5000 BC Squash and chili
Squash and chili are the first plants to be cultivated in America, in the Tehuácan valley in modern Mexico

1500 BC Maya settle in Mexico
The Maya are believed to have lived in the same region from about 1500 BC to the present day - America's longest example of continuity

1200 BC San Lorenzo and the Olmecs
San Lorenzo develops as the first centre of America's earliest civilization, that of the Olmecs

1000 BC American sculpture and big-headed Olmecs
Massive stone heads carved by the Olmecs provide a dramatic beginning to the story of American sculpture

1000 BC First American pyramids
The Olmecs raise large clay platforms, probably with temples at the top, beginning the long American tradition of sacred pyramids

900 BC La Venta becomes Olmec centre
La Venta replaces San Lorenzo as the capital city and cultural centre of the Olmecs

600 BC Olmec Wrestler
An Olmec sculptor creates the piece known today as the Wrestler

400 BC Zapotecs at Monte Alban
The Zapotecs create a great city at Monte Alban, continuing the Olmec culture

150 BC Zapotecs first to write in America
The earliest inscriptions in an American script are those of the Zapotecs, from about this period

50 BC Mayan numbers
The Maya independently develop the concept of place value in numbers, previously pioneered in Babylon

50 BC Maya have 52-year calendar
The Maya introduce a calendar which has a cycle of fifty-two years, known as the Calendar Round

100 Quetzalcoatl in Teotihuacan
Teotihuacan, the dominant city in the northern highlands of central America, introduces the god Quetzalcoatl

500 Tikal a leading Mayan state
The temple city of Tikal is one of many Mayan city states of the Classic period

500 Maya and hot chocolate
Beans are gathered by the Maya from wild cocoa trees and are probably used in a chocolate drink

500 Mayan priests are ritual smokers
Mayan priests feature in stone carvings smoking pipes and puffing the smoke towards the sacred sun

950 Toltecs at Tula
Toltecs move into the valley of Mexico from the north and establish a capital city at Tula

960 Quetzalcoatl will be back
A fair-skinned and bearded king, by the name of Quetzalcoatl, is exiled from Tula but says that he will be back in a 'One Reed' year.

987 Chichén Itzá taken by Toltecs
The Mayan city of Chichén Itzá is captured by the Toltecs

1150 Aztecs move south
The Aztecs begin to move south from their original home, which they call Aztlan, somewhere in northern Mexico

1345 Aztecs settle in Tenochtitlan
The Aztecs settle on an uninhabited island in a lake, which they name Tenochtitlan — the site of the modern Mexico City

1434 Aztec Triple Alliance
The rulers of Tenochtitlan join with two other neighbouring kingdoms to form the Aztec Triple Alliance

1487 Four days of victims for Aztec god
When the enlarged pyramid at Tenochtitlan is dedicated to Huitzilopochtli, the Aztec sacrifice of human victims lasts for four days

1513 Balboa sees Pacific
Vasco Núñez de Balboa reaches the Pacific coast and claims the ocean for the king of Spain

1519 Cortes seeks fortune in Mexico
The Spanish conquistador Hernando Cortes lands on the coast of Mexico with 600 men, 16 horses and about 20 guns

1519 Cortes captures Aztec emperor
Cortes and his tiny force capture Montezuma, ruler of the mighty Aztec empire, in his palace at Tenochtitlan

1520 Cortes loses Tenochtitlan
Cortes loses control of Tenochtitlan and has to escape in haste with his men during 'the Sorrowful Night'

1521 Cortes recaptures Tenochtitlan
After a little more than a year Cortes recaptures Tenochtitlan and finally establishes Spanish control over Mexico

1525 Conquistadors first European Americans
The conquistadors, settling on land granted to them after the conquest, begin the long process of European emigration to America

1531 Aztec Virgin seen at Guadalupe
The Aztec Virgin of Guadalupe appears to an Indian near Mexico City and tells him she is 'one of his kind'

1550 Portobelo is the harbour for New World trade
Spanish galleons assemble each year at Portobelo to deliver European goods and to ship home the metals of Latin America

1810 Cry of Dolores
The parish priest of Dolores sparks a rebellion against the Spanish authorities in Mexico with his Grito de Dolores

1813 Indepedence claimed for Mexico
Rebels meeting for a conference in Chilpancingo proclaim a short-lived Mexican independence

1815 Mexican independence squashed
The Spanish suppress the independence movement in Mexico with the capture and execution of its leader, Jose Maria Morelos

