1. ★ c. 800,000 BCE The earliest human presence
2. c. 43,000 BCE Modern humans arrive
3. c. 6000 BCE Farming arrives from the east
4. c. 3300 BCE Otzi dies in the Alps
5. c. 1700 BCE The Terramare of the Po valley
6. c. 1000 BCE The Villanovan culture
7. ★ c. 900 BCE Etruscan civilisation emerges
8. ★ c. 775 BCE Greeks settle at Pithecusae and Cumae
9. ★ 753 BCE (traditional) The founding of Rome
10. c. 734 BCE Syracuse founded
11. c. 616 BCE Etruscan kings rule Rome
12. c. 600 BCE The Cloaca Maxima drains the forum
13. ★ 509 BCE The Republic founded
14. 494 BCE The tribunes of the plebs
15. ★ 451 BCE The Twelve Tables
16. 396 BCE Veii destroyed
17. ★ 387 BCE The Gauls sack Rome
18. 343-290 BCE The Samnite Wars
19. 312 BCE The Appian Way and the first aqueduct
20. 280-275 BCE Pyrrhus invades
21. ★ 264 BCE The First Punic War begins
22. 241 BCE Sicily becomes the first province
23. ★ 218 BCE Hannibal crosses the Alps
24. ★ 2 August 216 BCE Cannae
25. ★ 202 BCE Zama ends the war
26. 168 BCE Macedon defeated at Pydna
27. 146 BCE Carthage and Corinth destroyed
28. 133 BCE Tiberius Gracchus killed
29. ★ 107 BCE The Marian reforms
30. 91-88 BCE The Social War
31. 82 BCE Sulla's dictatorship
32. 73-71 BCE The revolt of Spartacus
33. 60 BCE The First Triumvirate
34. ★ 10 January 49 BCE Caesar crosses the Rubicon
35. ★ 15 March 44 BCE Caesar assassinated
36. ★ 2 September 31 BCE Actium
37. ★ 16 January 27 BCE Augustus and the principate
38. 19 BCE The Aeneid published
39. July 64 CE The Great Fire of Rome
40. ★ 24 August 79 CE Vesuvius buries Pompeii
41. ★ 80 CE The Colosseum opens
42. 117 CE The empire at its greatest extent
43. 126 CE The Pantheon rebuilt
44. 161-180 CE Marcus Aurelius
45. 165-180 CE The Antonine Plague
46. 212 CE Citizenship for every free man
47. 235-284 CE The crisis of the third century
48. 284 CE Diocletian reorganises the empire
49. ★ 313 CE The Edict of Milan
50. ★ 330 CE The capital moves east
51. 380 CE Christianity becomes the state religion
52. 402 CE Ravenna becomes the western capital
53. ★ 24 August 410 CE Alaric sacks Rome
54. 452 CE Attila turned back
55. 455 CE The Vandals sack Rome
56. ★ 4 September 476 CE The last western emperor deposed
57. 493 Theodoric's Ostrogothic kingdom
58. c. 524 Boethius writes in prison
59. 529 Benedict founds Monte Cassino
60. 535-554 The Gothic War devastates Italy
61. ★ 568 The Lombards invade
62. 590 Gregory the Great elected
63. 751 The Lombards take Ravenna
64. ★ 756 The Donation of Pepin
65. 774 Charlemagne conquers the Lombards
66. ★ 25 December 800 Charlemagne crowned emperor in Rome
67. ★ 827 The Arab conquest of Sicily begins
68. 962 Otto I crowned in Rome
69. c. 1000 The maritime republics rise
70. 1063 Pisa begins its cathedral
71. 1071 The Normans take Bari
72. ★ January 1077 Canossa
73. 1088 The University of Bologna
74. ★ 1130 The Kingdom of Sicily founded
75. 29 May 1176 Legnano
76. ★ 1204 Venice diverts the Fourth Crusade
77. 1220-1250 Frederick II and the Sicilian court
78. 1266 Charles of Anjou takes the south
79. 30 March 1282 The Sicilian Vespers
80. 1284 Meloria
81. 1296 Florence begins its cathedral
82. 1300 The first Jubilee
83. ★ 1309 The papacy moves to Avignon
84. ★ 1321 Dante finishes the Divine Comedy
85. ★ October 1347 The Black Death lands at Messina
86. 1378 The Ciompi revolt
87. 1401 The baptistery doors competition
