1602 Dutch East India Company established in Java.
1800 Dutch East India Company dissolved; Netherlands establishes Dutch East Indies (originally Java and parts of Sumatra) as a nationalized colony.
1870–1910 The Netherlands expands its authority to include much of what is now considered Indonesia (Celebes, the Moluccas, western New Guinea, Aceh, and Borneo come under Dutch control).
1908 The first nationalist movement, Budi Utomo (Prime Philosophy), established.
1912 Islamic grassroots organization Muhammadiyah (Followers of Muhammad) founded in Yogyakarta by K. H. Ahmad Dahlan.
1912 First mass-based nationalist party, Sarekat Islam (Islamic League), established.
1914 Founding of the Partai Komunis Indonesia (Indonesian Communist Party), known as the Indies Social Democratic Association until 1924.
1918 The advisory Volksraad (People’s Council) convenes for the first time. Budi Utomo and Sarekat Islam accept representation in the council. Of thirty-eight members, half are appointed, half elected by local councils.
1925 The Volksraad gains some legislative powers: may sponsor laws, must approve budget.
1926 Nahdlatul Ulama (Rise of the Ulama) founded in Surabaya by a group of ulama (religious scholars) as a traditionalist response to the growth of modernist Islamic organizations.
1926–27 Indonesian Communist Party launches a revolt against Dutch colonial government in Java in late 1926 and in western Sumatra in early 1927. Both revolts are quickly crushed.
1927 Partai Nasional Indonesia (Indonesian Nationalist Party) is formed under the leadership of Sukarno.
October 28, 1928 A number of representatives of youth organizations issue the Sumpah Pemuda (Youth Pledge), vowing to recognize one Indonesian motherland, people, and language.
September 18–21 1937 The Islamic federation al-Madjlisoel-Islamil-Alaa Indonesia (Great Islamic Council of Indonesia) is created to unite Islamic organizations.
February 1942–August 1945 Japan invades and occupies the Dutch East Indies.
November 1943 The Japanese administration transforms the Great Islamic Council into a political party, Masyumi.
August 17, 1945 Sukarno and Hatta proclaim Indonesian independence. Japanese troops withdraw from the archipelago.
August 18, 1945 The 1945 Constitution takes effect. Pancasila is adopted as the national ideology.
August 1945 Sukarno is made president of the republic (1945–1967) and Hatta vice president (1945–1956).
September 1945–August 1949 Indonesian military fights war of independence against Dutch troops that seek to reoccupy the country. By 1947, the Dutch reclaim nearly all former territory except for parts of Java.
1948–1962 The Darul Islam (House of Islam) movement emerges to promote the Islamic State of Indonesia. Beginning in West Java, the movement expands to include movements in Aceh and South Sulawesi. The movement is not defeated by the Republican army until 1962.
August 1949 In response to international diplomatic pressure, the Netherlands agree to transfer sovereignty to an independent federal United States of Indonesia.
August 1950 Indonesia returns to the unitary 1945 Constitution. A seven-year period of liberal democracy begins.
1952 Nahdlatul Ulama splits off from Masyumi and becomes an independent political party.
April 1955 The first Asia–Africa Conference is held in Bandung, and the Nonaligned Movement is established.
September 1955 Indonesia’s first free elections for a parliament and for a constitutional assembly are held. Nahdlatul Ulama Party, Masyumi, Sukarno’s Nationalist Party, and the Communist Party each receives between 16 and 22 percent of the vote.
1956–1959 The Konstituante (Constitutional Assembly) deliberates over a new constitution; the Pancasila state model and the Islamic state model fail to garner a two-thirds majority.
1957 Sukarno establishes election-free “Guided Democracy” with support from a coalition cabinet of nationalists, religious parties, and Communists. With the declaration of martial law, the army begins to expand its role into economic and administrative areas.
1958–1960 Military leaders and Sukarno exile or imprison leaders of Masyumi. The party is formally banned in August 1960.
July 5, 1959 President Sukarno dissolves the unstable Constitutional Assembly and reactivates the 1945 Constitution by presidential decree.
