A century of strife

1900 :Boxer Rebellion; siege of the Legations in Peking

1904 : The British invaded Tibet

1905 : Japanese fleet sinks Russian Navy at Tsushima; partition of Bengal

1906 : The "Unionist" (Imperialist) party in Great Britain defeated by the Liberals upon the question of tariffs

1907 : Philippine assembly becomes first freely elected legislature in Asia; the Confederation of South Africa established

1908 : Austria annexed Bosnia and Herzegovina; death of Chinese Empress Ci Xi

1909 : M Bleriot flew in an aeroplane from France to England

1910 : Japan annexes Korea

1911 : Chinese nationalist revolution ends Qing dynasty; Italy wages war against Turkey and seizes Tripoli; Partition of Bengal is abolished

1912 : China became a republic; the Balkan league makes war on Turkey

1913 : Dalai Lama proclaims Tibet's independence; bloodshed at Londonberry in Ireland caused by "Unionist" gunrunning

1914 : The first World War in Europe begins

1917 : The two Russian revolutions; establishment of the Bolshevik regime in Russia

1918 : The Armistice

1919 : China's May Fourth movement; Amritsar massacre in India

1919 : The Peace of Versailles

1920 : First meeting of the League of Nations; last invaders (Wrangel, Poles) expelled from Russia

1921 : Chinese Communist Party founded in Shanghai

1922 : Russian famine; Ataturk defeats Greeks; Irish Free established

1923 : French occupy the Ruhr; collapse of German currency; the Great Kanto Earthquake claims 140,000 lives

1924 : Death of Lenin; first steps taken to Stalin's autocracy

1925 : Voting rights for men guaranteed in Japan

1926 : China comes under Kuomintang control

1927 : Sukarno founds influential party, Perserikatan Nasional Indonesia

1929 : Oil discovered in Brunei; American Wall Street crash starts world-wide slump

1930 : Mohandas Gandhi leads Salt March protesting British rule in India; The campaign of 'civil disobedience' led by Mahatma Gandhi begins in India

1931 : Japan invades Manchuria; Spain becomes a republic

1932 : Bloodless revolution ends absolute monarchy in Thailand

1933 : Inauguration of Roosevelt's "New Deal" in the United States; Nazis take power in Germany; Japan invades northern China

1935 : Long March ends, after a year and 9,660 km; Italy invades and conquers Abyssinia; League of Nations fails to act

1936 : Franco rebels against Spanish republic; with aid of Nazis and Fascists

1937 : Rape of Nanjing; "Axis" formed (Germany, Italy, Japan; later Franco Spain); full-scale Japanese invasion of China

1938 : Germany annexes Austria; Munich conference

1939 : Germany annexes Czechoslovakia; Italy annexes Albania; Spanish civil war ends; Soviet-Nazi pact signed;Germany attacks Poland; Russia and Germany partition Poland; Russia annexes Baltic states and attack Finland

1940 : Germany overruns Denmark, Norway, Holland and Belgium; Chamberlain replaced by coalition government headed by Churchill; fall of France; Battle of Britain

1941 : British beat off German air attacks, re-conquer Abyssinia; Germany conquers Yugoslavia and Greece; Germany invades Russia; Japan attacks US fleet at Pearl Harbour and later seize Hong Kong and Singapore; the Atlantic Charter

1942 : Axis victories until late in year. Allied victories follow (El Alamein, New Guinea, Stalingrad, North African landings)

1943 : Fall of Mussolini

1944 : Capture of Rome; US General Douglas MacArthur and American troops return to the Philippines; Allied landing in Normandy; Germans expelled from Russia, France and Belgium

1945 : Suicide of Hitler; Nazi surrender; atom bomb devastates Hiroshima and Nagasaki; Japan surrenders; Charter of United Nations signed; Arab League comes into being; Battle of Surabaya establishes Indonesian resistance to Dutch colonial rule

1946 : Guerrilla war in Palestine; beginning of British Welfare state; first Soviet "cold war" aggressions

1947 : India-Pakistan partition; Ceylon granted independence; Burma leaves British Commonwealth; Marshall Plan; Soviet rejects atom control plan, eliminates opposition in Hungary and Bulgaria

1948 : Gandhi assassinated in New Delhi by Hindu extremist; British quit Palestine; Arab-Jew war; Chinese communists defeat Kuomintang; Soviet completes subjugation of Romania and Czechoslovakia; Berlin blockade

1949 : Atlantic pact signed leading to NATO; Soviet takes over Poland; Dutch ousted from Indonesia; Chiang ousted from China; People's Republic of China founded

1950 : Korean war; beginning of European army under US general

1952 : Mau Mau revolt; Egyptian revolutions

1953 : Sherpa Tenzing Norgay and New Zealand's Edmund Hillary reach peak of Mount Everest; death of Stalin; Korean armistice; East Berlin revolt

1954 : Siege at Dien Bien Phu

1955 : Sukarno's Bandung Conference hails Third World and Non-Aligned Movement

1956 : Hungarian revolution, crushed by Russia; Franco-British attack on the Suez Canal

1957 : China launches Great Leap Forward

1958 : The European Community comes into being; the United Arab Republic is formed by a union of Egypt and Syria

1959 : Fidel Castro overthrows the government of Fulgencio Batista; Dalai Lama flees Tibet

