500,000 years ago Use found for fire
Fire is used in China by Peking man, and may have been in use much earlier in Africa

500,000 years ago Man in Beijing cave
Peking man shelters in caves south of modern Beijing, leaving many scraps of evidence of his way of life

2850 BC Worms in Chinese textile industry
The Chinese discover that the cocoon of a certain worm can be unwound, spun as thread and then woven - thus creating silk

2000 BC
Rice is by now grown in the Indus Valley civilization, in the region of Lothal in modern Pakistan, and in parts of China and Korea

1600 BC Characters for Chinese script
The characters written in Chinese documents of the Shang dynasty are directly related to those still in use today

1500 BC Bamboo books
The Chinese develop a form of scroll, made of strips of bamboo threaded together and rolled up like a wooden blind

1400 BC Shang dynasty
The Great City Shang, on a site later known as An-yang, develops as the capital of China's first dynasty

1400 BC Chopsticks in use in China
Chopsticks are in use in China, with bronze versions featuring in Shang tombs

1400 BC Chinese worship ancestors
Ancestor worship, a central theme of Chinese history, is practised by the royal family and high nobility in Shang times

1400 BC Chinese excel in bronze
China produces superb bronzes, in the ritual vessels for sacrifices to the ancestors

1300 BC Records kept on oracle bones
Chinese priests record on oracle bones the result of their divination, thus providing the earliest examples of Chinese characters

1050 BC Zhou dynasty
The Zhou defeat the Shang, and establish a new dynasty with a capital at Ch'ang-an (now Xi'an)

771 BC Eastern Zhou
The Zhou rulers, driven east from Xi'an, create a new capital at Loyang and establish the Eastern Zhou dynasty

600 BC China's earliest poems
The poems of the Shi Jing, China's earliest work of literature, are gathered together

550 BC Confucius teaches practical philosophy
K'ung-fu-tzu, or Confucius, teaches a practical philosophy which will profoundly influence Chinese history

513 BC Chinese cast iron
The Chinese become the first people to cast iron, after developing a furnace which can reach a very high temperature

500 BC Tree yields secret of lacquer
The secret of lacquer, the sap of a tree which can be hardened by moisture, is discovered in China

500 BC I Jing reveals all
The Chinese I Jing, or 'Classic of Changes', is compiled as a book of divination

500 BC Chinese compare yin with yang
The Chinese philosophy of alternating opposites is expressed as yin and yang

400 BC Daodejing shows the way
Daodejing ('The Way and the Power') is the book of Daoism

350 BC Daoism appeals in China
Daoism, attributed to the mythical sage Lao Tzu, becomes a popular alternative to the solemnity of Confucianism

350 BC Tea in China
Tea, now well established as a drink, features in a Chinese dictionary

350 BC Legalism promotes punishment
The brutal philosophy of Legalism contributes to the decline of the Zhou dynasty

350 BC
The earliest surviving decimal multiplication table is written in China on twenty-seven bamboo strips, known now as the Tsinghua Bamboo Slips

250 BC Chinese invent crossbow
The Chinese develop the crossbow, many centuries before its use in Europe

221 BC Zhou dynasty ends
After 800 years the Zhou dynasty is brought to an end by the ruler of the Qin kingdom

221 BC Short-lived Qin dynasty
The ruthless Qin dynasty establishes control over the whole of central China

215 BC Great Wall joined up
The Qin emperor joins up earlier fortifications to create the Great Wall of China

213 BC Books burnt in China
In the Qin dictatorship, all Confucian books are burnt (except those of any practical use) and 460 Confucian scholars are executed

207 BC Nam-Viet gets Chinese king
A delegate from imperial China establishes the kingdom of Nam-Viet with himself as king

206 BC Emperor buried with terracotta army
The Qin emperor, Shi Huangdi, is buried at Xi'an with a vast army of terracotta soldiers

206 BC Han dynasty
The Han, the first of the great Chinese dynasties, is established

138 BC Zhang Qian among the nomads
Zhang Qian, a Chinese diplomat, begins a spell of twelve years as a captive of the nomadic horde, the Xiongnu

