History

January - Pedro Sánchez forms a minority coalition government with the left-wing Podemos party after winning a narrow parliamentary vote of confidence.

April—A snap election boosts Socialists, but they remain short of a majority. Vox becomes the first far-right party to win seats since Francisco Franco died in 1975.

 October - Thousands of protesters take to the streets after the Supreme Court sentences nine Catalan leaders to lengthy jail terms for sedition over the failed 2017 independence bid.

 October - Franco's remains are exhumed from the Valley of the Fallen and reburied along with his wife in a Madrid cemetery as part of efforts to remove all public veneration of his dictatorship.

 November—The fourth general election in as many years leaves Socialists still short of a majority, while Vox more than doubles its seats to become the third-largest party.

May - Basque separatist former armed group Eta announces ceasing all political activities.

June - Mariano Rajoy loses a vote of confidence. Socialist leader Pedro Sánchez takes over as prime minister.

August - Two Islamic State terror attacks kill 16 people in Barcelona and the nearby resort of Cambrils.

October - Madrid imposes direct rule in Catalonia after voters in a referendum back separation from Spain.

October: Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy forms a minority government and ends ten months of political deadlock after repeat elections in June.

December—The Popular Party government loses its majority in a general election, which saw the populist anti-austerity movement Podemos and the new liberal Cuidadanos movement perform well.

June - King Juan Carlos abdicates, succeeded by the crown prince Felipe VI.

 November - The Spanish government dismisses the result of a symbolic independence referendum in Catalonia.

April—Spain's unemployment rate soars to a new record of 27.2% of the workforce in the first quarter, passing the six million figure, although the rate of increase slows.

September - The economy registers 0.1% growth in July-September, formally lifting it out of recession.

November - The Basque armed group Eta states it is ready to disband, disarm, and enter talks with the French and Spanish governments.

November - Conservative Popular Party wins resounding victory in the parliamentary election.

December—Mariano Rajoy's new government takes office. It announced a new round of austerity measures to slash public spending by 16.5bn euros (£14bn) and nearly halve the public deficit from about 8% of GDP in 2012.

February - Thousands of workers demonstrate against government spending cuts and plans to raise the retirement age by two years to 67 - the first mass labor protests since the Socialists came to power in 2004.

May - Unemployment rate climbs to over 20% for the first time in nearly 13 years. Parliament approves 15bn-euro (£13bn) austerity package.

January - The Spanish economy entered a recession for the first time since 1993.

July - Foreign Minister Miguel Ángel Moratinos visits Gibraltar - the first visit by a Spanish minister in 300 years.

March - The Socialists win re-election with an increased margin, but falls short of an absolute majority.

October - Twenty-one people, mainly North Africans, are found guilty and given long jail sentences for the Madrid train bombings in 2004.

November - Parliament passes a bill formally denouncing General Franco's rule and ordering the removal of all Franco-era statues and symbols from streets and buildings.

January—Lt Gen Jose Mena Aguado was sacked as head of army ground forces after suggesting that the military might take action in Catalonia if the region gains too much autonomy.

June - Voters in Catalonia back proposals to give the region greater autonomy and the status of a nation within Spain.

June - Parliament defies the Roman Catholic Church by legalizing gay marriage and granting homosexual couples the same adoption and inheritance rights as heterosexual ones.

September-October - At least 11 die, and many more are injured in a series of mass attempts by African migrants to enter the enclaves of Melilla and Ceuta from Morocco in a bid to reach Spain.

March - A total of 191 people are killed in explosions on packed rush-hour trains in Madrid in near-simultaneous pre-election attacks by an Islamic group with links to al-Qaeda.

With Spain still mourning, the Socialists under José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero defied earlier opinion polls and won a general election.

April - Prime Minister Zapatero orders Spanish troops to withdraw from Iraq in May.

January - Spain adopts the euro.

November—The Northwest coastline suffers an ecological disaster after the oil tanker Prestige breaks up and sinks about 210km out to sea.

March - Aznar's Popular Party (PP) wins a landslide in general elections.

April - Crops were destroyed, and wildlife was wiped out when an iron pyrite mine reservoir belonging to a Canadian-Swedish company burst its banks, causing toxic waste spillage. Waterways feeding Europe's largest wildlife reserve, the Donana national park, are severely contaminated.

