TIMELINE OF SIGNIFICANT EVENTS IN TURKISH HISTORY

1301 The first Ottoman sultan, Osman I, defeats Byzantine forces at the Battle of Bapheus. 1320s to 1390s The Ottomans engage in a series of successful conquests, gradually expanding the empire. 1453 Sultan Mehmed II leads the conquest of Byzantium and its capital, Constantinople, renamed Istanbul. 1683 The Ottomans lay siege to Vienna in a failed bid to extend into central Europe. 1839 After a series of military defeats at the hands of external powers and unrest within the empire, Ottomans launch the Tanzimat, a series of reforms aimed at modernizing and recentralizing the empire. 1894 The Committee of Union and Progress, known as the Young Turks, emerges in opposition to Sultan Abdulhamids rule. They seek to arrest the collapse of the Ottoman Empire by reforming it. 1917 War World One ends, with the Ottoman Empire on the losing side. 1919 Mustafa Kemal Atatrk and like-minded Ottomans begin the movement for Turkish national liberation. 1920 The victors of World War One conclude the Treaty of Svres and dole out Ottoman territory among them. 1920 to 1923 Fighting ensues between Turkish nationalists, led by Mustafa Kemal Atatrk, and Armenian and Greek claimants to Ottoman territory. 1922 The Turkish Grand National Assembly officially abolishes the Ottoman sultanate, bringing an end to the Ottoman Empire. 1923 The Allies and Turkish nationalists conclude the Treaty of Lausanne, establishing Turkeys present borders. 1923 Mustafa Kemal Atatrk and the Turkish Assembly declare the Republic of Turkey. 1928 Turkey officially becomes a secular republic with removal from the constitution of a clause stipulating Islam as the state religion. 1938 Mustafa Kemal Atatrk dies, Ismet Inn succeeds him. 1945 Turkey joins the Allies near the end of World War Two.

 1950 Turkey holds its first multi-party elections with Adnan Menderes and his Democrat Party routing the Republican Peoples Party founded by Atatrk. 1952 Turkey joins the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. 1960 A military coup topples Menderes and the Democrat Party. 1964 Turkey intervenes in clashes between Turkish and Greek Cypriots, launching air raids against Greek Cypriot strongholds. 1974 Turkey launches an invasion of northern Cyprus. 1983 Turgut zal wins general elections and becomes prime minister. 1984 The Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) begins a separatist war in southeastern Turkey. 1990 Turkey allows U.S. troops to launch attacks against Iraq from Turkish territory. 1996 For the first time, an Islamist-rooted government comes to power in Turkey. It lasts only a single year. 1999 The Kurdistan Workers Party leader, Abdullah Ocalan, is captured. 2002 The Islamist-rooted Justice and Development Party (AKP) comes to power. 2005 Negotiations are officially launched for Turkeys ascension to the E.U. 2007 The AKP is again victorious in parliamentary elections, winning more seats than in 2002. 2008 The AKP-dominated parliament approves constitutional amendments to allow women to wear headscarves in Turkish universities. They are later overturned. 2008 The Constitutional Court takes up the case of banning the AKP for allegedly undermining the secular constitution - the AKP avoids a ban by one vote and instead suffers financial penalties. 2010 A court in Istanbul indicts 196 people of a grand plot to overthrow the government, adding to the hundreds of other people - senior members of the military, businessmen, journalists, and scholars - indicted of similar alleged plots over the last two years. This timeline was created with information from BBC News and Caroline Finkels book Osmans Dream : The History of the Ottoman Empire. (New York: Basic Books, 2005.) BBC News Turkey Timeline http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/1023189.stm