126 BC Zhang Qian reaches Bactria
Zhang Qian reaches Bactria and is the first to bring news of western Asia back to China

125 BC Exams for mandarins
Under the Han dynasty the Confucians become the official civil servants in China, with entry to the service regulated by examination

120 BC Sima Qian and Chinese history
Sima Qian undertakes (and carries through against unusual odds) a major survey of Chinese history

106 BC Silk Road open to Persia
A caravan leaves China with goods destined for Persia - proof that the eastern half of the Silk Road is now open

100 BC Acupuncture in China
The practice of acupuncture is described in Nei Qing, a Chinese medical text

51 BC Xiongnu move west
The Xiongnu split into two hordes, one of them submitting to China and the other moving west

23 Eastern Han
The Han dynasty recovers control, after a 15-year interlude, and moves the capital to Loyang - starting the Eastern Han period

100 Buddhism established in China
Buddhism, arriving with trade along the Silk Road from India, puts down firm roots in China

105 Eunuch invents paper
The eunuch Ts'ai Lun either invents paper or presents a report on the new substance to the Chinese emperor

175 Confucians take rubbings
The Han emperor in China has the six main Confucian classics engraved in stone, so that scholars may take rubbings - a first step towards printing

221 Han dynasty ends
The Han dynasty is brought to an end, after more than four centuries, by decades of peasant unrest

300 Chinese invent stirrups
The Chinese transform the toe loop of nomadic horsemen into the metal stirrup

300 Period of Disunion in China
Ten dynasties and nineteen kingdoms jockey for power in the three centuries after the fall of the Han dynasty

400 How to harness a horse
The Chinese solve the difficult problem of harnessing a horse without strangling it

589 Sui dynasty established
After three centuries of chaos and disunion in China, a stable dynasty - the Sui - is established by Wen Ti (the Cultured Emperor)

600
Chan (later known as Zen) Buddhism, emphasizing personal enlightenment, is developed in China and soon spreads widely through the far East

610 Grand Canal joined up
The Grand Canal is constructed in China, joining a network of existing waterways to link the Yangtze and Yellow rivers

618 T'ang dynasty
A high official of the Sui empire seizes power and establishes one of China's greatest dynasties, the T'ang

650 Buddhist murals at Dunhuang
At Dunhuang, an oasis on the Silk Road, as many as 500 caves are decorated with Buddhist murals

700 Secret of porcelain
The discovery of the technique of porcelain, the most delicate of all forms of pottery, is made in China

730 T'ang trio of poets
Three of China's most famous poets - Wang Wei, Li Po and Tu Fu - are contemporaries during the T'ang dynasty

735 Go reaches Japan
Japanese tradition gives this as the year in which the game of I-go, known in the west as go, is introduced from China

750 T'ang pottery figures
T'ang potters make vigorous and brightly coloured figures, of horses, camels or human attendants, to accompany the dead in the grave

800 Nestorians in Persia
Nestorian beliefs become the orthodoxy of the Christian community in Persia, spreading from there to India and China

801 Chia Tan makes map for emperor
Chia Tan produces an ambitious map for the emperor, some 30 by 33 feet in size, showing the entire T'ang empire

845 T'ang emperor persecutes Buddhists
On the orders of the T'ang emperor, 4000 Buddhist monasteries are destroyed in China and 250,000 monks and nuns are forced into secular life

868 Earliest surviving printed book
The world's first known printed book, a Diamond Sutra, is commissioned by a Buddhist monk in honour of his parents

868 Earliest surviving pictorial woodcut
The Diamand Sutra has as a frontispiece a printed woodcut depicting an enthroned Buddha

900 Card games in China
Playing cards are in use in T'ang dynasty China.

903 T'ang dynasty ends
The leader of a peasant uprising captures and kills the Chinese emperor, bringing to an end the T'ang dynasty

