July 6, 1669 -- French explorer René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle leaves Montreal to explore Ohio River. La Salle traveled up the St. Lawrence River with a flotilla of nine canoes and 24 men, including native American guides. Having traveled up the St. Lawrence and across Lake Ontario for 35 days, they arrived at what is called today Irondequoit Bay on the southern shore of Lake Ontario at the mouth of Irondequoit Creek, a place now commemorated as La Salle's Landing. After traipsing southwart, LaSalle came down with a fever and returned to Montreal. The next confirmed sighting of La Salle was in early summer, 1670, on the Ottawa River about 700 miles north of the Ohio River. Undaunted, he followed the Great Lakes westward and eventually arrived at the Mississippi River thereby extending France's claims – all the way to the river's mouth, although the existing historical evidence does not indicate that La Salle ever reached the Ohio/Allegheny Valley. Didja know? Confounding fact with fiction started in 1876 when Pierre Margry, a French archivist, produced in a 9 volume collection of documents and reports. Over the years, discrepancies have significantly complicated efforts to retrace and build upon Margry's work. In 1687 LaSalle was assassinated by one of his men in a mutiny at a newly formed settlement in Texas.