AllAfrica has compiled a timeline of key dates in Liberian history.
1822 - American Colonization Society establishes an outpost on the coast of what is now Liberia, composed mostly of "free people of color," eventually numbering around 13,000 people.
1847 - July 26 – Liberian independence
1926 - Firestone Tire and Rubber Company opens plantation on government-granted land
1936 – Forced labor abolished
1943 - William Tubman elected president, holding onto office for 28 years.
1951 – Women and property owners vote in presidential election for the first time
1958 – Racial discrimination made illegal
1971 - Tubman dies; William Tolbert Jr. becomes president
1979 – Over 40 die in riots over proposed increase in rice prices
1980 - Samuel Doe stages military coup, publicly executing Tolbert and 13 of his aides. He is welcomed as an ally by the United States, which uses Liberia as an intelligence listening post and a bulwark against Soviet influence in Africa.
1985 - Doe wins openly rigged presidential election. Liberia becomes one of the largest recipients of U.S. aid in Africa, piling up an enormous debt.
1989 – Charles Taylor, escaping from prison for embezzlement in the United States, forms the National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL) and leads invasion, starting what Liberians call World War I.
1990 - Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas) sends a peacekeeping force, and Doe is executed by a rebel faction.
1991 – Ecowas and NPFL create interim Government of National Unity
1992 – The NPFL attacks peacekeepers in the capital, Monrovia.
1995 - Peace agreement signed
1996 April - Factional fighting resumes and spreads to Monrovia.
1997 – Elections held. Charles Taylor wins the presidency, threatening to resume the fighting if he was not elected and running on the campaign slogan: "He killed my ma, he killed my pa, but I'll vote for him." His party wins the majority in the National Assembly. Liberians refer to this year as the beginning of World War II.
1999 – Two important West African countries, Ghana and Nigeria, accuse Taylor's government of supporting the Revolutionary United Front rebels in neighboring Sierra Leone. Neighboring Guinea accuses the Liberian government of invading to attack border villages.
2000 – The Taylor government accuses Guinea of shelling villages in Liberian territory. Liberian forces also attacked rebels in the north of Liberia. Child soldiers, drugged and forced to fight, have become central to all the warring factions' strategies. As many as 70 percent of women and girls were raped.
2001 – The United Nations Security Council, in reaction to Taylor's illegal diamond trade in Sierra Leone, imposes an arms embargo.
2003 – By now, at least three-quarters of the three million population have had to flee their homes, and between 200 and 300 thousand have been killed. Charles Taylor is forced by international pressure to leave Liberia. U.S. troops and Nigerian peacekeepers arrive, and rebels sign a peace accord. Gyude Bryant becomes the head of an interim government.
2004 – International donors pledge to give about U.S. $500 million in aid to help rebuild the country. Like many other buildings, the hilltop, seaview Ducor Hotel, once home to some of Monrovia's most luxurious accommodations, serves as a squatter camp for hundreds of refugees.
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2005 – Ellen Johnson Sirleaf wins a presidential runoff election against former soccer star George Weah to become Africa's first democratically elected female head of state.
2006 – Johnson Sirleaf takes office. Refugees began to stream home from neighboring countries. Charles Taylor is forced to appear before a UN-backed court in Sierra Leone. He faces charges of crimes against humanity. The International Criminal Court (ICC)
2007 – The Liberian government gets some electricity and water flowing and begins to repair roads and rebuild schools and hospitals, hampered by near-total nationwide destruction and lack of funds or skilled personnel. School enrollment increases, corruption declines and major investment deals are signed. President Johnson Sirleaf appeals for international support to make good on Liberia's "one chance" to consolidate the peace and develop the country.