910 Paper money in China
Paper money is developed in China, becoming later one of the aspects of Chinese life which most impresses Marco Polo

950 Canal lock in China
A Chinese engineer, Chiao Wei-yo, is credited with devising the principle of the two-level pound lock for canals

960 Song dynasty
A warlord, Zhao Kuangyin, establishes a new Chinese dynasty - the Song

986 Beijing a capital city
The Khitan, a tribe from eastern Mongolia, fortify Beijing and make it their capital city

1040 Gunpowder described
A Chinese manual on warfare includes the earliest known description of gunpowder

1050 Movable type in China
The concept of movable type for printing is pioneered in China, using fired clay, but it proves impractical

1050 Principle of compass discovered
The earliest surviving reference to the principle of the compass occurs in a Chinese manuscript

1054 Eastern astronomers spot supernova
Astronomers in China and Japan observe the explosion of the supernova which is still visible as the Crab Nebula

1064 Clock powered by water wheel
Su Sung, a Buddhist monk, develops in China the principle of the escapement in his tower clock worked by a water wheel

1100 Celadons in China
Chinese potters in the Song dynasty develop the wares known as celadons, with thick transparent green glazes

1150 Zen Buddhism and the samurai
Zen Buddhism reaches Japan from China and appeals greatly to the new samurai class

1200 Sternpost rudder
The Chinese develop a feature of great significance in the history of seafaring - a sternpost rudder which is an integral part of the ship

1220 Mongols cut a swathe through Asia
Within a span of less than ten years, from 1215, Genghis Khan and the Mongols plunder from China to eastern Europe

1250 Seto the centre of Japanese ceramics
A Japanese potter, returning from China, makes Seto the centre of ceramic production in Japan

1260 Kublai Khan elected Great Khan
Kublai Khan, a grandson of Genghis Khan, is elected Great Khan of the Mongols

1264 Kublai becomes great khan
Kublai defeats his brother Ariq Böge and thus establishes his position as Great Khan of the Mongols

1271 Yuan dynasty
The Mongol leader Kublai Khan chooses a name for his new dynasty in China, calling it Ta Yuan ('Great Origin')

1274 Mongols invade Japan
The Mongol invasion of Japan in 1274 seems to confirm the doom and disaster foretold by the Buddhist prophet Nichiren

1274 Kublai moves to Beijing
Kublai Khan moves his administrative capital from Karakorum to what is now Beijing

1275 Marco Polo in Xanadu
Marco Polo is presented to Kublai Khan in Xanadu, and according to his own account makes a very good impression

1279 Hangzhou falls to Kublai Khan
With the fall of Hangzhou, the Song imperial capital, Kublai Khan's new Yüan dynasty is secure

1279 Kublia Khan rules all China
Resistance from the last adherents of the Song dynasty is finally brought to an end, giving Kublai Khan control of a united China

11279 Beijing now capital of China
Beijing (known to the Mongols as Khanbaliq, 'city of the khan', and to the Chinese as Dadu, 'great capital') becomes for the first time the capital of China

1279 Tibet within Chinese empire
The Tibetan link with the Mongols brings Tibet within the Chinese empire of Kublai Khan

1281 Kamikaze saves Japan from Mongols
For the second time Japan is saved from Mongol invasion by powerful storms - which are given the name kamikaze, or 'divine wind'

1294 Kublai Khan dies
Kublai Khan dies and is succeeded, as second emperor of the Yuan dynasty, by his grandson Temür

1346 Black Death appears in China
The plague which later becomes known as the Black Death makes its first appearance in China

1350 Underglaze blue perfected at Jingdezhen
The classic Chinese underglaze blue is perfected in the imperial ceramic factory at Jingdezhen

1356 New southern capital at Nanking
Chu Yüan-chang, leader of a peasant band, makes his headquarters in a town which he renames Nanking - 'southern capital'

1356 Nanjing captured from Mongol rulers
Zhu Yuanzhang, a one-time Buddhist novice now leading a major rebellion against the Yuan dynasty, captures Nanjing and makes it his capital

