The fourth part of our series marking the bicentennial of the city's founding takes us to some of the more complex chapters of Memphis history, a few sports legends, artists, corporate innovators and two years of profound change.

The third of our four-part survey of the 200 people, places and events that have made Memphis what is was, what it is and what it could be. 

Shelby County residents headed to Shelby Farms on Sunday for the Celebrate Shelby family event to salute the county's bicentennial.

Shelby County was formed 200 years ago Nov. 24 by an act of the Tennessee Legislature. The county took in more territory than it does today. The official designation touched off controversies that saw the county seat moved out of Memphis four years later as the city struggled before beginning to grow.

The Sunday afternoon Mass recalled the 1939 milestone at the neighboring Magevney House and the ecumenical spirit that led to the city's first Catholic parish that followed. St. Peter's pastor also reminded parishioners that faith is not without divisions and controversy but is also about unity.

As the city of Memphis prepares to mark its 200th anniversary, the Chickasaw Nation is finding the story of its origins in a part of the city Native Americans left 500 years ago.

Shelby County will celebrate 200 years of history Nov. 24 at Shelby Farms.

Suffragettes, Larry Finch, the Memphis Underworld of a century ago, an Orange Mound teenager named Elton Hayes, Georgia Tann's child trafficking organization and Jimmy Lunceford's syncopation are featured in the second installment of the Memphis 200.

The marker is the second in the area to note the contributions of the Chinese in Memphis. It also marks another addition to a block of Beale that is becoming known for its presentation of the district's history.

Charles Hughes, Geoff Calkins and Zandria Robinson will be panelists at Rhodes College Thursday, Sept. 19, discussing the book "Memphis: 200 Years Together" in honor of Memphis’ bicentennial.

The first installment of our – and your – collection of 200 memorable Memphians. 

The shotgun house at Beale and Fourth has a new commitment by the city to promote W.C. Handy's music more than a century after he puts the blues on sheet music and spread the music form around the world. 

Race is a complicated, foreboding and necessary theme to consider in Memphis's 200-year history. It's also more than the city's past. Race is part of the city's eternal present.

Memphis restaurants owe a debt to immigrants, both in the city's early years and in more recent times. And to barbecue; it's what got us to the party.

Randall Mullins and Sharon Pavelda founded a project to identify and memorialize lynching sites in Shelby County, and helped create a community of supporters, from the National Park Service to the local NAACP, preachers and politicians, activists and academics.

The marker south of Beale Street marks the site of a Chinese association founded in Memphis in the 1920s. It is also a testament to the impact of the Chinese Exclusion Act that remained in place for 60 years in America.

Whataburger? A dehumidifier? An athletic director? What do you get a city for its 200th birthday?

Don Hassell says Memphians should wear their civic pride on May 22, the day the city's first land was purchased.

Local leaders cut the ribbon Wednesday on a new social media icon on Mud Island, and Orange Mound celebrated Memphis' bicentennial day by marking 100 years since it was annexed by the city.

A series of events will mark the founding of Memphis, which is technically 200 years ago Wednesday. 

This year is Memphis' bicentennial, but while there's been Memphis music as long as there's been a Memphis, you can't listen back 200 years. As a result, our three-part Memphis Music Road Map is a de facto centennial of sound. This second part follows a trail from B.B. King's first recordings to the rise of rock 'n' roll and soul, on to Al Green's rejection of secular soul, the emergence of alternative Memphis and Beale Street's decline.

This year is Memphis' bicentennial, but while there's been Memphis music as long as there's been a Memphis, you can't listen back 200 years. As a result, our three-part Memphis Music Road Map is a de facto centennial of sound. This final installment follows a trail from the lost decade of the '80s, to rap and indie rock of the '90s, the new bands and breakthroughs of the 2000s, and finally, Memphis music now.

This year is Memphis' bicentennial, but while there's been Memphis music as long as there's been a Memphis, you can't listen back 200 years. As a result, our three-part Memphis Music Road Map is a de facto centennial (and a little more) of sound. We tell a story of Memphis music's evolution one song at a time, from early blues and the Beale Street sound to the golden age of Sun and Stax and on to the contemporary styles of rock and rap. This first part follows the trail from W.C. Handy to the dawn of World War II. 

By the city’s 200th anniversary on May 22, people looking out of their Downtown offices and crossing the bridges back and forth across the Mississippi River will have a different view when they peer out over Mud Island.

Memphis and the Mississippi River are joined eternally. Our relationship with the river, and the stories buried deep in its muddy waters, define who we have been even as we wrestle with questions that will define who we become.