19th century - Russian Tsars order soldiers to push into region around northern fringes of Caucasus mountains. Local Chechen clans put up long, fierce resistance

1944 - Soviet leader Josef Stalin deports thousands of Chechens and Ingush to Siberia and Central Asia, accusing them of lending support to Nazis during World War Two

1956 - Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev invites the thousands of deported Ingush and Chechens back to their homelands

1991 - Soviet Union collapses and Chechnya declares independence, splitting from Ingushetia as well as Russia

1994 - Russia sends troops to crush separatist movement

1996 - Ceasefire, but without independence for Chechnya

1997 - Chechen rebel leader Aslan Maskhadov elected president of Chechnya

1999 - Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin renews war in Chechnya, after separatists raid neighbouring Dagestan in Aug. and bomb attacks blamed on Chechen rebels in major Russian cities kill up to 300 people

2000 - Russia's military regain control of Grozny, Chechen capital, which United Nations later described as the most destroyed city in the world. Putin becomes Russian president and Akhmad Kadyrov, former rebel, is appointed by Moscow to head pro-Kremlin Chechen administration. Chechen refugees living in Ingushetia encouraged to return home

2002

Aug - Dutch aid worker Arjan Erkel with Medecins sans Frontieres (MSF) kidnapped in Makhachkala, capital of Dagestan

Oct - Moscow theatre siege by Chechen rebels leaves about 120 hostages dead when security forces storm the building

2003

Mar - Referendum anchors Chechnya within Russian Federation

Aug - Aid worker with the International Committee of the Red Cross, Usman Saidaliev, abducted from his home

Oct - Akhmad Kadyrov elected president of Chechnya

2004

Apr - MSF hostage Erkel is released. Local pro-Russian forces implicated in his capture. It later emerges the Dutch government paid a 1 million euro ransom for his release

May - Bomb kills Chechen President Kadyrov during parade at stadium marking the Soviet Union's victory in World War Two over Nazi Germany

Jun - Militants attack government buildings in Nazran, capital of Ingushetia. Russian officials say about 90 people died

Aug - Alu Alkhanov elected president of Chechnya

Sep - Chechen rebels hold more than 1,000 hostage at school in Beslan, North Ossetia. At least 320 die, more than half of them children, when authorities storm the building

2005

Mar - Ramzan Kadyrov, Akhmad's son, becomes Chechen prime minister. Aslan Maskhadov killed. Abdul-Khalim Saduleyev takes over separatist leadership

Oct - Militants attack federal buildings in Nalchik, capital of the region of Kabardino-Balkaria. Russian officials say over 100 people died in the ensuing gunfights between militants and federal forces

2006

Jan - Putin introduces restrictive new laws on non-governmental organisations

Apr - Authorities order Chechnya's displaced people to leave camps in Grozny

Jun - Saduleyev killed, and longtime field commander Doku Umarov takes over leadership of the Chechen resistance, saying he will expand attacks against Russian military installations but try to avoid hurting civilians

Jul - Explosion kills Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev, who had claimed responsibility for the 2005 Nalchik raid and 2004 Beslan school siege

Oct - Scores of foreign aid organisations and rights groups fail to meet a deadline for registration, forcing them to suspend work

Gunman kills journalist Anna Politkovskaya, known for writing about human rights abuses in Chechnya, in Moscow

2007

Apr - Ramzan Kadyrov becomes president of Chechnya

Nov - International Committee of the Red Cross says will stop distributing food parcels in Chechnya after 13 years, marking end of the humanitarian crisis in the region

Dec - Large street protests in Nazran ahead of Russian parliamentary elections. Demonstrators protest government policies and abductions spike. Official figures in parliamentary election give Putin's party around 100 percent of the vote, although many residents tell Reuters that they did not vote

2008

Mar - Dmitry Medvedev elected president of Russia, with Putin's endorsement

Aug - Ingush opposition figure Magomed Yevloyev, owner of www.ingushetiya.ru, dies in police custody, sparking street protests in Ingushetia

Sep - Gunman kills Ruslan Yamadayev - former Russian parliamentarian and member of a rival Chechen clan - in Moscow

Oct - Russian President Medvedev replaces Ingush President Murat Zyazikov with former paratroop commander Yunus-Bek Yevkurov

2009

Jan - Gunman kills human rights lawyer who worked to imprison a Russian officer who killed a Chechen woman in 2000 during war in Chechnya

Mar - Assassins kill Sulim Yamadayev, leader of Yamadayev clan and head of a powerful Chechen militia group, near his home in exile in Dubai. Dubai police issue arrest warrant for one of Kadyrov's allies for the murder

Apr - Russian President Medvedev lifts 10-year security regime in Chechnya, Kadyrov declares battle against rebels has been won. Smaller, more localised security regimes, quickly imposed in areas where rebels thought to be hiding

Jun - Suicide car bomber hits convoy escorting Yevkurov as he drives to work, killing two bodyguards. He is seriously injured, but survives the attack

Jul - Russian human rights activist Natalia Estemirova working on abuses in Chechnya, found dead in Ingushetia with gunshot wounds to the head