1368 Ming dynasty replaces Yüan
Chu Yüan-chang drives the Mongols out of Beijing and declares a new dynasty - the Ming (meaning 'brilliant')

1368 Tibet secedes from Chinese empire
On the fall of the Yuan dynasty, replaced by the Ming, Tibet declares its independence from China

1421 Ming emperor moves capital
The third Ming emperor moves the capital from Nanjing to Beijing and begins laying out the Forbidden City

1425 Temple of Heaven in Beijing
The Temple of Heaven in Beijing is built for the third emperor of the Ming dynasty

1425 Zheng He sails far afield
Zheng He, a Muslim eunuch, makes voyages of trade and exploration with a fleet of Chinese junks

1477 Ptolemy's world map is printed
Ptolemy's concept of the world, with the Atlantic stretching to China and India, is printed in Bologna – fifteen years before Columbus sails west

1497 Cabot probably reaches Newfoundland
John Cabot, searching for a trade route to China, probably reaches Newfoundland

1557 Portuguese trade from Macao
The Portuguese establish a trading post on Macao, a small peninsula off the south coast of China

1575 Porcelain of a kind in Florence
Soft-paste porcelain, in imitation of true porcelain from China, is successfully created for the Medici in Florence

1583 Ricci arrives in China
The Jesuit Matteo Ricci arrives in China, and becomes the first western student of Chinese civilization

1595 Europe hears news of Confucius
The writings of Matteo Ricci introduce Kung Fu Tzu to Europe under a Latin version of his name - Confucius

1614 Christianity banned in Japan
An edict is passed expelling Jesuit missionaries from Japan, and ordering their converts to revert to Buddhism

1644 Ming becomes Qing
The last Ming emperor hangs himself, and China acquires a new and final dynasty - the Qing

1683 Compulsory pigtails
The Qing emperor orders all Chinese men to shave their heads, leaving only a long pigtail

1690 Chinoiserie in fashion
Chinoiserie becomes the new craze in Europe, after Jesuit reports of the Chinese civilization

1720 Dalai Lama welcomes Chinese protection
The Dalai Lama in Lhasa accepts Chinese imperial protection, which lasts until 1911

1792 Macartney's embassy to China
George III sends Lord Macartney on an embassy to the Chinese emperor Qianlong

1810 Liberal junta in Chile
Chile begins four years of untroubled independence, ruled by a junta introducing liberal reforms

1811 Astor's Astoria
John Jacob Astor establishes Astoria, a settlement on the Pacific coast to develop his fur trade with China

1814 Chile recovered by Spanish
Spanish forces at Rancagua defeat a Chilean army commanded by Bernardo O'Higgins, who escapes across the Andes into Argentina

1817 San Martin and O'Higgins liberate Chile
San Martín and O'Higgins lead an army through the Andes into Chile and capture Santiago

1817 O'Higgins elected to rule in Chile
O'Higgins is elected the 'supreme director' of independent Chile after San Martín declines the post

1817 O'Higgins targets conservatives in Chile
Bernardo O'Higgins introduces liberal reforms in Chile, reducing the privileges of aristocracy and church

1818 Cochrane commands Chilean navy
Thomas Cochrane arrives in Valparaiso to take command of the Chilean navy

1823 O'Higgins resigns in Chile
Bernardo O'Higgins, Chile's first liberal reformer, is so unpopular that he has to resign

1828 Bigwigs and novices in Chile
Conservative 'bigwigs' and liberal 'novices' emerge as Chile's two main political parties

1830 Portales becomes strong man of Chile
Diego Portales begins a 30-year spell as Chile's conservative dictator

1839 First Opium War
British troops invade China after the Chinese authorities seize and destroy the opium stocks of British merchants in Canton

1839 British forces seize Hong Kong
British forces capture Hong Kong, which is subsequently ceded to Britain by China at the end of the first Opium War in 1842

1842 Treaty of Nanking
The First Opium War ends with the island of Hong Kong, and extensive new trading rights, ceded to Britain in the Treaty of Nanking

