Portal:Baltimore
The Baltimore Portal

Baltimore is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland. With a total population of 585,708 at the 2020 census, it is the 30th-most populous U.S. city. Baltimore was designated as an independent city by the Constitution of Maryland in 1851. Baltimore is the most populous independent city in the United States. As of 2020[update], the population of the Baltimore metropolitan area was 2.84 million, the 20th-largest metropolitan area in the country. The city is also part of the Washington–Baltimore combined statistical area, which had a 2020 population of 9.97 million, the third-largest in the country. Though Baltimore is not located within or under the administrative jurisdiction of any county in the state, it forms part of the central Maryland region, together with the surrounding county that shares its name.
The land that is present-day Baltimore was used as hunting ground by Paleo-Indians. In the early 1600s, the Susquehannock began to hunt there. People from the Province of Maryland established the Port of Baltimore in 1706 to support the tobacco trade with Europe and established the Town of Baltimore in 1729. During the American Revolutionary War, the Second Continental Congress moved its deliberations to Henry Fite House on West Baltimore Street from December 1776 to February 1777 prior to the fall of Philadelphia to British troops, which permitted Baltimore to serve briefly as the nation's capital before it returned to Philadelphia in March 1777. The Battle of Baltimore was pivotal during the War of 1812, culminating in the failed British bombardment of Fort McHenry, during which Francis Scott Key wrote a poem that would become "The Star-Spangled Banner", designated as the national anthem in 1931. During the Pratt Street Riot of 1861, the city was the site of some of the earliest violence associated with the American Civil War. (Full article...)
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Mount Vernon is a neighborhood of Baltimore, Maryland, located immediately north of the city's downtown. It is named for George Washington's Mount Vernon estate in Virginia, as the site of the city's Washington Monument. (Full article...)
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Panorama at night of the Inner Harbor
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Calvin Edwin Ripken Jr. (born August 24, 1960), nicknamed "the Iron Man", is an American former baseball shortstop and third baseman who played his entire 21-season career in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the Baltimore Orioles (1981–2001). One of his position's most productive offensive players, Ripken compiled 3,184 hits, 431 home runs, and 1,695 runs batted in during his career, and he won two Gold Glove Awards for his defense. He was a 19-time All-Star and was twice named American League (AL) Most Valuable Player (MVP), in 1983 and 1991.
Ripken holds the record for consecutive games played (2,632), having surpassed Lou Gehrig's streak of 2,130 which had stood for 56 years and which many deemed was unbreakable. In 2007, he was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility with 98.53% of votes, the sixth-highest election percentage ever to-date. (Full article...)
Did you know...
- ... that the writer of "Crabs for Christmas" joked that it contributed to Baltimore's population decline?
- ... that one of the items on display at the Baltimore Museum and Gallery of Fine Arts was George Washington's shaving brush?
- ... that Darryl De Sousa created a Baltimore Police Department unit to give lie detector tests to other units?
- ... that Charles J. M. Gwinn was the first state's attorney of Baltimore elected under the Maryland Constitution of 1851, which he had helped to draft?
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