War in the north

Summary: Government forces wage a brutal counter-insurgency against the Somali National Movement in the north, bombarding Hargeisa and killing many thousands of civilians as armed opposition spreads.


Fall of Siad Barre

Summary: Rebel forces drive Siad Barre from Mogadishu, ending his 21-year dictatorship; with no agreement on a successor, central authority collapses and the country descends into civil war.


State collapse and Somaliland's declaration

Summary: Central government disappears as faction leaders fight for control; the former British Somaliland declares independence as the Republic of Somaliland, which remains internationally unrecognised but largely self-governing.


Famine and Operation Restore Hope

Summary: Drought and civil war cause a famine that kills several hundred thousand people; the UN sets up UNOSOM and a US-led force launches Operation Restore Hope in December to safeguard relief.


Battle of Mogadishu ('Black Hawk Down')

Summary: A US raid against a faction leader turns into a fierce urban battle that kills 18 American and many Somali fighters and civilians, hastening the withdrawal of foreign forces by 1995.


Islamic Courts Union and the rise of Al-Shabaab

Summary: The Islamic Courts Union briefly controls much of the south before an Ethiopian intervention ousts it; from its militant wing emerges Al-Shabaab, which launches a prolonged jihadist insurgency.


Federal Government of Somalia established

Summary: A new permanent Federal Government is formed under a provisional constitution—the first central government since 1991—as African Union forces push Al-Shabaab back from major cities.


Drought, famine risk and renewed offensive

Summary: A severe multi-season drought pushes parts of Somalia toward famine while the Federal Government, backed by local clan militias and international forces, mounts a renewed offensive against Al-Shabaab.


Stefan Nemanja founds the Nemanjić state

Summary: As grand chieftain of Raška, Stefan Nemanja united the Serb principalities and founded the Nemanjić dynasty, which would develop Serbia into a major medieval Balkan power.


Foundation of Studenica Monastery

Summary: Stefan Nemanja founded the marble monastery of Studenica, retiring there around 1196; its churches became a masterpiece of the Raška school and a UNESCO World Heritage Site.


Stefan the First-Crowned becomes king

Summary: Stefan Nemanjić obtained recognition as king, raising the grand principality of Raška to the rank of a kingdom and earning the name Prvovenčani, the 'First-Crowned'.


Autocephaly of the Serbian Orthodox Church

Summary: Saint Sava obtained from the patriarch at Nicaea the status of autocephalous archbishop, founding an independent Serbian church that bound religious and royal authority together.


Imperial coronation of Stefan Dušan

Summary: Having expanded the realm across the southern Balkans, Stefan Dušan was crowned 'Emperor of the Serbs and Greeks' and raised the church of Peć to a patriarchate, the high point of medieval Serbia.


Death of Dušan and the empire's collapse

Summary: The death of Stefan Dušan in 1355 led to the rapid disintegration of the Serbian Empire into rival principalities, leaving the Balkans divided as the Ottomans advanced.


The Battle of Kosovo

Summary: On the Field of Blackbirds the army of Prince Lazar fought the Ottoman sultan Murad I; both leaders were killed and Serbian resistance was broken, making Kosovo the central event of national memory.


The Serbian Despotate

Summary: A reduced Serbian state survived as the Despotate, ruled latterly from Smederevo and balancing between the Ottomans and Hungary, prolonging Serb statehood for another half-century.


Ottoman conquest of Serbia

Summary: The Ottomans captured the fortress of Smederevo and extinguished the Despotate, absorbing the Serb lands into the empire and beginning nearly four centuries of Ottoman rule.


Patriarchate of Peć

Summary: Elevated under Dušan, the patriarchate of Peć became the spiritual heart of the Serbs; its medieval churches in Kosovo survive as UNESCO World Heritage monuments of the Serbian Orthodox tradition.


First Serbian Uprising

Summary: Led by Karađorđe, Serbs rose against Ottoman rule and for nearly a decade governed a self-proclaimed state, the opening act of the Serbian Revolution before its suppression in 1813.


Second Uprising and autonomy under Miloš Obrenović

Summary: Miloš Obrenović led the Second Uprising; by 1830 the Ottomans granted the principality full autonomy under him as hereditary prince, establishing self-governing Serbia.


Independence recognised at the Congress of Berlin

Summary: The Treaty of Berlin confirmed Serbia's full independence in international law and enlarged the principality, which became the Kingdom of Serbia in 1882.


The Balkan Wars

Summary: Serbia drove the Ottomans from most of their European lands and, after the Second Balkan War, gained Kosovo, Metohija and much of Macedonia, nearly doubling its territory and alarming Austria-Hungary.


Assassination at Sarajevo

Summary: The Bosnian Serb Gavrilo Princip assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo; Austria-Hungary blamed Serbia, and its declaration of war triggered the First World War.


Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes proclaimed

Summary: Prince Regent Alexander proclaimed the South Slav kingdom in Belgrade, uniting Serbia and Montenegro with former Habsburg lands under the Serbian crown; it was renamed Yugoslavia in 1929.


Royal dictatorship and renaming as Yugoslavia

Summary: Amid party deadlock King Alexander suspended the constitution, imposed a royal dictatorship and renamed the state the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, deepening tensions among its nations.


Axis invasion and occupation

Summary: Germany and its allies invaded and dismembered Yugoslavia in April 1941, placing Serbia under occupation and unleashing a multi-sided war of resistance and civil conflict.


Socialist Yugoslavia under Tito

Summary: Tito's Partisans triumphed and built a socialist federation of six republics; after breaking with Stalin in 1948, Yugoslavia pursued non-alignment, with Serbia its largest republic.


Autonomy for Vojvodina and Kosovo

Summary: The federal constitution of 1974 granted wide autonomy to the Serbian provinces of Vojvodina and Kosovo, a settlement resented by many Serbs that would ignite conflict after Tito's death.


Milošević curtails Kosovo's autonomy

Summary: Riding a wave of Serbian nationalism, Slobodan Milošević revoked the autonomy of Kosovo and Vojvodina, deepening the crisis that would break Yugoslavia apart.


Wars in Croatia and Bosnia

Summary: As Yugoslavia disintegrated, war engulfed Croatia and Bosnia amid ethnic cleansing and atrocity, with Belgrade backing Serb forces and the federation collapsing into a rump Yugoslavia.


Kosovo War and NATO bombing

Summary: After fighting between Yugoslav forces and the Kosovo Liberation Army and the displacement of Albanian civilians, NATO bombed Yugoslavia for some eleven weeks until Milošević agreed to withdraw from Kosovo.


UN Security Council Resolution 1244

Summary: The Security Council placed Kosovo under an international civil (UNMIK) and security presence, granting substantial autonomy while reaffirming the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Yugoslavia.


Fall of Milošević

Summary: After disputed elections, mass protests in Belgrade forced Milošević from power; he was later tried at the ICTY in The Hague but died in 2006 before a verdict was reached.


Montenegro's independence and the end of the State Union

Summary: Following a referendum on 21 May 2006, Montenegro declared independence; Serbia accepted the result and declared itself the successor state, dissolving the State Union of Serbia and Montenegro.


Kosovo declares independence

Summary: Kosovo's assembly declared independence from Serbia, a step recognised by many Western states but rejected by Serbia, which continues to regard Kosovo as its autonomous province.


ICJ advisory opinion on Kosovo

Summary: The International Court of Justice found that Kosovo's 2008 declaration of independence did not violate international law; Serbia continued nonetheless to withhold recognition.


Brussels Agreement

Summary: In the EU-facilitated dialogue, Belgrade and Pristina reached the First Agreement of Principles, integrating Serb-majority northern Kosovo into Kosovo's institutions without constituting Serbian recognition.


Agreement on the Path to Normalisation (Ohrid)

Summary: Serbia and Kosovo agreed to develop normal relations and recognise each other's documents and symbols, with an implementation annex agreed at Ohrid, while leaving the question of status unresolved.


Portuguese reach the uninhabited islands

Summary: Portuguese navigators, by tradition João de Santarém and Pero Escobar, reached São Tomé and Príncipe, finding the equatorial islands entirely uninhabited and suited to bases for mainland trade.


São Tomé settled by Álvaro Caminha

Summary: The first successful settlement of São Tomé was established under a crown grant to Álvaro Caminha, beginning the islands' colonisation.


Deportation of Jewish children and convicts

Summary: The early colonists included Portuguese degredados and some two thousand children taken from expelled Jewish families and deported to be raised as Christians, most of whom died — part of the forced human mixture that founded Creole society.


Settlement of Príncipe

Summary: The smaller island of Príncipe was settled under a similar crown arrangement, extending Portuguese control over the archipelago.


The first sugar-slavery plantations

Summary: Settlers planted sugar cane worked by enslaved Africans, creating one of the earliest Atlantic plantation economies — a model later exported to Brazil and the Caribbean.


São Tomé a leading sugar producer

Summary: The number of sugar mills grew to around sixty, making São Tomé Africa's foremost sugar exporter and for a time one of the world's largest producers.


The Angolar maroon community

Summary: Escaped slaves formed independent communities in the forested interior; the Angolares, of disputed origin, settled the rugged south and lived by fishing, rejecting plantation labour.


The revolt of Rei Amador

Summary: Rei Amador united maroons and plantation slaves in a great revolt that overran much of São Tomé, one of the largest slave uprisings of the Atlantic world.


Capture and execution of Rei Amador

Summary: After his forces had held much of the island, Amador was captured and executed by the Portuguese; he endured as a hero of resistance and is now honoured as a national figure.


Dutch sack of São Tomé

Summary: Dutch forces captured and occupied São Tomé for several years, razing sugar mills and accelerating the long decline of the island's plantation economy.


Coffee and cocoa introduced

Summary: Coffee and then cocoa, brought from Brazil around the 1820s, were planted on the islands, reviving the plantation economy after the long decline of sugar.


Portugal decrees abolition of slavery

Summary: Portugal began abolishing slavery in its empire, with an 1869 decree and full emancipation completed in the 1870s — though forced contract labour soon took its place.


World's largest cocoa producer

Summary: Worked by the roças and their contract labourers, São Tomé became for a time the world's leading producer of cocoa.


Nevinson exposes 'A Modern Slavery'

Summary: The journalist Henry Nevinson published A Modern Slavery, exposing the serviçal contract-labour system as forced labour, with around one in five workers dying each year.


Cadbury and the cocoa boycott

Summary: After Joseph Burtt's report confirmed the abuses, the chocolate firms Cadbury, Fry and Rowntree announced a boycott of São Tomé cocoa, an international scandal that shamed Portugal but left coerced labour largely intact.


The Batepá massacre

Summary: Under Governor Carlos Gorgulho, colonial police and settlers killed many Forro islanders who resisted forced labour — a massacre, with the toll uncertain, that became the founding memory of São Toméan nationalism.


Founding of the MLSTP

Summary: São Toméan exiles organised the liberation movement that became the MLSTP, based for a time in Gabon, drawing strength from the memory of Batepá.


Carnation Revolution in Portugal

Summary: A military coup overthrew the Lisbon dictatorship, and the new government moved to decolonise, opening the path to São Toméan independence.


Transfer of power negotiated

Summary: Portuguese and MLSTP representatives met to arrange the handover, recognising the MLSTP as the islands' representative and establishing a transitional government.


