| Date | Significant Events in Mexican History |
|---|
5000-3500 BC[+]
| Agriculture is developed; scientists continue to discover new evidence of early maize crops. | 700 BC-800 AD[+]
| Meso-American Olmec, Teotihuacán, and Mayan civilizations pioneer advancements in written language, irrigation, architecture, and trade; they are considered among the most sophisticated in
the Western Hemisphere. | 900-1200s[+]
| Toltec civilization supplants Mayan and Teotihuacán dominance. | 1300s-1400s[+]
| Aztec civilization, also known as Mexica, conquers the region and develops highly functioning city-states that become hubs of commerce and culture. | 1519[+]
| Spanish explorer Hernan Cortés is sent to modern-day Mexico, following a previously unsuccessful encounter between Spanish adventurers and local Aztec populations. His mission is part of a larger effort to find lucrative trade routes between Europe and Asia, a mission also pursued by other European powers at the time. | 1521[+]
| After two years of intermittent wars and negotiations with various local populations, including famed Aztec leader Montezuma, Cortés finally achieves Spanish victory when he takes the capital of Tenochtitlán. Renaming it Mexico City, Cortés largely destroys Aztec architecture. | 1522-1535[+]
| The Catholic Church expands its influence over the new Spanish colony, converting groups of indigenous people through expansive missionary activities.
The Spanish colonial government is officially created, with Mexico City as the capital of New Spain. | 1500s[+]
| Laws are passed granting colonial elites, government officials, and clergy title to large swaths of land, severely restricting land ownership by the indigenous population. This colonial policy triggers centuries-long struggles for land reform and is often cited as a root cause of extreme social and economic inequality in Mexico.
A system of racial hierarchy begins to develop in the new colony, with peninsulares (Spanish-born colonists) at the top, followed by criollos (people of Spanish descent born in New Spain), mestizos (Spanish and Indian mixed heritage), and Indians and African slaves at the bottom. | 1600s[+]
| Settlement of New Spain expands, despite tensions between the Spanish government and the Catholic Church.
Smallpox decimates indigenous populations. | 1700s[+]
| Like other colonies of European powers in the New World, New Spain residents of Spanish and mixed descent begin to chafe under imperial government policies and mercantilistic economic practices. | 1808[+]
| France conquers Spain; Napoleon installs his brother on the Spanish throne.
Hardship brought on by the war and its aftermath weakens imperial control of New Spanish colonies. | 1810-1814[+]
| Rebellions against the Spanish crown break out in the colonies under the leadership of Father Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla and, after his defeat, José María Morelos y Pavón. These rebellions are put down, yet weaken Spain’s control of its possession in the New World. | 1821[+]
| A series of rebellions finally succeeds in achieving Mexican independence from Spain.
Colonial elites flee the new country, leaving it mired in poverty and struggles between different ethnic and class factions. | 1836[+]
| US settlers living in Mexico’s northern region declare their independence from Mexico and establish the independent republic of Texas. Mexican President Santa Anna is defeated in his attempts to retake the rebellious area. | 1845[+]
| The US annexes Texas and offers to purchase California and New Mexico from Mexico. The Mexican government refuses. | 1846-1848[+]
| The Mexican-American War is declared by the US in response to Mexico’s refusal to cede territory and to pressures from US settlers living along the border.
The US wins the war and takes not only California and New Mexico, but portions of Colorado, Arizona, and Nevada as well. This represents a transfer of fully half of Mexico’s land to the US. | 1850s[+]
| Blame for the disastrous war is combined with demands for domestic reforms in Mexico.
Santa Anna faces a slide into civil war as elites from the Church, government, and military increasingly battle La Reforma peasants and liberal middle class rebels over land rights and political representation. | 1858[+]
| Conservative factions take over the government and ignite an official civil war. | 1861[+]
| Liberals under the leadership of Benito Juárez take the capital Mexico City. Juárez becomes the first indigenous person in Latin America to assume a role of President.
Poverty is widespread; Juárez moves to stop payment on all foreign debt, triggering an invasion by British, Spanish, and French troops. | 1862[+]
| British and Spanish troops withdraw.
France sends more troops and eventually takes control of the country, installing a conservative monarchy led by Austrian archduke Maximilian. | 1865-1867[+]
| The US, emerging from its own devastating civil war, enters the fray on the side of the liberals.
France withdraws and Juárez again assumes the Presidency of an independent Mexico. | 1876[+]
| Porfirio Díaz leads a successful coup against Juárez’ successor and becomes President.
