Democracy in Mexico

  • 1910

    Beginning of Revolution by unrest amongst peasants and urban workers, who are led by Emiliano Zapata.
  • 1913

    Madero is assassinated. Victoriano Huerta seizes power.
  • 1914

    Huerta resigns. He is viewed with suspicion by the United States for his alleged pro-German sympathies. Huerta is succeeded by Venustiano Carranza.
  • 1916

    US forces cross the border in pursuit of the guerrilla leader Francisco "Pancho" Villa.
  • 1920

    Carranza is murdered. Civil war follows.
  • 1929

    The National Revolutionary Party is formed. In 1946 it is re-named the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI.
  • 1934

    President Lazaro Cardenas begins programme of oil nationalisation, land reform and industrial expansion.
  • 1942

    Mexico declares war on Japan and Germany.
  • 1976

    Huge offshore oil reserves discovered; the Cantarell field becomes the mainstay of Mexico's oil production.
  • 1997

    The PRI suffers heavy losses in elections and loses its overall majority in the lower house of parliament for the first time since 1929.
  • 2000

    Vicente Fox of the opposition Alliance for Change wins presidential elections, the first opposition candidate ever to do so. Parliamentary elections see the Alliance for Change emerge as the strongest party, beating the PRI by just over 1%.
  • 2000

    Vicente Fox is sworn in as president.
  • 2012

    The Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) candidate Enrique Pena Nieto wins the presidential election, defeating veteran leftwing candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador and ending 12 years of rightwing National Action Party (PAN) rule. PAN candidate Josefina Vazquez Mota came a distant third. Thousands take to the streets to allege vote-buying by the PRI, and Mr Lopez Obrador launches a legal challenge to the result.
  • 2012

    Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador rejects court ruling upholding July's election and called for a mass demonstration in protest.