Independence proclaimed

Summary: São Tomé and Príncipe became an independent state, with the MLSTP's Manuel Pinto da Costa as its first president.


One-party socialist state

Summary: A new constitution made the MLSTP the sole legal party; Pinto da Costa built a one-party Marxist state aligned with the Eastern bloc and nationalised the cocoa plantations.


Multiparty constitution adopted

Summary: Amid economic crisis, a referendum approved a new constitution introducing multiparty democracy and presidential term limits, making São Tomé an early African democratiser.


First free elections

Summary: Free multiparty elections brought Miguel Trovoada, a former prime minister returning from exile, to the presidency as an independent candidate.


Short-lived military coup

Summary: Soldiers briefly seized power over corruption and oil-revenue grievances; President Fradique de Menezes was restored within days through negotiation.


Carlos Vila Nova elected president

Summary: Carlos Vila Nova won the presidency, continuing a record of peaceful, contested elections that has made São Tomé and Príncipe one of the region's more stable democracies.


Indigenous settlement

Summary: Arawak, Carib, and other Indigenous peoples occupy the coast and interior of present-day Suriname over many centuries.


European voyages sight the coast

Summary: Columbus sights the Guiana coast in 1498 and Spanish expeditions sail along it soon after, but no lasting settlement follows.


English settlement under Willoughby

Summary: Lord Francis Willoughby of Barbados plants an English sugar colony on the Suriname River, with the first enslaved Africans set to work.


Dutch capture of the colony

Summary: A Dutch force from Zeeland seizes the English colony during the Second Anglo-Dutch War.


Treaty of Breda

Summary: The peace confirms Suriname to the Dutch while England keeps New Netherland and New Amsterdam, the future New York.


The sugar-slavery economy

Summary: Dutch Suriname becomes a plantation colony worked by enslaved Africans under exceptionally harsh conditions, with Paramaribo as its capital and port.


Maroon peace treaties

Summary: Unable to defeat the Maroons, the Dutch sign treaties from the 1760s recognising the freedom of the Ndyuka, Saramaka, and Matawai and their lands in the interior.


Death of the Maroon leader Boni

Summary: Boni, leader of the Aluku, is killed after years of guerrilla war against colonial forces, becoming an enduring symbol of resistance.


Abolition of slavery

Summary: The Netherlands abolishes slavery in Suriname, though the freed are bound to a further decade of supervised apprenticeship until 1873.


Hindustani indentured labour

Summary: Contract labourers from British India, the Hindustanis, are recruited to the plantations; roughly thirty-four thousand arrive over the period.


Javanese indentured labour

Summary: Indentured workers from Java join the plantation workforce, numbering some thirty-three thousand and forming a community unique in the Caribbean.


Independence from the Netherlands

Summary: Suriname becomes a sovereign state; Johan Ferrier is the first president and the United States recognises the nation the same day.


Military coup

Summary: Non-commissioned officers overthrow the elected government; Desi Bouterse emerges as the regime's strongman, ruling by decree.


The December murders

Summary: Fifteen leading opponents of military rule are seized and killed at Fort Zeelandia in Paramaribo, drawing international condemnation.


The Interior War

Summary: The mainly Maroon Jungle Commando under Ronnie Brunswijk fights the army in the east until a ceasefire in 1989 and a peace accord in 1992.


Paramaribo named World Heritage

Summary: UNESCO inscribes the Historic Inner City of Paramaribo, a Dutch colonial town blending European and local building traditions.


Bouterse conviction upheld

Summary: A Surinamese court upholds a twenty-year sentence against former president Desi Bouterse for the 1982 December murders.


GranMorgu oil decision

Summary: TotalEnergies and APA take a final investment decision to develop the offshore GranMorgu field on Block 58, with first oil expected toward 2028.


First woman president

Summary: The National Assembly elects Jennifer Geerlings-Simons as Suriname's first woman president amid an economic crisis and the promise of oil.


Founding of Great Moravia

Summary: Prince Mojmír I expelled Pribina of Nitra and united the principalities of Moravia and Nitra into Great Moravia, the first powerful Slavic state of central Europe, with the Slovak lands at its core.


Mission of Cyril and Methodius

Summary: At Prince Rostislav's request the Byzantine brothers Cyril and Methodius arrived in Great Moravia, devised the Glagolitic script and translated the liturgy into Old Church Slavonic, founding a written Slavic culture.


Reign of Svatopluk I

Summary: Under Svatopluk I Great Moravia reached its greatest extent and won recognition from the papacy, becoming the dominant power of the middle Danube before the state fragmented after his death.


Fall of Great Moravia to the Magyars

Summary: Weakened by internal strife and Frankish wars, Great Moravia collapsed as the Magyars occupied the Carpathian Basin; a Magyar victory in 906–907 is taken to mark the end of the state.


Incorporation into the Kingdom of Hungary

Summary: The Slovak lands were absorbed into the Kingdom of Hungary founded by Stephen I, beginning roughly a thousand years under the Hungarian crown as the region known as 'Upper Hungary'.


Universitas Istropolitana at Pressburg

Summary: Slovakia's first university, the Universitas Istropolitana, was founded at Pressburg, an early sign of the towns' wealth and learning within the Hungarian kingdom.


Pressburg made capital of Hungary

Summary: As the Ottomans overran central Hungary, the parliament promoted Pressburg (now Bratislava) to capital of the Kingdom of Hungary, a secure stronghold close to Habsburg Vienna.


Pressburg the coronation city

Summary: Between 1563 and 1830, eleven Hungarian kings and eight royal consorts were crowned at St Martin's Cathedral in Pressburg, including Maria Theresa in 1741, making the city the ceremonial heart of the kingdom.


Bernolák's first written Slovak

Summary: The Catholic priest Anton Bernolák codified an early written Slovak based on western dialects, an opening move in the national awakening that the next generation would supersede.


Štúr codifies literary Slovak

Summary: Ľudovít Štúr and his associates resolved to base a unified Slovak literary language on the central Slovak dialects; his standard, refined by later grammarians, became modern literary Slovak.


Magyarization under the Compromise

Summary: After the Austro-Hungarian Compromise the Hungarian government intensified Magyarization, pressing the Magyar language on Slovak schools and public life and denying the Slovaks recognition as a nation.


Slovaks in the revolutions of 1848

Summary: During the revolutions of 1848 Slovak leaders, Štúr among them, set out national demands and raised volunteers, asserting the Slovaks as a distinct people within the Hungarian kingdom.


Czechoslovakia and the Martin Declaration

Summary: Czechoslovakia was declared in Prague on 28 October 1918; on 30 October the Slovak National Council endorsed the union in the Martin Declaration, giving the Slovaks their first modern statehood alongside the Czechs.


Proclamation of the Slovak State

Summary: As Germany dismembered Czechoslovakia, a separate Slovak State was proclaimed under the priest Jozef Tiso, a clerical-authoritarian regime that became a client and ally of Nazi Germany.


Deportation of Slovak Jews

Summary: Slovakia became the first Axis partner to consent to the deportation of its Jews; between March and October 1942 some 57,000 Slovak Jews were deported to German-occupied Poland, with more than 60,000 of Slovakia's Jews murdered overall.


Slovak National Uprising

Summary: The Slovak National Uprising broke out at Banská Bystrica against the Tiso regime and German occupation; after two months of fighting the rising was crushed on 27 October 1944 amid brutal reprisals.


Communist takeover

Summary: The Communist Party seized full power in Czechoslovakia, establishing a one-party state under Soviet domination that would last for four decades.


Federalization of Czechoslovakia

Summary: After the Prague Spring was crushed, the Constitutional Law of Federation of 28 October 1968 created, from 1 January 1969, a Slovak Socialist Republic within a federal Czechoslovakia, the Slovaks' first republic in name.


The Velvet Revolution

Summary: Beginning with a student march in Bratislava on 16 November and protests in Prague the next day, six weeks of demonstrations led the Communist Party to give up its monopoly, ending one-party rule peacefully.


The Velvet Divorce

Summary: Czechoslovakia split peacefully into the Czech Republic and Slovakia on 1 January 1993, creating, after more than a thousand years, the first fully independent Slovak state.


ICJ judgment on Gabčíkovo–Nagymaros

Summary: The International Court of Justice ruled in the Gabčíkovo–Nagymaros Project case (Hungary/Slovakia) that both states had breached their obligations over the Danube dam treaty of 1977, ordering them to negotiate in good faith.


Slovakia joins NATO

Summary: Slovakia officially became a member of NATO on 29 March 2004, part of the largest single enlargement in the Alliance's history, anchoring the young republic in the Western security community.


Accession to the European Union

Summary: Slovakia joined the European Union on 1 May 2004, completing its integration into Western Europe little more than a decade after independence.


Slovakia adopts the euro

Summary: Slovakia adopted the euro on 1 January 2009, becoming the sixteenth member of the euro area and the first of the Visegrád states to do so.


Slavic settlement of the eastern Alps

Summary: Slavic peoples migrated into the eastern Alpine valleys after the fall of Roman authority, becoming the ancestors of the Slovenes and establishing the linguistic foundation of the later nation.


Founding of Carantania

Summary: The Slavic principality of Carantania took shape in the eastern Alps, centred north of present-day Slovenia, and is remembered for the enthronement of its dukes in the Slovene language at the Prince's Stone.


Carantania under Frankish overlordship

Summary: Allied with Bavaria against the Avars, Carantania was drawn into the Frankish realm and gradually Christianised, ending its independence and binding the region to the Holy Roman Empire.


Carniola first attested

Summary: The march of Carniola, in the central part of present-day Slovenia, appears in the records as a frontier zone of the empire, the nucleus of the duchy that would later define the Slovene lands.


Habsburgs acquire Carniola and Carinthia

Summary: Carinthia and Carniola passed to the Habsburg dynasty, which already held Styria, bringing nearly all the Slovene lands under the rule that would last about six centuries.


Carniola raised to a duchy

Summary: Carniola was elevated to the status of a duchy, consolidating the core territorial unit of the Slovene lands, with Ljubljana as its principal city.


First books printed in Slovene

Summary: Primoz Trubar published the Catechismus and Abecedarium, the first printed books in the Slovene language, founding the literary language as a product of the Protestant Reformation.


Dalmatin's Bible and Bohoric's grammar

Summary: Jurij Dalmatin published a complete Slovene translation of the Bible and Adam Bohoric the first Slovene grammar, proving the new written language fit for the most demanding texts.


Mercury found at Idrija

Summary: Mercury was first discovered at Idrija, which grew into one of the world's two largest mercury mines; the site is today recognised by UNESCO as part of the Heritage of Mercury.


The Illyrian Provinces

Summary: Napoleon organised the southern Slovene lands as the Illyrian Provinces of the French Empire, with Ljubljana as their capital, introducing reforms and giving the Slovene language a place in public life.


Austria regains the Slovene lands

Summary: After Napoleon's defeat the Congress of Vienna restored Habsburg rule over the Illyrian territories, returning the Slovene lands to the Austrian Empire.


Preseren writes Zdravljica

Summary: The poet France Preseren composed Zdravljica, a toast to liberty and the brotherhood of nations whose seventh stanza became the lyric of the Slovene national anthem after independence.


