January 17: A powerful earthquake measuring 7.2 on the Richter scale strikes Kobe, central Japan, killing more than 5,000 people.
February 22: Britain and Ireland unveil their Framework Document for a political settlement in Northern Ireland.
February 26-28: British merchant bank Barings plc collapses after trader Nick Leeson loses $ 1 billion on Japanese shares and bonds in Singapore. Leeson is arrested in Germany on March 2, extradited to Singapore on November 22 and jailed for six-and-a-half years on December 2.
February 28: Raul Salinas, brother of former Mexican president Carlos Salinas de Gortari, is arrested in Mexico on charges of masterminding the murder of a top ruling party official.
March 20: Eleven people die and more than 5,000 are injured in a nerve gas attack on the Tokyo subway by the Aum Shinri Kyo religious sect.
March 20: Up to 35,000 Turkish troops launch a three-pronged attack across the Iraqi border against Kurdish rebels.
March 26: Border controls between seven EU countries disappear as the Schengen agreement comes into force.
April 10: Israel and Jordan exchange ambassadors following a peace agreement in October 1994.
April 19: A huge car bomb devastates a federal building in Oklahoma City, United States, killing at least 167 people. Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols are later charged with the bombing.
April 22: The Tutsi-dominated Rwandan army opens fire on Hutu refugees in the Kibeho refugee camp, killing 2,000.
May 7: Conservative Paris mayor Jacques Chirac wins the French presidential election.
May 8: Ceremonies held to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the end of World War Two in Europe.
May 11: A UN conference agrees to make permanent the 25-year-old nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
May 25: The start of a major flare-up in the Bosnian war. Nato launches air strikes near Pale. The Serbs retaliate by shelling UN "sale areas", killing 68 in Tuzla.
May 28: Earthquake strikes the Far East oil-producing town of Nettegorsk on Russia's Sakhalin Island, killing about 2,000 people.
May 28: Bosnian Foreign Minister Irfan Ljubijankic is killed when his helicopter is shotdown by Serbs.
Many 3: Bosnian Serbs take 372 UN peacekeepers hostage. Lord Owen resigns as European Union peace negotiator.
June 14: Chechen fighters launch a commando-style raid on the Russian town of Budennovsk, taking hundreds of hostages. More than 120 people are killed.
June 26: Gunmen attempt to assassinate Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa.
June 29: Part of a department store in Seoul collapses, killing nearly 500.
June 29: The US space shuttle Atlantis successfully docks with the Russian space station Mir.
July 9: French commandos storm the Greenpeace ship Rainbow Warrior after it enters an exclusion zone near the French nuclear test site at Mururoa Atoll.
July 10: Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi is freed unconditionally after nearly six years of house arrest.
July 11: Bosnian Serb forces overrun the UN-declared "safe area" of Srebrenica. Two days later most of the enclave's Muslim population have been moved out.
August 4: Croatia launches an offensive to, regain the Krajina enclave, held by its Serb minority for four years, and achieves success within four days.
August 10: Two sons-in-law of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, Lt Gen Hussein Kamel Hassan and Saddam Kamel Hassan, defect to Jordan.
August 28: Two shells hit Sarajevo near the main market, killing 37 and wounding 85 in the worst attack in more than a year.
August 29: Georgian leader Eduard Shevardnadze escapes an assassination attempt.
September 5: France conducts the first in a series of underground nuclear tests on Mururoa Atoll.
September 21: Croat and Bosnian government forces end an 11-day offensive during which they reduce Serb-held territory in Bosnia to about 50 per cent.
September 26: Trial of former Italian prime minister Giulio Andreotti opens. On November 5, an Italian judge orders Andreotii, accused of belonging to the Mafia, to stand trial on murder charges.
September 28: Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organisation sign an agreement in Washington extending Palestinian rule to most of West Bank.
October 3: Former American football star OJ Simpson is acquitted of murdering his ex-wife Nicole and her friend Ronald Goldman.
October 12: Ceasefire agreed on October 5 comes into effect in Bosnia.
October 20: Belgian Willy Claes resigns from his post as Nato Secretary-General. Spanish Foreign Minister Javier Solana is confirmed as his replacement on December 5.
October 30: In a referendum on independence, Quebec votes by a narrow margin to remain, part of Canada.
November 2: South Africa's former defence minister Magnus Malan and 10 other people are charged with 13 apartheid-era murders.
November 4: Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin is assassinated as he leaves a Tel Aviv Peace Rally.
November 10: Nigeria's ruling military council hangs nine activists including the Ogoni minority rights leader Ken SaroWiwa.
November 16: The UN War Crimes Tribunal on former Yugoslavia charges Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic and army chief Ratko Mladic with organising a massacre in Srebrenica. They had already been charged on July 25 with genocide throughout Bosnia.
November 20: Aleksander Kwasniewski is declared winner of Polish presidential election, defeating incumbent Lech Walesa.
November 21: The warring sides in Bosnia agree to a peace plan at US-sponsored talks in Dayton, Ohio.
December 5: Sri Lankan troops complete the capture of Jaffna after five years of control by Tamil rebels.
December 11: Israeli troops leave the West Bank town of Nablus at the end of 28 years of occupation.
December 13: Chinese dissident Wei Jingsheng is imprisoned for 14 years for pro-democracy activities.
December 14: Leaders from former Yugoslavia sign a Bosnian peace treaty, formally ending Europe's worst conflict since World War Two.
December 17: Communists make significant gains in Russian parliamentary elections.
December 20: A heavily-armed Nato force takes over the UN's Bosnia peace-keeping role.