Bolivia historical timeline

Chronology

1. 200 BC — The Kalasasaya Temple is built at Tiwanaku. The polity dominates the altiplano for over a thousand years.
2. c. AD 1000 — Tiwanaku collapses as rainfall declines, food stores shrink and the elite lose power; the area is left uninhabited for centuries. The ruins near Lake Titicaca are what remains.
3. 1440s — The Colla–Inca War brings western Bolivia under Inca rule.
4. 1524–1533 — The Spanish conquest of the Inca Empire; the territory becomes Charcas under the Audiencia.
5. 1545 — The Villa Imperial de Potosí is founded. Its silver accounts for over half of global production during the colonial period, which is why a city at 4,000 metres was once among the largest in the world.
6. 1809 — The independence struggle begins at Chuquisaca, now Sucre, on 25 May — the first cry of freedom in Latin America — followed by the La Paz revolution on 16 July.
7. 1836 — Andrés de Santa Cruz invades Peru and forms the Peru–Bolivian Confederation; Peru invades in return and on 18 November 1841 the Bolivian army defeats it, killing President Gamarra in battle.
8. 1879–1884 — In the War of the Pacific, Chile occupies resource-rich territory in the south-west. Bolivia loses its coastline, and has lost over half its territory to neighbours since independence — including the Madre de Dios and Purús basins in 1909. The navy it still maintains on Lake Titicaca is about this.
9. 1952 — The Bolivian National Revolution ends rule by a land-owning and mining oligarchy, establishing universal suffrage, nationalising tin mining and making a limited land reform.
10. 1964 — A military junta overthrows Paz Estenssoro at the start of his third term; in 1971 Hugo Banzer Suárez, with CIA support, ousts President Torres in a coup.
11. 2005 — Evo Morales wins the presidency with 53.7 per cent, and on 1 May 2006 announces the renationalisation of hydrocarbons. GDP grows from $9 billion to over $40 billion between 2006 and 2019.
12. 2019 — The preliminary count in the general election is interrupted while Morales leads, touching off the crisis that ends his presidency.