The United Slovenia programme

Summary: During the Spring of Nations, Slovene activists demanded a single autonomous unit joining all Slovene districts of the monarchy with the Slovene language in public use, marking the birth of modern Slovene politics.


Birth of the Yugoslav kingdom

Summary: After the brief State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs, the Slovene lands joined the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, proclaimed on 1 December 1918 and renamed the Kingdom of Yugoslavia in 1929.


The Carinthian Plebiscite

Summary: In the disputed southern Carinthian basin, a majority of about 59 per cent voted to remain with Austria rather than join Yugoslavia, leaving a Slovene minority on the Austrian side of the border.


Treaty of Rapallo and the Italian border

Summary: Under the Treaty of Rapallo, Italy gained the Slovene Littoral, the Karst and parts of Inner Carniola, subjecting a large Slovene population to Italian and later Fascist rule.


Axis partition of Slovenia

Summary: Following the invasion of Yugoslavia, the Axis powers carved up the Slovene lands among Germany, Italy and Hungary, while a Liberation Front founded in Ljubljana launched armed resistance.


Slovenia within socialist Yugoslavia

Summary: Slovenia became one of the six republics of Tito's Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, developing into its most prosperous and industrialised member.


London Memorandum on Trieste

Summary: The United States, United Kingdom, Italy and Yugoslavia agreed to divide the Free Territory of Trieste, placing Zone A under Italian and Zone B under Yugoslav administration.


Treaty of Osimo

Summary: Italy and Yugoslavia signed the Treaty of Osimo, making the partition of the former Free Territory of Trieste definitive and settling the long-disputed western border.


Plebiscite on independence

Summary: In a plebiscite with 93.2 per cent turnout, some 88.5 per cent of all eligible Slovene voters chose independence from Yugoslavia, providing the mandate for statehood.


Independence and the Ten-Day War

Summary: Slovenia declared independence on 25 June 1991; the Yugoslav army's intervention sparked the Ten-Day War, which the Slovenes won, leading to the Brioni Declaration of 7 July and the withdrawal of federal forces.


Slovenia joins NATO

Summary: After a 2003 referendum approved by some two-thirds of voters, Slovenia became a member of NATO on 29 March 2004, anchoring its security in the Western alliance.


Accession to the European Union

Summary: Slovenia joined the European Union on 1 May 2004 in the bloc's largest enlargement, the only former Yugoslav republic to accede in that wave.


Adoption of the euro

Summary: Slovenia became the first of the 2004 entrants to adopt the euro, replacing the tolar on 1 January 2007 and completing its integration into the core of the European Union.


Arbitration Agreement with Croatia

Summary: Slovenia and Croatia signed an Arbitration Agreement submitting their land and maritime border dispute, including Piran Bay, to the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague.


PCA award on the Piran Bay border

Summary: The Permanent Court of Arbitration rendered its Final Award, fixing the land and maritime boundary through Piran Bay and granting Slovenia a junction to the high seas; Slovenia accepted the award, Croatia rejected it.


The trading town of Birka

Summary: Birka on the island of Björkö in Lake Mälaren flourished as a key Baltic trading settlement, connecting Scandinavia by river route to the Byzantine Empire and the Islamic world, before its abandonment in the late tenth century.


Ansgar's mission and the first Christian congregation

Summary: The Frankish missionary Ansgar founded at Birka the earliest known Christian congregation in Sweden, the first organised Christian presence among a still largely pagan people.


The Rus and the eastern river routes

Summary: Swedish Norsemen, called Varangians or Rus, opened and dominated the river trade routes east through Ladoga and Novgorod toward Constantinople and Baghdad, exchanging furs, silver and slaves.


Christianization advances under royal patronage

Summary: The conversion of the Swedes proceeded through the eleventh century by way of baptised kings and the founding of churches, even as paganism endured at the temple of Uppsala until the faith finally prevailed.


Formation of the Kalmar Union

Summary: Queen Margaret united Denmark, Norway and Sweden under one monarch, her grandnephew Erik of Pomerania, creating a Scandinavian union intended to resist German power but soon dominated by Denmark.


Swedish revolts and the Sture regents

Summary: Resentment of Danish dominance and of taxes and offices given to royal favourites fuelled recurring Swedish risings, with regents of the Sture family ruling Sweden in defiance of the union crown.


The Stockholm Bloodbath

Summary: After capturing Stockholm and breaking his promise of amnesty, King Christian II of Denmark had some eighty-two Swedish nobles, clergy and citizens condemned as heretics and executed, including Gustav Vasa's father.


The Swedish War of Liberation

Summary: Gustav Vasa raised Dalarna in revolt against Christian II, leading a peasant army that expelled the Danes and was declared regent of Sweden, ending Danish control of the realm.


Gustav Vasa elected king

Summary: The Estates meeting at Strängnäs elected Gustav Vasa king of Sweden, dissolving the Kalmar Union and founding the hereditary Vasa monarchy that is regarded as the start of the modern Swedish state.


Reign of Gustav I Vasa

Summary: Gustav Vasa built a centralised national monarchy, restored royal finances, suppressed revolts and founded the Vasa dynasty, ruling for nearly four decades as the architect of the modern Swedish kingdom.


The Reformation at Västerås

Summary: At the Riksdag of Västerås, Gustav Vasa broke with Rome, transferred the Catholic Church's property to the crown and took control of church administration, beginning Sweden's transformation into a Lutheran state.


The complete Swedish Bible

Summary: The first full Bible in Swedish, the work of the reformers Olaus and Laurentius Petri, was printed, advancing the Lutheran cause and shaping the Swedish written language and popular literacy.


The crown made hereditary

Summary: The Estates declared the Swedish crown hereditary in the Vasa line, ending the older elective principle and entrenching the dynasty's hold on the throne.


Sweden enters the Thirty Years' War

Summary: Gustavus Adolphus landed in Pomerania and intervened on the Protestant side, turning the tide of the Thirty Years' War with a series of victories before his death at Lützen in 1632.


Peace of Westphalia

Summary: The settlement ending the Thirty Years' War granted Sweden Western Pomerania, Bremen and Verden and a vote in the imperial diet, confirming it as a dominant power on the Baltic and in northern Germany.


Treaty of Roskilde

Summary: After Charles X Gustav's invasion of Denmark, the Treaty of Roskilde forced Denmark to cede Scania, Blekinge, Halland and Bohuslän to Sweden, fixing its southern border and marking the empire's territorial peak.


Battle of Poltava

Summary: Peter the Great of Russia routed Charles XII's invading army at Poltava in Ukraine, a decisive defeat that broke Swedish military power and began Russian supremacy in eastern Europe.


Treaty of Nystad ends the empire

Summary: The peace ending the Great Northern War ceded Sweden's Baltic provinces — Estonia, Livonia, Ingria and part of Karelia — to Russia, ending the age of greatness, though Finland was restored to Sweden.


Treaty of Fredrikshamn: the loss of Finland

Summary: Ending the Finnish War, the Treaty of Fredrikshamn (Hamina) ceded the whole of Finland and the Åland Islands to Russia, stripping Sweden of about a third of its territory and people.


Bernadotte chosen as heir

Summary: The French marshal Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte was elected Swedish crown prince, founding the Bernadotte dynasty; he ruled from 1818 as Charles XIV John, king of Sweden and Norway.


Treaty of Kiel and the union with Norway

Summary: Denmark ceded Norway to Sweden by the Treaty of Kiel; Norwegian resistance produced not annexation but a personal union of the two kingdoms under one crown, lasting until 1905.


The great emigration to America

Summary: Driven by rural poverty and population growth, roughly 1.3 million Swedes emigrated, chiefly to the United States, in one of the largest population movements of the age, reshaping Swedish society at home.


Peaceful dissolution of the union with Norway

Summary: After Norway's parliament declared the union dissolved, Sweden agreed at Karlstad to a peaceful separation, recognising Norwegian independence without war in a settlement held up as a diplomatic model.


Universal suffrage and democracy

Summary: Sweden completed its democratic transformation, introducing universal and equal suffrage for men and women, as the Riksdag rather than the crown became the centre of political power.


The 'people's home' (folkhemmet)

Summary: Per Albin Hansson set out the vision of Sweden as a folkhemmet, a good home built on equality and mutual care, which the Social Democrats made the foundation of the modern welfare state.


Neutrality in the Second World War

Summary: Sweden preserved its neutrality through the Second World War, remaining unoccupied while continuing controversial trade with Germany and offering refuge to those fleeing Nazi persecution.


Accession to the European Union

Summary: After the end of the Cold War made strict neutrality obsolete, Sweden joined the European Union, while choosing to keep its own currency rather than adopt the euro.


Sweden joins NATO

Summary: Prompted by Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Sweden abandoned over two centuries of non-alignment and became NATO's 32nd member on 7 March 2024, gaining the protection of Article 5.


Nguni peoples move south

Summary: Bantu-speaking Nguni groups, among them the ancestors of the Dlamini, migrate southward into south-eastern Africa over the following centuries.


Reign of Ngwane III

Summary: Ngwane III, traditionally regarded as the first king of the modern Swazi, leads his followers across the Pongola and is remembered for founding the kingdom, with a capital at Shiselweni.


Accession of Sobhuza I

Summary: On the death of Ndvungunye, Somhlolo becomes king as Sobhuza I and soon faces the pressures of the mfecane and the Ndwandwe under Zwide.


Migration into central Eswatini

Summary: Attacked by the Ndwandwe, Sobhuza I moves his people north and establishes a kingdom centred on the Ezulwini valley, the heartland of the Swazi nation.


Reign of Mswati II begins

Summary: Mswati II succeeds Sobhuza I; he reorganises the army into age-regiments and expands the kingdom to its greatest extent. The Swazi take their name from him.


Death of Mswati II

Summary: The death of Mswati II ends the era of Swazi conquest and expansion, leaving a unified nation at its widest territorial reach.


Mbandzeni becomes king

Summary: Mbandzeni (Dlamini IV) ascends the throne; his reign coincides with an influx of European concession-seekers into the kingdom.


The concessions era

Summary: Mbandzeni grants extensive land, grazing and mineral concessions to Boer and British fortune-seekers, ceding control over most of the kingdom's land and resources.


Protectorate of the South African Republic

Summary: By convention the Transvaal (South African Republic) takes over the administration of Swaziland as a protectorate, while the kingdom keeps nominal autonomy.


A High Commission Territory

Summary: After the Second Boer War, control of Swaziland passes from the Transvaal governor to the High Commissioner for South Africa, making it a High Commission Territory under direct British oversight.


Kept out of the Union of South Africa

Summary: When the Union of South Africa is formed, Swaziland remains under direct British control; despite later South African requests, the territory is never transferred.


Sobhuza II becomes Ngwenyama

Summary: Sobhuza II assumes the kingship and makes the recovery of Swazi land lost in the concessions a defining cause of his long reign.


Self-government and elections

Summary: Under a revised constitution Swaziland gains internal self-government; the king's Imbokodvo National Movement wins the elections, setting the stage for independence.


Independence of Swaziland

Summary: Swaziland becomes an independent kingdom, free of British rule, with Sobhuza II as head of state under a Westminster-style constitution.


Sobhuza II repeals the constitution

Summary: King Sobhuza II repeals the independence constitution, dissolves parliament and bans political parties, ruling thereafter by decree as an absolute monarch.