1963 Indonesian military finally exerts full control over entire territory and crushes the last bastions of secessionism in Sulawesi and Kalimantan.
January 27, 1965 Sukarno signs Presidential Order No. 1 on the Prevention of the Abuse and/or Desecration of Religion. The order formalizes the Ministry of Religion’s privileging of orthodox religions over syncretic and animist faiths.
March 1965 Sukarno holds the second Asia–Africa Conference in Bandung under the banner of Islamic unity.
September 30, 1965 Six generals are murdered in a failed coup attempt allegedly committed by Communists. The military leads a retaliatory pogrom, coordinated closely with Nahdlatul Ulama branches across the country. Killings total more than half a million. General Suharto starts to consolidate power and is eventually recognized as chief of staff of the army.
August 1966 The military commits itself to dwifungsi, the “dual function” of defense as well as political and economic stabilization.
March 1967 Indonesian legislature recognizes Suharto as acting president.
March 1968 Suharto formally assumes the presidency, marking the beginning of the “New Order.”
1967 The Association of Southeast Asian Nations is formed.
1973 “Simplification of the Party System”: parties are forced to merge into two proto-opposition parties—the four Muslim parties into the Partai Persatuan Pembangunan (Development and Unity Party); the Christian and nationalist parties into the Partai Demokrasi Indonesia (Indonesian Democratic Party). Pancasila is reasserted as the national ideology.
1975–1976 Indonesia invades East Timor, a Portuguese colony since an 1860 treaty with the Netherlands, and establishes it as an Indonesian province despite significant local resistance.
1985 All organizations are ordered to adopt Pancasila as their sole ideological foundation (asas tunggal).
1990 Dr. B. J. Habibie establishes the Ikatan Cendekiawan Muslim se-Indonesia (All-Indonesia Union of Muslim Intellectuals) with Suharto’s approval. The creation of the union was seen as the onset of a period of reconciliation between modernist Muslim intellectuals and Suharto.
1997 The Asian financial crisis devastates the Indonesian economy, forcing Suharto to seek assistance from the International Monetary Fund.
May 21, 1998 Suharto resigns from the presidency; Vice President B. J. Habibie is sworn in as president.
June 7, 1999 The first free and fair elections since 1955 are held. No party receives a majority.
September 1999 Referendum in East Timor results in secession from Indonesia amid much bloodshed. Full independence is achieved in 2002.
October 20, 1999 Abdurrahman Wahid is elected president by the Majelis Permusyawaratan Rakyat (People’s Consultative Assembly).
October 30, 1999 Law on Decentralization permits regencies (at the subprovince level, approximately five hundred units) to pass their own laws in areas other than foreign policy, defense and security, monetary policy, the legal system, and religious affairs.
July 23, 2001 Wahid is impeached by a coalition organized by Amien Rais; Megawati Sukarnoputri is elected president by the People’s Consultative Assembly.
October 12, 2002 A bombing in Bali’s nightclub district kills 202 people; Jemaah Islamiyah (Islamic Community) is blamed for the attack.
August 5, 2003 A car bomb is detonated in front of the Marriott Hotel in Jakarta, killing 12 people and injuring 150.
October 2004 First-ever direct presidential elections are held; Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono is elected.
July 2005 The conservative Majelis Ulama Indonesia (Indonesian Ulama Council) issues a series of controversial legal opinions (fatwas) against liberalism, secularism, pluralism, interfaith prayer, interfaith marriage, and the heterodox Islamic Ahmadiyya (Followers of Ahmad).
August 15, 2005 Free Aceh Movement separatists sign a peace agreement with central government (Helsinki Memorandum of Understanding) providing for disarmament and national government troop removal from the province, ending a thirty-year conflict.
June 2008 A Joint Decree of the minister of religious affairs, the attorney general, and the minister of the interior calls for an end to the deviant religious practices of the Ahmadiyya and warns the public not to engage in vigilantism.
October 2008 Antipornography bill passed.
July 2009 Yudhoyono is reelected president.
April 12, 2010 The Constitutional Court upholds the 1965 law used to limit state recognition to six orthodox faiths: Islam, Hinduism, Confucianism, Catholicism, Protestantism, and Buddhism.