At that time, General George Washington came before the body convened in the new Maryland State House and resigned his commission as commander of the Continental Army.

A month later, the Congress ratified the Treaty of Paris of 1783, ending the American Revolutionary War, with Great Britain recognizing the independence of the United States.

[7] In 1654, after the Third English Civil War, Parliamentary forces assumed control of the Maryland colony and Stone went into exile south across the Potomac River in Virginia.

Per orders from Lord Baltimore, Stone returned the following spring at the head of a Cavalier royalist force, loyal to the uncrowned King of England.

[9] Colonel John Seymour, the Governor of Maryland from 1704 to 1709, wrote Queen Anne on March 16, 1709, with qualifications for municipal officials and provisions for fairs and market days for the town.

[11] The Maryland Gazette, which became an important weekly journal, was founded there by Jonas Green[12][13] in 1745; in 1769 a theatre opened; during this period also the commerce was considerable, but it declined rapidly after Baltimore, with its deeper harbor, was made a port of entry in 1780.

Leo Lemay says his 1744 travel diary Gentleman's Progress: The Itinerarium of Dr. Alexander Hamilton is "the best single portrait of men and manners, of rural and urban life, of the wide range of society and scenery in colonial America.

Congress was in session in the state house from November 26, 1783, to August 19, 1784, and it was in Annapolis on December 23, 1783, that General Washington resigned his commission as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army.

[18] Delegates from only five states—New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, New Jersey, and Delaware—actually attended the September 1786 gathering, known afterward as the Annapolis Convention.

Without proceeding to the business for which they had met, the delegates passed a resolution calling for another convention to meet at Philadelphia in the following year to amend the Articles of Confederation.

[14] On April 24 1861, the midshipmen of the Naval Academy relocated their base in Annapolis and were temporarily housed in Newport, Rhode Island, until October 1865.

The third and final location was finished in late 1863 and would be placed near the Elkridge Railroad, as to make transportation of soldiers and resources easier before and allowing the camp to grow to its highest numbers.

It was at Annapolis in July 1940 that Grand Duchess Charlotte of Luxembourg arrived in exile during World War II.

In the summer of 1984, the Navy Marine Corps Memorial Stadium in Annapolis hosted soccer games as part of the XXIII Olympiad.

[28] As announced by United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Annapolis was the venue for a Middle East summit dealing with the Israeli–Palestinian peace process, with the participation of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas ("Abu Mazen") and various other leaders from the region.

The city is a part of the Atlantic Coastal Plain, and is relatively flat, with the highest point being only 50 feet (15 m) above sea level.

[59][60] During the warmer months, Annapolis Summer Garden Theatre presents three shows on its outdoor stage, which is visible from the City Dock.

[65] The Banneker-Douglass Museum, located in the historic Mount Moriah Church at 87 Franklin Street, documents the history of African Americans in Maryland.

Its Beverley R. Robinson Collection contains 6,000 prints depicting European and American naval history from 1514 through World War II.

Its design was adapted by William Buckland from Andrea Palladio's Villa Pisani to accommodate American Colonial regional preferences.

At the head of the dock is a small park with the Kunta Kinte-Alex Haley Memorial with the Market House and a traffic circle in an expanse of asphalt surrounded by historic buildings.

To the north of the state house is a monument to Thurgood Marshall, the first black justice of the US Supreme Court and formerly a Maryland lawyer who won many important civil rights cases.

[74] On March 9, 2010, the Chesapeake Bayhawks of Major League Lacrosse moved from Washington, D.C., to the Annapolis area, at Navy–Marine Corps Memorial Stadium.

[75] Annapolis Blues FC is a men's amateur soccer team that plays in USL League Two, which also competes out of Navy–Marine Corps Memorial Stadium.

Since 2008, several aldermen have introduced unsuccessful charter amendments to institute a council-manager system, a move opposed by both Democratic mayor Joshua J. Cohen and his Republican successor Mike Pantelides.

Anne Arundel County's alternative school which has around 160 students ranging grades 6–9, Mary E. Moss Academy, is also in the Annapolis area.

The system serves the city with recreational areas, shopping centers, educational and medical facilities, and employment hubs.

[83] Several Maryland Transit Administration commuter buses also allow for access to Baltimore or Washington, D.C. From 1840 to 1968, Annapolis was connected to the outside world by railroad.

The Washington, Baltimore and Annapolis Electric Railway (WB&A) operated two electrified interurban lines that brought passengers into the city from both the South and the North.

Steam trains of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad also occasionally operated over the line to Annapolis, primarily for special Naval Academy movements.