During his rule, comprising the better part of three decades, modernization comes to Mexico largely as a result of foreign investment. US and European companies rush in to develop industry, infrastructure, and export-oriented agriculture.
Mexico City explodes in population due to a mass migration of citizens from rural areas and continental influence. | 1900[+]
| By the turn of the century the majority of Mexican industry, land, and resources are in the hands of an elite domestic minority and foreign investors. Discontent begins to swell among various factions left out of the bonanza; the Mexican military is used to put down strikes and rebellions in urban and rural areas. | 1910[+]
| The Mexican Revolution begins, triggered by severe inequality in government, the economy, and society.
The first wave of unrest is led by famed rebel Emiliano Zapata, who would become an inspiration for anti-elite factions up to the present day.
Zapata’s rebellion in the South has its parallel in a Northern rebellion led by Pancho Villa. | 1911[+]
| Mexican President (Dictator) Díaz is overthrown.
New President Francisco Madero initiates some reforms, but the Zapatista and Villa rebellions continue. | 1913-1914[+]
| President Madero is assassinated and succeeded by Victoriano Huerta.
Huerta faces opposition by Zapata, Villa, and former Díaz ally Venustiano Carranza, and is quickly forced to resign by the United States for supposed pro-German sympathies in the lead up to WWI.
Carranza becomes President. | 1914-1917[+]
| The US invades Mexico in pursuit of Northern Mexican rebel leader Pancho Villa who leads raids on US border areas. Villa and Zapata unite forces briefly, but soon part ways. Chaos reigns. | 1917[+]
| Even as he struggles to hold on to power, Carranza draws up a new Mexican Constitution that incorporates many of the demands driving the revolutionary forces, including democratic representation in government, land reform, restrictions on the Catholic Church, and measures designed to roll back the influence of foreign investors. | 1917-1920[+]
| WWI consumes the attention of Europe and the United States. Mexico remains neutral despite overtures from Axis powers that include the famed Zimmerman Telegram.
Villa is induced to retire. Zapata is defeated and killed by Carranza’s forces after a protracted power struggle motivated by Zapata’s followers’ discontent with the pace of reforms.
Carranza is overthrown by Obregón, who becomes president of the devastated country. | 1920s[+]
| President Obregón pursues a reformist agenda, giving voice to peasant populations and attempting to strike a balance between domestic concerns and the power of foreign investors.
The US finally recognizes the Obregón Administration and the end of the Mexican Revolution.
Power alternates peacefully between Obregón and Plutarco Calles. The National Revolutionary Party or PRN is founded by Calles to unite the various factions and heirs of the Mexican Revolution. The party will go on to rule Mexico for the rest of the century under the name of the Institutional Revolutionary Party or PRI.
Mexican art and culture enter a renaissance that fosters such artists as Diego Rivera, Frida Kahlo, and Martín Luis Guzmán. | 1934-1940[+]
| President Lázaro Cárdenas expands PRN/PRI dominance and initiates a post-Revolutionary era of industrial expansion and land reforms.
Cárdenas nationalizes all foreign owned oil concessions, essentially stripping US and British companies of their investments. Retaliation is muted by Allied efforts to keep Mexico from siding with Germany in the lead up to WWII. In addition to nationalization, Cárdenas institutes a program of heavy protection of Mexican industries from import competition. | WWII[+]
| The Mexican economy benefits from the increased demand for raw materials from wartime industries throughout the world.
Relations with the US are bolstered when Mexico declares war on the Axis powers following Pearl Harbor and Mexican pilots contribute to the war against Japan in the Pacific.
Following the war, Mexico becomes one of the original charter members of the UN. | 1950s and 1960s[+]
| Mexico continues its economic expansion and modernization in the post-war period. The benefits of modernization, however, continue to be unevenly distributed in Mexican society, and discontent brews again over the unrealized ideals of the Revolution.
Fidel Castro’s revolution in Cuba and ensuing skirmishes with the US during the Cold War divide Mexico and the US. | 1968[+]
| Mexico’s hosting of the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico City is marred by violence and bloodshed in riots which kill up to 100 people. | 1970s[+]
| Giant new oil reserves are discovered at the Cantarell oil fields in the Gulf of Mexico. The Mexican government borrows heavily from foreign investors to develop the fields. High oil prices bolster the Mexican economy. | 1980s[+]
| Global oil prices fall; the Mexican economy crashes. The IMF makes large loans but requires structural adjustments which include measures designed to force privatization, free market expansion, and export-driven growth. Austere and painful short-term dislocations associated with these IMF-imposed policies fuel popular discontent.
