Timeline

• 1492 Columbus reaches the Americas
• 1519 Cortez captures Tenochtitlan
• 1565 Spanish colonize Philippines
• 1648 The Treaty of Westphalia
• 18 th century The Enlightenment
• 1776 American declaration of independence
• 1776 Publication of Adam Smith’s An Inquiry into the Causes and Nature ofThe Wealth of Nations
• 1780-1820 The beginning of the British industrial revolution
• 1789 French revolution
• 1800-1820 Struggles for independence in Latin America
• 1848 Karl Marx and Frederic Engels’ The Communist Manifesto published
• 1866-1869 Meiji Restoration in Japan
• 1878 Congress of Berlin
• 1885 Founding of the Indian National Congress (Congress Party)
• 1898 Spanish-American War
• 1899-1901 Boxer rebellion in China
• 1904-5 Russo-Japanese War
• 1910 Mexican revolution
• 1911 Chinese revolution ends Qing Dynasty
• 1914-1918 First World War
• 1917 Russian February and October revolutions
• 1918-9 Spanish influenza pandemic
• 1919 Treaty of Versailles
• 1918-1921 Russian Civil War
• 1923 Establishment of the Turkish state
• 1929-30 Forced collectivization of agriculture in Russia
• 1929 Beginning of the Great Depression
• 1933 Nazis assume power in Germany
• 1935-1936 Abyssinian crisis and annexation by Italy
• 1936-1939 Spanish Civil War
• 1937 Anastasio Somoza Garcia assumes power in Nicaragua
• 1939-1945 Second World War
• 1941 Japan attacks Pearl Harbour. USA enters war
• 1942 British and Allies defeated by Japanese at Singapore
• 1944 Bretton Woods conference and establishment of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (World Bank) and IMF
• 1944 Arevalo assumes power in Guatemala
• 1944 Publication of Hayek’s Road to Serfdom
• 1945 United Nations established
• 1945-1954 Vietnamese independence war against French colonialism
• 1946 Philippines independence
• 1947 Indian independence and partition into separate countries of India and Pakistan
• 1947 Cominform established
• 1948 Yugoslavia expelled from Cominform
• 1948 UN Declaration of Human Rights proclaimed
• 1949 Indonesian independence
• 1949 NATO established
• 1949 Communist victory in China and establishment of PRC
• 1950-1970 The long boom for the capitalist economies
• 1952 Free Officers coup overthrows king in Egypt
• 1953 Death of Soviet leader Josef Stalin
• 1953 CIA and MI6 help overthrow Iran’s Prime Minister Mossadegh and return the Shah to power
• 1954-1969 54 former colonies gain independence
• 1954-1962 Algerian war of independence
• 1954 Arbenz overthrown in CIA-backed coup in Guatemala
• 1954 Geneva accords split Vietnam into Communist north and western-backed South
• 1955 Bandung (Asian-African) conference
• 1956 Sudan gains independence
• 1956 Khrushchev’s ‘secret speech’ denouncing Stalin
• 1956 Hungarian uprising against Soviet communism
• 1956 Suez Crisis
• 1957 Francois Duvalier (Papa Doc) assumes power in Haiti
• 1957 Ghana becomes independent
• 1958 Beginning of Great Leap Forward in China
• 1959 Cuban revolution
• 1960 The Stages of Economic Growth: A Non-Communist Manifesto by W.W. Rostow published
• 1961 UN declares the 1960s as the ‘decade of development’
• 1961 Erection of the Berlin Wall
• 1962 Cuban missile crisis
• 1962 Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago achieve independent status
• 1962 Uganda becomes independent
• 1963 Kenya becomes independent
• 1964 US President Johnson’s ‘War on Poverty’
• 1964 Beginning of military dictatorship in Brazil, lasting until 1985
• 1964 Gulf of Tonkin incident leading to US troop build up and Vietnam war
• 1964 Malawi becomes independent
• 1965 Mobuto Sese Seko assumes power in Zaire
• 1967 Publication of Andre Gunder Frank’s Development and Underdevelopment in Latin America
• 1966-1969 Chinese Cultural Revolution
• Late 1960s Unraveling of the Bretton Woods system
• 1968 Prague spring crushed by Soviet troops
• 1970 Fiji achieves independence
• 1970 Allende coalition socialist government assumes power in Chile
• 1970 UN General Assembly resolution recommends that wealthy countries contribute 0.7 per cent of GNP to ODA
• 1971 Bangladesh (East Pakistan) independence from Pakistan
• 1973 OPEC raises oil prices
• 1973 Allende overthrown in military coup led by General Pinochet
• 1973 Non-Alignment Movement calls for a New International Economic Order
• 1975 Independence of Portuguese colonies in Africa and Asia
• 1975 Fall of Saigon and Communist victory in Vietnam
• 1975 Independence of Papua New Guinea
• 1975 First World Conference on Women, Mexico City
• 1976 Death of Mao Zedong, followed by economic liberalization in Communist China
• 1979 Second OPEC oil price rise
• 1979 Sandinista revolution in Nicaragua overthrows Anastasio Somoza Debayle
• 1979 Islamic revolution in Iran
• 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan
• 1980 Brandt report released on North-South relations
• 1981 Beginning of global concern over HIV/AIDS
• 1983 US invades Granada
• 1983 Mexico and other indebted countries default on debts
• 1985 Third World Conference on Women, Nairobi, Kenya
• 1986 Jean-Claude Duvalier (Baby Doc) overthrown in Haiti
• 1986 Marcos overthrown in Philippines
• 1986-1994 GATT Uruguay Round
• 1984-1985 Famine in Ethiopia
• 1989 First APEC meeting
• 1989 US invades Panama
• 1989 Fall of the Berlin War
• 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and Beijing massacre
• 1989 Publication of Francis Fukayama’s article ‘The End of History’
• 1989 Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan
• 1990 Sandinistas lose election in Nicaragua to right-wing coalition
• 1990 National League for Democracy wins elections in Burma but denied office by military
• 1990 World Summit for Children
• 1990-1991 Gulf War
• 1991 End of the Soviet Union
• 1992 European Union formed
• 1992 Rio Earth Summit
• 1993 Human Development Index first used by the UNDP
• 1993 Publication of Samuel Huntington’s article ‘The Clash of Civilizations’
• 1995 World Trade Organization founded
• 1995 Oxfam International founded
• 1995 Fifth World Conference of Women, Beijing
• 1995 Publication of Arturo Escobar’s Encountering Development
• 1996 HIPC initiative begins
• 1997 Mobuto overthrown in Zaire
• 1997-9 Asian financial crisis
• 1999 Demonstrations against a WTO meeting lead to the ‘Battle of Seattle’
• 2000 Millennium Development Goals agreed to by world leaders
• 2001 Terrorist attacks on US soil
• 2001 US coalition invades Afghanistan
• 2001 WTO Doha Development round begins
• 2002 World Social Forum meets at Porte Allegre, Brazil
• 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development held in Johannesburg, South Africa
• 2003 US-led coalition invades Iraq
• 2003 Darfur conflict reaches international attention
• 2005 Make Poverty History campaign launched