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- The history of Tucson, Arizona began thousands of years ago. Paleo-Indians practiced plant husbandry and hunted game in the Santa Cruz River Valley from 10,000 or earlier BCE. Archaic peoples began making irrigation canals, some of the first in North America, around 1,200 BCE. The Hohokam people lived in the Tucson area from around 450–1450 CE in a complex agricultural society. Jesuit missionary Eusebio Francisco Kino founded the Mission San Xavier del Bac in 1700. Through the 1700s, Spanish missionaries tried to get the Native Americans to convert to Catholicism and a Spanish lifestyle. The Spanish built a fort at Tubac in 1751. It was moved to Tucson in 1775 where Hugo O'Conor, an Irishman working for the Spanish crown, officially founded Presidio San Augustin del Tucson. The Spanish stayed in the area, fighting down repeated attacks on the fort by Apache warriors. In 1821, Tucson became part of the new state of Sonora in Mexico, who had won independence from Spain. In 1854, Tucson, along with much of the surrounding area, was purchased from Mexico by the United States in the Gadsden Purchase and was made part of the New Mexico Territory. President Lincoln created the Arizona Territory in 1863, and Tucson was named capitol from 1867 to 1877. On February 14, 1912, Arizona became the 48th state in the United States. (en)
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