7th-19th Centuries - From the 7th-Century arrival of Islam onwards, modern-day Somalia is ruled by a series of at times competing sultanates.
19th Century - European colonial powers gradually make inroads into Somalia's rival regional states, with the bulk of the area coming under Italian rule and the British establishing control of the northwest.
1960 - Italian Somaliland and British Somaliland become independent, merge and form the United Republic of Somalia.
1969 - Mohamed Siad Barre assumes power in coup after the assassination of the elected president; he goes on to declare Somalia a socialist state and nationalises most of the economy.
1991 - The ousting of Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991 sparks a decades-long civil war between rival clan warlords and the disintegration of central authority. Former British Somaliland declares unilateral independence.
1990s- US-spearheaded UN peacekeeping mission fails to restore peace.
2006 - Militias loyal to the Islamist Union of Islamic Courts capture Mogadishu and other parts of south after defeating clan warlords, before being driven out by Ethiopian forces.
2007-11 - An African Union peacekeeping force, Amisom, begins to deploy and Ethiopian troops withdraw in 2009. Al-Shabab - a jihadist breakaway from the Islamic Courts - advance into southern and central Somalia, prompting an armed intervention by Kenya.
2012 - Efforts to restore a central authority since 2000 finally make substantial progress, with the swearing in of the first formal parliament in more than 20 years, and the holding of the first presidential election since 1967.
2022 - Somali government forces, aided by US air strikes and African Union troops carry out major offensives against al-Shabab, retaking control of significant areas that had previously been under the group's control.
2024 - Ethiopia and Somaliland sign a memorandum of understanding for landlocked Ethiopia to use one of Somaliland's ports. Somalia describes the agreement as an act of "aggression".
