Bolivia

sovereign state in South America

27 dated entries naming Bolivia, drawn from 26 separate years between 200 BCE and 2009 CE. Nothing here is written by us: each line is the sentence a Wikipedia year article used, and the link beside it opens the exact revision.

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2nd century BC

200 BCEThe city of Tiwanaku is founded as a village near Lake Titicaca in modern Bolivia (approximate date).source

16th century

1545April 1 – Potosí is founded by the Spanish as a mining town after the discovery of huge silver deposits in this area of modern-day Bolivia. Silver mined from Huayna Potosí Mountain provides most of the wealth on which the Spanish Empire is based until its fall in the early 19th century.source
1548October 20 – The city of La Paz, Bolivia, is founded.source
1573The first Spanish galleon, laden with silver for the porcelain and silk trade with the Ming Dynasty of China, lands at Manila in the Philippines. This occasion marks the beginning of the Spanish silver trade to China, that will trump that of the Portuguese, the latter of whom acted as an intermediary between the silver mines of Japan, and the luxury items in China to be purchased with that silver. Most of the silver entering China comes from what is now Mexico, Bolivia, and Peru in the New World.source
1582April 2 – 1582 Ancuancu earthquake: Ancuancu (in modern-day La Paz Department, Bolivia) is struck by an earthquake that reportedly buries all of the inhabitants, except for one chief, who reportedly loses the ability to speak. On the place where the village had stood, the Jacha Kalla (Achocalla) valley is formed as a result of the earthquake.source

17th century

1624April 15 – The University of Saint Francis Xavier is founded in Bolivia.source

19th century

1809July 16 – The city of La Paz (in modern-day Bolivia) declares its independence from the Spanish Crown and forms the Junta Tuitiva, the first independent government in Spanish America, led by Pedro Domingo Murillo.source
1816July 9 – The United Provinces of South America (today Argentina, Uruguay, Bolivia and southern Brazil) declares independence from Spain.source
1825August 6 – Bolivia gains its independence from Spain as a republic, at the instigation of Simón Bolívar.source
1828March 18 – Simón Bolívar, President of Colombia (and former President of Venezuela, Peru and Bolivia), departs from the capital at Bogotá in order to help his ally, General José Antonio Páez, suppress an uprising near the Venezuelan border, but is sidetracked by another rebellion in Cartagena.source
1870March 24 – A Chilean prospecting party led by José Díaz Gana discovers the silver ores of Caracoles in the Bolivian portion of Atacama Desert, leading to the last of Chilean silver rushes and a diplomatic dispute over its taxation between Chile and Bolivia.source
1884April 4 – The Treaty of Valparaiso, an armistice between Chile and Bolivia, ends the War of the Pacific; Bolivia is obliged to cede Antofagasta to Chile, leaving Bolivia as a landlocked country.source

20th century

1908November 6 – Western bandits Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid are supposedly killed in Bolivia, after being surrounded by a large group of soldiers. There are many rumors to the contrary however, and their grave sites are unmarked.source
1932September 9 – Beginning of the Chaco War between Paraguay and Bolivia because of delimitation problems and others.source
1933May 10 – Chaco War: Paraguay formally declares war on Bolivia.source
1935June 12 – The Chaco War between Paraguay and Bolivia ends.source
1951May 15 – A military coup occurs in Bolivia.source
1952April 18 – Bolivia National Revolution: A universal vote enables indigenous peoples and women to vote, nationalizes mines and enacts agrarian reform.source
1954September 24 – The Cochabamba–Santa Cruz highway connecting western and eastern Bolivia is inaugurated.source
1967November 17 – French author Régis Debray is sentenced to 30 years imprisonment in Bolivia. (He will be released in 1970 after less than three years imprisonment.)source
1967October 8 – Guerrilla leader Che Guevara and his men are captured in Bolivia; they are executed the following day.source
1970December 23 – The Bolivian government releases Régis Debray.source
1977November 9 – Gen. Hugo Banzer, president of the military government of Bolivia, announces that the constitutional democracy will be restored in 1978 instead of 1980 as previously provided.source
1987January 1 – Bolivia reintroduces the Boliviano currency.source
1993April 21 – The Supreme Court in La Paz, Bolivia, sentences former dictator Luis Garcia Meza to 30 years in jail without parole for murder, theft, fraud and violating the constitution.source
1997July 13 – The remains of Che Guevara are returned to Cuba for burial, alongside some of his comrades. Guevara and his comrades were executed on October 9 1967 in Bolivia.source

21st century

2009August 3 – Bolivia becomes the first South American country to declare the right of indigenous people to govern themselves.source