about 3500 B.C.		First humans come to Cuba.
28 October 1492		Christoph Columbus landed at Cuba.
1510		The conquest of Cuba began.
1514		Havana was founded.
30 July 1762		British troops occupy Havana during Seven Years War.
1844		An uprising of black slaves was brutally suppressed.
10 October 1868		Revolutionaries under the leadership of Carlos Manuel de Céspedes proclaimed Cuban independence.
8 February 1878		Pact of Zanjón ends Ten Years' War and ends uprising.
August 1879		A second uprising ("The Little War"), engineered by Calixto García, began in August 1879 but was quelled by superior Spanish forces in autumn 1880
23 February 1895		Mounting discontent culminated in a resumption of the Cuban revolution, under the leadership of the writer and patriot José Martí and General Máximo Gómez y Báez
10 December 1898		Treaty of Peace in Paris ends the Spanish-American War by which Spain relinquished sovereignty over Cuba.
1 January 1899		The Spanish colonial government withdrew and the last captain General Alfonso Jimenez Castellano handed over power to the North American Military Governor, General John R. Brook.
20 May 1902		The Cuban republic was instituted under the presidency of Tomás Estrada Palma.
7 April 1917		Cuba entered World War I on the side of the Allies.
4 September 1933		At Campo Columbia, noncommissioned officers  unexpectedly arrested their superiors and took over command of the island's military forces. The "Sergeants' Revolt" had been skillfully organized by Fulgencio Batista y Zaldívar.
December 1941		Cuban government declared war on Germany, Japan, and Italy.
March 1952		Former president Batista, supported by the army, seized power.
26 July 1953		Some 160 revolutionaries under the command of Fidel Castro launched an insurrectionary attack on the Moncada army garrison in Santiago de Cuba.
2 December 1956		Castro, with some 80 insurgents, invaded Cuba.
17 March 1958		Castro called for a general revolt.
1 January 1959		President Batista resigned and fled the country.
February 1959		Fidel Castro became premier of Cuba.
15-21 April 1961		"Bay of Pigs" invasion by U.S. backed exil-cubans.
October 1962		Cuban-missile crisis.
1962		Cuba was expelled from the OAS.
1972		Cuba became a member of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (COMECON).
July 1975		OAS lifted the trade embargo and other sanctions.
1975		The Soviet Union engaged in a massive airlift of Cuban forces into Angola.
May 1977		50 Cuban military personnel were sent to Ethiopia.
25 October 1983		United States invaded the island of Grenada and also clashed with Cuban troops.
1984		Havana had reduced its troop strength in Ethiopia to approximately 3,000 from 12,000
17 September 1989		The last Cuban troops left Ethiopia.
May 1991		Cuba removed its troops from Angola.
1993		All of the Soviet troops sent to Cuba during the Cuban missile crisis had been withdrawn.
February 1996		Cuban authorities arrested or detained at least 150 dissidents, marking the most widespread crackdown on opposition groups in the country since the early 1960s.
11 April 2003		Cuba executes three men who hijacked a commuter ferry in a failed bid to reach Florida.