1960 : Many African colonies become independent; chaos in Congo; Sino-Soviet split

1961 : South Africa becomes a republic, withdrawing from the Commonwealth; Berlin Wall built

1962 : Sino-Indian border clashes

1963 : Organisation of African Unity is created; USA, USSR, Britain sign Nuclear Test Ban Treaty; US President John F Kennedy assassinated

1965 : Sukarno deposed as bloody purges across Indonesia claim half a million lives; Singapore splits from Federation of Malaysia

1964 : Nelson Mandela and other ANC leaders imprisoned; Nikita Khruschev ousted from Soviet leadership; PLO formed; Malaysia-Indonesia war

1965 : US marines enter Vietnam; Indo-Pak war over Kashmir

1966 : Cultural revolution in China begins; France leaves NATO; a six-day Arab-Israel war results in Israeli expansion (66-67).

1967 : China joins the nuclear club by exploding its first atomic bomb; Che Guevara killed in Bolivia

1968 : Tet Offensive surprises US forces in Vietnam; ASEAN established; Martin Luther King assassinated

1969 : Libyan revolution, Moamer el-Khaddafi making it a one-party Islamic socialist rule; US bombing raids on neutral Cambodia; Anti-Chinese violence in Malaysia sparks race riots

1971 : East Pakistan breaks away to form Bangladesh; Ceylone granted independence; China joins the UN;

1972 : US President Richard Nixon visits China

1973 : US troops leave devastated Vietnam; Arab-Israeli war (Yom Kippur)

1974 : Impeachment of US President Nixon; Monarchy restored in Spain upon Franco's death; Portuguese announce withdrawal from East Timor

1975 : Civil war in Lebanon begins; Helsinki Conference on Peace and Co-operation in Europe; Cambodia's Khmer Rouge sets up Killing Fields regime; Saigon falls to North Vietnam army; exodus of boat people from Vietnam and Cambodia begins

1976 : Mao Zedong dies; North and South Vietnam reunite as socialist republic; East Timor annexed by Indonesia; Israel settles in West Bank

1978 : Democracy Wall movement

1979 : Soviet troops storm into Afghanistan; Camp David Agreements on Peace in ME between Egypt and Israel, the latter agreeing to withdraw from the Sinai peninsula; Khmer Rouge ousted in Cambodia by Vietnamese; Brief Chinese invasion of Vietnam; Islamic revolution in Iran led by Ayatollah Khomeini

1980 : Solidarity formed in Poland; Iran-Iraq war begins; Hundreds of South Korean democracy advocates massacred in Kwangju by military dictatorship

1981 : Egyptian President Anwar Sadat assassinated.

1982 : Falkland War between Great Britain and Argentina; Israel invades Lebanon.

1983 : Tamil Tigers ambush Sri Lankan army soldiers, leading to civil war; Malaysia's Mahathir Mohamad unveils New Economic Policy; US invades Grenada

1986 : People Power revolution in the Philippines ousts Ferdinand Marcos; Mikhail Gorbachev introduces perestroika (reforms) and glasnost (openness) in the USSR

1987 : USA, USSR sign Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty to reduce the number of ground-based missiles; martial law ends in Taiwan; Intifada (Palestinian uprising) begins in Gaza and spreads to other Israeli-occupied territories

1988 : Benazir Bhutto becomes the first female leader of a Muslim state; students rise up in Rangoon, military junta tightens control

1989 : Cold war declared over; Soviet troops leave Afghanistan; pro-democracy demonstrations crushed in China, students massacred at Tiananmen Square in Beijing; US invades Panama; military withdrawal of Vietnam from Cambodia complete; Berlin Wall opened; Nikkei stock index hits peak of 38,916 before Japan's economic bubble bursts

1990 : Civil War in Liberia; Iraq invades Kuwait; Germany unified; free elections in Hungary, Chechoslovakia, Romania and Bulgaria; unification North and South Yemen

1991 : Iraqi forces forced to withdraw from Kuwait by US-led UN forces; civil war in Yugoslavia; Warsaw Pact disbanded

1992 : Yugoslavia breaks up amidst civil war; McDonald's opens in Beijing

1993 : PLO recognises Israel's existence; Israel agrees to Palestinian self-rule and demilitarisation of the occupied territories; Czechoslovakia splits into two; USA and Russia sign START II treaty to reduce nuclear arsenals

1994 : PLO chairman Arafat and Israeli PM Rabin sign an accord to implement Palestinian self-rule in Gaza strip and Jericho; first multi-racial elections held in South Africa and Mandela becomes first black president

1995 : Aum Shinrikyo's gas attack in Tokyo subway kills 12

1997 : Hong Kong handover; Thai baht collapses, leading to Asian economic crisis; CHT Peace Accord Signed to end two decades of bloody conflict in the hill tracts of Bangladesh

1998 : Suharto ousted from power; India and Pakistan conduct nuclear tests; US President Bill Clinton impeached on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice on to be acquitted by the Senate

1999 : India and Pakistan engages in armed conflict along the Line of Control in Kargil; Israel and Palestine sign a Peace Accord in Oslo; NATO airstrikes on Belgrade to force the Serbian forces to withdraw from Kosovo; referendum held in East Timor produces overwhelming popular support for independence from Indonesian rule; pro-Jakarta militia kills and mutilates hundreds of East Timorese before UN peace-keeping force takes control