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POLAND HISTORY

By pacevedo

  • Independent Polish State

    After more than a century of foreign rule, an independent Polish state is restored after the end of the First World War.

  • Nazi Germany Invasion

    Nazi Germany invades, starting the Second World War. Germany and the Soviet Union divide Poland between them and treat Poles with extreme brutality. Germany builds concentration camps whose names - Auschwitz, Treblinka, Majdanek - become synonymous with the Holocaust.

  • Soviet forces drive German forces from Poland

    Soviet forces drive German forces from Poland, whose borders are set by Potsdam conference; Poland loses territory to the Soviet Union but gains some from Germany.

  • Poland becomes a Communist People's Republic

    After Soviet-run elections and subsequently joins the Soviet-run Warsaw Pact military alliance.

  • Karol Wojtyla's Election as Pope

    Cardinal of Krakow, is elected Pope.

  • Disturbances at the shipyard in Gdansk

    Lead to the emergence of the Solidarity trade union under Lech Walesa, and the imposition of martial law.

  • Round-table talks between Solidarity, the Communists and the Catholic Church

    Round-table talks between Solidarity, the Communists and the Catholic Church pave the way for fall of communism in Poland. Partially free elections see landslide win for Solidarity, which helps form coalition government. Tadeusz Mazowiecki becomes the first non-Communist Polish prime minister since 1946.

  • Lech Walesa elected president

    Lech Walesa elected president. Market reforms, including large-scale privatisation, are launched.

  • First parliamentary elections since fall of communism

    Soviet troops start to leave.

  • Poland becomes part of the EU

    Poland is one of 10 new states to join the EU.