Death of Sobhuza II

Summary: Sobhuza II dies after a reign of some sixty years, among the longest in recorded history, leaving the throne to a regency.


Coronation of Mswati III

Summary: Aged eighteen, Mswati III is crowned king, continuing the absolute monarchy with his mother Ntfombi as Ndlovukati.


Swaziland becomes Eswatini

Summary: On the fiftieth anniversary of independence, Mswati III renames the country the Kingdom of Eswatini, reviving its siSwati name.


Pro-democracy protests

Summary: Pro-democracy protests sweep Eswatini and are met by a deadly crackdown, the most serious challenge yet to one of the world's last absolute monarchies.


Portuguese navigators sight the islands

Summary: Vasco da Gama's second voyage to India recorded the Amirantes group; further Portuguese sightings followed in the early 1500s, giving Europe its first knowledge of the archipelago.


First recorded landing by the Ascension

Summary: Crew of the English East India Company ship Ascension landed and found the islands fertile and uninhabited, but the Company chose not to settle.


A haunt of pirates

Summary: For a century and a half the empty islands were used by pirates as a hideout and watering place while they preyed on Indian Ocean shipping.


France claims and names the islands

Summary: Corneille Nicholas Morphey laid a stone of possession and named the archipelago after finance minister Jean Moreau de Séchelles; the main island was named Mahé.


First permanent settlement

Summary: Colonists, enslaved Africans and Indians established the first lasting settlement near Mahé to begin spice cultivation.


Spice and plantation economy

Summary: Pierre Poivre promoted spice gardens to challenge the Dutch monopoly; cotton, coconut, maize and cinnamon followed, all worked by enslaved Africans.


Capitulations during the Napoleonic Wars

Summary: Administrator Quéau de Quincy surrendered the islands to British squadrons several times, restoring French rule whenever they left.


Cession to Britain by the Treaty of Paris

Summary: Seychelles was formally ceded to Britain with Mauritius and governed thereafter as a dependency of Mauritius.


Abolition of slavery

Summary: Emancipation freed the several thousand enslaved Africans who formed the majority of the colony's population.


Liberated Africans resettled

Summary: The Royal Navy landed thousands of Africans rescued from intercepted slave dhows, deepening the islands' Creole society.


Separate Crown Colony

Summary: Seychelles was detached from Mauritius and constituted as a British Crown Colony in its own right.


Aldabra Atoll inscribed by UNESCO

Summary: The raised coral atoll, home to the world's largest giant-tortoise population, was added to the World Heritage List for its outstanding natural value.


Vallée de Mai inscribed by UNESCO

Summary: Praslin's palm forest, where the coco de mer grows wild, was recognised as a World Heritage Site for its unique flora.


Independence from the United Kingdom

Summary: Seychelles became an independent republic within the Commonwealth, with James Mancham as first president and France-Albert René as prime minister.


Coup brings René to power

Summary: Supporters of France-Albert René overthrew Mancham in an almost bloodless coup while he was abroad; René took the presidency.


One-party socialist state

Summary: A new constitution made the Seychelles People's Progressive Front the sole legal party, with nationalisations and restrictions on the press.


Mike Hoare's mercenary raid fails

Summary: Mercenaries disguised as a beer-drinkers' club and backed from South Africa tried to seize power; the plot collapsed and they hijacked an airliner to flee.


Return to multiparty democracy

Summary: A new constitution restored multiparty politics; the first competitive presidential elections were held, won by René.


High-income tourism and tuna economy

Summary: Tourism became the dominant sector and tuna fishing a leading export, lifting Seychelles to high-income status.


The kingdom of Ebla

Summary: Ebla dominates northern Syria, trading and corresponding with Egypt, Sumer and Mesopotamia; its cuneiform royal archives, rediscovered in the 20th century, reveal a literate Bronze Age state.


Mari and the palace of Zimri-Lim

Summary: The Euphrates city of Mari flourishes as a planned trading capital, its palace archives preserving thousands of diplomatic letters, until Hammurabi of Babylon destroys it in the 18th century BCE.


The Ugaritic alphabet

Summary: At the coastal city of Ugarit, scribes devise a cuneiform alphabet of about 30 signs — one of the earliest alphabetic writing systems in history, ancestral in spirit to later Semitic and Mediterranean alphabets.


The Aramaeans and Aram-Damascus

Summary: Aramaean tribes settle Syria and make Damascus the capital of a powerful kingdom; their Aramaic language becomes the lingua franca of the Near East for over a millennium.


Pompey annexes Syria to Rome

Summary: The Roman general Pompey ends Seleucid rule and makes Syria a Roman province; its cities prosper and Syria becomes an early heartland of Christianity, with Paul converted on the road to Damascus.


Zenobia, Palmyra and the war with Rome

Summary: Queen Zenobia of Palmyra breaks from Rome and conquers Egypt and Asia Minor, before the emperor Aurelian defeats her armies and captures the city; Palmyra's ruins are today a UNESCO World Heritage Site.


The Muslim conquest of Syria

Summary: Arab Muslim armies defeat the Byzantines and take Damascus and Aleppo within a few years; over time Arabic and Islam spread, though Christian and other communities remain.


Damascus, capital of the Umayyad Caliphate

Summary: Muawiya founds the Umayyad dynasty and makes Damascus the capital of the first great Islamic empire, ruling from Spain to Central Asia until the Abbasid revolution of 750.


The Great Mosque of Damascus

Summary: Under Caliph al-Walid the Umayyads build the Great (Umayyad) Mosque of Damascus, one of the oldest and grandest mosques in the world, on a site holy to Roman, Christian and Muslim worship.


The First Crusade reaches Syria

Summary: Crusader armies seize cities along the Levantine coast and capture Jerusalem in 1099, founding Crusader states and beginning two centuries of intermittent warfare across Syria.


Saladin recaptures Jerusalem

Summary: Saladin, founder of the Ayyubid dynasty that united Egypt and Syria, defeats the Crusaders and retakes Jerusalem, ending nearly nine decades of Frankish rule and becoming a legendary figure of the age.


Mamluk rule over Syria

Summary: The Mamluks supplant the Ayyubids and govern Syria from Egypt for over two centuries, halting the Mongols and presiding over a flourishing of trade and architecture in Damascus and Aleppo.


Ottoman conquest of Syria

Summary: Sultan Selim I defeats the Mamluks and incorporates Syria into the Ottoman Empire, beginning four centuries of Ottoman rule over Damascus, Aleppo and the Syrian lands.


End of Ottoman rule

Summary: During the First World War the Arab Revolt and Allied forces drive the Ottomans from Syria, ending four hundred years of Ottoman dominion and opening the way to French and British arrangements for the region.


Arab Kingdom of Syria and the French Mandate

Summary: An independent Arab Kingdom of Syria under Faisal is proclaimed in Damascus, but French forces defeat it at Maysalun in July 1920, and the League of Nations assigns Syria to France as a mandate.


Independence — evacuation of French troops

Summary: After international recognition in 1944, the last French soldiers leave Syria on 17 April 1946, marking full independence — still commemorated as Evacuation Day.


Union with Egypt — the United Arab Republic

Summary: Syria merges with Nasser's Egypt to form the United Arab Republic in 1958, but resentment of Egyptian dominance dissolves the union in a 1961 coup.


Hafez al-Assad seizes power

Summary: After the Ba'ath Party's 1963 coup and years of factional struggle, defence minister Hafez al-Assad takes control in November 1970, founding a family rule that would endure for over half a century.


Bashar al-Assad succeeds his father

Summary: On Hafez al-Assad's death, his son Bashar becomes president; early hopes of reform give way to a continuation of the authoritarian, single-party system.


Uprising and the start of the civil war

Summary: Arab Spring protests across Syria meet a violent state response; armed opposition emerges and the country descends into a civil war drawing in regional and global powers.


Human cost of the war

Summary: The UN human rights office estimates about 306,887 civilians killed over the war's first decade, while the UN refugee agency reports more than 13 million people displaced — figures cited as estimates from authoritative bodies.


The Assad government falls

Summary: A rebel offensive led by Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham takes Damascus on 8 December 2024; Bashar al-Assad flees the country, ending over five decades of Assad family rule, and an interim government is formed.


Discovery of Toumaï

Summary: A team led by Michel Brunet recovered the cranium of Sahelanthropus tchadensis at the Toros-Menalla (TM 266) site in the Djurab desert; the species was announced in 2002 and dated to about seven million years.


Rise of the Sao culture

Summary: The Sao settled the lower Chari and southern Lake Chad, producing celebrated terracotta and bronze figures across more than 350 known sites before being absorbed by later states.


Hummay founds the Sayfawa dynasty

Summary: Mai Hummay, the first Muslim ruler of Kanem, displaced the Duguwa and founded the Sayfawa (Sefuwa) dynasty, which would rule the empire for some seven centuries.


Zenith under Dunama Dibalemi

Summary: Mai Dunama Dibalemi brought Kanem to its peak, projecting power from the Fezzan to the southern savanna and deepening trade and diplomatic ties with North Africa and Egypt.


Sayfawa flee Kanem for Bornu

Summary: Pressed by the Bulala, the Sayfawa abandoned Njimi and re-established the state in Bornu, west of Lake Chad, later founding the capital Ngazargamu.


Golden age under Idris Alooma

Summary: Mai Idris Alooma modernised the army with Ottoman firearms and advisers and promoted Islamic law, leading Kanem-Bornu to its second peak.


End of the Sayfawa line

Summary: The traditional office of mai was abolished in 1846 after the al-Kanemi shehus, who had risen during the Fulani jihad, took full control of Bornu.


Founding of the Wadai Sultanate

Summary: Abd al-Karim led an Islamic revolt that overthrew the Tunjur and established the Wadai (Ouaddaï) sultanate east of Lake Chad, ruled from Abéché.


Wadai's commercial expansion

Summary: Under Muhammad Sabun, Wadai expanded and prospered by controlling caravan routes from Abéché north to Benghazi and the east-west trade between Darfur and Bornu.


Baguirmi and the slave trade

Summary: The sultanate of Baguirmi, Islamic from the sixteenth century, supplied large numbers of captives to the trans-Saharan slave trade alongside skins, ivory and cotton.


Rabih conquers Bornu

Summary: Rabih az-Zubayr overran the Kanem-Bornu lands with one of the best-equipped armies in sub-Saharan Africa, ruling the basin as a military dictatorship.


Battle of Kousséri

Summary: Converging French columns defeated and killed Rabih near the Chari River; the French commander Major Lamy also fell, ending Rabih's empire and opening the basin to France.


Chad joins French Equatorial Africa

Summary: France organised the conquered territory and incorporated Chad into the federation of French Equatorial Africa, governing the south far more closely than the Muslim north.


Autonomous republic proclaimed

Summary: Chad became an autonomous republic within the French Community, a step toward the full independence achieved in 1960.


Independence under Tombalbaye

Summary: Chad gained full independence from France, with François Tombalbaye as first president; his southern-centred, authoritarian rule soon stoked northern grievances.


FROLINAT and the civil war

Summary: The National Liberation Front of Chad (FROLINAT) launched an insurgency rooted in northern and Muslim discontent, beginning decades of civil war.


