge.

Construction is finished on a new orthotropic steel plate deck.

The Golden Gate Bridge celebrates its 50th anniversary.

Following a year-long study, the Historical Review Committee of the American Society of Civil Engineers declares that Ellis, working with Moisseiff, is "the technical and theoretical brains behind the design of the bridge" and deserves to be honored.

The American Society of Civil Engineers names the Golden Gate Bridge one of the "Seven Wonders of the Modern World" along with other massive American creations: the Hoover Dam, the Interstate Highway System, the Kennedy Space Center, the Panama Canal, the Trans-Alaska Pipeline and the World Trade Center.