September - Eta announces its first indefinite ceasefire since its campaign of violence began

July - Eta kills Basque councilor Miguel Ángel Blanco, sparking national outrage and bringing an estimated six million people onto the streets in protest.

December 23: One of Eta's political wing leaders, Herri Batasuna, was jailed for seven years for collaborating with Eta. This is the first time any party members have been detained because of Eta links.

March - Conservative José María Aznar becomes prime minister.

 Spain joined the European Economic Community, which later became the European Union.

Socialists under Felipe González won elections and governed until 1996. Free education, an expanded welfare state, and liberalization of abortion laws are vital policies. Spain joins NATO.

February - The right-wing coup attempt fails after King Juan Carlos makes a televised address demanding that the plotters surrender.

118 people are killed in one of Eta's bloodiest years.

June—The first free elections in four decades. Ex-Francoist Adolfo Suárez's Union of the Democratic Centre manages a relatively smooth transition to stable democracy.

November—Franco dies and is succeeded as head of state of Spain, profiled by King Juan Carlos. Spain transitioned from dictatorship to democracy and withdrew from the Spanish Sahara, ending its colonial empire.

December - Eta kills Prime Minister Admiral Luis Carrero Blanco in retaliation for the government's execution of Basque fighters—subsequent attempts to liberalize the Franco government founder on internal divisions.

The West African colony of Spanish Guinea gains independence as Equatorial Guinea.

The Eta armed separatist group is founded to fight for an independent homeland in the Basque region of Spain and France. Its violent campaign began with an attempt to derail a train carrying politicians in 1961.

As the Cold War deepened, the US gradually improved relations with Spain, extending loans in return for military bases.

Spain was admitted to the UN in 1955 and the World Bank in 1958, and other European countries opened up to the Franco government.

El Milagro Español —the economic miracle of the late 1950s—saw Spain's manufacturing and tourism industries take off through the liberalization of state controls.

The United Nations ostracised Francoist Spain, and many countries severed diplomatic relations.

 General Francisco Franco led the Nationalists to victory and then purged the country of all remaining Republicans.

After two years of right-wing government, a Popular Front coalition of left-wing and liberal parties narrowly won parliamentary elections and sought to reintroduce the radical policies of 1931.

1936-39 - Spanish Civil War: A coup by right-wing military leaders captures only part of the country, leading to three years of bitter civil war. More than 350,000 Spaniards died in the fighting. Italy and Nazi Germany intervene on the side of the Nationalists. The USSR aids the Republicans.

The return of democratic government leads to an electoral backlash against the monarchy and its allies, and a republic is declared. Radical land reform policies, labor rights, educational expansion, and anti-Church legislation deepen the political divide.

The trade boom achieved by neutrality in World War One was squandered through fighting Moroccan rebels in the Rif War 1921-26 and the financial mismanagement of the Primo de Rivera dictatorship at home.

Spain seeks compensation for conquering African colonies, most significantly northern Morocco and the Spanish Sahara.

Napoleonic legacy of political division and economic dislocation leaves Spain weak and unstable, with frequent government changes and a low-level insurgency by Carlist supporters of a rival royal family branch.

All Latin American colonies win their independence, with Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Philippines in Asia lost during a disastrous war with the United States in 1898.

Napoleon's France occupied Spain, a French satellite, since 1795. Fierce nationalist resistance and British intervention in the Peninsular War gradually forces French troops out.

The War of the Spanish Succession caused Spain to lose its European possessions outside the Iberian Peninsula. The Bourbon dynasty, originally from France, centralized the Spanish state, shutting down many regional autonomous assemblies and modernizing government and the military.

The Spanish Empire was at its height, with Spain the predominant European power. The rise of Protestant states in northern Europe and the Ottoman Empire in the Mediterranean began the country's gradual decline.

The Christian Kingdoms of Castile and Aragon conquered the Emirate of Granada, ending nearly 800 years of Muslim rule in the south and founding modern Spain as a united state.

Christopher Columbus arrived in the Americas, heralding the conquest of much of South and Central America. Jews and, later, Muslims were expelled from Spain during the Inquisition.