The ENTIRE History of New Orleans in 42 Minutes

In 1718 a French officer named Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville chose a few feet of high ground on a bend of the Mississippi and decided they were enough. Everything that followed — the fires, the fevers, the floods and the music — grew from that bargain with the river. This is the entire history of New Orleans, from the Chitimacha, Choctaw and Houma who knew the portage long before the French, to the city that is still sinking today. Adrien de Pauger's grid and the hurricane of 1722. The Code Noir and the Ursulines. Spanish rule, the rebellion of 1768 and the fires of 1788 and 1794 that left the "French" Quarter largely Spanish-built. Three flags on the Place d'Armes in three weeks in 1803. The Saint-Domingue refugees who doubled the city, the German Coast Uprising and the Battle of New Orleans. Congo Square, the largest slave market in the United States and the yellow fever of 1853. Farragut, Reconstruction, the Mechanics' Institute and Liberty Place. Homer Plessy's train ride, Storyville, Buddy Bolden and Louis Armstrong. The flood of 1927, Ruby Bridges' walk to school, and Hurricane Katrina. CHAPTERS 0:00 The high ground 1:24 A place of many tongues 5:02 Bienville's crescent 7:41 Storm, grid and the Code Noir 10:39 A Spanish city 14:28 The city that burned twice 16:13 Three flags in three weeks 18:22 The doubling and the eighth of January 23:00 Cotton, sugar and the slave market 27:27 War, occupation and a train car 31:33 Jazz and the river 34:23 A walk to school 36:49 The water comes in 39:20 The same bend in the river SOURCES Lawrence N. Powell, The Accidental City (2012). Richard Campanella, Bienville's Dilemma (2008). Gwendolyn Midlo Hall, Africans in Colonial Louisiana (1992). The Historic New Orleans Collection. Louisiana State Museum (the Cabildo). Library of Congress and the U.S. National Archives (the Louisiana Purchase). Paul F. Lachance, Louisiana History 29 (1988). Daniel Rasmussen, American Uprising (2011). National Park Service (Chalmette Battlefield; New Orleans Jazz National Historical Park). Benjamin Henry Latrobe's journal, 1819. Walter Johnson, Soul by Soul (1999). Kathryn Olivarius, Necropolis (2022). Justin A. Nystrom, New Orleans after the Civil War (2010). Keith Weldon Medley, We As Freemen (2003). John M. Barry, Rising Tide (1997). Ruby Bridges, Through My Eyes (1999). Independent Levee Investigation Team and USACE IPET reports on Hurricane Katrina (2006). U.S. Census Bureau. Reconstructions in this film are built from that evidence. Thanks for watching Time Warp Cities. If you'd like more city histories like this one, subscribe — it costs nothing, and it decides which city we reconstruct next.