2011
February: President Hosni Mubarak steps down and hands power to the army council.
March: Egyptians approve package of constitutional reforms aimed at paving the way for new elections.
April: Former President Mubarak and his sons, Ala and Gamal, are arrested on suspicion of corruption.
April-August: Protests continue in Cairo’s Tahrir Square over slow pace of political change. Islamist groups come to the fore. Army finally disperses protestors in August.
August: Former President Mubarak goes on trial in Cairo, charged with ordering the killing of demonstrators earlier in the year.
October: Clashes between Coptic Christians and security forces kill 24 people. Egypt and Israel swap 25 Egyptians in Israeli custody for a US-Israeli citizen accused of spying.
November: Violence in Cairo’s Tahrir square as security forces clash with protesters accusing the military of trying to keep their grip on power. Prime Minister Essam Sharaf resigns in response to the unrest. Start of parliamentary elections.
December: National unity government headed by new Prime Minister Kamal Al Ganzouri takes office.
2012
January: Islamist parties emerge as victors of drawn-out parliamentary elections.
March: Pope Shenouda III, the veteran head of the Coptic Church, dies.
April: Crisis in relations with Saudi Arabia over the Saudi detention of an Egyptian lawyer briefly threatens the substantial aid that the Saudis provide Egypt.
May: Muslim Brotherhood candidate Mohammad Mursi tops the first round of voting in first free presidential elections, narrowly ahead of Mubarak-era prime minister Ahmed Shafiq. Official media put turnout at a low 43 per cent. Military leaders announce the end of the state of emergency in place since Anwar Al Sadat’s assassination in 1981, as its last renewal expires.
June: Mursi narrowly wins presidential election. Court sentences ex-President Mubarak to life in prison for complicity in the killing of protesters during the 2011 uprising.
July: President Mursi submits to a Supreme Court ruling that the parliamentary elections were invalid, after initially ordering parliament to meet in defiance of a military decree dissolving it in June.
August: New prime minister Hisham Qandil appoints a cabinet dominated by figures from the outgoing government, technocrats and Islamists, excluding secular and liberal forces. Islamist fighters attack an army outpost in Sinai, killing 16 soldiers, and mount a brief incursion into Israel, highlighting the tenuousness of government control over the largely-lawless area. President Mursi dismisses Defence Minister Tantawi and Chief of Staff Sami Annan and strips military of say in legislation and drafting the new constitution.
September: Egypt kills 32 militants and destroys 31 smuggling tunnels to Gaza in an offensive against militants who attacked troops in Sinai in August.
November : Bishop Tawadros is chosen as the new pope of Egypt’s Coptic Christians. President Mursi issues a decree stripping the judiciary of the right to challenge his decisions, but rescinds it in the face of popular protests.
December: Islamist-dominated constituent assembly approves draft constitution that boosts the role of Islam and restricts freedom of speech and assembly. Public approve it in a referendum, prompting extensive protest by secular opposition leaders, Christians and women’s groups. Government paralysis weakens the currency and delays a $4.8 billion IMF loan.
2013
January: More than 50 people are killed during days of violent street protests. The army chief warns that political strife is pushing the state to the brink of collapse.
March: A court halts President Mursi’s plans to bring parliamentary elections forward to April, citing failure to refer the electoral law to the Constitutional Court. The main opposition National Salvation Front had announced a poll boycott earlier.
June: President Mursi appoints Islamist allies as regional governors, putting them in charge of 13 of Egypt’s 27 governorships. Most controversially he appoints a member of the former armed group Gamaa Islamiya governor of Luxor, where Gamaa fighters killed about 60 tourists in a 1997 attack. This prompts protests in Luxor and the tourism minister threatens to resign. New Luxor governor resigns.
—Compiled from Reuters, BBC
