CHRONOLOGY: From Spanish conquistadors to resurgent Indios

Apr 15, 2010, 5:43 GMT

Buenos Aires - Five Latin American countries - Venezuela, Colombia, Argentina, Mexico and Chile - are celebrating 200 years of independence from Spain this year. Another three countries also came of age in the same era.

Here is an overview of history on this vast region, spanning the arrival of Christopher Columbus to the recent emergence of Brazil and Mexico as global economic and political powerhouses:

1492 - Christopher Colombus 'discovers' the Americas, in the service of the Spanish Crown.

1521 - Spain conquers Aztec empire.

1532 - Spain conquers Inca empire.

1537 - Pope Paul III speaks against enslavement of indigenous people in the Americas.

1804 - Slave revolt leads to Haiti's independence from France.

1808-1814 - Spain conquered by France, and its 300-year-old empire further crumbles.

1809 - Beginning of independence movements in Bolivia and Ecuador.

1810 - Beginning of independence movements in Venezuela, Colombia, Argentina, Mexico and Chile.

1811 - Beginning of independence movements in Paraguay and Uruguay.

1814 - Defeated on the battlefield, Mexico cedes California, Nevada, Utah and parts of Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico and Wyoming to the United States.

1822 - Exiled Portuguese King Pedro declares Brazil independent from Portugal.

1823 - US Monroe Doctrine warns Europe against recolonisation of lost territories in the western hemisphere.

1898 - Spain loses its last American colonies as Cuba becomes independent; US takes control of Puerto Rico.

1914 - Panama Canal built by the United States.

1920 - Mexican Revolution ends.

1929 - Founding of the Revolutionary Institutional Party (PRI), which rules Mexico for 70 years; women get voting rights in Ecuador, a first in Latin America.

1938 - Mexico nationalizes oil industry.

1946 - Juan Domingo Peron elected president of Argentina.

1948 - Organization of American States (OAS) founded.

1952 - Peron's second wife, the charismatic 'Evita,' dies at age 33.

1959 - Cuban Revolution led by Fidel Castro takes power.

1961 - Paraguay women get voting rights, the last in Latin America.

1967 - Argentine-born revolutionary Ernesto 'Che' Guevara is killed in Bolivia; Colombian Gabriel Garcia Marquez publishes One Hundred Years of Solitude.

1968 - Scores of people massacred on Tlatelolco Square in Mexico City; Mexico hosts Latin America's only Olympic Games so far.

1970 - Salvador Allende elected Chilean president, first democratically-elected socialist leader in Latin America.

1973 - Coup led by General Augusto Pinochet overthrows Allende in Chile.

1975 - Operation Condor: Right-wing military regimes in Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Paraguay, Bolivia and Brazil agree on mutual persecution of opponents. Thousands are killed.

1982 - Argentina loses war with Britain over the Malvinas/Falklands islands.

1989 - The United States invades Panama, captures dictator Manuel Noriega for trial in US on crimes including drug trafficking.

1994 - US, Canada and Mexico form the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).

1999 - Panama government takes over administration of Panama Canal after transfer from US; Hugo Chavez elected president in Venezuela, first of a wave of left-wing victories across region.

2000 - Peruvian dictator Alberto Fujimori faxes in his resignation from Japan.

2001 - Argentina defaults on debt.

2003 - Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva becomes Brazil's first-ever president of working-class background.

2006 - Fidel Castro stands down as Cuban leader; Evo Morales becomes Bolivia's first-ever elected president of indigenous descent.

2008 - Mexico, Brazil and Argentina leaders join first summit ever of the G20 leading economies to tackle world recession

2009 - Organization of American States (OAS) suspends Honduras after its President Manuel Zelaya is forcibly exiled and a new president is installed without following constitutional rules.