A large earthquake in Mexico City and a hurricane on the Yucatán kill thousands and displace many others. | 1992-1994[+]
| NAFTA is developed and ratified by Mexico, the United States, and Canada. The free trade pact calls for the elimination of tariff barriers among the three countries over a phasing-out period.
President Carlos Salinas de Gortari overcomes opposition within Mexico to the pact, but is ultimately forced out of office on corruption charges. | 1994[+]
| Rebellions led by the Zapatista National Liberation Front (ELZN) break out in Chiapas and are brutally repressed by the government.
Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de León wins election to the Presidency amidst charges of fraud in the PRI.
The Mexican stock market crashes and the peso is dramatically devalued, ushering in a severe financial crisis, unrelated to but often associated with NAFTA.
The US bails out the Mexican economy with a $20 billion loan with conditions attached, similar to those previously imposed by the IMF. | 1995-1996[+]
| Former President Salinas is forced into exile when it is revealed that his brother Raul is connected with the murder of Zedillo’s predecessor in the PRI.
The Mexican government and the Zapatistas (ELZN) reach a compromise on rights for indigenous Mayans of Chiapas. Southern rebels continue their fight regardless of the compromise. | 2000[+]
| Vicente Fox of the opposition party PAN wins election to the Presidency, ending 70 years of PRI dominance. A hallmark of his administration is improved ties with the US and enhancing domestic security in the wake of ongoing ethnic and drug wars.
At the turn of the century, 300 million people, 90 million cars, and 4 million trucks enter the US from Mexico annually. | 2001[+]
| Al Qaeda terrorist attacks on the US result in the US foreign policy focus turning almost exclusively to the Middle East. Mexico does not commit troops to the NATO-led war against the Taliban. | 2002[+]
| A US-backed coup in Venezuela removes Hugo Chávez from power temporarily before he is reinstated. This ratchets up tension between Latin American and the US and is seen as a continuation of US-supported coups against leftist governments on the continent in the 20th Century. | 2003[+]
| Mexico opposes the US-led invasion of Iraq and helps to deny UN support for the Bush Administration’s plans. | Early 2000s[+]
| The Fox Administration begins investigating government actions against political and student activists in the 1970s and 1980s, including the mysterious disappearance of hundreds of women in Ciudad Juárez.
“Smart Border” controls are instituted in an attempt to relieve congestion and wait times at the US border for legitimate commerce and travel. Mexican immigration to the US reaches 500,000 persons per year. | 2006[+]
| The presidential election results in a razor thin majority for Felipe Calderón over Andrés Manuel López Obrador. The election is contested and breaks down along class lines with Obrador seen as a revolutionary figure advocating for poor and indigenous populations, and Calderón as a friend of foreign investors and elites. Calderón is ultimately named the winner and protests spread across the country.
The drug war along the Mexico-US border heats up, and Calderón calls in military reinforcements to battle cartels. | 2007[+]
| Mexican tycoon Carlos Slim Helú overtakes Bill Gates as the world’s richest individual, owing to his extensive telecom and energy holdings. He subsequently drops to number three in the world after Gates and Warren Buffett. | 2008[+]
| Drug violence soars; over 6000 people are killed. Protest rallies demand better government protection of civilians and condemn corruption among law enforcement officials.
The Merida Initiative is signed into law by the US Congress, providing $1.4 billion in assistance to Mexico for the drug war, mostly in the form of military grade hardware to combat heavily militarized cartels. High demand for illegal drugs in America, combined with porous borders and the weapons trade from the US to Mexico, produces a toxic acceleration of the conflict among cartels and between cartels and the Mexican government.
Policies are considered that would allow privatization of some of energy monopoly Pemex’s assets. | 2009[+]
| Drug war violence continues to increase, impacting investment and tourism.
High level officials including President Barack Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano visit Mexico and promise a new era of cooperation and respect.
President Calderón reassures the US on matters of border security, migration, protection of foreign investment, the environment, and the mitigation of drug violence.
An outbreak of the H1N1 virus, dubbed the Swine Flu, originates in Mexico and causes a worldwide health scare. Mexico acts with extreme vigilance, shutting down Mexico City and acceding to travel restrictions from countries around the world, with deleterious economic consequences.
Mid-term elections in July 2009 deliver a blow to PAN party dominance as PRI candidates win Congressional seats and local and state offices in what is seen as a referendum on Calderon’s leadership amidst continuing economic stagnation and increasing drug violence. June 2009 produces a new record in drug war-related deaths with 800 people killed in a single month. |
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Timeline
