1501 |
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Rodrigo de Bastidas was the first of many Spanish explorers to reach the isthmus. |
1 September 1513 |
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Balboa set out with 190 Spaniards,and after twenty-five days gazed on the vast expanse of the Pacific Ocean. |
1538 |
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All Spanish territory from Nicaragua to Cape Horn was to be administered from an audiencia in Panama. |
29 January 1671 |
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Henry Morgan appeared at Panama City and with 1,400 men he defeated the garrison. |
1718-1722 |
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Panama’s temporary loss of its independent audiencia and the country’s attachment to the Viceroyalty of Peru |
1739 |
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Spain again suppressed Panama’s autonomy by making the region part of the Viceroyalty of New Granada (encompassing present-day Colombia, Venezula, Ecuador, and Panama). |
28 November 1821 |
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Official date of independence fom Spain. Panama thus became part of Colombia, then governed under the 1821 Constitution of Cúcuta, and was designated a department with two provinces, Panamá and Veraguas. |
1846 |
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Bidlack-Mallarino Treaty was signed between the United States and Panama. |
1 January 1880 |
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Ferdinand de Lesseps starts to built the Panama Canal. |
1884 |
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Rafael Nuñez became president of Colombia, supported by a coalition of moderate Liberals and Conservatives. |
1886 |
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The new constitution established the Republic of Colombia as a unitary state. |
1899-1902 |
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Panama was drawn into Colombia’s War of a Thousand Days (1899-1902). |
6 November 1903 |
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The United States recognized the new Panamanian junta as the de facto government on November 6, 1903. |
23 February 1904 |
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The rights granted to the United States in the so-called Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty were extensive. They included a grant "in perpetuity of the use, occupation, and control" of a sixteenkilometer-wide strip of territory and extensions of three nautical miles into the sea from each terminal "for the construction, maintenance, operation, sanitation, and protection" of an isthmian canal. |
1904 |
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The provisional governing junta selected when independence was declared governed the new state until a constitution was adopted in 1904. Under its terms, Amador became Panama’s first president. |
1904 |
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Threats to constitutional government in the republic by a Panamanian military leader, General Estéban Huertas, had resulted, at the suggestion of the United States diplomatic mission, in disbanding the Panamanian army in 1904. |
15 August 1914 |
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The first ship made a complete passage through the Panama Canal. |
1932 |
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Harmodio Arias Madrid was elected to the presidency in 1932. |
1942 |
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Among the major facilities granted to the United States under the agreement of 1942 were the airfield at Río Hato, the naval base on Isla Taboga, and several radar stations. |
1948 |
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By 1948 the United States had evacuated all occupied bases and sites outside the Canal Zone. |
1952 |
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National Police Commander José Antonio Remón became president. |
23 January 1955 |
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Treaty of Mutual Understanding and Cooperation was signed. |
1964 |
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Marcos Aurelio Robles became president. |
1968 |
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Arnulfo Arias beacme president but removed by the National Guard after only 5 months in office. |
1969 |
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Omar Torrijos took power in Panama as commander of the National Guard. |
7 September 1977 |
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President Carter and Torrijos met in Washington to sign the Panama Canal Treaty |
October 1978 |
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The National Assembly elected a lawyer, Aristides Royo, to become president after Torrijos stepped down. |
August 1983 |
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Colonel Manuel Antonio Noriega Moreno was appoianted commander of the National Guard. |
1984 |
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Noriega formed the Fuerzas de Defensa de Panamá. |
11 October 1984 |
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Ardito Barletta became president. |
27 September 1985 |
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Ardito Barletta resigned, after only eleven months in office. He was succeeded the next day by his first vice president, Eric Arturo Delvalle Henríquez. |
December 1989 |
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U.S. President George Bush authorised an invasion of the country (Operation "Just Cause"). Guillermo Endara was installed as the head of a new administration. |
1992 |
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Noriega was tried, convicted and sentenced to 40 years of imprisonment in the USA. |
1999 |
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Mireya Elisa Moscoso Rodriguez became Panama’s first female president and the Panama Canal Zone returned to Panama. |