rightnethistory

23,000 BC

A cave at Karain, north of Antalya, is inhabited by humans, the oldest known evidence of habitation inAnatolia. People live in the cave until a few centuries ago, making it one of the longest continuously-inhabited spots on earth.

9000 BC

Construction of the first temple/religious site atGöbekli Tepe near Şanlıurfa in southeastern Turkey.

8500 BC

Development of agriculture and pastoralism(domesticated animals) in southeastern Turkey.

7500 BC

Earliest known human community at Çatal Höyük, 50 km (31 miles) southeast of Konya.

5000 BC

Stone and Copper Age. People have already been living in Anatolia for 20,000 years. Settlement atHacılar.

2600-1900 BC

Old Bronze Age. The Proto-Hittite Empire flourishes inCentral Anatolia and the Southeast.

1900-1300 BC

The Hittite Empire flourishes with its capital atHattuşa, battles Egypt. Patriarch Abraham, who has been dwelling in Harran, near Şanlıurfa, leaves for Canaan (Israel).

1250 BC

The Trojan War fought between the armies of Troy and Achaea (Greece) for control of trade passing through theDardanelles strait.

1200-600 BC

The Phrygian kingdom of Mithridates flourishes atGordion, west of Ankara. Mysians invade. The great period of Hellenic civilisation in Greece and Aegean Anatolia follows. King Midas reigns in splendor, andKing Croesus of Lydia invents coinage. The kingdoms ofIonia (İzmir), Lycia (Fethiye), Lydia (Sardis), Caria(Marmaris) and Pamphylia (Side) flourish, as does the Empire of Urartu (Van).

547 BC

Cyrus of Persia invades and conquers most of Anatolia.

334 BC

Alexander the Great of Macedon marches throughAnatolia on his way to India.

279 BC

Celts (or Gauls) invade and establish the kingdom ofGalatia near Ankara.

250 BC

Rise of the Kingdom of Pergamum (Bergama) as an Anatolian power.

129 BC

Anatolia becomes the Roman Province of Asia ('Asia Minor'), with its capital at Ephesus.

47-57 AD

St Paul travels to the Christian and Jewish communities in Anatolia.

330 AD

Emperor Constantine the Great dedicatesConstantinople as the 'New Rome,' which becomes the empire's center of government.

527-565

Reign of Justinian, greatest Byzantine emperor, builder of Hagia Sophia, largest and most splendid church in the world.

570-622

Birth of Muhammed. Revelation of the Kur'an. Muhammed's 'flight' (hijra) from Mecca to Medina.

1037-1109

Turkish Empire of the Great Seljuks in Iran.

1071-1243

Seljuk Sultanate of Rum, an offshoot of the Great Seljuk empire, established in Anatolia with its capital inKonya. Mystic poet and philosopher Jelaleddin Rumi, called Mevlana, takes up residence in Konya, writes his great works, and inspires the founding of the Whirling Dervish Sufi order.

1000s-1200s

Crusader armies cross Anatolia through the lands of theSeljuk Sultan of Rum, with frequent battles.

1288

Foundation of the Ottoman state by a warrier chieftain named Osman, at Sögüt near Bursa.

1453

Conquest of Constantinople (Istanbul) by Sultan Mehmet II 'the Conqueror'.

1520-1566

Reign of Sultan Süleyman the Magnificent, the great age of the Ottoman Empire. The sultan rules most of North Africa, most of Eastern Europe and all of the Middle East. His navies patrol the Mediterranean and Red seas and the Indian Ocean.

1699

Treaty of Karlowitz, the first time in over 400 years that the Ottomans were decisively defeated and forced to sign a peace treaty as the clear losers. The mighty empire was clearly in decline.

1876-1909

Reign of Sultan Abdülhamid II, a ruthless despot who was the last of the powerful sultans. The European empires ask themselves the 'Eastern Question': which European nations will grab Ottoman territory when the sultan's empire collapses?

1914-1918

The Ottoman Empire enters World War I in alliance with Germany. Australian, British, French and New Zealand troops invade Gallipoli which is successfully defended by Ottoman forces led by Mustafa Kemal. Eventual defeat of the Ottomans, loss of most of the empire's territory, and occupation of parts of Anatolia by victorious foreign troops.

1919-1923

Mustafa Kemal (Atatürk) organizes remaining Ottoman military units into an army of resistance, and establishes a government of resistance at Ankara.

1922

Encouraged by Great Britain, Greece invades Anatoliathrough Izmir and presses eastward, threatening the fledgling government in Ankara.