1850 Taiping Rebellion
A rebellion against the Qing dynasty, led by Christian convert Hong Xiuquan, breaks out in southern China

1853 Taiping rebels capture Nanjing
The Taiping rebels capture the Chinese city of Nanjing and make it their capital

1856 Second Opium War
An incident aboard the Arrow, flying a British flag, gives the British the pretext to launch the Second Opium War

1858 Treaty of Tientsin
The Treaty of Tientsin, ending the Second Opium War, gives European powers new rights to intervene in Chinese affairs

1858 Russia gains naval base in Pacific
Under the Treaty of Aigun, Russia wins from China the valuable Pacific coastline down to Vladivostok

1860 British and French burn Chinese imperial palace
British and French forces occupy Beijing and burn the imperial summer palace, at the end of the Second Opium War

1863 Chinese Gordon
British officer Charles Gordon leads untrained auxiliaries against the Taiping rebels in China, becoming known as Chinese Gordon

1864 Taiping rebellion finally suppressed
Imperial Chinese troops and Gordon's auxiliaries take Nanjing, the rebel capital, finally bringing to an end the Taiping rebellion

1869 Cutty Sark is launched
The most famous of the three-masted tea-clippers, the Cutty Sark is launched at Dumbarton for service to and from China

1884 Chile wins War of Pacific
The War of the Pacific brings Chile new mineral wealth at the expense of Bolivia and Peru

1887 China acknowledges Portuguese Macao
The imperial government in China formally acknowledges Portuguese territorial rights in Macao

1887 French Indochina
France brings Cambodia and Vietnam into a federation of protectorates under the title French Indochina

1891 Civil war in Chile
Civil war breaks out in Chile between supporters of a liberal president and a hostile congress

1893 Laos brought within French Indochina
France incorporates Laos within French Indochina

1894 Neighbours fight over Korea
Japan and China go to war over Korea, with disastrous results for China

1895 Japanese victory at Weihaiwei
Japan's navy destroys the remains of China's fleet at Weihaiwei

1895 China cedes Taiwan to Japan
At the end of the Sino-Japanese war China cedes to Japan the island of Taiwan, together with Port Arthur and the Liadong peninsula

1898 Russia grabs Port Arthur
Russian forces seize the strategically important Chinese harbour known in the west as Port Arthur

1899 US 'Open Door' policy
US Secretary of State John Hay circulates a proposal that western powers should adopt an open-to-all trading policy in China

1900 Boxer Rebellion
Hostility to foreign intrusion erupts in China with the Boxer Rising

1905 Japanese victory at Mukden
The Japanese defeat a larger force of Russians at Mukden in the final land battle of the Russo-Japanese War

1905 Japan wins Port Arthur
The Treaty of Portsmouth gives Japan control of Port Arthur and much of the Liaotung Peninsula

1906 Thousands die in Chile earthquake
The Great Valparaiso Earthquake damages much of central Chile and is felt from Peru to Buenos Aires

1908 Two-year-old emperor in China
The last Manchu emperor, Puyi, is placed on the throne at the age of two on the death of his uncle, the Guanxu emperor

1908 China's dowager empress dies
The Empress Dowager Cixi dies the day after selecting the infant Puyi for the Chinese throne

1910 Guomindang formed in China
Sun Yatsen and others merge several smaller Chinese political groups into the Guomindang, or Nationalist Party

1911 Revolutionaries capture Wuchang
An uprising in the city of Wuchang is the first major event in the rapidly developing Chinese revolution

1912 Republic of China
A republic of China is proclaimed, with Sun Yatsen as its provisional president

1912 Qing dynasty ends
The abdication of the child emperor Puyi brings to an end the Qing dynasty

1912 Tibet achieves independence
Tibet declares its independence after the fall of the Qing dynasty and the end of imperial China

1913 Guomindang outlawed in China
Yuan Shikai outlaws the Guomindang party in the republic of China, to give himself unchallenged power as president