Coup kills Tombalbaye

Summary: Tombalbaye was assassinated in a military coup; General Félix Malloum took power but could not end the conflict with FROLINAT's factions.


Habré seizes power

Summary: Hissène Habré captured N'Djamena and made himself president, establishing a repressive regime amid continuing war and Libyan intervention.


The Toyota War with Libya

Summary: Chadian forces under Hassan Djamous won a string of victories at Fada, Bir Kora and Ouadi Doum, driving the Libyan army back toward the disputed Aouzou Strip.


Idriss Déby seizes power

Summary: Leading the Patriotic Salvation Movement (MPS) from Sudan, Déby overthrew Habré and installed himself as president, beginning a thirty-year rule.


ICJ awards Aouzou Strip to Chad

Summary: The International Court of Justice ruled that the disputed Aouzou Strip belonged to Chad; Libyan forces withdrew by the end of May 1994.


Habré convicted of crimes against humanity

Summary: The Extraordinary African Chambers in Senegal sentenced Hissène Habré to life for crimes against humanity, war crimes and torture, a landmark of universal jurisdiction; the verdict was upheld on appeal in 2017.


Death of Idriss Déby; son takes power

Summary: Déby died of wounds from fighting on the front line; a military council named his son, General Mahamat Idriss Déby, transitional president, widely seen as an unconstitutional succession.


Ewe ancestors present in the region

Summary: By oral tradition and scholarly reconstruction, the ancestors of the Ewe had moved into the Togo–Ghana region from the east, settling around Tado and later the town of Notsé before their dispersal.


The Ewe exodus from Notsé

Summary: Ewe tradition tells of escape from the walled town of Notsé and the tyranny of King Agokoli, after which the people dispersed westward and southward — a foundational narrative of Ewe identity across Ghana, Togo and Benin.


Northern peoples and the Batammariba

Summary: The Kabye, Tem, Bassar and other groups settled the northern hills, while the Batammariba built the takienta mud tower-houses of the Koutammakou, living in largely decentralised, clan-based communities.

TGO:unesco-koutammakou TGO:smarthistory-takienta TGO:kabye-wiki TGO:history-of-togo-wiki


Founding of Aného (Petit-Popo)

Summary: Ane settlers fleeing conflict around Elmina in present-day Ghana founded Aného on the Togolese coast; it grew into the region's chief commercial and slaving port and would later briefly serve as a colonial capital.


The Slave Coast and the Atlantic trade

Summary: The Togolese shore formed part of the 'Slave Coast', through whose ports including Aného enslaved Africans were trafficked to the Americas — a sustained system of violence and dispossession that reshaped coastal and interior societies.


From slaving to 'legitimate' trade

Summary: As the slave trade was suppressed, commerce on the coast turned to palm oil and other goods, and German and other European merchant houses established themselves at Aného and along the shore.


Nachtigal proclaims a protectorate

Summary: Gustav Nachtigal signed a protectorate treaty on the coast, associated with a ruler styled Mlapa, declaring German authority over the shore — the founding act of the colony of Togoland.


The Berlin Conference recognises Togoland

Summary: At the Berlin Conference the European powers laid down rules for partitioning Africa and recognised the German protectorate that became the colony of Togoland.


Lomé becomes the colonial capital

Summary: The seat of German administration moved to Lomé, which grew into the colony's main port and commercial centre, served by railways and roads built across Togoland.


A 'model colony' built on forced labour

Summary: Germany promoted Togoland as a profitable Musterkolonie, but its plantations, railways and balanced budget depended on heavy taxation and the coercion of forced African labour.


Anglo-French conquest of Togoland

Summary: At the start of the First World War, British and French forces invaded German Togoland; after destroying the Kamina wireless station, the German garrison surrendered on 26 August 1914.


Partition into British and French mandates

Summary: Togoland was divided between Britain and France and formalised by the League of Nations as two mandates — British Togoland in the west and French Togoland in the east — splitting the Ewe and other peoples.


British Togoland votes to join Ghana

Summary: In a UN-supervised plebiscite, about 58 per cent of British Togoland's voters chose union with the Gold Coast; the territory was integrated into Ghana, which became independent in 1957.


Olympio's CUT wins the elections

Summary: Sylvanus Olympio's nationalist CUT defeated the pro-French parties in the 1958 elections, and Olympio became head of government of the Trust Territory of French Togoland.


Independence of the Republic of Togo

Summary: French Togoland became the fully independent Republic of Togo, ending UN trusteeship; the United States recognised the new state the same day, and Olympio was elected its first president in 1961.

TGO:olympio-wiki TGO:frenchtogoland-wiki TGO:statedept-togo TGO:aaregistry-togo TGO:britannica-togo


Assassination of Sylvanus Olympio

Summary: Demobilised soldiers, among them Étienne Gnassingbé Eyadéma, killed President Olympio in Lomé — widely cited as the first military coup against an elected leader in independent sub-Saharan Africa.


Grunitzky installed as president

Summary: After the coup, Nicolas Grunitzky, Olympio's brother-in-law and political rival, headed a civilian government, but his weak administration left the military as the country's decisive power.


Eyadéma seizes power

Summary: Étienne Gnassingbé Eyadéma overthrew President Grunitzky in a bloodless coup and took the presidency, beginning a rule that would last nearly four decades.


Founding of the RPT one-party state

Summary: Eyadéma created the Rassemblement du Peuple Togolais as Togo's sole legal party, the institutional core of his personal autocracy and cult of personality.


Pro-democracy pressure and a new constitution

Summary: A wave of unrest forced Eyadéma to accept a multiparty constitution in 1992, but he retained power through disputed elections and the loyalty of the army.


Death of Eyadéma and dynastic succession

Summary: Eyadéma died after nearly 38 years in power, then Africa's longest-serving ruler; the army installed his son Faure Gnassingbé, prompting an international outcry over the unconstitutional handover.


Faure Gnassingbé elected amid violence

Summary: After ECOWAS pressure forced him to step down, Faure Gnassingbé won a disputed election; the contested result was followed by violence that UN estimates put at hundreds of deaths.


Founding of the Sukhothai kingdom

Summary: Tai chiefs cast off Khmer rule and establish Sukhothai in the upper Chao Phraya valley, traditionally counted as the first independent Thai kingdom.


Creation of the Thai script

Summary: King Ramkhamhaeng is traditionally credited with devising the Thai alphabet, recorded on a stone inscription dated 1292, the earliest known text in the Thai language.


Reign of Ramkhamhaeng the Great

Summary: Sukhothai reaches its zenith under Ramkhamhaeng, who expands its reach, opens relations with China, and champions Theravada Buddhism.


Sukhothai absorbed by Ayutthaya

Summary: After a century of decline, Sukhothai is reduced to a vassal and finally incorporated into the expanding kingdom of Ayutthaya.


Foundation of Ayutthaya

Summary: King Ramathibodi I founds Ayutthaya at the meeting of three rivers, beginning a kingdom that would dominate the Chao Phraya basin for over four centuries.


First Burmese conquest of Ayutthaya

Summary: Burmese forces capture Ayutthaya and reduce it to vassalage; the kingdom later recovers its full independence under King Naresuan.


Reign of King Narai and the French embassies

Summary: Under Narai, Ayutthaya reaches a height of international contact, exchanging embassies with Louis XIV's France and welcoming traders from across Eurasia.


Sack of Ayutthaya by Burma

Summary: A Burmese army storms and burns Ayutthaya after a prolonged siege, ending the kingdom and leaving the celebrated city in ruins.


Taksin establishes Thonburi

Summary: Taksin rallies resistance after the fall of Ayutthaya, drives out the Burmese, and founds a new capital at Thonburi, where he is crowned king.


Founding of the Chakri dynasty and Bangkok

Summary: After Taksin's fall, the general Chao Phraya Chakri takes the throne as Rama I, founds the Chakri dynasty, and establishes the new capital of Bangkok.


Reign of Rama I

Summary: Rama I rebuilds the Siamese state, revising its laws and Buddhist scriptures and restoring its power over neighbouring vassal states.


The Bowring Treaty

Summary: King Mongkut signs the Bowring Treaty with Britain, opening Siam to Western trade and granting extraterritoriality; comparable treaties with other powers follow.


Reforms of Chulalongkorn (Rama V)

Summary: Chulalongkorn abolishes slavery, reorganises the administration, and modernises law, finance, education, and infrastructure, building a centralised modern state.


Franco-Siamese crisis and loss of Laos

Summary: After French gunboats threaten Bangkok, Siam cedes the Lao territories east of the Mekong to French Indochina, the heaviest of its frontier concessions.


Anglo-French guarantee of Siam's independence

Summary: Britain and France declare their mutual respect for the independence of Siam's core territory, fixing the kingdom as a buffer state between their empires.


Constitutional revolution

Summary: The People's Party stages a bloodless coup forcing King Prajadhipok to accept a constitution, ending the absolute monarchy and creating a constitutional one.


Siam renamed Thailand

Summary: The nationalist government of Phibun changes the country's name from Siam to Thailand, asserting a Tai national identity.


Alliance with Japan in World War II

Summary: Phibun's government allies Thailand with Japan and declares war on Britain and the United States, while the Free Thai movement under Pridi resists covertly.


Death of King Ananda and accession of Bhumibol

Summary: King Ananda Mahidol (Rama VIII) dies of a gunshot in unexplained circumstances and is succeeded by his brother Bhumibol Adulyadej (Rama IX).


Student uprising ends military rule

Summary: A mass student-led uprising, with royal intervention by King Bhumibol, forces the ruling generals from power and briefly opens a democratic interlude.


Coup against Thaksin Shinawatra

Summary: The military ousts populist Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra while he is abroad, opening nearly two decades of conflict between his movement and the establishment.


Coup against Yingluck Shinawatra

Summary: The army overthrows the government of Yingluck Shinawatra, ruling directly and later entrenching its role in a new constitution adopted in 2017.


Death of Bhumibol; accession of Vajiralongkorn

Summary: King Bhumibol Adulyadej dies after a 70-year reign and is succeeded by his son Maha Vajiralongkorn (Rama X), who formally accepts the throne in December 2016.


The proto-urban settlement of Sarazm

Summary: In the Zeravshan valley near Penjikent, Sarazm grows into one of the oldest proto-urban settlements in Central Asia, a centre of metallurgy and long-distance trade, later inscribed as Tajikistan's first UNESCO World Heritage Site (2010).


Alexander the Great in Sogdiana and Bactria

Summary: After overthrowing the Achaemenid Persians, Alexander the Great campaigns through Sogdiana and Bactria, the Iranian lands of Transoxania that later peoples would regard as the Tajik homeland.


Sogdian merchants dominate the Silk Road

Summary: Sogdian traders from Samarkand and Penjikent become the principal caravan merchants of the Silk Road, and the Sogdian language serves as the commercial lingua franca of Central Asia.


The Samanid Empire centred on Bukhara

Summary: The Persian Samanid dynasty rules eastern Iran and Central Asia from Bukhara, making the city a focal point of Islamic civilisation and a hub of Persianate culture.


The reign of Ismail Samani

Summary: Ismail I ibn Ahmad unifies the Samanid realm and rules from Bukhara as one of the dynasty's most famous sovereigns; he is revered today as a founding symbol of the Tajik nation.


