Ceylon

18 dated entries naming Ceylon, drawn from 17 separate years between 543 BCE and 1980 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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6th century BC

543 BCENorth Indian Prince Vijaya invades Ceylon and establishes a Sinhalese dynasty after he was banished from his father's kingdomsource

3rd century

276Mahasena reigns in Ceylon. Orthodox and unpopular, he tries to introduce Mahayana Buddhism to the country.source

5th century

412Fa-Hien, Chinese Buddhist monk, spends 2 years in Ceylon and is more than 200 days at sea as storms drive his ship off its course, but returns with sacred Buddhist texts back to China (see 414).source

16th century

1596July 14 – King Dominicus Corea (Edirille Bandara) is beheaded by the Portuguese in Colombo, Ceylon.source

17th century

162010 May – An expedition led by Admiral Ove Gjedde arrives in Ceylonsource
1638May 23 – The Kandyan Treaty is signed between Singhala King Rajasimha II and the Dutch, to rid Ceylon of the Portuguese.source
1658Portuguese traders are expelled from Ceylon by Dutch invaders.source
1673France begins its expedition against Ceylon.source
1681August 10 – English sea captain Robert Knox of the East India Company publishes his book An Historical Relation of the Island Ceylon, about his adventures, 20-years imprisonment and escape from Ceylon.source

18th century

1796February 15 – French Revolutionary Wars: The Invasion of Ceylon (1795) ends when Johan van Angelbeek, the Batavian governor of Ceylon, surrenders Colombo peacefully to British forces.source
1796February 16 – The Kingdom of Great Britain is granted control of Ceylon by the Dutch.source

19th century

181530 May - The Arniston, a British troop transport East Indiaman, is wrecked at Waenhuiskrans near Cape Agulhas while returning from the British campaigns in Ceylonsource
1881The Pali Text Society is founded by British scholar Thomas William Rhys Davids, for the study of Pali (Ceylonese) texts.source

20th century

1921July 21 – Edward Harper, the "father of broadcasting" in Ceylon, arrives in Colombo to take up his post as Chief Engineer of the Ceylon Telegraph Department.source
1942April 5 – WWII: Easter Sunday Raid – Aircraft of the Imperial Japanese Navy attack Colombo, Ceylon (Sri Lanka). Royal Navy cruisers HMS Cornwall and HMS Dorsetshire are sunk southwest of the island.source
1949September 13 - The Soviet Union vetoes United Nations membership for Ceylon, Finland, Iceland, Italy, Jordan and Portugal.source
1971April 5 – In Ceylon, a group calling themselves the People's Liberation Front begins a rebellion against the Bandaranaike government.source
1980Sri Lanka competed at the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow, USSR. From 1948 to 1972, the nation was known as Ceylon at the Olympic Games.source