1923

Defeat and explusion of the invading armies. Abolishment of the last vestiges of the Ottoman Empire and Proclamation of the Turkish Republic by Mustafa Kemal (Atatürk), its founder and first president. Most ethnic Greeks in Turkey, and ethnic Turks in Greece, migrate to the opposite country.

1923-1938

Atatürk's reforms: equal rights for women, secular government, prohibition of the fez and the veil, substitution of the Latin alphabet for the Arabic, Turkification of city names, everyone adopts a surname, etc.

1938

Death of Atatürk, continuation of one-party rule.

1939-1945

Turkey maintains a precarious neutrality during World War II.

1946-1950

Institution of multi-party democracy.

966 - Duke Mieszko I, the historically recognised founder of the Polish state, adopts Catholic Christianity.

1025 - Boleslaw I proclaims the Kingdom of Poland.

1569 - Poland signs Union of Lublin with the Grand Duchy of Lithuania to establish the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, a major power in Europe unusual for its powerful parliament of noblemen and its elected kings.

1772 - The Commonwealth is subjected to the first of three major partitions by its neighbours Prussia, Russia and Austria following an anti-Russian revolt.

1791-1793 - A programme of political and social reform culminates in the 3 May Constitution in 1791, which promises civil rights to the urban and peasant population of the Commonwealth. Russia invades to prevent liberal change. Prussia also sends in troops, and the two powers carry out a second partition in 1793.

1794-1795 - Reformers lead an armed uprising against the partitioning powers. Following its failure the Commonwealth is finally partitioned among Prussia, Russia and Austria. Independent Poland disappears from the map of Europe.

1807 - Napoleon creates the Duchy of Warsaw as a client state to rally Polish support for his cause.

1815 - The Congress of Vienna creates a rump Kingdom of Poland, ruled by Russia.

1830-1831 - Military revolt in protest at Russian erosion of the Kingdom's political autonomy and civil liberties.

1863-1864 - Another revolt against Russian rule is defeated and the Kingdom annexed to Russia.

1864-1914 - The Polish national movement in Russia, Prussia and Austria focuses on strengthening the grassroots through education, culture and political parties.

1918 - Independent Polish state restored after the end of World War I. Marshal

1920 - Soviet Red Army offensive repulsed.

1926 - Pilsudski stages a military coup. There follow nine years of autocratic rule.

1932 - Poland concludes non-aggression pact with the Soviet Union.

1934 - Poland signs similar 10-year pact with Nazi Germany.

1935 - Pilsudski dies. The military regime continues.

1939 - Nazi Germany invades Poland. Beginning of World War II as the United Kingdom declares war on Germany in response to the invasion. The Soviet Union invades from the east. Germany and the Soviet Union divide Poland between them and treat Polish citizens with extreme brutality. Germany begins systematic persecution of the large Jewish population.

1940 - Soviet secret police carry out systematic massacre of about 22,000 Polish army officers, professionals and civil servants mainly in a forest near Katyn in Russia's Smolensk Region. The Soviet Union attributed the crime to the Nazis until acknowledging responsibility in the late 1980s.

1941 - Germans start to build concentration camps in Poland. Their names - Auschwitz, Treblinka, Majdanek - become synonymous with the Holocaust.

1943 - Warsaw ghetto uprising against German attempts to transport the remaining Jewish inhabitants to concentration camps. Resistance lasts nearly four weeks before the ghetto is burned down. The Germans announce the capture of more than 50,000 Jews.

1944 - Polish resistance forces take control of Warsaw in August. The Germans recapture the city in October and burn it to the ground.

1945 - Soviet forces capture Warsaw in January. All German forces are driven from Poland by March. Poland's borders are set by the post-war Potsdam conference; Poland loses territory to the Soviet Union but gains some from Germany.

1947 - Poland becomes a Communist People's Republic after Soviet-run elections, under the Stalinist leadership of Boleslaw Bierut.

1955 - Poland joins the Soviet-run Warsaw Pact military alliance.

1956 - More than 50 people killed in rioting in Poznan over demands for greater freedom. Liberal Communist leader Wladislaw Gomulka takes over.

1970 - Food price riots in Gdansk. The protests are suppressed, hundreds are killed. Edward Gierek becomes party leader.

1970s - Poland enjoys relative economic prosperity based on foreign loans. Successive US presidents Nixon, Ford and Carter visit Poland.

1978 - Karol Wojtyla, Cardinal of Krakow, elected Pope.

1980 - Disturbances at the shipyard in Gdansk lead to the emergence of the Solidarity trade union under Lech Walesa.

1981 - Martial law imposed. Many of Solidarity's leaders, including Walesa, are imprisoned.

1983 - Martial law lifted.

1989 - Round-table talks between Solidarity, the Communists and the Catholic Church. Partially free elections see widespread success for Solidarity, which helps form coalition government.