Rudaki and the rebirth of Persian poetry

Summary: At the Samanid court in Bukhara, the poet Rudaki composes in New Persian and is honoured as the father of Persian poetry, anchoring the literary heritage Tajiks claim as their own.


Karakhanid conquest of Bukhara

Summary: The Turkic Karakhanids capture Bukhara, ending Samanid rule in Transoxania and opening centuries of Turkic and Mongol domination over the region.


The Mongol conquest of Transoxania

Summary: Genghis Khan's armies sweep through Central Asia, sacking Bukhara and Samarkand, ushering in centuries of Mongol and Turko-Mongol rule over the Persian-speaking population.


Timur makes Samarkand his capital

Summary: The conqueror Timur (Tamerlane) builds a Timurid empire centred on Samarkand, whose courts become renowned centres of Persianate art, science and architecture.


Division between Bukhara and Kokand

Summary: The territory of present-day Tajikistan is split mainly between the Emirate of Bukhara, which holds the south, and the Khanate of Kokand, which controls the northern Ferghana fringe.


Bukhara becomes a Russian protectorate

Summary: Defeated by Russian forces, the Emir of Bukhara accepts Russian terms in 1868; the emirate becomes a protectorate and the northern Tajik lands are absorbed into Russian Turkestan.


Creation of the Tajik ASSR

Summary: In the Soviet national delimitation of Central Asia, a Tajik Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic is established within the Uzbek SSR, with Dushanbe as its capital.


The Tajik SSR and the loss of Bukhara and Samarkand

Summary: The Tajik ASSR is detached from Uzbekistan and elevated to a full union republic, but the historic Persian-speaking cities of Bukhara and Samarkand are left within the Uzbek SSR.


Declaration of independence

Summary: As the Soviet Union disintegrates, the Supreme Soviet of the Tajik SSR declares the state independence of the Republic of Tajikistan — the country's founding moment and national day.


The Tajik civil war

Summary: Civil war erupts between the post-communist government and an Islamic-democratic opposition alliance; it causes massive displacement and a death toll that remains contested and is best treated as an estimate.


Emomali Rahmon elected president; UNMOT established

Summary: Emomali Rahmon, leader of the government side since 1992, is elected president; the UN establishes the Mission of Observers in Tajikistan (UNMOT) to monitor the ceasefire.


UN-brokered General Peace Agreement

Summary: President Rahmon and United Tajik Opposition leader Said Abdullo Nuri sign the General Agreement on the Establishment of Peace and National Accord in Moscow, ending the civil war under UN auspices.


Tajik National Park inscribed by UNESCO

Summary: The Tajik National Park (Mountains of the Pamirs), covering roughly 18 per cent of the country, becomes Tajikistan's first natural World Heritage Site, protecting the 'Roof of the World'.


Rahmon named 'Leader of the Nation'

Summary: Parliament grants Emomali Rahmon the title 'Founder of Peace and National Unity — Leader of the Nation', extending his authority as his long rule continues.


A remittance-dependent economy

Summary: Remittances from Tajik labour migrants, mostly working in Russia, reach close to half of GDP — among the highest shares in the world — leaving the economy heavily exposed to external shocks.


The Margiana oasis civilisation (BMAC)

Summary: The Bronze Age Bactria–Margiana Archaeological Complex flourished in the southern Karakum oases, its Margiana centre at Gonur Depe — monumental architecture, irrigation farming and fine metalwork later excavated by Viktor Sarianidi.


Rise of the Parthian Empire

Summary: The nomadic Parni founded the Parthian state, which grew into an empire ruling Iran and Central Asia for nearly five centuries and rivalling Rome, with Nisa among its early royal centres.


Royal city of Nisa

Summary: Old and New Nisa, near modern Ashgabat, served as an early capital and royal residence of the Parthian Empire, with palaces, temples and treasuries that fused Hellenistic and Iranian art.


Nisa inscribed by UNESCO

Summary: The Parthian Fortresses of Nisa were inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2007 as an exceptional record of the Parthian civilisation at one of its earliest and most important cities.


Merv under the Arab caliphate

Summary: After the fall of Sasanian Persia, Merv became a key garrison and administrative centre of the Arab caliphate in Khorasan, a base for the spread of Islam and for campaigns further into Central Asia.


Merv as Seljuk capital under Sultan Sanjar

Summary: The Great Seljuk sultan Sanjar made Merv a capital; the city's population swelled and it became one of the largest and most cultured cities in the world, a hub of Silk Road science and faith.


Mausoleum of Sultan Sanjar

Summary: Built at the death of Sultan Sanjar, the great domed mausoleum at the centre of Sultan Kala stands as the finest surviving monument of Seljuk Merv.


Mongol destruction of Merv

Summary: A Mongol army under Tolui, son of Genghis Khan, besieged Merv during the conquest of the Khwarazmian Empire and massacred its population, ending the city's age as a great metropolis of the Islamic world.


Magtymguly Pyragy and Turkmen poetry

Summary: The poet Magtymguly Pyragy (1724–c. 1807) wrote in the Turkmen language and called for the unity of the tribes; he is revered as the father of Turkmen literature and national identity.


Russians found Krasnovodsk

Summary: A Russian military force landed on the eastern Caspian coast and founded the port of Krasnovodsk (now Türkmenbaşy), opening the conquest of the Transcaspian region.


Battle of Geok Tepe

Summary: General Mikhail Skobelev stormed the Teke Turkmen fortress of Geok Tepe by detonating a mine under its walls; the assault and ensuing massacre of thousands broke Turkmen resistance and secured Russian control of Transcaspia.


Russian annexation completed

Summary: Following Geok Tepe, the Transcaspian region was annexed as part of the Russian Empire, completing the conquest of the lands of modern Turkmenistan.


Creation of the Turkmen SSR

Summary: In the Soviet national delimitation of Central Asia, the Transcaspian and Turkmen lands were combined to form the Turkmen Soviet Socialist Republic, with Ashgabat as its capital.


Collectivisation and cotton

Summary: Forced collectivisation seized herds and land and ended Turkmen pastoral nomadism amid fierce resistance, while Soviet planning imposed cotton monoculture across the republic's irrigated land.


Ashgabat earthquake

Summary: A devastating earthquake struck Ashgabat, destroying the city and killing tens of thousands of people in one of the deadliest seismic disasters in Soviet history.


The Kara-Kum Canal

Summary: Construction began on the Kara-Kum Canal, which carried water from the Amu Darya across the desert to irrigate the cotton lands — a vast project that opened new farmland at heavy environmental cost.


Independence declared

Summary: Turkmenistan declared independence from the Soviet Union, with Saparmurat Niyazov as its first president; the United States recognised the new state in December 1991 and opened relations in 1992.


Permanent neutrality recognised by the UN

Summary: The UN General Assembly adopted Resolution 50/80 welcoming Turkmenistan's declared permanent neutrality, the basis of its non-aligned foreign policy and a status unique in being recognised by a UN resolution.


Niyazov declared president for life

Summary: Parliament declared Saparmurat Niyazov ('Türkmenbaşy') president for life, the apex of a personality cult that included renaming the calendar and making his Ruhnama compulsory reading.


Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow elected

Summary: Following Niyazov's death in December 2006, Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow was elected president, beginning fifteen years of rule that retained tight one-party control and the neutral, gas-export policy.


Serdar Berdimuhamedow succeeds his father

Summary: In an early election, Serdar Berdimuhamedow won the presidency over 70 percent of the vote, succeeding his father in a managed dynastic transfer of power, with the elder Berdimuhamedow remaining head of the People's Council.


Society of the liurai

Summary: Timor is organized into numerous small kingdoms ruled by hereditary chiefs, the liurai, whose authority rests on kinship, ritual, and the sacred houses central to Timorese culture.


The sandalwood trade

Summary: Timor's prized aromatic sandalwood is traded across maritime Asia to China, India, and beyond, drawing Malay, Chinese, and other merchants and giving the island wide renown.


Portuguese arrival and missions

Summary: Portuguese traders seeking sandalwood and Dominican missionaries reach Timor and the Solor archipelago, beginning Catholic conversion and a loose Portuguese presence.


Capital established at Dili

Summary: The Portuguese move their administrative seat from Lifau in Oecusse to Dili on the north coast, which becomes the lasting capital of Portuguese Timor.


Partition of the island

Summary: A Portuguese-Dutch treaty divides Timor between Dutch West Timor and Portuguese East Timor, leaving Portugal the eastern half plus the Oecusse enclave; the border is finalized in the early 20th century.


Decolonization begins

Summary: After Portugal's Carnation Revolution, Lisbon moves to decolonize Timor; rival Timorese parties, the pro-independence Fretilin and pro-integration Apodeti, vie over the colony's future.


Declaration of independence

Summary: Fretilin unilaterally proclaims the independent Democratic Republic of East Timor in Dili as Portugal withdraws and an Indonesian invasion looms.


Indonesian invasion

Summary: Indonesia launches a full-scale air and sea invasion of Dili, beginning an occupation marked from the start by mass civilian killing.


Annexation as 27th province

Summary: Indonesia formally annexes the territory as its 27th province, Timor Timur; the United Nations refuses to recognize the annexation and affirms Timorese self-determination.


Santa Cruz massacre

Summary: Indonesian troops fire on a peaceful pro-independence procession at Dili's Santa Cruz cemetery, killing at least 250; smuggled video footage brings the occupation to global attention.


Capture of Xanana Gusmao

Summary: Indonesian forces capture resistance commander Xanana Gusmao in Dili; tried and sentenced to a long prison term in Jakarta, he continues to lead the movement from prison.


Nobel Peace Prize

Summary: Bishop Carlos Belo and Jose Ramos-Horta share the Nobel Peace Prize for their work toward a just and peaceful solution to the conflict in East Timor.


Independence referendum

Summary: In a UN-supervised popular consultation, 78.5 per cent of Timorese reject autonomy within Indonesia and choose a transition to independence.


Post-ballot violence and INTERFET

Summary: Pro-Indonesian militias unleash killings and destruction, displacing some 500,000 people; the Australian-led INTERFET deploys from 20 September to restore order.


UN administration established

Summary: Security Council Resolution 1272 creates UNTAET, granting the United Nations full authority to govern East Timor through the transition to independence.


Restoration of independence

Summary: UNTAET hands over sovereignty; Timor-Leste restores its independence with Xanana Gusmao as first president and soon joins the United Nations.


The 2006 crisis

Summary: The dismissal of disaffected soldiers triggers fighting in Dili that kills dozens and displaces tens of thousands, topples the prime minister, and brings back international peacekeepers.


Attack on the president

Summary: Rebel soldiers shoot and gravely wound President Jose Ramos-Horta and attack Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao's convoy; both survive and the rebellion collapses.


Maritime boundary treaty with Australia

Summary: Timor-Leste and Australia sign a treaty settling their disputed Timor Sea boundary, the first reached through UN conciliation, resolving claims over the Greater Sunrise gas field.


ASEAN membership

Summary: Timor-Leste is admitted as the 11th member of ASEAN at the bloc's summit in Kuala Lumpur, its first enlargement in over two decades and the culmination of a years-long bid.


The first settlers reach the islands

Summary: Archaic Ortoiroid peoples migrated from the South American mainland into Trinidad, the earliest of several waves of indigenous settlement that populated the twin islands over millennia.


