Long before Atlantic City was founded, the island where it would be developed, thick with woods and lined with dunes, was the summer home of the Lenni Lenape Indians, an Algonquian-speaking people. These original summer residents named the island Absegami, meaning "little water", a term for the bay denoting that the opposite shore was in sight. Over time the name was transformed into the present-day Absecon Island. Early colonial settlers in South Jersey largely ignored the island because it could only be reached by boat.
While the exact date of the first permanent settlement has never been determined, it is generally agreed that Jeremiah Leeds was the first to build and occupy a year-round residence on the island, building his home in 1783.
Dr. Jonathan Pitney moved to Absecon village to practice medicine and begins to promote the healing powers of the salt air and sea. He advocated for a health resort on the nearby Absecon Island.
The city was incorporated. "Atlantic City" name is selected by a civil engineer from Philadelphia, Richard Osborne, who prints it on a map of the city.
The first boardwalk was 1 mile long, 8 feet wide, and stood 1 foot above the sand. Designed to prevent sand from being carried into the hotel lobbies by the strollers’ long dresses and shoes, later boardwalks were more permanent. It later became an official Atlantic City street, Boardwalk.
Martin Couney, an early advocate of neonatal care, starts an infant incubator exhibit on the Boardwalk, saving hundreds of tiny babies before it closed in 1943.
Prohibition begins in the United States. While many of Atlantic City's establishments ignored the law and continued to serve alcohol to the city's visitors, apothecaries provided alcohol for medicinal purposes.
Atlantic City Convention Hall is dedicated. It is renamed Jim Whelan Boardwalk Hall in 2018 for a former Atlantic City mayor and New Jersey State Senator.
Leroy "Pop" Williams and Clifford Williams open Club Harlem on Kentucky Avenue, later joined by Ben Alten. The Paradise Club, an earlier nightclub, merged with Club Harlem in the 1950s.
Democratic National Convention is held in Convention Hall. The Mississippi Democratic Freedom Party and Fannie Lou Hamer petition for equal access for all races to participate as delegates at the convention.
A fire that started in the early morning hours of December 10 destroyed a section of Steel Pier. The pier, closed for several years, was used as storage space by Resorts International.
Vanessa Williams selected as the first black Miss America in 1984. Suzette Charles also serves as Miss America 1984 after Williams resigned from that position.