-
General Carlos Ibanez del Campo seizes power and establishes dictatorship.
-
Communists, Socialists and Radicals form Popular Front coalition and introduce economic policies based on US New Deal in Chile.
-
Communist parties banned from all elections in Chile.
-
In Chile, Women are granted the right to vote for the first time.
-
General Carlos Ibanez elected president with promise to strengthen law and order.
-
Eduardo Frei Montalva, Christian Democrat, elected president and introduces cautious social reforms, but fails to curb inflation.
-
Salvador Allende becomes world's first democratically elected Marxist president and embarks on an extensive program of nationalisation and radical social reform. His programs are met with strong opposition.
-
General Augusto Pinochet replaces Allende in a CIA-sponsored coup and proceeds to establish a brutal dictatorship. This dictatorship abolishes civil liberties and the congress.
-
Christian Democrat Patricio Aylwin wins presidential election; General Pinochet steps down in 1990 as head of state but remains commander-in-chief of the army.
-
Aylwin created the National Commission for Truth and Reconciliation, which released in February 1991 the Rettig Report on human rights violations committed during the military rule.
This report counted 2,279 cases of "disappearances" which could be proved and registered. -
Eduardo Frei succeeds Aylwin as president and begins to reduce the military's influence in government.
-
General Pinochet retires from the army and is made senator for life but is arrested in the UK at the request of Spain on murder charges.
-
General Pinochet resigns from his post as a lifelong senator.
-
Chile becomes the last country in the Western Hemisphere to legalize divorce.
-
Senate approves changes to the Pinochet-era constitution, including one which restores the president's right to dismiss military commanders.