Arawak and Carib peoples established

Summary: By the time of European contact the islands were home to Arawakan-speaking groups such as the Nepoya and Suppoya and Cariban speakers such as the Yao, peoples whose roots lay in the Orinoco region.


Columbus sights Trinidad and Tobago

Summary: On his third voyage Christopher Columbus reached Trinidad, naming it after the Holy Trinity, and sighted Tobago — the first European contact with islands then inhabited by Arawak and Carib peoples.


Spain founds San José de Oruña

Summary: Antonio de Berrio took possession of Trinidad and founded San José de Oruña (St Joseph), establishing the first effective Spanish settlement on an island the crown had claimed but long neglected.


Raleigh raids the Spanish settlement

Summary: Sir Walter Raleigh attacked the Spanish settlement while searching for El Dorado, underscoring how weak and exposed the Spanish colony on Trinidad remained.


The Cédula de Población

Summary: King Charles III's Cédula de Población offered free land and tax breaks to Roman Catholic settlers, drawing French planters with their enslaved Africans and free coloureds and remaking Trinidad as a plantation society.


Britain captures Trinidad

Summary: A British expedition under Sir Ralph Abercromby took Trinidad from Spain almost without a fight; the last Spanish governor, Chacón, signed the capitulation at the Valsayn estate.


Trinidad ceded to Britain by treaty

Summary: The Treaty of Amiens confirmed Trinidad as a British colony, beginning more than a century and a half of British rule over the island.


Tobago ceded to Britain

Summary: After centuries of being fought over by the Dutch, Courlanders, French, and British, Tobago was finally awarded to Britain by the Treaty of Paris of 1814.


Abolition of slavery

Summary: Under Britain's Slavery Abolition Act, slavery ended in Trinidad and Tobago on 1 August 1834, though a transitional 'apprenticeship' kept the freed people tied to the estates.


Full emancipation

Summary: The apprenticeship system ended on 1 August 1838, granting the formerly enslaved full freedom and leaving the colony's planters scrambling for new sources of labour.


Arrival of the Fatel Razack

Summary: The ship Fatel Razack landed the first indentured Indian labourers in Trinidad; over 147,000 Indians would arrive under indenture by 1917, transforming the colony's population and culture.


Tobago united with Trinidad

Summary: Britain amalgamated Tobago with the wealthier colony of Trinidad to cut administrative costs; in 1899 Tobago became a ward, creating the single colony of Trinidad and Tobago.


Commercial oil production begins

Summary: The first commercial oil flowed near the Pitch Lake at La Brea, beginning the petroleum industry that would dominate Trinidad and Tobago's economy for over a century.


End of Indian indentureship

Summary: The indentured labour system was abolished in 1917, by which time roughly 147,000 Indians had come to Trinidad, the majority remaining to build the Indo-Trinidadian community.


The 1937 labour revolution

Summary: An oilbelt strike led by Tubal Uriah 'Buzz' Butler spread into riots across the colony, leaving at least fourteen dead and giving birth to Trinidad and Tobago's modern trade-union and nationalist movements.


Eric Williams founds the PNM

Summary: The historian Dr Eric Williams founded the People's National Movement and won office, beginning a dominance of Trinidad and Tobago's politics that would carry the colony to independence.


Independence from Britain

Summary: Trinidad and Tobago became an independent state within the Commonwealth, with Eric Williams as first prime minister; the United States recognised the nation the same day.


The Black Power uprising

Summary: Mass marches and protests over racial and economic inequality, with a mutiny in the army, forced Eric Williams to declare a state of emergency in the most serious challenge to his government.


Trinidad and Tobago becomes a republic

Summary: A new constitution replaced the British monarch with a president as head of state; the last governor-general, Sir Ellis Clarke, became the republic's first president.


The Jamaat al-Muslimeen coup attempt

Summary: The Islamist group Jamaat al-Muslimeen seized Parliament and the state television station, taking the prime minister and others hostage for six days in a failed coup that left more than twenty people dead.


Atlantic LNG begins exports

Summary: The Atlantic LNG plant at Point Fortin started production, confirming Trinidad and Tobago's shift from oil to natural gas and making it a major global LNG exporter.


Birth of the steelpan

Summary: Musicians in Port of Spain fashioned the steelpan from oil drums after colonial bans on African drumming — the only acoustic instrument invented in the 20th century and now the national instrument.


Persad-Bissessar returns as prime minister

Summary: In the April 2025 general election the United National Congress defeated the PNM and Kamla Persad-Bissessar was sworn in as prime minister, another peaceful transfer of power in the republic.


Foundation of Carthage

Summary: Phoenician settlers from Tyre establish Carthage, which grows into a dominant Mediterranean trading power.


Hannibal's war on Rome

Summary: In the Second Punic War Hannibal invades Italy with elephants and wins at Cannae, before defeat at Zama in 202 BCE.


Rome destroys Carthage

Summary: Roman armies raze Carthage in the Third Punic War; its lands become the province of Africa.


Augustus refounds Carthage

Summary: Carthage is rebuilt as the capital of Africa Proconsularis, a prosperous grain-exporting Roman province.


Amphitheatre of El Djem

Summary: The colossal amphitheatre of Thysdrus is built, the largest Roman amphitheatre in Africa and a later UNESCO World Heritage Site.


Vandals take Carthage

Summary: Gaiseric's Vandals seize Carthage, making it the capital of a kingdom in North Africa.


Byzantine reconquest

Summary: Belisarius restores Carthage to the Eastern Roman Empire, ending Vandal rule.


Founding of Kairouan

Summary: Uqba ibn Nafi establishes Kairouan with its Great Mosque, the first Arab-Muslim capital of the Maghreb.


Aghlabid dynasty

Summary: The Aghlabids rule Ifriqiya from Kairouan, rebuild the Great Mosque in stone, and conquer Sicily.


Fatimid Caliphate

Summary: The Shia Fatimids overthrow the Aghlabids; after moving to Cairo in 972 they leave the Zirids to govern locally.


Hafsid dynasty rules from Tunis

Summary: The Hafsids make Tunis a prosperous capital of trade and learning until the Ottoman conquest.


Ottoman conquest of Tunis

Summary: The Ottomans take Tunis from Spain, making Tunisia an autonomous province of the empire.


Husaynid dynasty founded

Summary: Al-Husayn ibn Ali is proclaimed bey, founding the dynasty that rules Tunisia until 1957.


First written constitution

Summary: Tunisia adopts the Arab world's first written constitution amid attempts at modernising reform.


Treaty of Bardo

Summary: The bey signs the Treaty of Bardo, placing Tunisia under a French protectorate.


Neo-Destour founded

Summary: Habib Bourguiba and colleagues break from the Destour to form the Neo-Destour, the engine of the independence movement.


Tunisian independence

Summary: France recognises Tunisian sovereignty; Bourguiba becomes prime minister.


Republic proclaimed

Summary: The monarchy is abolished and Tunisia becomes a republic with Bourguiba as first president.


Code of Personal Status

Summary: Bourguiba's government bans polygamy and expands women's rights, a landmark reform in the Arab world.


Ben Ali takes power

Summary: Zine El Abidine Ben Ali removes Bourguiba in a bloodless coup, beginning twenty-three years of authoritarian rule.


Mohamed Bouazizi self-immolation

Summary: A street vendor sets himself alight in Sidi Bouzid, triggering nationwide protests.


Jasmine Revolution ousts Ben Ali

Summary: Ben Ali flees the country; the uprising sparks the wider Arab Spring and a Tunisian democratic transition.


The Neolithic town of Çatalhöyük

Summary: On the Konya plain, the streetless settlement of Çatalhöyük flourished for over a millennium (c. 7100–5700 BCE), one of the world's best-preserved Neolithic towns, with roof-access houses and elaborate wall art.


Hattusa becomes the Hittite capital

Summary: King Hattusilis I established Hattusa in north-central Anatolia as the capital of the Hittite kingdom, the seat of a Bronze Age empire that would rival Egypt.


Battle of Kadesh and the Hittite–Egyptian treaty

Summary: The Hittites under Muwatalli II fought Ramesses II of Egypt at Kadesh; the conflict ended in one of history's earliest surviving peace treaties between the two empires.


Troy of the Iliad

Summary: The fortified city at Hisarlık (Troy VI–VII) corresponds to the era of the Trojan War remembered in Homer's Iliad; the layered ruins were excavated from 1870 and inscribed by UNESCO in 1998.


Bronze Age collapse

Summary: Around 1200–1180 BCE the Hittite state and Hattusa were destroyed amid the wider collapse of eastern Mediterranean civilisations, ending Anatolia's first great imperial age.


Fall of Lydia and Croesus

Summary: The wealthy Lydian kingdom of western Anatolia, credited with pioneering coined money, fell to Cyrus the Great of Persia, bringing Anatolia under Persian rule.


Constantine refounds Constantinople

Summary: Constantine the Great dedicated the rebuilt city of Byzantium as Constantinople, a new Christian capital on the Bosporus that would anchor the Roman and then Byzantine state for over a millennium.


Justinian completes the Hagia Sophia

Summary: Emperor Justinian I inaugurated the great domed church of Hagia Sophia in Constantinople, the masterpiece of Byzantine architecture and for centuries the largest cathedral in the world.


Battle of Manzikert

Summary: The Seljuk sultan Alp Arslan defeated and captured the Byzantine emperor Romanos IV at Manzikert, breaking Byzantine control of the interior and opening Anatolia to Turkish settlement.


Sultanate of Rûm at Konya

Summary: Seljuk Turks established the Sultanate of Rûm in Anatolia, with Konya as its centre, fostering a rich Islamic culture associated with the mystic poet Rumi.


Foundation of the Ottoman emirate

Summary: Osman I, leader of a frontier emirate in north-western Anatolia, is traditionally regarded as founder of the Ottoman dynasty around 1299, giving his name to the empire.


Battle of Kosovo

Summary: Ottoman forces under Murad I defeated a Serbian-led coalition at Kosovo, cementing Ottoman dominance in the Balkans even as Murad died on the field.


Battle of Ankara and the Interregnum

Summary: Timur (Tamerlane) crushed and captured Sultan Bayezid I at Ankara, plunging the Ottoman state into a decade of civil war before it recovered.


Fall of Constantinople

Summary: After a 53-day siege, Sultan Mehmed II captured Constantinople, ending the Byzantine Empire; the city became the Ottoman capital and Hagia Sophia was converted to a mosque.


Reign of Süleyman the Magnificent

Summary: Süleyman I presided over the Ottoman Empire at its territorial and cultural height, from Hungary to the Arab lands, codifying law and patronising the architecture of Sinan.


First Siege of Vienna

Summary: Ottoman armies under Süleyman besieged Vienna, marking the high-water mark of Ottoman expansion into central Europe before withdrawing.


Treaty of Karlowitz

Summary: After the failed 1683 siege of Vienna, the Treaty of Karlowitz ceded Hungary and other lands to the Habsburgs, the first major Ottoman territorial retreat in Europe.


The Tanzimat reforms

Summary: A wave of modernising reforms reorganised Ottoman law, taxation, education and the military in an effort to halt the empire's decline and integrate its diverse subjects.


Young Turk Revolution

Summary: The Young Turk movement forced Sultan Abdülhamid II to restore the constitution, ushering in a turbulent constitutional era dominated by the Committee of Union and Progress.