1990 - Walesa elected president of Poland. Market reforms, including large-scale privatisation, are launched.

1992 - Soviet troops start to leave Poland.

1993 - Reformed Communists enter coalition government. They pledge to continue market reforms.

1994 - Poland joins Nato's Partnership for Peace programme.

1995 - Aleksander Kwasniewski, a former Communist, narrowly beats Lech Walesa to become president.

1997 - Polish parliament adopts a new constitution. General election is won by the Solidarity grouping AWS. Jerzy Buzek forms a coalition government.

1998 - The EU opens talks on Polish membership.

1999 - Poland joins Nato.

2000 - Aleksander Kwasniewski re-elected as president.

2001 - Poland permits citizens to apply to see the files kept on them by the secret police during the communist era.

2001 October - New coalition between the Democratic Left Alliance (SLD) and the Peasants' Party forms government with SLD leader Leszek Miller as prime minister.

2002 December - EU summit in Copenhagen formally invites Poland to join in 2004.

2003 March - Polish Peasant's Party ejected from ruling coalition over failure to vote with government on tax. Leszek Miller carries on as PM in minority government.

2003 June - Poles vote in referendum in favour of joining EU.

2004 May - Poland is one of 10 new states to join the EU.

Prime Minister Miller resigns. Former finance minister Marek Belka succeeds him.

2005 September - Conservative Law and Justice party comes first in general elections.

2005 October - Law and Justice candidate Lech Kaczynski wins presidential election.

2006 May - Law and Justice Party reaches majority coalition agreement with Self-Defence Party and League of Polish Families.

2006 July - Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz resigns as prime minister. President Lech Kaczynski's twin brother, Jaroslaw, becomes premier.

2007 January - Recently-appointed Archbishop of Warsaw Stanislaw Wielgus resigns over revelations about his co-operation with the secret police under communist rule.

2007 April - Prosecutors bring charges against former communist leader General Jaruzelski over his role in introducing martial law in 1981.

2007 October - Liberal, pro-EU Civic Platform party wins early general election after coalition government collapses.

2008 February - The government forges an agreement with the US in principle to host a controversial American missile defence system.

2008 September - Poland's last Communist leader, General Wojciech Jaruzelski, goes on trial in connection with the imposition of martial law in 1981.

2009 May - The IMF approves a one-year credit line for Poland of $20.6 billion to help it weather the global economic crisis.

2010 April - President Lech Kaczynski and many other senior officials are killed in a plane crash while on his way to a ceremony in Russia marking the 70th anniversary of the Katyn massacre during World War II.

2010 July - Parliament Speaker and Acting President Bronislaw Komorowski of the centre-right Civic Platform defeats former prime minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski in the second round of presidential elections.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton oversees amended agreement to station US missile defence shield base in Poland.

2010 December - Nigerian-born John Abraham Godson becomes first black member of Polish parliament.

2011 January - Russia's aviation authority blamed Polish pilot error for the Smolensk air crash in which President Lech Kaczynski and many other officials were killed in April 2010.

2011 July - Poland takes over EU rotating presidency for first time since it joined the bloc in 2004.

2011 October - Prime Minister Donald Tusk's centre-right Civic Platform party wins parliamentary elections.

2012 January - A court gives communist-era interior minister Czeslaw Kiszczak a two-year suspended prison sentence in absentia for his role in the martial law crackdown in 1981. The Communist Party leader of the time, Stanislaw Kania, is acquitted.

2013 September - Tens of thousands of protesters march through Warsaw in one of the largest demonstrations in years, organised by trade unions, to demand more jobs and higher pay.

2014 March - Prime Minister Donald Tusk says that Russia's annexation of Crimea cannot be accepted by the international community.

2014 April - Poland asks Nato to station 10,000 troops on its territory, as a visible mark of the Alliance's resolve to defend all its members after Russia's seizure of Crimea.

2014 June - Mr Tusk's ruling coalition narrowly survives a confidence vote triggered by a scandal prompted by leaked tapes of senior government officials appearing to disparage Poland's allies.

2014 September - Prime Minister Donald Tusk resigns to take up the post of president of the European Council. Ewa Kopacz takes over as head of government.

2014 November - Poland adopts a new National Security Strategy that states the country is threatened by war and names Russia as an aggressor in Ukraine.

2014 December - Poland complains of "unprecedented" Russian military activity in the Baltic Sea region, saying Nato is being tested but is not at risk of attack.

2015 April - Poland announces purchase of US Patriot surface-to-air missiles amid rising tension with Russia.

2015 May - Conservative candidate Andrzej Duda beats centrist incumbent Bronislaw Komorowski in presidential election.