Costa Rica historical timeline

Chronology

1. 10,000–7,000 BC — People are present in Costa Rica from this period, and various indigenous peoples hold the territory until Spanish colonisation in the 16th century.
2. 1502 — Christopher Columbus reaches the eastern shore on his final voyage and reports large quantities of gold jewellery worn by the inhabitants. By some accounts the name la costa rica, the rich coast, comes from that report — a promise the colony never made good on.
3. 1686–1693 — The church at Ujarrás is built in the Orosí Valley of Cartago province. Its ruins are the oldest standing colonial structure in the country, which is a measure of how thin Spanish settlement was here.
4. 1808 — Coffee is planted for the first time, and by the 1820s it has passed tobacco, sugar and cacao as the leading export. It stays the principal source of national wealth well into the 20th century and creates the grower class that ran the country.
5. 1821 — On 15 September the authorities in Guatemala declare independence for all of Central America, following Spain's defeat in the Mexican War of Independence. Costa Rica, like its neighbours, never fought a war for it. 15 September is still the national day.
6. 1824 — On 25 July a plebiscite in Nicoya decides, in an open town meeting, to join Costa Rica rather than Nicaragua. That vote is why Guanacaste and the Nicoya Peninsula — the beach coast most visitors come for — are Costa Rican at all.
7. 1838 — Costa Rica formally withdraws from the Federal Republic of Central America and proclaims itself sovereign. Distance and poor communications from Guatemala City had already made the federation a formality.
8. 1846 — The main road to the Pacific is built, and coffee grown on the Central Plateau goes by oxcart to Puntarenas for shipping; by the mid-1850s Britain is the main market. The painted oxcart is now the national craft.
9. 1849 — Chiriquí passes to Panama, a loss offset in national feeling by the acquisition of Guanacaste in the north.
10. 1917–1919 — The Tinoco dictatorship, the first of the country's two 20th-century episodes of political violence.
11. 1948 — A brief civil war. The victorious junta abolishes the military outright, oversees a new constitution drafted by an elected assembly, and hands power to Ulate on 8 November 1949.
12. 1949 — The constitution still in force grants universal suffrage, sets out social, economic and educational guarantees, and permanently abolishes the army. Costa Rica has had no standing military since, which is the single fact that most distinguishes it from every neighbour.
13. 1961 — On 10 September, months after Cuba declared itself socialist, President Mario Echandi ends diplomatic relations with Havana by executive decree. The freeze lasts 47 years.
14. 2007 — On 1 June Costa Rica breaks ties with Taiwan and recognises the People's Republic of China, the first Central American country to do so.
15. 2009 — On 14 July the International Court of Justice upholds Costa Rica's navigation rights on the San Juan River, the long-running border question with Nicaragua; a further dispute over Isla Calero follows in 2010.