The Armenian Genocide

Summary: From 24 April 1915 the Ottoman government deported and massacred its Armenian population in death marches and killings across Anatolia and into the Syrian desert; most historians recognise these events as genocide, with deaths estimated from roughly 600,000 to 1.5 million.


Gallipoli campaign

Summary: Ottoman forces repelled an Allied attempt to seize the Dardanelles; the defence brought the officer Mustafa Kemal to national prominence.


Treaty of Sèvres

Summary: The Allied treaty with the defeated Ottoman government proposed partitioning Anatolia among Greece, Armenia, Italy, France and others; rejected by the nationalists, it triggered the War of Independence.


Turkish War of Independence

Summary: Mustafa Kemal led a national resistance and a new Grand National Assembly in Ankara, defeating Greek, Armenian and French forces and ending the Allied occupation of Anatolia.


Treaty of Lausanne

Summary: Replacing the Treaty of Sèvres, the Lausanne treaty secured international recognition of Turkey's sovereignty and borders, the legal foundation of the modern state.


Abolition of the caliphate

Summary: The Grand National Assembly abolished the Ottoman caliphate and separated religion from the state, a cornerstone of Atatürk's secular reforms; a new constitution followed in April 1924.


The alphabet and language reforms

Summary: Turkey replaced the Arabic script with a new Latin-based Turkish alphabet in 1928, part of reforms that sharply raised literacy and reoriented the nation toward Europe.


First multiparty election

Summary: The Democrat Party won a landslide in the 1950 election, ending nearly three decades of one-party rule and marking Turkey's first peaceful transfer of power.


Turkey joins NATO

Summary: Turkey became a member of NATO in 1952, cementing its strategic alignment with the West throughout the Cold War.


Registered at the UN as 'Türkiye'

Summary: At the government's request, the United Nations registered the country's official name as 'Türkiye' in June 2022, replacing 'Turkey' in international usage.


Dutch found Fort Zeelandia

Summary: The Dutch East India Company establishes a fortified trading base, Fort Zeelandia, on the southwestern coast near present-day Tainan, beginning roughly four decades of Dutch commercial rule over parts of the island.


Spanish settle the northern coast

Summary: Spanish forces from the Philippines occupy northern Taiwan, building forts at Keelung and Tamsui in response to the Dutch presence in the south.


Dutch expel the Spanish

Summary: A Dutch expedition drives the Spanish from their northern outposts, leaving the Dutch East India Company as the dominant European power on the island.


Koxinga expels the Dutch

Summary: After a siege begun in 1661, the Ming-loyalist commander Zheng Chenggong (Koxinga) forces the surrender of Fort Zeelandia, ending Dutch rule and founding the Zheng (Tungning) regime on Taiwan.


Qing conquest of the Zheng regime

Summary: A Qing fleet defeats the Zheng (Tungning) forces, ending the Ming-loyalist kingdom; Taiwan is annexed the following year and attached to Fujian province as a prefecture.


Taiwan made a Qing province

Summary: The Qing government raises Taiwan to the status of a separate province, with Liu Mingchuan as reforming first governor promoting railways and modernisation.


Treaty of Shimonoseki cedes Taiwan to Japan

Summary: Ending the First Sino-Japanese War, the treaty obliges the Qing empire to cede Taiwan and the Pescadores to Japan, beginning fifty years of Japanese colonial rule.


Japanese colonial administration

Summary: Japan develops Taiwan with railways, ports, public health and expanded agriculture while suppressing resistance and, from the late 1930s, pursuing intensive assimilation campaigns.


ROC takes over Taiwan

Summary: After Japan's surrender, the Republic of China under the Nationalists (Kuomintang) takes over the administration of Taiwan from Japan.


February 28 Incident

Summary: Protests against Nationalist rule, triggered by a violent monopoly-enforcement episode in Taipei, are crushed by troops; thousands are killed, beginning the long repression known as the White Terror.


People's Republic of China proclaimed

Summary: Having defeated the Nationalists in the Chinese Civil War, Mao Zedong proclaims the People's Republic of China on the mainland; Chiang and his forces withdraw toward Taiwan.


ROC government relocates to Taiwan

Summary: Chiang Kai-shek's Republic of China central government relocates to Taipei after defeat in the civil war, founding the present self-governing polity on the island; this was not a declaration of independence.


UN seat transferred to the PRC

Summary: The UN General Assembly votes to seat the People's Republic of China in China's place at the United Nations; the ROC's representatives lose the seat. The resolution does not address Taiwan's sovereignty.


Shanghai Communiqué

Summary: During President Nixon's visit to China, the United States and the PRC issue the Shanghai Communiqué; the U.S. acknowledges the position that there is but one China, beginning normalisation.


U.S. switches recognition to the PRC

Summary: The United States establishes formal diplomatic relations with the PRC as the sole legal government of China and ends recognition of the ROC; Congress passes the Taiwan Relations Act to sustain unofficial ties.


National Palace Museum opens in Taipei

Summary: A permanent home opens in Taipei for a vast collection of Chinese imperial art and antiquities, much of it relocated from the mainland around 1948 to 1949.


Martial law lifted

Summary: President Lee Teng-hui ends nearly four decades of martial law and the ban on travel to the mainland, opening the way to democratic reform.


First direct presidential election

Summary: Lee Teng-hui wins Taiwan's first direct, popular presidential election, becoming its first democratically elected president and completing the democratic transition.


Ongoing cross-strait dispute

Summary: Into 2026 the dispute remains unresolved: the ROC governs Taiwan while the PRC claims it as a province without controlling it, and no peace treaty has settled the question.


Hominins leave footprints at Laetoli

Summary: Early hominins, attributed to Australopithecus afarensis, cross a layer of fresh volcanic ash near Laetoli; their footprints harden and survive, giving direct evidence of upright walking.


Homo habilis and Oldowan tools at Olduvai

Summary: Early members of the genus Homo at Olduvai Gorge make simple flaked-pebble tools of the Oldowan industry, among the earliest manufactured implements known.


Mary Leakey finds the Zinjanthropus skull

Summary: At Olduvai Gorge, Mary Leakey uncovers the robust hominin skull OH 5 (Zinjanthropus / Paranthropus boisei), a landmark in the study of human evolution.


Discovery of the Laetoli footprints

Summary: Mary Leakey's team excavates the trail of 3.6-million-year-old hominin footprints at Laetoli, confirming early bipedalism and cementing Tanzania's place in human prehistory.


Bantu farmers reach the coast

Summary: Iron-using Bantu-speaking farmers settle the Tanzanian coast and interior, part of the wider Bantu expansion that reshaped eastern and southern Africa.


Rise of the Swahili coast

Summary: Coastal communities trading across the Indian Ocean develop the Swahili language and an Afro-Islamic urban culture, founding settlements that grow into trading city-states.


Shirazi dynasty founds Kilwa

Summary: According to the Kilwa Chronicle, the Shirazi line founds the ruling house of Kilwa Kisiwani; the city begins its rise as a Swahili trading power.


Kilwa dominates the gold trade

Summary: Controlling the gold exported through Sofala, Kilwa reaches its peak of wealth, minting coins and building the Great Mosque, the largest in the region.


Ibn Battuta visits Kilwa

Summary: The traveller Ibn Battuta describes Kilwa as a prosperous, devout and beautifully built Muslim city, attesting to the wealth of the medieval Swahili coast.


Vasco da Gama reaches the coast

Summary: The Portuguese navigator Vasco da Gama arrives on the East African coast en route to India, opening an era of Portuguese intrusion that disrupted the Swahili city-states.


Said bin Sultan moves his capital to Zanzibar

Summary: The Omani ruler Said bin Sultan transfers his capital from Muscat to Zanzibar, making the islands the commercial heart of the western Indian Ocean.


Clove plantations and the caravan trade

Summary: Zanzibar and Pemba become the world's leading clove producers, while caravans reaching to Lake Tanganyika feed a vast and brutal trade in enslaved people and ivory.


Zanzibar becomes a separate sultanate

Summary: On Said's death his domains are divided; his son Majid becomes the first sultan of Zanzibar, separating the islands from Oman.


Zanzibar bans the seaborne slave trade

Summary: Under British pressure Sultan Barghash signs a treaty prohibiting the maritime slave trade and closing the Stone Town slave market, though domestic slavery endures for decades.


Germany establishes German East Africa

Summary: Following Carl Peters's treaties, the German government charters his company, founding the colony of German East Africa over the Tanzanian mainland and the Great Lakes territories.


Maji Maji rebellion

Summary: Inspired by the prophet Kinjikitile Ngwale, southern peoples rise against German rule, forced labour and cotton-growing; the revolt spreads widely before being crushed.


Scorched earth and the Great Hunger

Summary: German forces suppress the rebellion by destroying crops and villages; the ensuing famine kills tens to hundreds of thousands of people, a catastrophe scholars term genocidal.


Tanganyika becomes a British mandate

Summary: After the First World War the Treaty of Versailles strips Germany of the colony; Britain administers the mainland as the Tanganyika Territory under a League of Nations mandate from 1922.


Founding of TANU

Summary: Julius Nyerere builds the Tanganyika African National Union, which campaigns for independence by constitutional means and comes to dominate the territory's politics.


Tanganyika gains independence

Summary: Mainland Tanganyika becomes independent from Britain under Nyerere and TANU; it becomes a republic with Nyerere as president on 9 December 1962.


Zanzibar Revolution

Summary: The African majority overthrows the Arab-led sultanate of Zanzibar in a bloody uprising, establishing a republic under Abeid Karume.


Union of Tanganyika and Zanzibar

Summary: Tanganyika and Zanzibar unite to form the United Republic of Tanzania, with Nyerere as president and Karume as vice-president; Zanzibar keeps its own government.


The Arusha Declaration

Summary: Nyerere proclaims Ujamaa, committing Tanzania to socialism and self-reliance, nationalising key sectors and launching the policy of collective villages.


Nyerere steps down

Summary: Julius Nyerere voluntarily retires from the presidency, handing power to Ali Hassan Mwinyi in a peaceful transition and opening the way to economic liberalisation.


Return to multiparty politics

Summary: Tanzania amends its constitution to permit multiple parties, ending decades of one-party rule; the first multiparty elections follow in 1995.


Dodoma confirmed as capital

Summary: Tanzania advances the long-planned move of its capital to the central city of Dodoma, while Dar es Salaam remains the largest city and commercial centre.


Samia Suluhu Hassan becomes president

Summary: On the death of President John Magufuli, Vice-President Samia Suluhu Hassan is sworn in as the first female president of the United Republic of Tanzania.


Bantu farmers settle the lakes region

Summary: Iron-using Bantu-speaking agriculturalists spread into the interlacustrine region north and west of Lake Victoria, establishing the banana-farming societies that underlie the later kingdoms.


Rise of Bunyoro-Kitara

Summary: The kingdom of Bunyoro-Kitara, ruled by the omukama and linked in tradition to the Bachwezi, emerges as the dominant power of the interlacustrine region.


Foundation of Buganda

Summary: Buganda takes shape east of Bunyoro under its first kabakas; tradition credits its founding to Kintu or, in Bunyoro accounts, to Kato Kimera of the Babito dynasty.