88. ★ 1420 Brunelleschi begins the dome
89. 1434 Cosimo de' Medici takes control of Florence
90. 1454 The Peace of Lodi
91. ★ 1469 Lorenzo the Magnificent
92. ★ 1494 The French invade
93. 23 May 1498 Savonarola burned
94. ★ c. 1503 Leonardo begins the Mona Lisa
95. ★ 1508-1512 The Sistine Chapel ceiling
96. ★ 1513 Machiavelli writes The Prince
97. ★ 6 May 1527 The Sack of Rome
98. 1530 Florence falls and the republic ends
99. ★ 1545-1563 The Council of Trent
100. ★ 1559 Spain takes control
101. ★ 7 October 1571 Lepanto
102. 17 February 1600 Giordano Bruno burned
103. ★ 1610 Galileo publishes the telescopic discoveries
104. ★ 1633 Galileo condemned
105. 1647 Masaniello's revolt in Naples
106. 1656 Plague halves Naples
107. 1713 Austria replaces Spain
108. 1737 The Medici line ends
109. 1748 Pompeii excavated
110. 1764 Beccaria on crime and punishment
111. 1786 Tuscany abolishes the death penalty
112. ★ 1796 Napoleon invades Italy
113. 1797 The Republic of Venice extinguished
114. 1805 Napoleon crowned King of Italy
115. 1815 The Congress of Vienna restores the old order
116. 1820-1821 The Carbonari risings
117. ★ 1831 Mazzini founds Young Italy
118. 1842 Verdi and the Risorgimento
119. ★ 1848 The year of revolutions
120. 1849 The Roman Republic and its fall
121. 1852 Cavour becomes prime minister of Piedmont
122. 1859 The Second War of Independence
123. ★ May 1860 The Expedition of the Thousand
124. ★ 17 March 1861 The Kingdom of Italy proclaimed
125. 1861-1865 The southern insurgency
126. 1866 Venetia joins Italy
127. ★ 20 September 1870 Rome taken
128. 1871 Rome becomes the capital
129. ★ 1876-1915 The great emigration
130. 1882 The Triple Alliance
131. ★ 1 March 1896 Defeat at Adwa
132. 29 July 1900 King Umberto assassinated
133. 1911 The invasion of Libya
134. ★ May 1915 Italy enters the war against Austria
135. October 1917 Caporetto
136. November 1918 Victory at Vittorio Veneto
137. 1919 The mutilated victory
138. 1921 The squads and the biennio rosso
139. ★ 28 October 1922 The March on Rome
140. 10 June 1924 Matteotti murdered
141. ★ 11 February 1929 The Lateran Treaty
142. ★ October 1935 The invasion of Ethiopia
143. ★ 1938 The racial laws
144. ★ 10 June 1940 Italy enters the Second World War
145. ★ 10 July 1943 The Allies land in Sicily
146. ★ 8 September 1943 The armistice and the German occupation
147. 1944 Monte Cassino and the Gothic Line
148. ★ 1943-1945 The Resistance and the civil war
149. ★ 28 April 1945 Mussolini executed
150. ★ 2 June 1946 Italy votes to become a republic
151. ★ 1 January 1948 The Constitution comes into force
152. 1951 Founding the European project
153. ★ 25 March 1957 The Treaty of Rome signed
154. ★ 1958-1963 The economic miracle
155. 1960 The Rome Olympics
156. 1963 The Vajont dam disaster
157. 1968 The student movement
158. ★ 12 December 1969 Piazza Fontana and the Years of Lead
159. 1970 Divorce legalised
160. ★ May 1978 Aldo Moro murdered
161. 2 August 1980 The Bologna station bombing
162. 1986-1987 The Maxi Trial
163. ★ 1992 Falcone and Borsellino killed
164. ★ 1992-1994 Tangentopoli
165. ★ 1994 Berlusconi enters politics
166. 1999 Italy adopts the euro
167. November 2011 The debt crisis and the technocrats
168. 2016 The constitutional referendum fails
169. ★ February 2020 The first Western Covid epicentre
170. October 2022 Giorgia Meloni becomes prime minister