1914 Mistral's Sonetos de la muerte
The Chilean poet Gabriela Mistral makes her name with her first collection, Sonetos de la muerte

1914 November 16 Japan takes Qingdao from Germany
The German enclave of Qingdao, in China, falls to the Japanese after a two-month siege

1920 Neruda acquires his name
A Chilean poet, Ricardo Reyes, adopts the pen name Pablo Neruda

1921 Mao Zedong begins political career
Mao Zedong leads a delegation to the First Congress of the Chinese Communist Party in Shanghai

1924 Neruda's Twenty Love Poems
20-year-old Chilean poet Pablo Neruda publishes one of his best-known collections, Twenty Love Poems

1927 Communists established in Jiangxi
Communists seize power in Jiangxi province and establish the first soviet republic in China

1927 Jiang Jieshi launches coup
Right-wing Chinese army officer Jiang Jieshi (Chiang Kai-shek) launches an anti-Communist coup in the Canton region

1927 Very old Peking man discovered
The fossilized tooth of a human, half a million years old and known now as Peking Man, is discovered at a site near Beijing

1928 Kuomintang forces capture Beijing
Beijing falls to Kuomintang forces, extending the rule of Jiang Jieshi's National Government into the north of China

1928 Jiang Jieshi establishes Guomindang regime
A second anti-Communist coup enables Jiang Jieshi (Chiang Kai-shek) to set up a National Government in Nanjing

1931 Japan occupies Manchuria
The Japanese occupy the Chinese state of Manchuria

1932 Manchuria becomes Manchukuo
Japan renames the Chinese province of Manchuria, calling it Manchukuo – supposedly independent but in fact a puppet state

1933 Neruda's Residencia en la tierra
Pablo Neruda increases his international reputation with a collection of surrealist poems, Residencia en la tierra ('Residence on earth')

1934 Long March begins in Jiangxi
To escape the Kuomintang forces, the Chinese Communist army begins the Long March from Jiangxi province to Shaanxi

1935 Mao builds power base
Mao Zedong wins control over the Chinese Communists during the Long March

1935 Long March ends in Shaanxi
The survivors of the Long March reach safety in Shaanxi province in northwest China

1937 Japan attacks China
The Japanese use an incident at the Marco Polo Bridge, near Beijing, as the pretext for an attack on China

1937 Japanese occupy Beijing
Japanese troops occupy Beijing – at the start of eight years of continuous war between China and Japan

1937 Japanese atrocities in Nanjing
The Japanese capture the Chinese capital, Nanjing, and massacre at least 300,000 inhabitants within a few weeks

1941 December 25 Japanese take Hong Kong
Hong Kong surrenders to an invading Japanese force

1942  February Stilwell heads mission to China
Joseph Stilwell is appointed to head the US military mission to Jiang Jieshi (Chiang Kai-shek)

1943  March 20 Mao leads Chinese Communist Party
Mao Zedong becomes official leader of the Chinese Communist Party, as the elected Chairman of the Central Committee and the Politburo

1946 Colonial war in Vietnam
The Indochina War breaks out in Vietnam between the French colonial forces and the Vietminh

1949 Jiang Jieshi resigns in China
Defeated by the Communists, Jiang Jieshi (Chiang Kai-shek) resigns before the final collapse of his regime

1949 People's Republic of China
Mao Zedong, standing on the Gate of Heavenly Peace in Beijing, proclaims the new People's Republic of China

1949 Zhou Enlai is second to Mao
Mao Zedong's long-standing ally Zhou Enlai heads both the home and foreign departments of the new republic

1949 Jiang Jieshi in Taiwan
Jiang Jieshi (Chiang Kai-shek) sets up a new Republic of China in Taiwan, vowing to recapture the rest of the nation in due course

1950 China occupies Tibet
Chinese troops move into Tibet, meeting little resistance

1950 Neruda's Canto general
The Chilean poet Pablo Neruda publishes his epic account of South America and its people, Canto general