1821 Mexico now independent for real
A reactionary movement led by Agustín de Iturbide wins new and lasting independence for Mexico

1822 Self-proclaimed emperor in Mexico
Agustin de Iturbide declares himself emperor of the new nation of Mexico, as Agustin I

1833 Santa Anna is president
Antonio López de Santa Anna begins the first of five spells as president of Mexico

1846 War between USA and Mexico
President Polk sends a US army into Texas, provoking the Mexican-American War

1848 Mexican defeat brings vast gain to US
A treaty signed in Guadalupe-Hidalgo, ending the Mexican-American War, gives the US six new states

1855 Reform hits Mexico
Liberal leaders Juan Alvarez and Ignacio Comonfort launch a political programme in Mexico that becomes know simply as 'the Reform'

1858 Civil war in Mexico
Conservatives seize Mexico City at the start of a civil war against the Liberal government

1861 Liberals win back Mexico City
The Liberals recover Mexico City and elect Benito Juarez as president

1861 Mexico defaults on debts
Benito Juarez, president of a bankrupt Mexico, suspends interest payment on the nation's foreign debt

1862 European army comes debt-collecting in Mexico
A joint French, Spanish and British force lands in Mexico and captures Veracruz, ostensibly to collect the interest on European debts

1863 French capture Mexico City
The French capture Mexico City and President Juarez flees to the north

1864 Archduke is emperor of Mexico
The French arrange for the coronation of the Austrian archduke Maximilian as emperor of Mexico

1866 French abandon emperor Maximilian
Napoleon III withdraws French troops from Mexico, leaving the emperor Maximilian in a dangerous situation

1867 Emperor Maximilian shot
Maximilian, the emperor of Mexico, and two of his generals are shot after being surrounded and captured at Querétaro

1904 Treasures of Chichén Itzá
The US consul in Mexico, Edward Herbert Thompson, begins a very profitable excavation at the Mayan site of Chichén Itzá

1910 Revolution in Mexico
A revolution begins in Mexico that will last ten years before being resolved

1911 Zapata in Mexican revolution
Emiliano Zapata leads peasant groups in the Mexican revolution, under the slogan 'Land and Liberty'

1920 Obregón ends Mexican revolution
Ten years of violent revolution in Mexico are brought to and end in a successful coup by Alvaro Obregón

1922 Rivera launches Mexican mural tradition
Diego Rivera, returning from his study of Italian frescoes, begins the first of his influential murals depicting Mexican history

1927 Treasure of the Sierra Madre
Mysterious German author B. Traven writes a novel, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, about three Americans searching for a lost gold mine in Mexico

1928 Mexico's president assassinated
Alvaro Obregón, the leading figure in Mexico's anti-clerical revolution, is shot by a Roman Catholic assassin

1929 Mexico's ruling party is founded
Plutarco Calles establishes the National Revolutionary Party that will hold power in Mexico, under different names, for the rest of the century

1933 Octavio Paz's Wild Moon
19-year-old Mexican poet Octavio Paz publishes his first collection, Wild Moon

1938 Mexico nationalizes oil
Mexico, newly rich from oil, nationalizes the holdings of the foreign oil companies

1940 Trotsky assassinated
An assassin sent by Stalin kills the exiled Trotsky in his home in Mexico City

1951 Oral contraceptive
Syntex, a small chemical company in Mexico City, develops the first oral contraceptive

1960 Placido Domingo's first major role
20-year-old Spanish tenor Placido Domingo sings his first major role, as Alfredo in La Traviata in the Mexican city of Monterrey

1994 Chiapas Rebellion
Mayan Indians in Chiapas rebel in an armed uprising against the Mexican government

1994 Leading Mexican politicians assassinated
Two leading members of Mexico's ruling party, Luis Donaldo Colosio and José Francisco Ruiz Massieu, are assassinated

1994 Mexican devaluation triggers slump
A devaluation of the Mexican peso leads to a sudden collapse in the local stock market

1997 Reversal for PRI
Mexico's ruling party, the PRI, loses control of the lower house for the first time in nearly seventy years

2000 Fox is president of Mexico
Vicente Fox wins the presidential election in Mexico (the first time that an opposition politician has done so since 1911)

2015 October 23 Strongest hurricane ever in the Western Hemisphere
Hurricane Patricia becomes the most intense hurricane ever recorded in the Western Hemisphere with winds of 215 mph