Prehistoric Native American settlements around the Licking River, the arrival of European explorers and settlers, 19th-century excitement over the megafossils at Big Bone Lick, the antebellum era and Northern Kentucky's importance to the Underground Railroad, and the 1860 election of Abraham Lincoln.
The Civil War and Reconstruction, industrialization and new transportation options, Germans and other immigrants, Newport's growing reputation as a gambling center, the first World War, and the onset of the Great Depression.
The disastrous Ohio River flood of 1937, World War II, reform efforts to drive organized crime out of Newport, how interstate highways and the new Greater Cincinnati airport reshaped the region, the tragic 1977 Beverly Hills Supper Club fire, and late-20th-century riverfront redevelopment efforts.