1950 China enters Korean conflict
Incursions by UN troops far into North Korea give China the pretext to enter the war

1951 Nominal joint rule in Tibet
An agreement is signed by which a joint Tibetan-Chinese authority will nominally govern Tibet

1951 Mao Zedong in self-promotion campaign
The cult of Chairman Mao is officially encouraged in China, partly through steady publication of his works

1954 Independence for Indochina
In an armistice ending the Indochina War, France acknowledges the independence of Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam

1957 Let a hundred flowers bloom
With his Hundred Flowers Campaign ('Let a hundred flowers bloom'), Mao Zedong invites criticism and then locks up the critics

1958 Mao's Great Leap Forward
Mao Zedong imposes on China a Great Leap Forward, an attempt at industrialization that results in economic chaos and widespread famine

1959 Liu Shaoqi is China's president
Liu Shaoqi replaces Mao Zedong as China's president after the Great Leap Forward fiasco, but Mao remains Chairman

1959 Dalai Lama flees to India
The Dalai Lama escapes from Tibet to India after the Chinese suppression of an armed uprising costing thousands of Buddhist lives

1962 China and India at war
China prevails in a five-week war with India over disputed boundaries

1964 Red Detachment of Women
The Beijing ballet company goes political with The Red Detachment of Women, supervised by Mao Zedong's wife, Jiang Qing

1966 Nkrumah ousted in Ghana
Kwame Nkrumah, the founding father of Ghana, is toppled in a coup while away on a state visit to China

1966 Liu and Deng denounced
Communist leaders Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping are attacked in China's Cultural Revolution as the biggest and worst 'capitalist roaders'

1966 Cultural Revolution in China
Mao Zedong unleashes China's teenagers as violent Red Guards to spearhead his Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution

1966 'Little Red Book'
Quotations from Chairman Mao Zedong, better known as the 'Little Red Book', is the constant companion of every Red Guard

1969 Gang of Four
The Gang of Four achieve malign power during China's Cultural Revolution

1970 Allende is president
Salvador Allende, heading a Socialist and Marxist coalition, is elected president in Chile

1971 Neruda wins Nobel Prize
The Chilean poet Pablo Neruda wins the Nobel Prize for Literature

1973 Allende promotes Pinochet
President Salvador Allende appoints Augusto Pinochet commander-in-chief of the Chilean army and brings him into the cabinet

1973 Allende killed in coup
Chilean president Salvador Allende dies in the Chilean capital, Santiago, in a military coup led by Augusto Pinochet

1974 Terracotta army at Xi'an
More than 7000 life-size terracotta solders are unearthed at Xi'an, placed to guard the tomb of the third century BC Chinese emperor Shi Huangdi

1974 Pinochet takes sole power in Chile
Augusto Pinochet takes sole power in Chile, at the head of a junta which governs with extreme brutality

1975 Jiang Jieshi dies
Chiang Kai-shek dies and is succeeded by his son, Chiang Ching-Kuo, as leader of the republic of China in Taiwan

1976 Mao Zedong dies
Mao Zedong dies in Beijing, at the age of 82, and lies in state in the Great Hall of the People

1976 Gang of Four arrested in China
The much-hated Gang of Four are arrested in China within weeks of Mao Zedong's death

1981 Deng in control in China
Veteran Communist leader Deng Xiaoping secures his position as the real power in China's government

1982 The House of the Spirits
Chilean author Isabel Allende publishes her first novel, The House of the Spirits

1987 Nixon in China
John Adams' opera Nixon in China is performed in Houston

1988 The Last Emperor
Bernardo Bertolucci directs The Last Emperor, a film based on the life of Puyi, the last in China's imperial line

1988 Pinochet resigns in Chile
Augusto Pinochet, the only candidate in Chile's presidential election, resigns when he wins less than half the votes cast

1989 Students occupy Tiananmen Square
Students, teachers and workers gather in large numbers in Beijing's Tiananmen Square to demand democratic reform

1989 Vast demonstration on Tiananmen Square
The crowd demonstrating on Beijing's Tiananmen Square swells to more than a million

