Timeline: Fiji

A chronology of key events

1643 - Dutch explorer Abel Tasman is the first European to visit the islands.

Tourism is a key earner of foreign exchange

1830s - Western Christian missionaries begin to arrive.

1840s-50s - Christian convert chief Cakobau gains control of most of western Fiji, while another Christian convert, Ma'afu from Tonga, controls the east.

1868 - Cakobau sells Suva - the current capital of Fiji - to an Australian company.

1871 - European settlers at Levuka island organize a national government and name Cakobau king of Fiji following local disorder.

British rule

1874 - Fiji becomes a British crown colony at the request of Cakobau and other chiefs.

1875-76 - Measles epidemic wipes out one-third of the Fijian population; British forces and Fijian chiefs suppress rebellion.

RATU SIR KAMISESE MARA Former PM was dominant Pacific island statesman Born in 1920 First post-independence prime minister Forced to resign in 2000 coup 2004: Fiji's founding father dies 2004: In pictures - Farewell to 'Fiji's father'

1879-1916 - More than 60,000 indentured labourers brought in from the Indian subcontinent to work on sugar plantations.

1904 - Legislative Council, consisting of elected Europeans and nominated Fijians, set up to advise the British governor.

1916 - British colonial government in India stops the recruitment of indentured labourers.

1920 - All labour indenture agreements in Fiji end.

Fijians get the vote

1963 - Women and Fijians enfranchised; predominantly Fijian Alliance Party (AP) set up.

1970 - Fiji becomes independent with Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara of the AP as prime minister.

1985 - Timoci Bavadra sets up the Fiji Labour Party with trade union support.

Supremacist coups

1987 April - Indian-dominated coalition led by Bavadra wins general election, ending 17 years of rule by the AP and Prime Minister Mara.

1987 May - Lieutenant-Colonel Sitiveni Rabuka seizes power in bloodless coup with the aim of making indigenous Fijians politically dominant.

Sitiveni Rabuka toppled Indian-dominated government Prime minister from 1992 Lost 1999 elections to Mahendra Chaudhry 1999: Fijian prime minister ousted

1987 October - Rabuka stages a second coup, proclaims Fiji a republic and appoints Governor-General Ratu Sir Penaia Ganilau president; Ganilau in turn appoints Ratu Mara prime minister; Fiji expelled from Commonwealth; Britain, the United States, Australia and New Zealand suspend aid.

1989 - Thousands of ethnic Indians flee Fiji.

1990 - New constitution enshrining political dominance for indigenous Fijians introduced.

1992 - Rabuka, of the Fijian Political Party (FPP), becomes prime minister following general election.

1994 - Great Council of Chiefs appoints Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara president in January following the death of Ganilau in the previous month; Rabuka and the FPP win general election.

1997 - Fiji re-admitted to the Commonwealth after it introduces a non-discriminatory constitution.

1999 - Mahendra Chaudhry, an ethnic Indian, becomes prime minister after the Fiji Labour Party emerges from the general election with enough seats to rule on its own.

Prime minister held hostage

2000 May - Bankrupt businessman George Speight and retired major Ilisoni Ligairi storm parliament, aiming to make indigenous Fijians the dominant political force. They take Prime Minister Mahendra Chaudhry and his cabinet hostage. Speight proclaims himself acting premier. President Mara sacks the Chaudhry government on the orders of Fiji's Great Council of Chiefs.

2000 June - Commonwealth suspends Fiji.

2000 July - Chaudhry and other hostages released; Great Council of Chiefs appoints Ratu Josefa Iloilo - a former father-in-law of Speight's brother - president

2000 July - Speight and 369 of his supporters arrested.

2000 November - Eight soldiers are killed in a failed army mutiny.

2001 August - Elections to restore democracy; George Speight becomes MP in a new government.

2000 uprising: Soldiers struggle with rebel leader's supporters 2002: Fiji uncertainty after uprising 2000: In pictures - Fiji hostage drama

2001 September - Indigenous Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase sworn in, but doesn't offer cabinet posts to opposition Labour Party, in defiance of constitution.

2001 December - George Speight expelled from parliament for failing to attend sessions.

2001 December - Fiji readmitted to the Commonwealth.

2002 February - George Speight sentenced to death for treason. President Iloilo commutes his sentence to life imprisonment.

2002 November - Government announces radical privatisation plan designed to stave off collapse of vital sugar industry threatened by withdrawal of EU subsidies.

2003 July - Supreme Court rules that Laisenia Qarase must include ethnic-Indian members of the opposition Labour Party in his cabinet.

2004 April - Former leader Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara, considered to be independent Fiji's founding father, dies aged 83.

2004 August - Vice President Ratu Jope Seniloli found guilty of treason over his involvement in May 2000 coup attempt. He serves a few months of a four-year sentence.

2004 November - Labour Party declines cabinet seats in favour of opposition role.

Mahendra Chaudhry: His elected government was ousted in 2000

Fijian soldiers leave for peacekeeping duties in Iraq.

2005 July - Military chief warns that he will remove government if proposed amnesty for those involved in 2000 coup goes ahead.

2006 March - Great Council of Chiefs elects incumbent President Iloilo to a second, five-year term.

2006 May - Former PM Sitiveni Rabuka is charged with orchestrating a failed army mutiny in November 2000.

Ruling party leader and incumbent PM Laesenia Qarase narrowly wins elections and is sworn in for a second term.

Military coup

2006 October - November - Tensions rise between PM Laesenia Qarase and military chief Frank Bainimarama, who threatens to oust the government after it tries, and fails, to replace him. Qarase goes into hiding as the crisis escalates.

2006 December - Frank Bainimarama says in a televised address he has taken executive powers and dismissed PM Laisenia Qarase. Commonwealth suspends Fiji because of the coup.

2007 January - Bainimarama restores executive powers to President Iloilo and takes on the role of interim prime minister.

2007 February - Bainimarama announces plans to hold elections in 2010.

2007 April - Bainimarama sacks the Great Council of Chiefs and suspends all future meetings, after the chiefs refuse to endorse his government and his nomination for vice president.

2007 June - State of emergency lifted but reimposed in September. Lifted again in October.

2007 November - Bainimarama says police have foiled a plot to assassinate him.

2008 February - Bainimarama appoints himself as chairman of the Great Council of Chiefs (GCC), a body he suspended after it failed to back his December 2006 coup.

2008 July - Bainimarama postpones elections promised for early 2009, on the grounds that electoral reforms could not be completed in time.