1499		Alonso de Ojeda was the first Spaniard to enter Colombia.
1533		Pedro de Heredia founded Cartagena.
1538		Jiménez de Quesada founded Santa Fe de Bogotá (present-day Bogotá).
1717		Philip V established the Viceroyalty of New Granada (present-day Venezuela, Colombia, Panama, and Ecuador).
1739		Bogotá became its capital.
1781		Comunero Revolt, the most serious revolt against Spanish authority before the war for independence.
20 July 1810		Creation of a criollo governing council in Bogotá.
1812		Starting in 1812, individual provinces began declaring absolute independence from Spain.
February 1819		Venezuela, Colombia, and Panana convened a congress in Angostura and agreed to unite in a republic to be known as Gran Colombia.
1821		The Cúcuta Congress wrote a constitution for the new republic.
1830		Divisive forces at work within the republic achieved a major triumph as the Venezuelan and Ecuadorian portions of the republic seceded.
1850		Official establishment of the Liberal Party (Partido Liberal--PL) and the Conservative Party (Partido Conservador--PC), the two parties that continued to dominate Colombian politics in the 1980s.
1858		Mariano Ospina Rodríguez renamed the country the Grenadine Confederation.
1886		The Constitution of 1886 renamed the country the Republic of Colombia and, with amendments, remained in effect in the late 1980s.
July 1899		Liberals again attempted a revolution, known as the War of a Thousand Days.
1903		Panama left the Republic of Colombia.
1930		Enrique Olaya Herrera became president.
1932-1934		Leticia Conflict.
1943		The declaration of war on the Axis Powers.
1948-1958		La violencia (civil war) in Colombia.
July 1956		Gómez and Lleras Camargo signed the Declaration of Benidorm.
1957		President Rojas Pinilla resigned.
August 1958		Lleras Camargo, a Liberal, was elected as the first president under the National Front.
1964		Ejército de Liberación Nacional (ELN) was formed.
1966		Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC) began operating.
1970		Misael Pastrana Borrero became president.
1972		The guerrilla group--the 19th of April Movement (Movimiento 19 de Abril--M-19)--emerged.
December 1980		Operation Tiburón, resulted in the seizure of more than 2,700 tons of marijuana.
1982		Belisario Betancur Cuartas became president.
2001		The Bush administration inherited ‘Plan Colombia’.
May 2002		Álvaro Uribe Vélez became president.