1989 Martial law in China
Confronted with mass popular protest, Deng Xiaoping imposes martial law in China

1989 Carnage in Tiananmen Square
More than 2000 peaceful demonstrators die after troops open fire in Beijing's Tiananmen Square

1989 Chile returns to democracy
With the fall of Pinochet, Chile returns eagerly to democracy - electing a Christian Democrat, Patricio Aylwin, as president

1991 Raise the Red Lantern
Gong Li plays a concubine of a Chinese warlord in Raise the Red Lantern, directed by Zhang Yimou

1993 Three Gorges Dam project
Work begins on China's ambitiious and controversial Three Gorges Dam project

1993 Farewell My Concubine
Chen Kaige directs Farewell My Concubine, depicting the devastating effect of the Cultural Revolution on some performers of Peking opera

1997 Jiang succeeds Deng in China
Deng Xiaoping dies and is succeeded by Jiang Zemin as China's leader

1997 Hong Kong reverts to China
Hong Kong reverts to China with the end of Britain's 99-year lease of the New Territories

1998 Hong Kong International Airport
The British architectural firm of Foster & Partners completes the Hong Kong International Airport

1998 Pinochet arrested in Britain
Augusto Pinochet, visiting Britain from Chile for medical treatment, is arrested on an extradition request from a Spanish judge

1999 Macau reverts to China
The island of Macau reverts from Portuguese ownership to the People's Republic of China

2000 Britain returns Pinochet to Chile
The British Home Secretary, Jack Straw, judges Augusto Pinochet mentally incapable to stand trial and returns him to Chile

2000 Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
Ang Lee directs Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, a martial arts film notable for its magical special effects

2003 Hu is president of China
Hu Jintao succeeds Jiang Zemin as president of the People's Republic of China

2005 Fujimori seeks refuge in China
Former Peruvian president Alberto Fujimori, after sheltering since 2000 in Japan, arrives unexpectedly in Chile

2006 Three Gorges Dam completed
Structural work is completed on China's Three Gorges Dam, by far the largest hydroelectric dam in the world

2007 Chinese missile can destroy satellites
China carries out a successful test of a ground-based missile that can destroy satellites in orbit

2007 Civil rights abuses linked to Olympics
The civil rights group Reporters Without Borders demands improvement in civil rights abuses and censorship in China before the Beijing Olympics

2008 Violent protests by nationalists in Tibet
Demonstrations in Tibet turn violent as protesters target Chinese buildings and individuals

2008 Michael Phelps wins 8 Olympic golds
In the Beijing Olympics swimmer Michael Phelps wins 8 gold medals, beating Mark Spitz's record of 7 in the 1972 games

2009  July 5
Riots break out in Urumchi, in northwest China, in hostilities between ethnic Uighurs and Han Chinese

2012 February 4
Russia and China use their Security Council veto to block a UN resolution to end the violence in Syria

2012  July 10
Russia and China again veto a UN Security Council attempt to apply economic sanctions on Syria

2013  March 14
Xi Jinping is elected the President of the People's Republic of China

2013 November
State media in China announce a new plan to modify the country's rigid one-child policy dating from the late 1970s

2013
China announces a new air defense zone over disputed islands in the East China sea, a measure immmediately challenged by Japan and the USA

2014 February 11
China and Taiwan hold high-level talks, the first between the two countries since the defeated Chiang Kai-shek set up a government in exile in 1949

2014 March 26
North Korea test-fires into the sea two medium-range ballistic missiles, capable of reaching Japan or China

2014 May 18
A sudden violent outbreak of Vietnamese resentment of China, over a territorial dispute, causes China to evacuate thousands of its citizens

June 2016 Obama meets Dalai Lama
Barack Obama meets the Dalai Lama after China warns that his doing so will greatly damage US-Chinese relations

2019 December 1 Coronavirus in Wuhan triggers pandemic
COVID-19 pandemic: First known human case of Coronavirus disease 2019 is in Wuhan, Hubei, China