7500BC |
First Stone Age settlements at Çatalhüyük. |
1900-1300BC |
Hittite Empire, contemporary with ancient Egypt and Babylon. |
1250BC |
The Trojan War. Fall of Troy (Truva). |
1200-700BC |
Migration of Greeks to Aegean coastal regions. Kingdoms of Phrygia, Ionia, Lycia, Lydia, Caria and Pamphylia. Urartian civilisation in eastern Anatolia. |
700BC |
Birth of Homer in Smyrna ( Izmir). Beginnings of Hellenistic culture in Aegean Turkey. |
546BC |
Cyrus the Great of Persia invades. Anatolia under Persian rule. |
334BC |
Alexander the Great conquers Anatolia, freeing it from the Persians. |
130BC |
Anatolia becomes the Roman province of Asia with Ephesus (Efes) as capital... |
40BC |
Antony and Cleopatra marry at Antioch, (in Syria until AD1939). |
AD47-57 |
St Paul ’s missionary journeys. First Christian community at Antioch. |
AD313 |
Christianity accepted as the official religion of the Roman Empire. |
AD330 |
Byzantium ( Istanbul) renamed Constantinople by Emperor Constantine as new capital of the Byzantine Empire. |
527-565 |
Reign of Justinian and the height of Byzantine power. |
636-713 |
Muslim Arabs defeat Byzantines and besiege Constantinople. |
1054 |
Schism between Greek and Roman churches. |
1071-1243 |
Seljuk Turks conquer Anatolia with Konya (ancient Iconium) as their capital. |
1096-1204 |
The Crusades, with Latin armies entering Anatolia for the first time. Byzantine Empire dismembered. |
1288 |
Birth of the Ottoman Empire with capital at Bursa. |
1453 |
Mehmet II conquers Constantinople and renames it Istanbul as the capital of the Ottoman Empire. |
1520-1566 |
Reign of Süleyman the Magnificent and the Golden Age of the Ottoman Empire, which extended from the Danube to Aden and Eritrea, and from the Euphrates and the Crimea to Algiers. |
1682-1725 |
Reign of Peter the Great in Russia begins new era of Russo-Turkish rivalry. |
1854 |
Crimean War. Ottomans are supported by the British and French against Russia. |
1909 |
Abdul Hamid, last Ottoman sultan, deposed by Young Turks. |
1914 |
Turkey enters World War I as an ally of Germany. On defeat, the Allies propose carve up of Ottoman Empire. |
1915 |
Gallipoli Campaign. Allied landings on Turkish soil are repulsed. |
1919 |
Atatürk leads Turkish resistance in fight for national sovereignty. |
1923 |
Turkish state proclaimed with Atatürk as President. Exchange of minority population between Greece and Turkey. Reforms to modernise and secularise the state. Islam disestablished, Arabic script replaced by Latin alphabet, Turkish language revived. Women’s veils and the fez banned. |
1938 |
Atatürk dies. |
1945 |
Turkey remains neutral in World War II. |
1946 |
Turkey becomes charter member of the United Nations. |
1952 |
Turkey joins NATO. |
1960 |
Almost bloodless military coup followed by successive inefficient governments. |
1964 |
Turkey becomes associate member of the EEC. |
1974 |
Turkey intervenes in Cyprus to protect the Turkish Cypriot community, seizing the northern third of the island. |
1980 |
Bloodless military coup under General Kenan Evren, three years of military rule. |
1983 |
Return to civilian rule with Turgut Özal elected Prime Minister, moving to the Presidency in 1989. |
1985-1990 |
Disputes with Greece over Cyprus and Aegean territorial waters damage Turkey’s attempts to join the EEC, as does its human rights record in handling Kurdish insurrection in the southeast. |
1991-1993 |
Süleyman Demirel elected Prime Minister forming a coalition government. Forms post of Minister for Human Rights and promises rule of Kurdish policy. Economic reforms introduced to combat 70% inflation. |
1993 |
President Turgut Özal dies. Prime Minister Süleyman Demirel becomes his successor and Tansu Çiller becomes in turn, the first woman Prime Minister. |
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