Honduras

By sarah.pierson.14
  • Aug 3, 1502

    Christopher Columbus discovers Honduras

  • Jun 10, 1525

    Spain begins conquest of Honduras

  • Honduras gains independence from Spain, but becomes part of Mexico

  • Honduras joins the United Provinces /of Central America

  • Honduras becomes an independent nation

  • US becomes economically involved with Honduras

  • General Tiburcio Carias Andino becomes dictator of Honduras

  • Colonel Osvaldo Lopez Arellano takes power after leading a coup

  • Short war with El Salvador over immigration and borders

  • Lopez resigns after allegedly accepting a bribe from a US company

  • Colonel Juan Alberto Melgar Castro takes power

  • Melgar ousted in coup led by General Policarpo Paz Garcia

  • General Paz signs peace treaty with El Salvador

  • Roberto Suazo Cordova of the centrist Liberal Party of Honduras is elected president

  • Nicaraguan counter-revolutionaries launch operations to bring down Nicaragua's Sandinista government from Honduran territory

  • General Alvarez responds to increasing political unrest by ordering the detention of trade union activists and left-wing sympathisers

  • General Alvarez is deposed amid anti-American demonstrations in Tegucigalpa

  • Jose Azcona del Hoyo is elected president after the law was changed to stipulate a maximum one-term presidency

  • Amnesty granted both to military and left-wing guerrillas for abuses committed during early 1980s

  • An Amnesty International report alleges an increase in human rights violations by armed forces and right-wing death squads

  • Inter-American Court of Human Rights finds Honduran government guilty of "disappearances" of Honduran citizens between 1981 and 1984

  • General Alvarez is assassinated by left-wing guerrillas in Tegucigalpa

  • Summit of Central American presidents in El Salvador reaches agreement on demobilisation of Nicaraguan Contras based in Honduras

  • Rafael Callejas sworn in as president; proceeds to introduce neo-liberal economic reforms and austerity measures

  • Last Nicaraguan Contras leave Honduras

  • International Court of Justice gives ruling establishing new boundaries between Honduras and El Salvador

  • Government sets up commission to investigate alleged human rights violations by military

  • Liberal Party candidate and veteran rights activist Carlos Reina elected president

  • Compulsory military service abolished

  • First military officers charged with human rights abuses

  • Carlos Flores of the Liberal Party elected president; pledges to restructure armed forces

  • Control of police transferred from military to civilian authorities

  • Hurricane Mitch devastates Honduras

  • Armed forces placed under civilian control

  • Congress ratifies 1986 maritime agreement with Colombia settling claims over the Caribbean Sea

  • Honduras and Nicaragua agree to halt ground troop deployments and pull out naval forces from the Caribbean sea pending resolution of a border dispute

  • Supreme Court rules that atrocities committed during 1980s are not covered by amnesty of 1987

  • More than 1,000 street children were murdered in 2000 by death squads backed by the police

  • UN calls on government to prevent extrajudicial killings of hundreds of children and teenagers

  • Ricardo Maduro inaugurated as president

  • Honduras re-establishes diplomatic ties with Cuba

  • Congress votes to send troops to Iraq

  • Honduras agrees on a free trade agreement with the US

  • Prison fire at San Pedro Sula kills more than 100 inmates

  • Honduran troops withdraw from Iraq

  • Suspected gang members massacre 28 bus passengers in the northern city of Chamalecon

  • Tropical Storm Gamma kills more than 30 people and forces tens of thousands from their homes

  • Manuel Zelaya is declared the winner of presidential elections

  • Free trade deal with the US comes into effect

  • Honduras and neighbouring El Salvador inaugurate their newly-defined border

  • President Zelaya orders all the country's radio and TV stations to carry government propaganda for two hours a day for 10 days to counteract what he says is a campaign of misinformation

  • The International Court of Justice in the Hague settles a long-running territorial dispute between Honduras and Nicaragua

  • President Manuel Zelaya visits Cuba

  • Longtime US ally Honduras joins the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas

  • President Manuel Zelaya is removed by the military and forced into exile

  • Mr Zelaya makes a surprise return to Honduras, taking refuge in the Brazilian embassy in Tegucigalpa

  • Porfirio "Pepe" Lobo Sosa of the conservative National Party wins presidential election

  • Congress rejects proposal that Mr Zelaya be allowed to return to office

  • Mr Zelaya goes into exile in the Dominican Republic

  • Supreme Court dismisses charges against six military commanders who expelled Mr Zelaya from the country in June 2009

  • Government says it has restored diplomatic ties with 29 countries following its isolation after the coup

  • US resumes aid programme suspended after the coup

  • "Truth commission" begins investigating Mr Zelaya's removal from office in 2009, and concludes it was a coup

  • International Criminal Court investigates allegations of human rights abuses during the 2009 coup

  • Mexico, Honduras agree to work together to prevent attacks on illegal migrants from Honduras, many of whom are kidnapped on their way to the US

  • Mr Zelaya returns from exile

  • Police and troops deploy in the Aguan Valley amid deadly clashes between land owners and farm workers